[TimZ]

Thats a perfect setup but i would only change a few things because of personal preference. Firstly the graphics card: I'll go with EVGA brand because of the ability to step up to a better card within 90 days of purchase. Meaning if a newer card comes out before 90 days (from the day bought) you can trade your card in for that newer one and just pay the price difference. Second, I would prefer a small SSD only if you plan to have the operating system on it. The price difference would give me $100 to spend, so i would get the same G.Skill ram but the 4x4gb version for $40 more.

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by TimZ

Thats a perfect setup but i would only change a few things because of personal preference. Firstly the graphics card: I'll go with EVGA brand because of the ability to step up to a better card within 90 days of purchase. Meaning if a newer card comes out before 90 days (from the day bought) you can trade your card in for that newer one and just pay the price difference. Second, I would prefer a small SSD only if you plan to have the operating system on it. The price difference would give me $100 to spend, so i would get the same G.Skill ram but the 4x4gb version for $40 more.

These points are all fair and perfectly valid.

On the SSD, an 80gb or 120gb will give you enough room to put your OS, and a few other primary applications that you'll have on the machine for a long time. Which will help improve your average day to day activities.

Speaking directly to games, most games are at least 6gb, and mmo's can reach 30gb. Leaving 10% left open, even with a 80gb it would be tight.

[Anthrax]

Yea, I've actually almost exclusively bought evga in the past Looking at the GTX 580 though you can get it in 1.5gb and 3gb for only 50$ more. Is there a reason you listed the 1.5gb instead of the 3?

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

Is there any reason to wait and go with ivy bridge over sandy bridge?

Ivy Bridge brings with it LGA1155 socket mobo's with native USB 3.0 support (no 3rd party controller), PCI-e 3.0 sockets, quad-channel ram, and probably a good deal of increased power saving's/overclocking ability because of the die shrink down to 22nm. (The USB 3, PCI-e 3 may be already available on z68 mobo's now. Quad channel ram on X79. I'll need to check if there will be a new chipset release for Ivy Bridge.)

I am also just curious to see how the tri-gate transistors improve performance, and what the real ramification of this improvement ends up being.

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

Yea, I've actually almost exclusively bought evga in the past Looking at the GTX 580 though you can get it in 1.5gb and 3gb for only 50$ more. Is there a reason you listed the 1.5gb instead of the 3?

It was mostly just based on the price that I saw it listed at. The higher you get, the closer you get to the 7970 which makes the 580 choice even more difficult to justify right now. This is a good observation though, and I think going to 3GB is worth the extra $50. I'll add an edit for whoever else might read it.

EVGA's upgrade program is definitely great if you take advantage of it and it pretty much just slipped my mind. Though everyone is different, but for me in the past I would just plain forget or be too lazy to bust open my new system to swap out the cards.

I would say that right now would be the time to do it since nVidia should release the GK104 soon. But it is still speculative, and the rumors are saying that the GK104 will sell for $299. I'm not sure if the upgrade program works for a card that costs less than the one you have is. I might give it 1 more month just to be sure. Or at least until nVidia releases something official about the new Kepler cards, they have been VERY tight lipped on it.

[UltimateBMW]

Another question, how many people here are good about pursuing their MIR's?

I'm always terrible at it.

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

(The USB 3 and PCI-e 3 may be already available on z68 mobo's now. I'll need to check if there will be a new chipset release for Ivy Bridge.)

Following up on this, I believe the Ivy Bridge release will also bring a new mainstream chipset release with Intel 7 series chipsets. They should be called Z77 and P77. I believe Z79 is only LGA2011, where as these will be Intel 7 Series chipset boards for LGA 1155.

Info is still pretty scarce on this though, so I could be wrong.

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

Another question, how many people here are good about pursuing their MIR's?

I'm always terrible at it.

Yeah I lost out on $180 on my last build with MIRs... Normally I'm good about it, but this time I didn't do it....

Generally though they are figured into the bottom line as "extra" money, meaning I don't count them when figuring my build amount versus my budget.

[Lagger1]

I recently orderded a spec'd out "winter edition" PC from here:

www.velocitymicro.com

It's a work PC that will be used primarily to decode HD video streaming. Just another option for ya if you haven't decided yet. GL

[Templar]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

Following up on this, I believe the Ivy Bridge release will also bring a new mainstream chipset release with Intel 7 series chipsets. They should be called Z77 and P77. I believe Z79 is only LGA2011, where as these will be Intel 7 Series chipset boards for LGA 1155.

Info is still pretty scarce on this though, so I could be wrong.

I'm going to hit you up next time I build a PC (might be soon).

I'm terrible about spending money on crap I really don't need, and all your suggestions in this thread IMO have been spot on

[UltimateBMW]

Good deal for a i7 2600K. If you use facebook, have a MicroCenter store near you, and are looking to buy a i7 2600K, follow this link.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...&type=1&ref=nf

Just read it on hardforums.

[san~man]

Originally Posted by AMERICUS

Would you mind elaborating on this?

Horrible, HORRIBLE customer service. Poor tech support. Looks like it was built by a 10 year old.

I made that mistake once, and built my own from then on.

[richardg]

EVGA makes some awesome products. I am actually very active on the forum over there too. They have a guy named Jacob who works at evga and is also very active on the forum. If you ever need help or anything you can talk to him. Now I will warn you. It is a lot like your car. You start getting into mid to high end pc building and modding it will eat your wallet. It can be a real drag sometime lol.

Anyway here is a link to my rig
http://www.modsrigs.com/detail.aspx?BuildID=25197

[blk08e92]

i built my rig in january last year *2011* and iv slowly added on to it.. i work at a local PC shop so i got pretty good deals on all the parts..

not sure if this list is viewable or not...iv never shared a new egg list on the web before..but if was building today on a lighter budget this is how id go...
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/M...px?ID=13889509

Specs:
i7-2600k @ 4.5Ghz
4GB of G.Skill 1866 CAS 7 ram
h70 hydro cooler
Gigabyte p67-ud7 MB.. (yes i know it had a defective controller! I'm just lazy and didn't RMA it)
500GB caviar black HDD
TWO 128GB crucial C300 SSD's in a raid 0
two gtx460's in SLI
850W Corsair AX Gold PSU

Anyway, i started with a single SSD and added one later.. If it were me id get a minimum of a 80GB SSD if you are wanting to use it as a stand alone drive and have a mechanical HDD as a secondary. If you are going to use SSD caching on the Z68 motherboards, id go with a 30-60GB since it pretty much shows up as one huge HDD anyway..Performance gains on the SSD caching are decent, but nothing compared to running just a straight SSD as the main drive.

We build tons of systems for multiple government agencies and what not..so i see lots of parts come through. We also have a fully staffed tech center and work on lots of PC's. I would NOT buy a cyberpower PC!! I would build my own!
Ignore the 350z headlights (I had custom made them) but theres a pic of my rig in the background.

I am a huge fan of the silverstone raven 2 chassis or the fortress. Its extremely quiet, the design just makes sense and it cools the best! It does cost a bit more than a regular chassis but when you're running dual heavy cards in crossfire or SLI, hanging them from the chassis instead of putting that weight on the MB really makes sense.. Ill post some other pics from some of our other builds too, we have a lotta fun putting together $5k plus systems!

the very last pic is from a server we recently built with 96GB of ram and 3TB of SSD space!! Wish i could have that much space for a home PC lol!!

[Anthrax]

Thanks for all the help guys, I got my PC built this weekend and its badass. I followed UltimateBMW's list pretty close and the Corsair 600T is a sick case.

Ended up going with:

i7-2600k
8gb G.Skill RAM
EVGA GTX580
120gb SSD and a 500gb HDD.

So far so good, runs every game I've tried flawlessly.

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

Thanks for all the help guys, I got my PC built this weekend and its badass. I followed UltimateBMW's list pretty close and the Corsair 600T is a sick case.

Ended up going with:

i7-2600k
8gb G.Skill RAM
EVGA GTX580
120gb SSD and a 500gb HDD.

So far so good, runs every game I've tried flawlessly.

Cool, good stuff. Which SSD did you go with, just out of curiousity? And what mobo? What speed is your RAM running at?

I've taken a long hiatus from nVidia (I used to have an 8800 GTU back in the day), and I must say it's pretty good to be back so far. You'll like the GTX580, it's a monster. I know the green team isn't immune to driver issues, but I had so many of those problems with the 4870 I had that I decided to come back to nVidia.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what led you to choose the 2600k over the 2500k?

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

Thanks for all the help guys, I got my PC built this weekend and its badass. I followed UltimateBMW's list pretty close and the Corsair 600T is a sick case.

Ended up going with:

i7-2600k
8gb G.Skill RAM
EVGA GTX580
120gb SSD and a 500gb HDD.

So far so good, runs every game I've tried flawlessly.

Post pics!

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by ragingclue

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what led you to choose the 2600k over the 2500k?

This might have had a part in it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...&type=1&ref=nf

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

This might have had a part in it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...&type=1&ref=nf

Ok yeah, I guess no point in getting the 2500k if the 2600k can be had for less, right? How are air OC numbers between the two though? I was under the impression the 2600 didn't perform as well, although this could be misinformation as I haven't really bothered to look into it too much.

[Templar]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

Thanks for all the help guys, I got my PC built this weekend and its badass. I followed UltimateBMW's list pretty close and the Corsair 600T is a sick case.

Ended up going with:

i7-2600k
8gb G.Skill RAM
EVGA GTX580
120gb SSD and a 500gb HDD.

So far so good, runs every game I've tried flawlessly.

If you don't mind me asking, what did the setup run you?

[Anthrax]

I went with an Intel 320 series SSD and an ASRock Z68 mobo. Pretty shamelessly copied the list that UltimateBMW gave me.

My room is backwards so the window on the case faces the wall though so I stare at the blank white side of the case . I'll work on getting some pictures of it up though.

[BenõrTheBMW]

Google : Hardware Revolution. Great website for advice and builds.