Building a good quality gaming rig - help please!

[BWLAF]

Done and dusted, it is gone

So the case has sufficient fans for my needs then?

Also, what is the current build like, and where can I improve it?

I still need a headset, I haven't been able to find the steel series under $160, is that a reasonable price? (Bear in mind, AUD - it's about 135 USD (guesstimating a bit there))

 

[Slaymate]

The Case is an Excellant Choice in my opinion. I don't know what kind of temperatures you deal with on a yearly basis but you may end up wanting to add a fan or 2 to the Windowed Side Panel. It's not that hard to do later down the road if you decide to, you can find some good info/video guides over at MNPCTech PC Case Mod Guides, How Tos, Dremel, Paint Tutorials and Videos

Bill is Awesome, he has a bunch of his Mods posted here at Tech Forums, you should check them out.
http://www.techist.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1025581

Overall I think you have a very Solid Build. If it was me, I would try to find a i7 920. In my opinion, I think the 920 is a slightly better overclocker, but it's really just boils down to "The Luck of The Draw". A SSD would be a nice addition instead of a standard hard drive but there expensive. I have this OCZ Agility 120GB and it's more of a medium speed model. The Intel Drives are the really fast ones and they cost twice as much, or they did when I bought mine (at 1/2 the price as the one linked).

I've never used Headsets, my brother likes Sennheiser.

 

[dirkpitt45]

Done and dusted, it is gone

So the case has sufficient fans for my needs then?

Also, what is the current build like, and where can I improve it?

I still need a headset, I haven't been able to find the steel series under $160, is that a reasonable price? (Bear in mind, AUD - it's about 135 USD (guesstimating a bit there))

Look for Siberia v2 or v1, v1 is going for ~30 CAD on NCIX, and the V2 is ~80 depending on the day it seems lol. Don't pay 160 for a pair though, they aren't worth that.

 

[BWLAF]

Slay, it's been really hot lately, getting up to 35 degrees C on some days... so maybe a few more fans would be a good idea, I'll speak to some friends and see what their cooling needs are.

I looked at SSD's, but I think I'll just upgrade down the road when they are a bit cheaper

The only concern I have for overclocking is getting it to around 3.8GHz... if the 930 can do it, I'm happy... if I ever need more than that, I'll buy a 6 core.

I'll do some research on the Siberia v1 later, it's currently 1:15 AM here

 

[BWLAF]

Will the 5870 run most games on the market at full graphics?
If not, should I get a 5970, which is cheaper than 2 5870's, or should I just get 2 5870's?

 

[Slaymate]

The 5870 should be good enough. I don't like dual gpu cards like the 5970. There not big sellers and they get less Driver Support because of it, they run twice as hot and they don't scale out as well as 2 cards. As in your playing a game with one 5870 @ 40 fps, when you add a second 5870 you get 65 fps but if you run a 5970 you get 60 fps.

I've been running 2 cards in SLI for years and years so I can't say I would buy a single card and get another one later if I needed the power. But that is the best advise for most users, buy (1) now and get a second later down the road if you need it.

 

[dirkpitt45]

TBH a 5770 will run almost any game maxed at 1920x1080. Heck my 4850 was doing great until a month or two ago, now new dx11 games are slogging it down a bit at 2048x1152. Stick with a 5870, or a 5850 if you want to save some money, as its one of if not the best bang for your buck card.

 

[baron5]

Umart is a good store overall you wont find better prices if you want to buy everything from one store. I just ordered my next gaming rig which cost me about 2750 all up. But i ordered my motherboard and gtx 480 from the UK. Also those original g.skills are much better then the OCZ slay rec. But if your not a serious over clocker and leave them at stock speeds they will only be slightly faster, they are a good overclocking set though. You shouldnt have a problem fitting them in with a ultra 120 extreme, only the big coolres like the noctua d-14 and cogage arrow will not fit with them.

 

[BWLAF]

I'm only really looking to overclock the CPU, and a little on the GPU - if I need faster RAM (which I highly doubt) I will buy faster RAM, you can get pretty cheap, fast stuff on Umart, and by the time I'm likely to need faster RAM, it'll probably be time to update the system anyway

 

[baron5]

I'm only really looking to overclock the CPU, and a little on the GPU - if I need faster RAM (which I highly doubt) I will buy faster RAM, you can get pretty cheap, fast stuff on Umart, and by the time I'm likely to need faster RAM, it'll probably be time to update the system anyway

Better ram holds your overclocks, so if you want the most out of your cpu overclock you need ram that will handle stock settings easily and that you hopefully wont have to loosen latencies on. The ocz golds should be fine though.