First time ground up build

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Ithar

New Member
This will be my first ground up build, looking for any advice or insight that may be useful. I have done a good bit of research into components, and have chosen these based on my budget and what i want it to do. I am not 100% set on any given component by any means, so any advice or input on altering this setup would be welcome, thank you all for your time. My component list so far:
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced(Have heard good things and like the industrial look, but am open to suggestions)

PSU: OCZ ZT series 750W Fully-Modular 80PLUS Bronze(I'm fairly commited to modular PSU, but am open to suggestions about size/brand/model)

Mobo: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 (mobo decision based mainly on reviews and pcie 3.0 support for future upgrades)

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500k Sandy Bridge 3.3Ghz(3.7Ghz Turbo Boost)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB(4x4) 1600 DDR3 CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9

HDD: Seagate Barracude ST500DM002 500GB 7200rpm 16MB cache

Video Card: EVGA 01G-P3 1561-KR GeForce GTX 560Ti(pretty set on nvidia based on prior experience with them, but again am open to suggestions)

Optical Drive: Samsung Black BD-ROM SH-B123L/RSBP

Again thank you all for your time.
 
7angofragger

7angofragger

New Member
Everything looks good for a budget build :)

Biggest thing to just make sure, It's always good to have an 80Plus certified PSU (which that one is), and make sure that the memory is in the QVL for the motherboard. Given, most of the time you wont have a problem, but It's just a little bet peeve of mine.

And this is purely my opinion, I prefer a Gigabyte motherboard over ASUS, unless you are getting ASUS' top of the line (such as the Rampage IV Extreme). But thats just preference. I feel Gigabytes midclass boards are a bit better then ASUS'.

If you can swing it, try to get a hard drive with 32MB cache. (but platter drives are expensive ATM because of the Taiwan crisis)
 
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Ithar

New Member
Thank you for the advice as far as a Gigabyte board goes, I will definitely look into that. And as for the HDD, I have considered going with an ssd, and have also considered getting a better mechanical hard drive. The reason I chose the one I did is because I intend on replacing it with a 300-500gb ssd in the future but it's currently prohibitively expensive. That's also the reason I don't want to invest more in a better mechanical hard drive just to replace it in a few months, and I don't store enough media on my pc to necessitate large amounts of storage, so multiple drives didn't seem to be worth it to me. Unless you think the Seagate drive I posted will be a major bottle neck in my performance I will probably just stick with that. Any thoughts?

On another note, someone elsewhere suggested posting my budget for this build so that others could better recommend parts. I have roughly priced everything to $1200 from newegg, and would like to stick close to that, that number obviously includes no OS or peripherals.
 
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claptonman

claptonman

New Member
Any reason for modular? With the HAF 932, there's plenty of room behind it with the cable management to store all your cables. I much rather have them all behind and ready to go than to go digging through drawers and whatnot just to find that certain cable.

And I do agree with the 8GB of RAM instead.
 
I

Ithar

New Member
claptonman said:
Any reason for modular? With the HAF 932, there's plenty of room behind it with the cable management to store all your cables. I much rather have them all behind and ready to go than to go digging through drawers and whatnot just to find that certain cable.

And I do agree with the 8GB of RAM instead.
Click to expand...

I just like the idea of modular, gives the ability to route one wire at a time and have the bundle out of the way, I do however see your point in that you will never be without the right connector if they are all in the case already. As for the RAM, I went with it because I figured I would really never have to touch it again if I went with 16gb, and the whole set is $85, small amount in the scheme of things.
 
claptonman

claptonman

New Member
Ithar said:
I just like the idea of modular, gives the ability to route one wire at a time and have the bundle out of the way, I do however see your point in that you will never be without the right connector if they are all in the case already. As for the RAM, I went with it because I figured I would really never have to touch it again if I went with 16gb, and the whole set is $85, small amount in the scheme of things.
Click to expand...

Well, see, that's the thing. The cables won't technically be in your case. Cable management is where they all route through the back and you route them to the front. Here's some pics to help you understand:

Front
24bc279f_vbattach112533.jpeg


Back
017-1.jpg


Then a panel attaches to the outside and hides all your cables. A modular PSU is kind of pointless if you have enough space in back to store all your cables, in my opinion.

And really, $40 will get you 8GB of fast RAM, and by the time you'll need more than 8GB of RAM, the rest of your system will need updating.
 
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