New gaming rig

[Genyus]

Yo guys, I'm looking to build my own PC and try out PC gaming instead of the console I usually play on. My budget is around 1000 euros. I'm not really looking for the best of the best, just something that'll last my for a while at least (and pretty much everything is an upgrade from what I have now so yeah). Here's what I had in mind for my new PC:

Quantity	Product	Price	Total
1	Acer G246HLBbid	€ 139,00	€ 139,00
1	ASUS GTX660-DC2T-2GD5	€ 202,95	€ 202,95
1	Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced (USB 3.0)	€ 79,86	€ 79,86
1	Cooler Master Hyper 412S	€ 29,99	€ 29,99
1	Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB DDR3-1600 CL9 kit	€ 43,14	€ 43,14
1	Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H	€ 117,50	€ 117,50
1	Intel Core i5 3570K	€ 201,45	€ 201,45
1	Samsung 840 Series 120GB (basic)	€ 80,75	€ 80,75
1	Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB	€ 54,85	€ 54,85
1	Seasonic M12II Bronze 520W	€ 54,50	€ 54,50
10 products		Total	€ 1.003,99

So what do you guys think, any changes that I should make? This is with a monitor, I'm also willing to leave the monitor out and invest the money in better parts if necessary (and just get the monitor later).

[Basium]

I'd like to go for a GIGABYTE HD 7870 OC edition, you may save money and get extra performance over the GTX 660.
The rest is okey.

[FIGHTER]

Intel Core i5 3570K? why not a i7? im really not into the hardware anymore but im curious why you choose for a i5...

[Rusch69]

The i5 is enough for gaming. The only big advantage of the i7/Xeon CPUs is that they have HyperThreading and you don't need that for gaming. If you're a lot into 3D/video rendering, then HyperThreading pays off. The 3570K can be easily overclocked, but you need a Z77 motherboard. If you don't wanna overclock, get the non-K version and another motherboard.

- Get a cheaper case, the 690 II is overpriced imo. A HAF912 Plus or Zalman Z9 should do also.
- Use the spared money and go for a stronger GPU (no matter if AMD/NVIDIA, the Gigabyte Windforce series is good)
- CPU cooler wise I'd suggest a Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev A instead (idk if it fits the Z9 atm, would have to look up)
- PSU wise I'd rather take a bequiet! one, costs a bit more. But this ain't a component one should spare on.

CPU wise you won't be able to upgrade at all as the 1155 Socket area is gonna end with Intel's upcoming Haswell CPU family.

[Genyus]

- Get a cheaper case, the 690 II is overpriced imo. A HAF912 Plus or Zalman Z9 should do also.
- Use the spared money and go for a stronger GPU (no matter if AMD/NVIDIA, the Gigabyte Windforce series is good)
- CPU cooler wise I'd suggest a Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev A instead (idk if it fits the Z9 atm, would have to look up)
- PSU wise I'd rather take a bequiet! one, costs a bit more. But this ain't a component one should spare on.

CPU wise you won't be able to upgrade at all as the 1155 Socket area is gonna end with Intel's upcoming Haswell CPU family.

Thanks for the feedback, got a few questions though.

- I had the Zalman Z9 in my mind as well, might get that one instead then
- Which GPU would you suggest? (sorry but I'm not really at home in the hardware stuff)
- I found the one you mean but without Rev A, is that still the same? Also what do I need to look for if I want to know if it fits the case?
- If you say it's better then I'll put down the extra money, do you have a suggestion for which one to take? I already felt like the 520W I had now was a bit too weak, looking for 600W at least.

Is it worth waiting for the new CPU's then? Wouldn't that mean that I'd have to spend more as well?

[Determined]

I have SLI GTX 670 4gb... wouldn't recommend it. I suppose 660 is even shittier then.

[Basium]

crossfire the hd 7870

[Genyus]

crossfire the hd 7870

That wouldn't fit my budget, and it's not even necessary in any way.

[Basium]

i think the majority of high-end graphics cards that you are behind to get are overpriced. Just save a little bit more and get a EVGA SUPERCLOCKED GTX 660 TI 2GB. It will last for a long time and it is amazing.

you can ask Rusch, he has nearly the same rig with a core i5 3570k and GTX 660ti. I think they perform well for him. 

[Genyus]

Wait hold on, I thought crossfiring means having two 7870 and combining them right?

Anyways, if the 660ti does the job then I'd have no problem spending the small amount of extra cash for it. I'll wait for Rusch's answer on my questions

[Basium]

Yeah that's right like SLI in nvidia.

if you crossfire the hd 7870, you will need a new PSU but don't do that perhaps you will need to SLI the gtx 660 ti in the future and it is pretty good just ask Rusch about that. 

Anyways, the gtx 660 ti does a pretty good job with the i5 3570k.

[Rusch69]

Thanks for the feedback, got a few questions though.

- I had the Zalman Z9 in my mind as well, might get that one instead then
- Which GPU would you suggest? (sorry but I'm not really at home in the hardware stuff)
- I found the one you mean but without Rev A, is that still the same? Also what do I need to look for if I want to know if it fits the case?
- If you say it's better then I'll put down the extra money, do you have a suggestion for which one to take? I already felt like the 520W I had now was a bit too weak, looking for 600W at least.

Is it worth waiting for the new CPU's then? Wouldn't that mean that I'd have to spend more as well?

 -Either go for a GTX 660 Ti or the HD 7950, both have their pros & cons. Gigabyte's Windforce X2/X3 cards are quite silent and cool. You only need 3 GB VRAM if you plan on using more than 1 monitor.
- Should be the same cooler, just copy/pasted it's name from the hardware site I use to visit. Some cases aren't wide enough, so large coolers just don't fit. You can look up the measurements on the manufacturers' sites. Keep in mind the small space between the motherboard tray & the motherboard itself.
- If you go with an AMD card, you probably will need a stronger PSU. Just let a calculator estimate your rig, but keep in mind that PSUs get weaker with time: http://www.bequiet.com/de/psucalculator/expert

Intel didn't reveal performance improvements or prices for the models yet, but a 1150 Socket board will be more future proof if you ever plan to upgrade the CPU. I can't say if the Haswell ones are going to be much more expensive than the IvyBridges. An i5 3570K (IvyBridge, 2012) and an i5 2500K (SandyBridge, 2011) only differ slightly in price & performance, but that's nowadays and recently released hardware is usually a little more costly. DDR4 is another advantage for the newer generation. You'll still be good to go with an overclockable i5 K-model alongside a fitting motherboard.

I wonder what Determined is doing with his machine when he's that unsatisfied with 2 GTX 670s. Got the Intel Core i5 3570K and Gigabyte's GTX 660 Ti Windforce X2 myself and I can't complain at all. So far it ran every game maxed out with their native GFX options, unless I manually smash up all options (AF, AA, etc.) in the NVIDIA panel and fire up badly coded games like Metro 2033 or GTA IV.Other games like BF3 (~ 80-150 FPS) or Borderlands 2 (~ 60-120 FPS) run just fine. I'm not playing any recent and performance hungry titles like Crysis 3 or Metro Last Light, but that should be just fine as well. I'm using two 1080p monitors and don't use all the 2 GB VRAM at all. Overclocking is not even required yet, but for the lulz I've OC'd the CPU up to 4,7GHz and the GPU to 1250MHz with air cooling only and the temperatures were still okay. The voltages scared me a little. Water cooling would allow stable OCs with such clock speeds.

[Determined]

A lot of games seem to be especially poorly optimized for the 670, like Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Skyrim. I only have the nvidia AA set to 4x yet Skyrim constantly drops to 40 or so fps, same with Tomb Raider, and Far Cry is just a trainwreck. You'd think 2 670''s, an i7 & a 1000w psu should be enough to handle them without choking. Battlefield of course runs great with 100+fps, I've OC'd my cpu from 3.4 to 4, because Crysis 3 is incredibly unoptimized & mostly uses CPU instead of GPU, which makes having SLI pointless.
I guess I'm not unsatisfied it's just that the past 4 or so consecutive games I've bought have acted sub-par on my system, which has kind of lowered my view towards my rig.


Oh and Crysis 3 isn't even worth it, on top of its terrible performance it also is pretty terrible & extremely short, I beat it in 3 hours without even rushing through the game, rather I took very slow approaches & kept retrying everything stealth-ely, I'd recommend just downloading it, it is not worth anywhere near the 60 bucks +tax I paid for it.

[Genyus]

Alright, thanks a lot for the tips Rusch really appreciate it. I'll look into them tonight and then make up my mind and order this badboy.

[Cookie]

http://nl.hardware.info/productinfo/167189/evga-geforce-gtx-660-ftw-signature-2-3gb

I recently upgraded to this card. I haven't tried it out on many games but seems great for me so far. A lot quieter than my last card too.