Building a computer: please evaluate my choice of components

[Beryl]

Well, I finally got some decent money and I am about to get me a mid-range gaming rig. Thing is, I have absolutely no idea about contemporary hardware (my latest computer is a Celeron 1.75 Ghz, and amazingly enough it still works ). So I picked some components pretty much at random (mostly based upon various reviews and computer-building guides) to fit my budget. I'll have it custom-built by the retailer, since I am clumsy enough to chip the core, drop the HDD or reverse the polarity of some connector or other.

I'd like you guys to look at my list and evaluate my choices - call the awkward ones, suggest possible alternatives if you will. Here's the list:

Motherboard: ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 - Intel Z77 (reviewers praise the added cooling and the stability, reportedly it is excellent for non-stop running computers as well)
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K (people generally say 3770 is not worth the price just for gaming)
CPU heatsink: Noctua NH-D14 - or - Be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 (slightly inclined towards the latter)
Graphics: MSI N660Ti PE 2GD5/OC - or - GIGABYTE GTX 660 Ti OC 2GB - or - GIGABYTE HD 7970 OC 3GB (The last one seems quite powerful, I am not really sure about getting an ATI though)
RAM: 2x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 XMP

SSD: Crucial m4 - 128GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda Green - 1TB (not really sure about this... they recommended it for being silent and long-lasting, but apparently it also has a rather high failure rate) + Scythe SCH-1000 Himuro Hard Disk Cooler

Case: Fractal DEFINE R4 Arctic White (Because it is sound-proofed. Eh, who am I kidding... I just want it, alright? )
Power: Enermax MODU82+ II 625W (will hopefully have some overhead for future upgrades)
Fans: 1x Arctic Fan F14 PWM for the second front slot, 4x Arctic Fan F12 PWM for the rest (cheap and adequate, I guess)

What do you say - will it fly? And what output should I expect from it? Will it last me some years without necessitating an upgrade? Is there anything to make it better, in the same or similar price range?
Looking forward to any suggestions!

[Imperatrix]

id suggest going a little higher on the power supply 850~ as far as processor goes you only need a K if u plan on overclocking generally Noctua is nice but remember its tall and can be very annoying with ram modules i recommend the H100 and a mid/full tower case ( pref a full tower )

[yurano]

Do you really need the hard drive cooler and all those case fans?

[vindicatorx]

Well I built a new PC 3 weeks ago using the same CPU, SSD, and HDD. I got the cheaper ASUS p877 Mobo cause the sabertooth is overkill. The CPU is awesome and so is the SSD. I'm guessing the case is purely cosetic I went with a Corsair linked here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Carb...7082839&sr=1-1
and I must say it's really nice loved all the cable management abilities. The only thing I think you are being cheap on is the gfx card both of those brands are crap in my opinion. I usually stick with XFX for the double lifetime warranty that and I have used them for years and never had one go bad. Not sure about ATI? I have only had good experiences with their products as well so I don't know why you would have doubts.

You should also have mentioned what expectations you have for it since this is pretty overkill for just wow.

[Beryl]

id suggest going a little higher on the power supply 850~ as far as processor goes you only need a K if u plan on overclocking generally Noctua is nice but remember its tall and can be very annoying with ram modules i recommend the H100 and a mid/full tower case ( pref a full tower )

Awesome idea - H100 actually looks pretty interesting and not all that much pricier than Noctua, I'll take it in consideration. Maybe it could fit in Define if I remove the lower HDD tray, too.

Do you really need the hard drive cooler and all those case fans?

I don't really know. I'm probably being a bit paranoid about heat, having no experience with current hardware temperatures. I wanted the HDD cooler mainly to silence it, but I assumed that HDD cooling should have some impact on the general life expectancy as well.

...http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Carb...7082839&sr=1-1...

That's actually pretty nice case. May I ask about noise levels under full load? Is it quiet, or on the noisy side?

The only thing I think you are being cheap on is the gfx card both of those brands are crap in my opinion. I usually stick with XFX for the double lifetime warranty that and I have used them for years and never had one go bad. Not sure about ATI? I have only had good experiences with their products as well so I don't know why you would have doubts.

XFX doesn't seem to be available in my region, sadly. My retailer gives 3 years warranty on graphics, which is not much, but it is still better than usual. I'm pretty much stuck with MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, Gainward and EVGA, though.
About ATI vs. Nvidia - I am familiar with several older Nvidia models (running a NX7600GT by MSI to this very day), but ATI is a completely new thing for me.

You should also have mentioned what expectations you have for it since this is pretty overkill for just wow.

What I hope for is a computer that won't require upgrades during next 3-5 years. It should run current games with decent framerate, and play HD video. Running WOW on high details will be merely a welcome bonus.

[vindicatorx]

That's actually pretty nice case. May I ask about noise levels under full load? Is it quiet, or on the noisy side?

XFX doesn't seem to be available in my region, sadly. My retailer gives 3 years warranty on graphics, which is not much, but it is still better than usual. I'm pretty much stuck with MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, Gainward and EVGA, though.
About ATI vs. Nvidia - I am familiar with several older Nvidia models (running a NX7600GT by MSI to this very day), but ATI is a completely new thing for me.

What I hope for is a computer that won't require upgrades during next 3-5 years. It should run current games with decent framerate, and play HD video. Running WOW on high details will be merely a welcome bonus.

The case is dead silent Corsair really impressed me with their cases these are the first 2 I had ever used. I went with that very same Noctua heatsink as well. If XFX isn't readily available I would go with ASUS then. I was looking for some benchmarks for the video cards for you here is one for the 7970 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...mark,3232.html
all of these cards will play anything current at top specs I actually went with the 7850 DD found here http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Grafikka...sr=1-1-catcorr
and it gets awesome FPS for a lot less it is rated as one of Tom's hardware best buys for the price and you can look at the benchmarks http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rk,3148-6.html
your build looks pretty solid to me you should be ok for a while.

[HockeyPulver]

Okay, where shall I begin...

Judging by your post, you are not going for beast clocks so the Sabertooth motherboard is MASSIVE overkill. I suggest getting an AsRock Z77 Extreme4. It has more features than you'll ever need and it's relatively cheap. You could also get AsRock Z77 Pro3 but many people have reported that it may break down if you have 4GHz+ OC running 24/7. Also if you don't want AsRock (can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want one), buy Asus mobo from similar price range as the Extreme4. FYI AsRock mobos have the best integrated sounds on the market (excluding very high end mobos).

AsRock Extreme4: 110£
AsROck Pro3: 72£

The 3570K CPU is great. It's basically the one and only option at the moment for gaming use.

You will hit the temperature wall with 3570K around 4,5GHz give or take few hundred MHz so the best choice of cooling would be a Thermalright HR-02 Macho. It has more than sufficient cooling for 4,5GHz clocks and neither of aforementioned coolers will get you any further because the temperature will get exponentially higher at a certain point after which you'd need a full loop water cooling to get higher. Also, the Macho is very cheap.

Thermalright HR-02 Macho: 35£

As for the GPU, I wouldn't buy a 660ti at the moment due to its low price/performance ratio. I'd strongly advice to go with a GTX 670. More specifically the Palit card since it's on sale for 300£, or if you don't like Palit (again no reason to)/the sale ends/some silly reason not to buy Palit, get one from Gigabyte. If someone is wondering why not get the Asus DCUII, it's a great cooling solution, however it is inferior compared to Gigabyte when it comes to GTX 670. In my opinion just take the Palit GTX 670. You lose practically nothing compared to Gigabyte and you save a lot of money.

Palit GTX 670: 300£
Gigabyte GTX 670: 348£

There is absolutely no reason to buy more than 8Gb RAM for gaming. NONE. You will NEVER run out of it unless you do HEAVY 3D rendering and have 700 Chrome tabs open at the same time. If for some reason in the future you will need more than 8Gb, which is highly unlikely, you can simply buy more. Also RAM is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, so if you do buy more later, it's cheaper! The speed of the RAM (1333/1600/1866) has no practical differences whatsoever so go for the cheapest 1333 you can find (or cheapest 1600 if it costs like 2£ more).

Get a Samsung 830 series 128Gb for an SSD. It's more than reliable, and very, very fast. As for the HDD, get WD Caviar blue or black. Green is slow and unreliable, blue is much faster and almost silent, black is even faster but some people think it's kinda noisy. And the HDD cooler... WTF I don't even... Unless you are going to heat up your HDD with a gas torch, you most certainly won't need rip-off stuff like that. IIRC HDD temperatures will decrease life expectancy when you go over something like 50 degrees celsius, which you will never reach with this setup.

Samsung 830 SSD: 78£
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB: 65£
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB: 73£

Fractal Define R4 is an amazing case. You will not be dissapointed. I have R3 and I love it (R4 is even better).

PSU is "ok" but I suggest getting a SuperFlower PSU. They are silent, efficient and reliable plus they are able to provide +100W with one step lesser efficiency (e.g. 550W Gold -> 650W Silver). I highly recommend Golden King Modular 80plus Platinum 550W. While expensive, it has simply amazing efficiency (platinum), way more power than you will ever need for overclocked 3570K and single GTX 670 and it's modular. Lower wattage would have been OK too but seems like Amazon doesn't have that much SuperFlowers. No offence but the guys suggesting stuff like 850W power supplies have no f**king idea what they are talking about. Seriously. I used eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite (google it if you wish to use it) to calculate this setup and the result was under 400W (CPU overclocked). And before anyone says otherwise, components are only going to use less power in the future.

Golden King Modular 80plus Platinum 550W: 136£

The fans are great, you can chain up to 5 of them with Arctic's PWM Sharing Technology (PST). However, the R4 has slots for 140mm fans everywhere so there is no point buying 120mm models. Get 4x F14 and put them as follows: fans provided with the case to the front (intake) and plug them to the case's integrated fan controller, F14's to bottom (intake), rear (exhaust) and 2 to the roof (exhaust). Basically you could use the PST to plug all four F14's to one 4-pin socket at the motherboard and use SpeedFan (just google SpeedFan) to control them all at once for simplicity. That should provide you with amazing case air flow. Before you ask, the side fan is kind of redundant. It just messes with the case airflow and you should only use it of you get SLI/CrossFire which I do not recommend.

It will easily last many years without any need to turn down the settings and many years after that by turning down some of the settings.

So I guess thats all you need. Please ask if you have any more questions. I have experience from most of these parts, nothing negative to say. The prices are from Amazon. Just noticed that I spent around two hours to write this so I really hope it helps

PS. Unfortunately, I can't post any links yet.

EDIT: Read the first post 7th time and forgot that you are not buying it from Amazon so the GPU sale is redundant. If you are going to play new games with candy graphics I would still recommend the GTX 670 and if thats too much, go for Radeon HD 7950/7870 and if you are only going to play WoW, Radeon HD 7850 is enough. Basically you could play WoW with integrated graphics without a very big impact on framerate, since WoW is so CPU heavy and not GPU heavy at all.