Rate the rig! (A last look before purchase)

[Travex]

Lmk if there are any changes you would make or other advice

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/1747/compy3.png (Updated 9/17)

[Seiz]

Looks like a beautiful gaming rig right there.
Looks very nice for that price!

My main concern when building mine was having right CPU, MOBO, Ram, and GPU and you look like you got all those parts covered plus a nice new monitor!

Look forward to seeing pictures of it posted when you get it built.

[glo]

Power supply is insane overkill. That rig would max out under absolute full load around 265w. -Heavily- overclocked, not over 400w.

[Deleted]

Some (short) comments:

• I'd ditch the Hyper 212 and get a better cooler from the get-go. Spending a few dollars extra, especially if you plan to play around with overclocking, will most likely be worth it. The 212 isn't a bad cooler though.
• Make sure it's the Low Profile RAM or you will have clearance issues.
• Get a Western Digital Caviar Blue/Black 1TB and a Samsung 830 128GB instead.
• Make sure it's the Gigabyte Windforce and not a reference cooler on the graphics card.
• Good case choice. Look into the Arc Midi for a more cooling oriented case. If you want a silent computer, I'd definitely look into a better CPU cooler (or rather, more silent fans).
• PSU is overkill by a huge margin. I'd suggest the Seasonic S12II 520W.
• Monitor is your average cheap TN-panel - don't expect any miracles. I personally would pay a bit more and get something like the Dell U2212HM; even if it's just 6-bit eIPS it still delivers a much nicer and more vivid picture than any TN-panel will.

[Travex]

Power supply is insane overkill. That rig would max out under absolute full load around 265w. -Heavily- overclocked, not over 400w.

O.o using heat calculators I got an estimate of 590 @ max. I figured with a modular PSub and estimating degradation over time 750 was a safe number. Where did you get 265 from?

Some (short) comments:

• I'd ditch the Hyper 212 and get a better cooler from the get-go. Spending a few dollars extra, especially if you plan to play around with overclocking, will most likely be worth it. The 212 isn't a bad cooler though.
• Make sure it's the Low Profile RAM or you will have clearance issues.
• Get a Western Digital Caviar Blue/Black 1TB and a Samsung 830 128GB instead.
• Good case choice. Look into the Arc Midi for a more cooling oriented case. If you want a silent computer, I'd definitely look into a better CPU cooler (or rather, more silent fans).

What coolers might you recommend?
I was under the assumption given the research and compatibility filters used while building this that the high profile Vengeance would fit fine, this is incorrect??
What are the reasons for switching the SSD/HD?
What are some fan brands/models per size you recommend?

Thanks all for your input thus far, keep it coming

[Milkshake86]

Some (short) comments:

• I'd ditch the Hyper 212 and get a better cooler from the get-go. Spending a few dollars extra, especially if you plan to play around with overclocking, will most likely be worth it. The 212 isn't a bad cooler though.
• Make sure it's the Low Profile RAM or you will have clearance issues.
• Get a Western Digital Caviar Blue/Black 1TB and a Samsung 830 128GB instead.
• Make sure it's the Gigabyte Windforce and not a reference cooler on the graphics card.
• Good case choice. Look into the Arc Midi for a more cooling oriented case. If you want a silent computer, I'd definitely look into a better CPU cooler (or rather, more silent fans).
• PSU is overkill by a huge margin. I'd suggest the Seasonic S12II 520W.
• Monitor is your average cheap TN-panel - don't expect any miracles. I personally would pay a bit more and get something like the Dell U2212HM; even if it's just 6-bit eIPS it still delivers a much nicer and more vivid picture than any TN-panel will.

212 should fit A2 B2 w/o a problem w/ a single fan, I had to remove a fan to fit my A70 and A1 B1, but the 212 is a bit smaller and Corsair Vengeance non lp's arent actually that tall.

[Kimpan]

You can never get to much power.

Don't lissen to the people, if you have the cash = buy a better power supply. Makes everything run better.

[dogman]

better power supply doesn't equal more wattage

[DeltrusDisc]

Marest's reasoning for the SSD/HDD switch is likely the following:

OCZ is really losing a lot of faith from customers, especially after how they handled the SSD fiasco last year. Samsung 830/Crucial m4 are the highest in reliability with strongest support SSDs out there, period.
Seagate Barracudas have a knack for failing, Seagate just is lower-end. My Western Digital HDDs are all fault free, my Seagate? It has faults. You don't want a faulty HDD, trust me.

[Milkshake86]

Marest's reasoning for the SSD/HDD switch is likely the following:

OCZ is really losing a lot of faith from customers, especially after how they handled the SSD fiasco last year. Samsung 830/Crucial m4 are the highest in reliability with strongest support SSDs out there, period.
Seagate Barracudas have a knack for failing, Seagate just is lower-end. My Western Digital HDDs are all fault free, my Seagate? It has faults. You don't want a faulty HDD, trust me.

seagate barracudas of a specific batch gave them a bad name just like a bad dose of sandforce gave OCZ a bad name for having it first. Other OCZ products have better warranties than most and as good or better reliability as others. Its really just a bad publicity none of the companies are truly different in motto.

[DeltrusDisc]

I've heard more negative things about Seagate in general that lead me to believe they create less than top notch quality HDDs, so I'll stand by my initial statement.

OCZ was not first with SandForce, they were there, having the same issues as Corsair, except Corsair on the other hand, did a recall, took the hit, and admitted that something was wrong. When you try and say that what customers' are obviously experiencing is a fabrication of the customer's, that's BAD.... GG on being nearly as successful as your competitors in the near future.

[Deleted]

You can never get to much power.

Don't lissen to the people, if you have the cash = buy a better power supply. Makes everything run better.

With that logic, one should get a 1500W PSU for basically any build.

In short:
Buy a PSU that has the correct wattage for your system and some headroom, good ripple and noise control and good efficiency. If a 500W and a 800W PSU are both $60, you can bet on that the 800W has much worse noise control and/or efficiency or just generally worse build quality.

[glo]

Seagate has more issues than just a bad batch of drives. Their entire philosophy on drive reliability is horrid. Just ook at how they handle S.M.A.R.T reports. They design their drives around the fact that it's OK to have a large number of reallocated sectors and raw read errors. They don't even trip their own S.M.A.R.T thresholds until said numbers are waaaaay above what they should be.

Try to send one back after you notice a couple bad sectors or other errors? Not gonna happen since it's passing its own rigged S.M.A.R.T diagnostics.

[Travex]

I updated the OP and build to reflect recent modifications based on input thus far. The new specs are @ http://imageshack.us/a/img59/1747/compy3.png

As per the graphics card suggestion, I was unable to find the specific model that wsuggested, are there any other reccommended models?

I swapped to the Arc Midi, but you suggested getting different fans, so would that just involve replacing the stock fans on the case? - and if so, to what?

I really don't know a whole lot about Monitors, but the Asus is 2ms response with 300 candela/m^2 count which seem like proper specs, but it isn't LED or IPS, neither of which I am terribly familiar with. The monitor that was suggested is almost 60$ more expensive. Could the reasoning for chosing the Dell U2212HM be explained a bit so I understand the differences?

[Skarsguard]

I would probably get a HD 7850 I don't think your going to see much difference between the 7870 and a 7850 on 1080p that saves you 50 bucks.
Also if you wanted to save some more on money I don't think you really need a 110$ tower something like a Bitfenix shinobi or a NZXT 210 is fine and has plenty of room. Another suggestion would be an antec 300.

---------- Post added 2012-09-17 at 12:19 PM ----------

Marest's reasoning for the SSD/HDD switch is likely the following:

OCZ is really losing a lot of faith from customers, especially after how they handled the SSD fiasco last year. Samsung 830/Crucial m4 are the highest in reliability with strongest support SSDs out there, period.
Seagate Barracudas have a knack for failing, Seagate just is lower-end. My Western Digital HDDs are all fault free, my Seagate? It has faults. You don't want a faulty HDD, trust me.

The Intel 520 is just as reliable as the M4 and 830 also the new filmware helps out the Vertex 4's. I haven't had any problems with my vertex4 and it's a a bit faster (in SSD terms) then my wife's M4 and our build setup is the exact same except our towers and SSD drives (both 120's gig model). My computer boots up in 3 secs hers boots up in 5-6 secs and loading times are usually 1-2 secs faster in games I'll take that over the M4 I can't compare it to the 830 but I hear it is pretty quick as well.

[DeltrusDisc]

Point is, OCZ hasn't exactly proven why people should trust them for anything.

[Skarsguard]

Point is, OCZ hasn't exactly proven why people should trust them for anything.

5 year warranty should prove the trust and mine is till going so I'm happy about it.

[DeltrusDisc]

5 year warranty should prove the trust and mine is till going so I'm happy about it.

A. Vertex 4 is DAMNED NEW. Come back in a year and a few months when it's been really put to the test, and maybe after a few Windows reinstalls and firmware updates.

Then we can discuss how it really compares.

[Mitobunny]

Might want to change the mobo up to an extreme 4 if you can:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2249923

Not too big of a deal, the motherboard is still good but I find the motherboard to be important because you can always upgrade the other parts but buying a new mobo is not only a pain in the arse but you also have to deal with OS install issues and such.