My First Custom Build - Any Thoughts?

[dustinbanbury]

Hey everyone, first time poster here.

I will be the first to admit that I have absolutely NO experience whatsoever in building PCs. Actually, I have been a Mac user all my life (currently own a 3 ghz iMac G5 24") but recently I have wanted to have a dedicated PC for gaming. Not just for the vast selection available for PC, but because the same game is generally much cheaper on PC as opposed to Mac anyway and my Mac can't keep up with the newest games anymore.

So with that said, I have done some extensive researching on components and have gone through hundreds of reviews on Newegg and TigerDirect to find out what would best work for my system. My budget is around $1100 and this is including Windows 7 and a new monitor.

I want to be able to run current games like StarCraft, Civ 5, and future released Battlefield 3 and Diablo III at their max settings without a hiccup, yet I don't have the money to go all out on the best CPU and graphics card.

With those goals in mind, I came up with this setup:

1) CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K LGA 1155, $179.99
2) Motherboard: ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155, $159.99
3) Graphics Card: MSi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II GeForce GTX 560 Ti, $259.99 ($229.99 after rebate)
4) Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport Series 8GB DDR3-1333, $49.99
5) Hard Drive: Western Digital WD5000AAKX Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB, $47.99
6) Power Supply: EarthWatts Green Series 650 Watt ATX 12V, $69.99 ($59.99 after rebate)
7) DVD Drive: Asus 24x Internal DVD±RW SATA Writer, $29.99
8) Monitor: AOC e2243Fw 22" LED 1080p Monitor, $129.99
9) Computer Case: COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP, $69.99
10) Windows 7 Home Premium, $109.99

These prices are ALL from the local MicroCenter I have here in town. I prefer to use them since I don't have to pay shipping. When it's all said and done, everything with OS and Monitor comes out to be $1107.90 ($1067.90 after rebates).

How does this system look and will this setup fare well for modern games and games that will be released in the near future?

Also, I heard overclocking the i5 chip is ridiculously easy to do but that the stock fan does not suffice well for overclocking and it's recommended to get a separate cooling fan for the chip. Is this absolutely necessary and if so, does anyone have a recommendation for a fan that would work well with this case size? I've heard that the COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 works extremely well, but that it's size does not bode well for smaller cases.

I do apologize for my newbness but again, I'm completely clueless when it comes to this stuff and I want to make sure I have things right the first time. If anyone can offer assistance I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

[RickyTick]

Excellent setup. I think you'll find it plenty fast for running games on very high (or max) settings. There's no reason to even consider overclocking at this point. If you're fairly certain that you want to dabble in overclocking in the future, then go ahead and install the cpu cooler now while it's easy. The Hyper 212 is a great choice and very inexpensive.

The Western Digital Black hard drives are the higher performing drives, but the Blue is adequate too.

[dustinbanbury]

Hey thanks for the advice. Looks like the Hyper 212 is only about $30 so I might go ahead and invest in it and not worry about taking things apart later to install it. My only concern with it though is its size and if it's compatible with the Storm Scout case. Is there an easy way to figure out if this case is sizable enough to accommodate the Hyper 212, or is it more just try it and hope it works?

[ARchamps]

I just built my first customer build and my setup is pretty much the exact same as yours. I installed the Extreme 212 in my HAF 912 (which I believe is smaller than yours) and it fit perfectly fine. It still leaves room for a fan at the top. Hope that helps!

[dustinbanbury]

Thanks for the confirmation, ARchamps. Good to hear! On cooling, it looks like the case comes with a top, rear, and front fan included. There is an option to install two more fans on the sides. Would this setup require more cooling or will the case's stock fans suffice?

I guess maybe the last question I have is if 650 Watts works well for a setup like this. Seems like 500 Watts is the standard for gaming rigs but I didn't know if overclocking (which I may eventually do) affected power enough to warrant anything higher than 650 Watts, or if having three case fans and an internal fan for the CPU would affect this as well.

[ARchamps]

I'm not an expert but based on my limited research, 620W will be sufficent considering you don't plan to SLI. Again, take that with a grain of salt and let the experts chime in. If you want to see what what is sufficent, I found this helpful. You can enter your setup and it will estimate what you would need. http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp