trying to fix my gaming build

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jokawild69

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hello,
im trying to build a gaming computer and i currently have a build together but im not sure if its a good build.

Case: NZXT Zero 2 Craft Series Full Tower Case
Newegg.com - NZXT ZERO 2 Crafted Series CS-NT-ZERO-2 Black Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128412

PSU: XFX Black Edition P1-750B-CAG9 750W ATX12V v2.2 / ESP12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817207003

Graphics Card: XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150443

CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115215

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231277

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136284

2nd HDD: WD SiliconEdge Blue SSC-D0064SC-2100 2.5" 64GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Newegg.com - WD SiliconEdge Blue SSC-D0064SC-2100 2.5" 64GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSD

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116754

my goal is to play games like World of Warcraft, call of duty, starcraft, diablo, fallout 3, and mostly fps games and not have to worry about any issues coming up. i would like to run the games at max setting with no hiccups.
any suggestions would be awesome and thanks for all the help
 
what is your budget? why did you go with an i5 over an i7? do you plan on overclocking your processor? if you do you are going to need a CPU cooler.
 
The RadeonHD 5870 is definitely a good card, I have one and so do many other people here, it plays Crysis at very high settings pretty well so anything else should be a piece of cake. As for the CPU, the i5's are pretty good but I'd really recommend an i7. The i7 920 and i7 930 chips are reasonably priced and very powerful, they're also based on LGA1366, Intel's newer socket design. As far as RAM goes, the i7 uses a triple channel memory controller. The i5 probably does too. This means that it works best when you have 3 identical sticks of RAM instead of two, so look into a 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 kit for triple channel.

As for the SSD, I really don't think they're worth it yet. 64GB fills up quickly if you're putting games on it, if you only use it for your OS then you will see no improvement in game loading times. My WD Caviar Black 640GB 64MB Cache, SATA3 6gb/s supported HDD has good loading times in games and apps. An SSD may load a bit faster, but it costs more and only has a tenth of the capacity.
 
1156 chipset = dual channel
1366 chipset = triple channel

Calc is right about the SSD. Unless you have the money to burn the price just isn't justifiable. And if you are a serious gamer then 64GB won't last long. If you set it up so ONLY your OS was on the SSD, and your files and programs were on a different drive, it might be OK, but you would lose the speed when loading the programs.

The 6gb/s WD Blacks are very nice and extremely fast. Plus they won't kill a budget.
 
i will second what Calcprogrammer said, i have a 5870 and it blasts through anything i can throw at it. it plays Fall out 3 at a constant 60 frames a second... now that i think of it i have never seen it go above or below 6 frames a second... makes me think there is a frame limit?

anyway, you chose an awesome card.
 
I strongly disagree with Trotter and CalcProgrammer about the SSD. A good SSD is the most significant performance upgrade you can make to a modern system and will offer a very noticeable difference in responsiveness. Afer using my SSD for several months I cannot image going back to a mechanical hard drive, until you have used one you really can't judge them.

I also disagree with calling the Caviar Black fast, even the 2TB model only managed a 0.32mb/s 4K random read speed which is beyond slow when compared to the 60.2mb/s a Intel X25-V offers.

I would change the SSD to the Intel X25-V I mentioned earlier. It offers much better performance than the SiliconEdge at a very reasonable price.
Newegg.com - Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
 
what is your budget? why did you go with an i5 over an i7? do you plan on overclocking your processor? if you do you are going to need a CPU cooler.

i thought the i5 would be enough but to be honest i have no clue. this is my first computer build and honestly i have no idea what im doing :(
 
ok i tried to tweak what i had and this is what im came up with

CPU: Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

Ram: OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G2000LV6GK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227424

Mobo: ASUS Rampage II GENE LGA 1366 Intel X58 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131371

im not sure if the ram is compatible with the mobo
 
The SSD performance may be that much better than HDD but you haven't addressed the most obvious problem with SSD. 40GB is even less than 64GB and neither is large enough to fit Windows 7 and a library of games. Windows 7 itself takes up 16GB which leaves 48GB/24GB. Most modern games easily use 2-5GB, you might fit a few games but if you plan on buying games in the future you'll run out of space and be forced to uninstall things to make room. I've already used 117GB on my week-old new build and that is only Windows 7, games, and apps (all my music/movies/video/pictures/etc is stored on my 1.5TB server). If you have hundreds of extra dollars to spare on your new build, go with a 128GB SSD, that way you'll have room and speed, but I honestly don't think SSD's are worth it yet. The technology is great, but the cost per GB isn't good enough to make it worth buying yet, especially when the price will probably drop as mainstream SSD use increases.

As for the motherboard, I would go with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R instead of the one you picked. They're both $209 but the Gigabyte is a full ATX board (more expansion slots, more features) and the Gigabyte supports USB 3.0, SATA III, and has a lot more ports on the rear panel (8 USB, 2 eSATA, PS/2 keyboard AND mouse, optical/coaxial SPDIF, 6 audio, 2 firewire, gigabit Ethernet, and clear CMOS button). I'd only get the Rampage II (or any MicroATX board for that matter) if you're using a microATX case. The case you mentioned in the first post is an ATX Full tower, which is plenty big enough for a full size ATX board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423

Also that RAM will work, it is triple channel DDR3 which is perfect for the Core i7.
 
The SSD performance may be that much better than HDD but you haven't addressed the most obvious problem with SSD. 40GB is even less than 64GB and neither is large enough to fit Windows 7 and a library of games. Windows 7 itself takes up 16GB which leaves 48GB/24GB. Most modern games easily use 2-5GB, you might fit a few games but if you plan on buying games in the future you'll run out of space and be forced to uninstall things to make room. I've already used 117GB on my week-old new build and that is only Windows 7, games, and apps (all my music/movies/video/pictures/etc is stored on my 1.5TB server). If you have hundreds of extra dollars to spare on your new build, go with a 128GB SSD, that way you'll have room and speed, but I honestly don't think SSD's are worth it yet. The technology is great, but the cost per GB isn't good enough to make it worth buying yet, especially when the price will probably drop as mainstream SSD use increases.

Space isn't as big of an issue as it seems. I would put Windows 7, commonly used apps like Office, browsers, your media player of choice, any other frequently used programs, and World of Warcraft on the SSD as all of those applications will greatly benefit from the significantly improved performance. With the exception of WoW most games do not benefit from improved performance so they can go on a storage drive along with all other files. Also a clean install of 7 doesn't use anywhere close to 16gb.

I think most people greatly overestimate the speed of conventional hard drives. They are by far the largest bottleneck in modern pc's and SSDs are a relatively cost effective way to remove that bottleneck. Going from a conventional drive to my SSD was every bit as noticeable as going from a Pentium 4 to a Core 2 Duo.
 
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