This is my first post so please be forgiving:
So I'm looking to get a new computer. I'm upgrading from a $300 Toshiba Laptop, so know that anything I get will be an upgrade. Also, I know there are differing opinions on IBuyPower but I find it the best way to get a general look at what I want to get. I will probably end up buying off of newegg and assembling myself.
The build itself:
1 x Case ( CoolerMaster HAF 922 Gaming Case - Black )
1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 950 Processor (4x 3.06GHz/8MB L3 Cache) )
1 x iBUYPOWER PowerDrive ( PowerDrive Level 2 - Up to 20% Overclocking )
1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1366] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )
1 x Memory ( 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1333 - ** FREE Upgrade to DDR3-1600 ** Corsair or Major Brand )
1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 - 1GB - ZOTAC AMP! - Core: 810MHz - Single Card )
1 x Motherboard ( [SLI] ASUS Sabertooth X58 )
1 x Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface )
1 x Power Supply ( 700 Watt -- Standard )
1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Dual 500GB Drives (1TB Capacity) - RAID 0 High Performance )
1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )
1 x Monitor ( 24" LED 1920x1080 -- ASUS VE248H )
1 x Speaker System ( iBUYPOWER 2.1 Channel Stereo Super Bass Subwoofer Speaker System )
1 x Wireless Network Adapter ( Zonet ZEW2545 802.11n 130Mbps Wireless USB Adapter )
Questions:
1) Case - I've heard a top-of-the-case fan slot is best for cooling the tower and this tower doesn't have one. Will this substantial hurt the cooling of the computer?
2) CPU - Opinions on the processor? Also, will this processor come with Hyper Threading enabled? I assume that I'm going to overclock it is a given.
3) Liquid cooling - Is it better? Does it work? Also, if I'm putting this together myself, is it hard to hookup?
4) 6G RAM 1600 - Will this bottleneck me? Also, what is the difference between 1333, 1600, and 2000 for ram? I'm not entirely sure what these numbers stand for and what perfomance related effects they will have.
5) The Video Card - I've read good reviews on the Zotac AMP (on Newegg) and it looks like a solid video card. However, should I upgrade to a 470+ or perhaps a 1.2g Videocard. I want to enjoy top end gaming with high FPS performance. Also, what is the Radeon equivalent and its' relative performance? I know NVidia is slightly lower on the performance end with better shading in general, but I'd not to keep "RADEON OR GTFO" or vice-versa out of this discussion. I just want the most bang for my buck, as it were.
6) Motherboard - I've heard the motherboard is the most quintessential part of a PC, any opinions and advice on this one?
7) Power Supply - Is this overkill, underkill, or killing just right? Also, if I wanted to upgrade my graphics card in the future, will I have to change out my power supply? Is it hard to change out the power supply also.
8) Hard drive - The space (500G) will NEVER be used up my me. Before this laptop I had a Toshiba from 2000 with 26g of space, and this current one I have has 70G of space and I've never come close to filling them. However, on a performance level, I want to go with a RAID 0 set up. How stable is this and what kind of perfomance increase is there over just a single 500G Hard drive. In terms of performance, I've heard that the 10,000 RPM hard drives are over priced, is this true? Also, what about a single 500G hard drive with a Solid State drive - Can this be used in RAID 0 with each other and what performance does this reap?
9) Sound Card - Does this affect anything? I've never had a problem with sound quality. Is there a reason to upgrade it?
10) Operating System - Does the level (E.G. Professional, Premium, Ultimate) carry over into any increased performance while playing games? Or, does upgrading your operating system convert to taxing your system to much and reducing your performance?
11) Monitor - Opinions? Suggestions? Newegg reviews seem to praise this fairly high. Do I need an HDMI cable for my graphics card to get 1080p quality? Also, does the graphics card support HD quality? What kind of cable to I need get?
Overall, I want a high performance gaming desktop that will not easily be outdated and will provide top-end gaming, graphic settings, and FPS.
I'm looking at a budget of around 1500-1700.
The IBuyPower standard setup around which I constructed this: Game Paladin F725 (Sorry about not being able to link yet)
Any other advice, opinions, and general ideas about my build are encouraged (especially if I missed something that needs pointing out)