How is this set-up?

[Lichkang]

Hello everybody! I'm fairly new to the tech community...well, I'm not very technical at all, but after cruising through new egg, multiple hardware websites, and the forums, I think I have found a suitable build for my price range. (Around $850 US) and I'd like all of your opinions on them.

CPU: Intel Core i5-760 2.8GHz LGA1156 95W Quad-Core
Motherboard: ASRock P55 PRO/USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0
RAM: GeIL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SSC+ 1GB
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 620W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular
Case: COOLER MASTER CM690 II Advanced 2x 140mm 1 x 120mm
Cooling: Zalman CNPS10X Performa CPU Cooler

Thanks for reviewing this!

[vesseblah]

No obvious problems there (besides missing HDD and OS), and it will run WoW easily (even raids/busy cities) at high video settings. One easy change to save money would be picking up Cooler Master Hyper 212+ heatsink instead of the Zalman. It's slightly worse if you're pushing towards maximum overclocking, but costs whole lot less and will be totally fine for basic OC.

You might want to reconsider pushing shopping until Sandy Bridge boards are available again. Will get ~20% more speed and 2 years newer technology at same price.

[Lichkang]

Okay, great. Any idea when the Sandy Bridge boards will be available? I saw them on new-egg but I wasn't sure as I heard abotu the recall.
I really don't know how to overclock and have no plans to unless it will improve my performance greatly.

[nwo]

Okay, great. Any idea when the Sandy Bridge boards will be available? I saw them on new-egg but I wasn't sure as I heard abotu the recall.
I really don't know how to overclock and have no plans to unless it will improve my performance greatly.

New motherboards should be on sale in a couple of weeks. CPUs are back up for sale again, but it was never a CPU issue to begin with. It's definitely worth waiting a couple of weeks because Sandy bridge CPUs are roughly 15-20% faster at the same clock speed, and they can OC much higher than the first generation (higher base clock speed of 3.3GHz helps too).

[vesseblah]

Okay, great. Any idea when the Sandy Bridge boards will be available? I saw them on new-egg but I wasn't sure as I heard abotu the recall.
I really don't know how to overclock and have no plans to unless it will improve my performance greatly.

You can see around 30% speed increase overclocking both i5-760 and the new i5-2500K, so it's pretty big jump for free. Availability is total mystery at the moment, but rumors say anything between last week and end of April.

If you aren't gonna overclock, you will not need to buy any processor heatsink/fan, because one will come with the CPU unless you buy special fanless version.

[Lichkang]

Seems that I should look into overclocking then, since 30% is a quite large increase.
And that also means I have about a month or so to wait if I want to purchase the motherboards. I'll look into purchasing a heat-sink/fan then because I do I have plans to overclock, in order to enhance my online gaming experiences.
Are the motherboards really worth it though? My computer is pretty crappy, running around ~6fps in most combat situations and major cities..and most of the time, I'm in a combat situation or a major city.

[nwo]

Are the motherboards really worth it though?

What do you mean?

[Lichkang]

Worth the wait?

[nwo]

Worth the wait?

Yes, absolutely.

As already mentioned, you get much better performance without having to pay much more $$$. The CPU is the same price, the motherboards might be slightly more expensive than what you are looking to get right now (probably in the $10-40 range). Spending the extra few bucks in exchange for 20-30% better performance at stock speeds is a very good tradeoff.

In addition, the new motherboard will allow you to upgrade to a new CPU in a few years but with the first gen chipset motherboard you would have to replace the motherboard next time you upgrade your CPU.

[Jurwi]

Yes, absolutely.

As already mentioned, you get much better performance without having to pay much more $$$. The CPU is the same price, the motherboards might be slightly more expensive than what you are looking to get right now (probably in the $10-40 range). Spending the extra few bucks in exchange for 20-30% better performance at stock speeds is a very good tradeoff.

In addition, the new motherboard will allow you to upgrade to a new CPU in a few years but with the first gen chipset motherboard you would have to replace the motherboard next time you upgrade your CPU.

Knowing Intel there will be very little room to actually upgrade CPU with the same mobo(Think about 1366 socket and i7-920, there's not really any sensible upgrades), but none the less Sandy Bridge is well worth the wait.

[Lichkang]

I suppose this is the correct decision then...I am going to have to wait to late march or early april.
Thanks for your advice.