[quote name='cgarb84']Well I just bought Windows 7 Professional on Amazon so I guess the first step has been taken. The retail version was somehow only $190 so I jumped on it, that's by far the cheapest I've ever seen it.
I have some build questions for you guys before I decide to order anymore parts. Here's what I am leaning towards so far:
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K ---- $220 on Newegg
MB: Any specific ones people recommend?
RAM: I want 8 gigs of something, I had Corsair Dominator DDR2 in my last machine and had 3 sticks fail on me in less than 4 years so IDK if I want to go there again.
GPU: Have a GTX 460 in my current build....maybe can use it again or buy another and SLI it?
HDD: I have 2 160 gig Raptors in RAID and a 1TB Storage drive in my current pc. I am thinking of getting a SSD, one big enough for my games (aka Steam) so minimum 240 gig? Any suggestions here? Or do I even need one?
Optical Drives/Inputs/Sound Setup/Tower/PSU: All good to go from my current build.
So in short I really just need a MB,CPU,RAM, and a SSD.
My goal is to keep it around $1000. If I have to get a new GPU obviously that will go up. Any and all help/input is appreciated.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the reasoning for the new build......Battlefield 3. That's what it needs to handle haha.[/QUOTE]
MB your choice to make is p67 or z68. z68 has slightly better xfire/sli performance, some bullshit with using a small ssd as a cache for your harddrive, and some video encoding that makes that shit fly except you can do it with better quality using a cpu anyway. The prices are getting closer every day so if you find a deal on a z68 mobo with the stuff you want for 160$-ish snag it. Motherboards are one of the few things I have a brand loyalty to so I'm biased here. I won't buy anything that isn't a Gigabyte if they offer a board comparable to one I'm looking at so keep that in mind with my suggestions.
The ud4 of gigabyte's z68 lineup is "the shit" as far as z68 boards go in my opinion:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...494&cm_re=z68_gigabyte-_-13-128-494-_-Product
Of course you can drop to the UD3 to save some dosh, heres the performance model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...493&cm_re=z68_gigabyte-_-13-128-493-_-Product
Any lower and I'd just get a p67.
The asrock p67 extreme4 is usually the one suggested to those considering a crossfire/sli option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...57229&cm_re=asrock_p67-_-13-157-229-_-Product