An Upgrade That's Turned Into a New Build...

[Cykoth]

Hello All,

It's been about 4-5 years since I built my last gaming rig using Vista 32-bit Ultimate. It's been very durable and upgrading to a stock overclocked Gigabyte GTX580 has definitely elongated it's life. But time has gone on, and some platforms such as Win 7 64 bit, the new Z68 Intel chipset, and the 3rd generation of SSD drives make me want to upgrade. I was just going to upgrade my existing system, but realized all I was missing from a brand new computer was pretty much a case and power supply. Money isn't really a huge issue, but I definitely want to get the most bang for the least amount (don't we all?). I'm really very interested in the Forums opinions and would like comments on what I've zero'ed in on and what I'm still uncertain of. Here's what I've got so far:

CPU - Intel i7 2600K http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070

Motherboard - Gigabyte Z68 (the UDP3 one) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128493

SSD - OCZ Vertex 3 240GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227707

Memory - Corsair 4GB X 2 DDR3 1866MHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233170

OS - Win 7 64-bit Ultimate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116997

What I'm not sure of is the case and power supply to get. I'm also not sure what regular hard drive to get for large storage capacity. I'm drawn to the Rosewill Blackhawk and Antec 902 or 300 Illusion for a case. It seems like the sweet spot for HDD is 2 TB for price. I'd like to get a 1000 watt PS as I intend on eventually having SLI GTX580's. There has been a recent announcement just today that Corsair is coming out with new drives this month that are supposed to be as fast as the OCZ Vertex 3, but Anandtech has tested the V3 extensively and that stills seems a good bet to try to get (if you can find one that isn't on Ebay!). I don't really think I'll overclock much, but I might dabble in it. I also thought I'd reserve 60GB of the SSD for the Cache capability of the Z68 board to speed up the HDD for the system.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciated!

Thanks!
Cykoth

 

[mfenn]

Here's a few suggestions to cut costs without losing performance:
- Swap the i7 2600K with an i5 2500K. There is not really a big difference in gaming performance
- Swap the memory for a normal kit like this Mushkin. DDR3 1866 doesn't really add much to your performance, but it does add to your price tag.
- Swap the OS to Home Premium. Your almost certainly dont' need the features of Ultimate.
- As for the case, the Antec * Hundred series are all nice as well as the Cooler Master HAF series. Just pick the one that you like the looks of and that is the size you want.

As for the rest, I have a few more comments:
- Don't bother with SRT since you have a 240GB SSD. You'll be able to fit anything that needs to be fast directly on the SSD and avoid the uncertainty of SRT's caching algorithms
- Don't bother with "eventually" going to SLI GTX 580s. By the time eventually rolls around, you'll be better off getting the latest and greatest single GPU. With that in mind, you can also swap the mobo for a GA-Z68A-D3H and grab a 650W PSU like this EA-650.