First time Build, any help would be great

[badams]

I am going to attempt my first build and was hoping for some help. Please let me know if I should stay away from anything or if I am going in the wrong direction. I do not plan on overcocking at all. I was also wondering if my power supply was over kill and if I should stay away from the asus mother board. Any advice would be a great help on any of the items i'm looking at. I am looking for the best setup from the below listed items and if there are any better alternatives please let me know. I'm still learning.
thank you!

Cases:
*COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior
*Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Hard Drive:
*Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
*Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Graphics Card:
*ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ...
*MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
*MSI N460GTX Hawk Talon Attack GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ...

Memory:
*CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C8

Mother Board:
*ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
*ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Power Source:
*CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power ...
*CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 ...

And
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400

 

[Puppies04]

Yeah the 750w power supply is overkill 600 will be more than enough for what you need with headroom left to spare. Fill out the questionnaire in the sticky on this forum and you will get more specific advice as you don't mention what the machine will be used for. Nothing wrong with the asus mobo's btw, I think there is a review on one on anandtechs main page

 

[dma0991]

Get a 1TB drive would be better and it does not cost a whole lot more compared to the 500GB version. For the GPU, the GTX460 from MSI with the Twin Frozr II cooler would be better.

A single 4GB stick of RAM is better instead of 2GBx2 as you are able to have dual channel memory if you upgrade another 4GB in the future. It is better to get the H67 motherboard if you do not intend to ever overclock. The H67 is cheaper and you get to use the IGP which is only enabled on H67 and Z68 boards. Unless you intend to do a SLI in the future, I suggest getting the H67 board instead.

The PSU is overkill for what you intend to use it for. It is impossible to overclock a SB processor without a K suffix and the most you will need for a GTX460 SLI is around 600-650W. You can save a little bit of $$ by getting a 650W PSU from XFX.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

If you're getting the i5 2400 there is really no need for a P67 board. And H67 will perform just as well and save you $20-$25.
Like others have said, lower your PSU output.
I would get a 2TB drive, and a SSD for the OS and 2x4GB RAM.

I find it odd however that you spec out a lot of things, but then stick with the stock cooler? I would go with a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (actually I did)
For comparrison
I built a new machine not to long ago with the following
i5 2400
CoolerMaster Hyper 212+
Coolermaster USP100 case with CoolerMaster 550W PSU
4GB RAM (need more)
64GB Samsung 470z SSD
reused 2x 2TB hdd
Asus P8H67M-LE
I'm just using the onboard graphics, but this thing screams for what I do, video encoding mostly (compared to what it replaced).

 

[badams]

Thank you so much for the replies!

It is my first build so I more than likely left a few things out like and after market cooler just because I did not know if I needed one or not, so your advice is great and very helpful. I will def drop my power supply to save some money.

The computer will be used for games when I have time and general use most the time. Mostly playing the newest civilization game

I did choose a p67 board because it allows access to 1600 ram vs just 1333 the H67 uses, I don't know if that makes and difference. Should I just wait for the z68? it should be out sometime this week right? My concern with the Asus board was all the booting problem people were having, since this is my first build I want to avoid issues like that as much as possible.

The mother board has 4 slots for ram right? getting a single 4 is the best and then add as needed later?

I was actually wondering about the SSD drives, are they complicated to get setup. I know you can either install that OS on it or not but I felt my is rather lacking as is and that just would up the complexity level.

With the hard drives I was reading that a lot of the 1tb+ drives were having stability issues and that it is better to us two 500 that tend to be much more stable

This might be a dumb question but where is the questionaire, having trouble locating it

 

[DominionSeraph]

1TB drives are fine. 1.5+, there you get into issues.

1TB Spinpoint F3 will do you fine.
Z68 is out now.

Anyway, is there a reason you're going with a full tower case?

 

[betasub]

This might be a dumb question but where is the questionaire, having trouble locating it

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=24043454&postcount=1

 

[betasub]

I did choose a p67 board because it allows access to 1600 ram vs just 1333 the H67 uses, I don't know if that makes and difference. Should I just wait for the z68? it should be out sometime this week right?

Memory speed (1333 vs 1600) is of no real consequence with Sandybridge, nor are you overclocking anyway. Either speed is fine (just don't pay extra simply because it's 1600; rated for 1.5V is recommended). You'll be running it dual-channel so either way there is far more bandwidth than you're likely to need.

 

[mfenn]

The money that you save by dropping the PSU and mobo down to something reasonable, will easily pay for your 8GB of RAM.

Check these out:
ASRock H67M $95
Mushkin DDR3 1333 8GB $70
6850 1GB $155 AR
Samsung F3 1TB $65
430CX $25 AR

 

[badams]

I was considering a full tower case to help keep everything very cool, it also seemed based on reviews that full towers were the best constructed and came with filters for the fans. On almost all the mid towers it seemed there was some sort of major flaw in construction. I looked at the new antec 900 but I read the filters were extremely difficult to take out to clean. I really don't care what it looks like as long as it is well constructed and keep cool with filters. Any recommendations would be great, I would probably save money mid tower too.

h67 sounds really good would save me a ton so I can upgrade a number of other things, would it be worth it to get the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI for upgrade purposes in the future?

 

[badams]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
++ Mostly playing the latest civilization, and other computer games in the future. The new total war

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
++Would like to spend $1000.00

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
++USA newegg.com Seems to have the best prices and the most

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
++nvidia seems to have the bets quality and bang from the buck

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I have an old dell i'll pull the hard drive out of and dvd drive thats about it.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
++I have done a ton of research just my first time build don't want to mess it up

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
++no plan to overclock at this time

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
++I am not sure, going to plug it into my LG LED tv

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
++Hopefully within the next 2 to 3 week

 

[BoomerD]

Don't forget to compare prices at Amazon. If you sign up for the Prime free trial, you get free 2-day shipping...that's quite a savings by itself sometimes. (of course, now, newegg has something very similar, so YMMV)

I went with the HAF 932 for my recent build.I LIKE it a lot.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2125015

I've held one belief about video cards to be true for a long time...
For nVidia cards...buy EVGA
For AMD/ATi cards...buy XFX.

 

[badams]

I did not even think about amazon thank you! I actually only choose the MSi graphics card because it had the best rating on new egg, I will look into the EVGA card. Is there one you would recommend?

 

[badams]

Boomer it seems that the amd 5850 is the card that matches up with the nvidia 460 gtx I cant find any made by XFX any recommendations?

Also i was wondering if anyone knew why nvidia uses mirco hdmi I think and amd uses normal hdmi

 

[mfenn]

Boomer it seems that the amd 5850 is the card that matches up with the nvidia 460 gtx I cant find any made by XFX any recommendations?

It doesn't really have to be an XFX. Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI, ASUS, HIS, and PowerColor are all fine.

 

[betasub]

^ Yes, plenty of acceptable choices, & IIRC it was the Sapphire that was the hot deal on the 5850.

 

[badams]

ok I am sold on a 5000 or 6000 series card now, I was reading that the 5870/6950 are comparable and the 5850\6870 are comparable. Anyone know what the advantages of the 5000 series and the 6000 series are?

 

[mfenn]

ok I am sold on a 5000 or 6000 series card now, I was reading that the 5870/6950 are comparable and the 5850\6870 are comparable. Anyone know what the advantages of the 5000 series and the 6000 series are?

That is a pretty fair assessment, though the 6950 is a decent margin (~10%) faster than a 5850.

Radeon 6800 and 5800 chips are fairly comparable in terms of features because the 6800s are just a tweaked version of the 5800. Radeon 6900s are a new architecture that has some advantages in terms of tesselation and power management. Ryan's 6900 launch article is a worthwhile read if you want some in-depth background on the chips.

 

[badams]

very interesting article thank you! I have decided on the xfx 6870 is the best bang for the buck so going for that one.

 

[mfenn]

very interesting article thank you! I have decided on the xfx 6870 is the best bang for the buck so going for that one.

Sounds good!