Building a new PC after 5 yrs

[kmillerusaf]

Hey all,

Haven't been around in awhile. Been extremely busy with life and work. And also I haven't built a new workstation since early 2006. My machine has been upgraded piece by piece over time but no major upgrades to the CPU or motherboard... This is the build I have in mind.

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Model #:Nine Hundred
Item #:N82E16811129021

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1461-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ...
Model #:01G-P3-1461-KR
Item #:N82E16814130661

SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD ...
Model #:X650 Gold
Item #:N82E16817151088


Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
Model #:BX80623I52500K
Item #:N82E16819115072

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
Model #:CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
Item #:N82E16820233144

My biggest hang up is the motherboard and hard drives. I will not be using this desktop very often, but when I do, I will use it for things like Battlefield 3, IRC clients, web browsing, etc. How does this sound and could someone make a suggestion on a motherboard and hard drives? I was thinking about going with an ASUS (prior good experience) or Gigabyte (because I've heard good things about them). For hard drives, I want to stay with WD but not sure if I should go with Blue or Black.

EDIT:
Peripherals are all taken care of. I have dual monitors, mouse, keyboard, etc with the preexisting desktop.

[glc]

Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Hard drives are ridiculously expensive right now. You might want to temporarily recycle an existing drive till the prices come down. Consider a SSD.

I'd go for a stronger video card if you plan on BF3 - at least a 560Ti or a 6950.

[kmillerusaf]

Hey glc,

Still going strong huh? Thanks for posting back...

I noticed HDDs seemed to be pretty expensive these days. What happened?

Well nice that you recommended an ASUS board Is Sata 6 mainstream now or is it still rather new like USB 3.0? Is it worth me finding a Sata 6 compatible HDD? Also, the board doesn't come with onboard video. If my card failed, I'd be screwed until I got another correct? Everything else looks good? A little surprised I did so well by looking through a few threads and checking some specs on the vendor sites.

Regards,
Keith

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by kmillerusaf Hey glc, Still going strong huh? Thanks for posting back... I noticed HDDs seemed to be pretty expensive these days. What happened? Well nice that you recommended an ASUS board Is Sata 6 mainstream now or is it still rather new like USB 3.0? Is it worth me finding a Sata 6 compatible HDD? Also, the board doesn't come with onboard video. If my card failed, I'd be screwed until I got another correct? Everything else looks good? A little surprised I did so well by looking through a few threads and checking some specs on the vendor sites. Regards, Keith

Excellent choices

Hard Drives are up because of the flooding in the country there made in. Thailand I think?

Asus all the way

Sata III 6gb/s is mainstream today. They have 64mb of cache and are noticeably faster than 32gb cache Sata II.

The video is on the CPU know with the Sandy Bridge so you will have a very nice and useable display until you get a card hooked up or in the event it goes down. All you will need to do is hook the monitor up to the port on the board.

You can always hook up a smaller SSD 64GB Sata II or III or smaller for SSD caching in the future, prices should go back down when production is stable. You will want an Intel 320 or 510 for reliability, they may not be the fastest but I have had great success with them in terms of reliability.

[David M]

Hard drive prices...
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/...462643,00.html