Building a new gaming rig

[Night Fox]

You probably won't use more than 4-5gb...

 

[Project Dusk]

I know, I know. How does that memory look though? Hoping I made a good choice purchasing it.

 

[Slaymate]

Newegg.com - G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR

Does my RAM look like it was good choice? I certainly hope so, cuz at this price I may pick up a second set after my PC is finished.

For $60 you can't beat it

 

[Project Dusk]

For $60 you can't beat it

Awesome! Thanks man, was getting kinda worried that I may have jumped the gun and gotten poor memory. I read the reviews and everyone said they had great experiences. I really think I just need to get a new motherboard and CPU now, I honestly don't feel like reusing my Phenom 9600 BE just cuz of the TLB Erratum error. Besides why put an "old brain" into a new beast? I'm just hoping a good mobo/cpu combo comes along sometime soon.

I might keep Vista 64 for now, will I have to reformat if I pretty much rip out and replace everything but the hard drives? I get the distinct feeling I will.

Just noticed my card has a $30 mail in rebate.

Edit: Nevermind, it started AFTER I bought my card, how lame.

 

[Project Dusk]

Does XFX make good power supplies? Looking for a good PSU in the 650W range, good amps on the 12V and good reviews. Right now I have a Corsair 650TX sitting in my wishlist. I have seen a comparable XFX PSU same wattage but only 1 review compared to the Corsairs 1,000+ good reviews. Should I just stay with the Corsair? The XFX is cheaper after rebates, but I don't wanna choose price over performance.

 

[Slaymate]

I would stick with the Corsair.

 

[Project Dusk]

I'm getting an aftermarket heat sink for my CPU, not gonna do a whole lot of OCing but I'm getting a Black Edition X6, so I won't need to upgrade anytime soon, the mobo I'm getting has Turbo feature for OCing your CPU. So I'm planning to OC at least a little bit, nothing extreme though.

Here's my specs so far:

Case: Antec 900
Video Card: XFX 5770 Newegg.com - XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Motherboard: Newegg.com - ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
PSU: Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
RAM: Newegg.com - G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR
CPU: Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX
OS: Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems
Thermal Paste: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154003
Heatsink: Newegg.com - Thermaltake CLP0554 80mm Sleeve CPU Cooler

I picked out the heatsink due to the good reviews it has and because the design really fits the sort of "twisted" motif I'm giving my PCs innards.

I'm gonna do my best to do some cable management using UV reactive heat shrink and put a single UV light in to make it all glow, shouldn't be too expensive. I'm also thinking about modding/replacing the side panel with a full window kit so you can inside the entire case, saw one on frozencpu.com for $50 which looks really good. I'd cut it myself and put some plexiglass in but 1: Don't have those types of skills. 2: Don't have those types of tools. 3: It'd cost a lot more for me to buy the tools and plexiglass, so this will actually save me money.

I'm also thinking of putting some LED or UV reactive SATA cables into it, can anyone tell me if there's any downside to these? I.E. do they have a slower transfer rate than normal SATA cables or is it all just purely cosmetic?


Also what colors would look really good inside of an all black case? I think blue is overdone and a little too bright. Was looking for something a little more dark, something a little twisted, beastly and sinister if ya would. Anyone have any recommendations? I'm also thinking about replacing all my 120mm LEDs fans with fans that don't light up and move more air, can anyone suggest me some good fans? Preferably not too loud yet able to move a decent amount of air. I plan to keep the 2 front 120mm fans as intakes, the top 200mm fan and rear 120mm fan as exhaust fans, will that be good enough for decent air flow? I had figured it would be since hot air rises and those 2 fans are up higher than the others, plus they are in the rear so they wouldn't be throwing it out onto me or whoever was using the PC at the time.

I'm also thinking that since my case has sat around for like 2 years gathering dust and that I'm gonna have to mod it a bit, I'm just gonna take it completely apart and give it a nice, thorough, cleaning and possibly polish it up to get it like new again and was wondering I should use to polish it?



Also my keyboard is a Logitech G15 v2, Mouse: Razer Lachesis and my Speakers are Logitech x-530 5.1, after a while I'm going to upgrade to a G510, a Razer Naga, keep the speakers and get a Logitech G930 wireless headset for gaming, gotta love surround sound headsets. Will be using my old 22" DELL LCD monitor until I save up enough for a 27" LCD monitor by Asus.



Sorry for the rant, just really excited as this will pretty much be my first actual PC build, so I got Geekbumps and bit of a nerd high right now.

Let me know if there's any hardware compatibility or bottle-necking issues if you see them.

 

[Project Dusk]

So no one sees any bottlenecking issues? I'm planning to add a second 5770, if I ever find one on sale again, will a 650W PSU be enough to power 2 of them?

 

[Roark]

I was going to re-state Slaymate that you won't really use a 6 core CPU for gaming, but honestly the 980BE is the same price now and they are within 1-3 FPS of each other on benchmarks, so enjoy your x6.

From what I've read a 650w PSU will be fine for an x-fire 5770 setup.

I'm guessing you've already purchased the video card? If not I would seriously suggest spending as much as you can on it now, then when it starts to struggle a little with games buy a second one for x-fire instead of trying to start with an x-fire setup, you'll get better performance over time.

*Edit*
Tried Googling any bottlenecking issues between the 1100T and 5770, couldn't find much relevant information since its a relatively new CPU and a relatively old GPU.
So again, might want to buy a newer video card if you haven't already purchased the 5770.

Also, if you aren't particular about CPU brand ever consider going the Intel route?
i5 2500k + Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard = $50 more than you're currently spending.
AnandTech Comparison, games are at the bottom.

 

[Project Dusk]

I was only going six-core due to it being somewhat ahead of the curve, im not wanting to upgrade anything besides the video card any time soon. Already got the 5770, else I'd have gotten something newer since right after I bought it the 6000 series seemed to get cheaper . I might get a good quad core though, I'll see what they have at newegg, see if any have good reviews for stable OC to 4+ ghz on air cooling.