Final stage of upgrading my PC

[DaMage]

So this week Im going to finish upgrading my PC, after looking at alotof stuff, and talknig to friends, I've come up with this list for the parts I want in the computer. Red means on the to buy list, green means I already have it.

Before you say anything, no I cannot buy online so dont direct me to a website where i can buy parts cheaper. It also means that a part you suggest may not be avialable.

$142.00 - Fractal Design Define R3 Case Black

$245.00 - Corsair AX-850 ATX Power Supply

$225.00 - Asus P8P67 PRO V3 L1155 P67 4x DDR3 SATA3 SATA2 eSATA RAID Firewire USB3.0 GLAN CrossFire/SLI

$329.00 - Intel Core i7 2600K Processor LGA1155 3.4GHz CPU

$150.00 - Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3

$299.00 - eVGA GTX560 Ti 1024M 2x DVI-DL Mini HDMI PCIE

$59.00 - Hitachi 1TB SATA 7200RPM 32M

$29.00 - LG H22NS70 SATA 22X+- Super Multi DVDR Black with Software

-------------

$1477.00 - Total Price

$874.00 - Price of parts to get

What do people think of this? Any issues people can spot?

[_echo]

No issues, just a bit overpriced on the graphics card. Albeit you already have it, a GTX460 might be a little slower by about 3-10 frames, but given the price to performance, would have been an overall better buy, but thats in the past now.

[WindmillTilter]

Don't have any experience with the Fractal Designs cases, but it looks like a good unit. Otherwise it's a really solid build, love the CPU/Mobo combo you picked actually makes me a little jealous.

WT

[BootySweat]

So this week Im going to finish upgrading my PC, after looking at alotof stuff, and talknig to friends, I've come up with this list for the parts I want in the computer. Red means on the to buy list, green means I already have it.

Before you say anything, no I cannot buy online so dont direct me to a website where i can buy parts cheaper. It also means that a part you suggest may not be avialable.

What do people think of this? Any issues people can spot?

Beside gaming, is there anything else you plan to use this PC for, such as video encoding, disc authoring, Photoshop, CS5 apps, etc?

For video encoding tasks, the Z68 motherboard is a much better choice than the P67, because it allows the use of Intel QuickSync. If it will only be used for gaming, then the only other suggestion I would have is at some point in the future to buy an SSD large enough to install Windows and Oblivion or Skyrim + mods, as this will drastically reduce the load times for heavily modded versions.

[DaMage]

Beside gaming, is there anything else you plan to use this PC for, such as video encoding, disc authoring, Photoshop, CS5 apps, etc?

For video encoding tasks, the Z68 motherboard is a much better choice than the P67, because it allows the use of Intel QuickSync. If it will only be used for gaming, then the only other suggestion I would have is at some point in the future to buy an SSD large enough to install Windows and Oblivion or Skyrim + mods, as this will drastically reduce the load times for heavily modded versions.

This is primarily a gaming build. However there is a bit of photoshop/illustrator etc that will be running for my uni work.

an SSD is on the future list for windows to be put on.....but at the moment the prices are still a bit high for me.

[BootySweat]

This is primarily a gaming build. However there is a bit of photoshop/illustrator etc that will be running for my uni work.

an SSD is on the future list for windows to be put on.....but at the moment the prices are still a bit high for me.

This build looks excellent for Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which will also benefit in the future if you upgrade to add an SSD.

Although you might find a better deal with an AMD video card, I'd recommend to stick with NVIDIA if you will be working with CS5 a lot. NVIDIA cards have an edge for CS5 tasks because they allow you to use CUDA hardware processing for Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects.

[DaMage]

SOmeone mentioned I should post some picture so of it after it was built....even better I have some before and afters:

Before:

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/6336/dsc00003vs.jpg

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7695/dsc00004nu.jpg

Just look at the cable management on it back them:

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9120/dsc00005iz.jpg

After:

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/4830/dsc00006cl.jpg

http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/8356/dsc00007ap.jpg

[HeyYou]

How do ya like that vid card? Had a chance to abuse it in any games yet?

[donnato]

Heheh that cable management before pic reminded me of when I was done with all my hookups. I realized I hadto undo most of it and reroute and tie things out of the airflow. Wasn`t too difficult and it helped that Corsair included a bunch of those skinny black zip ties that were long enough to hold a good sized bundle to the frame. I should post a pic of mine if I haven`t already. I took one but I think I just PMed it to Arion to check some things.

[DaMage]

How do ya like that vid card? Had a chance to abuse it in any games yet?

Well as you can see that card has been running ni the old PC for a bit before i did this upgrade. (But back then the Card was only in a PCI-e 1.0 slot)

Haven't had much of a chance to try it out in the system yet because of a lack of games to install here. Have to wait till i can get a few from home. I am looking forward to making a new Morrowind build on it and really pushing it to the max........lol, using a game from 2000 to push my sytem to the max

It is a real beast of a card though, the system as a whole has no trouble running anything thats out there.

[Meo]

Thats one good looking box.