Building a good quality gaming rig - help please!

[BWLAF]

Hey guys,

I have been researching the options for a gaming rig, and i have come up with these. NB: The prices are rough estimates based on one website... I will be hunting around when it actually comes time to buy the computer. PLEASE let me know if there are compatibility issues, that is why I am posting here. I would also like to hear any suggested changes to improve the system, while staying at a reasonable price range. I also have a few questions, which I will ask beforehand.

1) What difference does a mousepad make? I intend to do a lot of gaming on this computer next year, is it worth buying one? If so, what is a good quality one I can buy?

2) I have read a lot about Bigfoot's Killer Xeno Pro Network Card... is it worth getting, if I am going to be doing a lot of multiplayer gaming (specifically, MW2, TF2, BC2, mainly FPS)?

3) I definitely want a wired keyboard and mouse, however I wasn't sure what a good brand was. I chose the Razer ones because they seemed like a dedicated gaming brand, however if you know of something better, please let me know!

4) I intend to overclock the processor to around 3.8, 4 GHz. Would I need liquid cooling to do this? If so, what do you recommend?

5) Does the case contain sufficient fans, or should I add more? Alternatively, how should i change the cooling system to suit my needs/parts?

Thanks in advance, now here is the suggested build:

Case: Antec Twelve Hundred Full Tower Gaming Case NO PSU
$239.50

PSU: Antec 1000W TruePower Quattro ATX & EPS 12V Power Supply Modular Cables
$249

Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2 EXGTE LGA1366 X58 6DDR3 FSB1600(OC)RAID 2GBLAN 3xPCIE2.0 ATX
$345

CPU: Intel Core i7 930 Processor LGA1366 2.8GHz 8MB Cache
$348

Primary HDD (for games + OS): Western Digital 300G SATA II VelociRaptor(WD3000HLFS)
$279

Secondary HDD (for other files, music, video, etc): Seagate SATAII 500GB 7200RPM
$113

RAM: G Skill 6G(3x2G) DDR3 PC16000 Trident
$259

GPU: Dual ATI 5870's, but so many options! Help me choose please:
Asus
Gigabyte
MSI
PowerColor
Sapphire
XFX
Also, should I get them in Crossfire configuration?
$499 - $599

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium PCIe Fatal1ty Pro
$178

Disc Drive: Pioneer BDR-205BK 12X Blu-Ray Writer Drive SATA Black OEM
$244

Headset: Razer Megalodon 7.1 Gaming Headset
$199

Keyboard: Razer Lycosa Backlit Keyboard Mirror Ed
$109

Monitor: Benq G2420HD 24inch Wide Full HD 2ms HDMI DVI D-Sub Gloss
$228

Mouse: Razer Abyssus High Precision Optical Gaming Mouse
$62

Mouse Pad: Cooler Master Storm Tactics Pad
$17

Speakers: Creative Inspire T6160 5.1 Speakers PC gaming
$79

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OEM
$212

Office: Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 CD Retail
$230

Security: Unsure... suggestions?

This all adds up to: $4588.50

Ok, this is too much. How can I trim the price down, while not sacrificing too much on performance?

NB: This price is with dual video cards. It is ~3990 with only one.

Sorry for such a long post, but I want to do a lot of research before I buy this computer. Thanks in advance to the people who reply, it is much appreciated

 

[Slaymate]

Get this Power Supply instead, it will be in stock on the 15th. It has more than enough power for (2) 5870 video cards in Crossfire.
Corsair TX-850 ATX Power Supply

The Velocirapter is a huge waste of money. It's faster than a regular drive, but not fast enough to really notice that much of a difference. Get a Solid State Drive if you want to see a difference. Otherwise just get a 1TB Western Digital Black Hard Drive instead, it's pretty fast and it hold tons of data.
Western Digital Black 1TB

You don't need watercooling to overclock to 4GHz. Watercooling is expensive to do "Properly" and a good heatsink/fan setup will perform as well or better and be less expensive than a low-priced watercooling setup.

The Memory you picked has the fancy "tall" heatspreaders. The tall heatspreaders can interfere with many good cpu heatsinks, avoid them. These OCZ memory modules have a pre-order ETA date of 2-3 days and they have faster timings and their less expensive.
6GB (3x2GB) OCZ Gold DDR3 1600

Dual 5870's, get the XFX cards.

Skip the Sound Card, the mobo has built-in 7.1 High Definition Sound. Give it a try, you can always get a sound card later if your not satisfied.

Blu-Ray Burners are coming down in price. To bad the blank disc's are not. Plus they just announced a new specification that holds twice as much data, but a new drive will be required. Get a standard Blu-ray drive (do you really need it) and a standard DVD Burner instead.

Just get Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, most users have no need for the extra options in the Pro or Ultimate Versions.
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

This is a Great Heatsink for Overclocking, but a fan is not included and it requires lapping (see supplied link).
Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme
A decent adjustable speed fan.
Antec TriCool 120mm
Lapping Guide
http://www.techist.com/forums/f10/heatsink-lapping-guide-226442/

This is also a very good heatsink and it comes with fans and it does not need lapping.
Noctua NH-12UP Special Edition SE2

 

[dirkpitt45]

Those Razer headphones look like a waste of money to me, look for steel series siberias V2, they're a very good headset for the price.

The blue-ray, think if you even need it, I personally haven't touched a blu-ray since they came out. Stupid expensive and they don't look good enough to justify the price imo.

You also won't need two 5870s right now, a single 5870 can max any game at that monitor's resolution with ease. Just get 1 and save some money.

 

[wafflehammer]

i second what slay said

also the headset might be a bit too much. And even then I'm sure for $200 you could find some better ones. I know razer makes some awesome mice but I dunno about their audio. But it's like the sound card thing. The majority of people can't tell the difference between on board and sound card..so I doubt they could tell the difference between $50 headset - $200 headset. Just my $0.02 though

Yea just get 1 card. I use a gtx 260 and I can still max any game out currently so going with 2 of those cards would be a waste. Same with the blu-ray. I'd just get a <$100 blu-ray player and leave it at that.

 

[BWLAF]

Alright, so build V2 looks something like this then:

Case: Antec Twelve Hundred Full Tower Gaming Case NO PSU
$239.50

PSU: Antec 850W CP850 ATX PSU
$160

Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2 EXGTE LGA1366 X58 6DDR3 FSB1600(OC)RAID 2GBLAN 3xPCIE2.0 ATX
$345

CPU: Intel Core i7 930 Processor LGA1366 2.8GHz 8MB Cache
$348

Primary HDD (for games + OS): Western Digital 500G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)
$58

Secondary HDD (for other files, music, video, etc): Western Digital 1TB SATA3 64M(WD1002FAEX)
$139

RAM: OCZ 6G(3x2G) DDR3 12800 Gold CL-8-8-8-24
$235

GPU: XFX HD5870 1G DDR5 Dual DVI DL HDMI DP PCIEx16
$535

Disc Drive: Sony AD7240SGB 22X SATA OEM DVD RW Black
$32

Keyboard: Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard USB 2.0
$98

Monitor: Benq G2420HD 24inch Wide Full HD 2ms HDMI DVI D-Sub Gloss
$228

Mouse: Razer Abyssus High Precision Optical Gaming Mouse
$62

Mouse Pad: Razer Sphex Mousemat
$20

Speakers: Creative Inspire T6160 5.1 Speakers PC gaming
$79

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM
$112

Office: Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 CD Retail
$230

Security: Unsure... suggestions?

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P Special Edition SE2
$95
Antec TriCool 120mm Blue LED Case Fan with 3-Speed Switch
$20

This all adds up to: $3035.50

This doesn't seem right - the parts Muffin showed me were a fair bit cheaper, but i have checked it twice... can somebody double check this for me? It has only shaved 2 dollars off. Edited again for keyboard and mousepad... still doesn't seem right price though.

1) What difference does a mousepad make? I intend to do a lot of gaming on this computer next year, is it worth buying one? If so, what is a good quality one I can buy?

2) I have read a lot about Bigfoot's Killer Xeno Pro Network Card... is it worth getting, if I am going to be doing a lot of multiplayer gaming (specifically, MW2, TF2, BC2, mainly FPS)?

3) Is the cooling system now sufficient? As per what slay said, I have added a fan and a heatsink

4) Any more suggestions for headsets? I will look up the steel series one, however I would love to hear if some other people have suggestions

5) Should I have 2 hard drives? I was thinking of having one for games and the operating system, so that it remained fast, then put all my music, photos, etc on the other drive. If I do end up using two hard drives, should i use the 1TB Western Digital or the 500 GB Seagate as my primary?

6) What is the speed of the OCZ RAM slay suggested, out of curiosity? I couldn't find info on it anywhere

Again, thanks for all the help, but any suggestions to further reduce the price, while keeping the same level of power would be much appreciated.

 

[Muffin Man]

ill try to answer what i can.

2) from what i've read, no, that killer xeno card just looks like a big waste of money.

3)yes it looks good. the antec 1200 has plenty of fans already and that noctua cpu cooler is also one of the best around.

5)use the smaller 500gb as your primary and the 1tb as storage.

but the one you listed costs alot of money for just 500gb, get this one instead.
western digital 500gb

6) 1600mhz

i also have some other suggestions though;

don't waste your money on the "xxx" 5870, they charge too much for a small OC that you could do yourself. save your money and get this one.
xfx 5870

also, you could save a good bit of money by getting this psu
antec cp-850 850w psu
only get this psu if you're sticking with the antec 1200 case, because this is a slightly larger form factor that currently only fits 3 of antecs cases, and the 1200 is one of them. it too would provide plenty of power for possibly crossfired 5870s.

 

[BWLAF]

Thanks, V2 post updated, and most questions answered... still want to know about a mousepad though, does anybody here use one?

Also, the price above doesn't seem right. It was 3045 before Muffin suggested parts, and they were a good 100 dollars cheaper combined. I added it up and it came to 3043... I have triple checked... either I forgot to add something beforehand or I have stuffed it, can somebody check for me please?

And any other suggestions for headsets/monitors/anything?

 

[james.wired]

I use a mouse pad, helps tremendously. I use a Razer Destructor it's a sweet pad. Also have the Lycosa Mirror edition and it's not worth $110 at all. I payed $70 for it and I'm wondering why lol

 

[BWLAF]

I was looking at that mouse pad, however it was nearly $50, which seemed a bit excessive... also, if the Lycosa is no good (bear in mind I am in Australia, higher prices than you), what is a keyboard you would recommend? I am taking the year off next year, so my life will pretty much consist of work, gaming, gym, friends... it's gonna be awesome... but the point of that is I need a keyboard that will hold up to a lot of use, and one that is going to be reliable for a long time, but a gaming keyboard is definitely in order.

Wow I ramble a bit, anyway, thanks again for the help, if I can get this under 3k it'd be brilliant.

 

[james.wired]

Yikes about $50 on the mouse pad. maybe the one you picked out will work Is the regular edition of the Lycosa available? Those are nice keyboards.