Cráb People

Im guessing you looked at the new tweakers.net best buy guide for most of this? Why not go for the cpu/mobo they list there?

From what i've seen the Intel i7 performs better and the price of the i7 950 was cut in half a few days ago.

Are you making a gaming pc or a work station?

Bit of both.. I don't exactly want to run Crysis 2 on 2048x1536 but it should do well enough so I don't have any problems running a dx11 game on one screen and a bunch of other apps on the other (office related ones).

was gonna make a topic like this myself, guess i'm just gonna hijack this thread in a few days when the dust has settled!

You don't need an i7 to run a bunch of office programs. Unless you are doing some hardcore 3d rendering or video encoding then just go for an i5 system. Saves you lots of money so that you can buy a PHAT video card

For games, the cpu you have chosen is a complete overkill compared to your gfx card.

I'd go with something like this:

CPU - i5-760
COOL - Depending on if you are overclocking or not, either stock cooler / Noctua NH-D14 / Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme - See that you get the correct mounting bracket for your chosen socket
MEM - Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9 (4 sticks)
GPU - GTX480 / HD5870 / HD5970
SSD - I'm not updated on SSD's, but last time I checked Intel was win
HDD - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD203WI 2TB or WD Caviar® Black 2TB for added reliability and speed
CASE - Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced or you could have a look at Cooler Master Elite 310 for saving some money
POWER - Chieftec Nitro BPS-750C or some Corsair PSU (they own). 750w is a complete overkill for your current setup, you can easily get away with around 400w
KEYB - Logitech G510 - 87
MB - ASUS P7P55D <pick your suffix> (don't think it has the marvell controller, can't recall)

The reason you'd want an i5 is that i7 is overkill for gaming unless you are running some crazy high end sli/crossfire system.

NH-D14 is just the best cooler there is afaik, read reviews. Myself I own a 120extreme which is a sweeeeet and extremely silent cooler (note you need to buy fans yourself on some revisions). If you ain't gonna OC a lot then just run with stock cooler, it's MORE than good enough, you can even OC a fair bit with it.

You'd want 8GB of ram if you wanna run some office apps in addition to a dx11 game. Also with SSD it's kinda a must to run your page file in pure memory which takes up a little bit more ram, but also boosts your performance and extends the life of your ssd by quite a bit. Oh and also corsair makes rock solid products, never had any problems with their ram and their bricks are more compatible with different systems than most (DON'T BUY CRUCIAL, THEY ARE SHAT)

As for GPU, this is the bottleneck in games. I'd personally go for a GTX480 cus I'm an nvidia fanboy, but seriously, get the HD5970 if you can afford it, you will laugh at dx11 games :> the HD5870 is a good choice as well.

SSD I'm not up to date with, but go for a neat MLC disk unless you are loaded and wanna go for SLC. All I know is that Intel is pure win here, but also expencive.

I'm a fan of the WD black series, never failed me and got awesome performance. Samsung works just as fine though I'd think.

Just built a computer with the cooler master Elite 310 and really, the chassis got all you need to build a solid computer.

As with the PSU, add together the max TDP (google it) for your gfx and cpu and add +150w to be safe, then you know what kinda psu you need. MIST is king, but only sold in scandinavia I think, other then that I know Corsair makes some really solid PSU's. I have little experience with chieftech, but I know 750w is overkill for most single GPU systems.

Asus has been my mother board favorite since forever. Never failed me. They make solid products and the p7p55d series got all you need. Be sure to check up on the s-ata controller though, or pick another ssd.

Hope it helps :>

Edit: some small typos.

The new Crucial drives have a 6Gbps interface on them (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the- ... alssd-c300). SATA3 + Windows 7 (TRIM command) = Crucial C300 atm.

But thanks for the alternatives. I want an i7 for the X58 platform. Been reading up on new stuff, and apparently LGA1156 motherboards don't support stuff like 6Gbps SATA3 and USB3 too well, and an i7 950 is only 100 euro more then a i5 760.

Might crank up the video card a bit though as you suggested, and tone down the PSU. And yeah, I've always liked ASUS as well. I was looking at the , which seems like a solid motherboard.

I really don't see the point with S-ATA 6gbps

Your SSD probably cap out at around 300 MB sec read/write MAXIMUM, probably more like 200/200, and that's well within the limitation of S-ATA II (3gbps)

3gbps = 375 MB/sec
6gbps = 750 MB/sec

Waste of good money imo

S-ATA 2 supports T.R.I.M as well.

But yeah, by all means go for i7 if that's what you want, nothing bad about it. Just a bit more expencive and you will get severely bottle necked by your GPU in games, hence a bit waste of money.

Oh and if you go for i7 you'd probably want a different set of ram. 6GB set (3 sticks) is optimal for use of the triple channel memory that comes with all i7 mother boards.

ASUS P6X58D series could be nice to check out for an i7 mother board.