Building My First Computer (I bet you guys get a lot of these)

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So I’ve got about a grand (or two) to spend.

I’ve been glancing around at all the different options, and I’m completely inundated by the amount of hardware out there. I’m hoping you guys can help me select parts for an excellent gaming desktop.


Motherboard:
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131736

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103913

Video Card:
This one stumps me. There’s single, crossfire, and all these different options. Looks like I’m gonna be spending most of my money in this area. Have no clue what I want.

Memory:
I’m not exactly sure how many gigs of ram I want. I was thinking 12 gigs would be enough for right now. Are the cooling additions worth getting?

Hard Drive:
I’m debating on if I should make my main HD an SSD. Seems like a decent performance boost, and then I can use other hard drives for storage. What do you guys think?

Case:
No Clue. Was thinking of figuring out what I want after I get all the guts.

Thanks for your help guys. Hopefully it’ll be fun helping me pick out parts :)
 
What is your total budget?

Have crossfire means two video cards sharing the job of graphic processing. The rule of thumb is that one powerful card is better than two weak cards. That being said, getting two powerful cards is very powerful. But then there's heating and driver issues, but if you have a good case, that isn't a problem.

Go with 8GB of 1600 RAM. That is more than you need. If you need more later, just through another set of 8GB in there. I wouldn't bother with a cooling option unless you plan on overclocking.

A SSD and HDD is a great setup. I do it and will never go back to just one HDD.

For case, check out Corsair, Lian Li, and Coolermaster.

Look for a 650w (for one video cards) or 750w (For two video cards) power supply from Corsair, antec, silverstone, seasonic, pc power and cooling, or xfx.
 
What is your total budget?

Have crossfire means two video cards sharing the job of graphic processing. The rule of thumb is that one powerful card is better than two weak cards. That being said, getting two powerful cards is very powerful. But then there's heating and driver issues, but if you have a good case, that isn't a problem.

Go with 8GB of 1600 RAM. That is more than you need. If you need more later, just through another set of 8GB in there. I wouldn't bother with a cooling option unless you plan on overclocking.

A SSD and HDD is a great setup. I do it and will never go back to just one HDD.

For case, check out Corsair, Lian Li, and Coolermaster.

Look for a 650w (for one video cards) or 750w (For two video cards) power supply from Corsair, antec, silverstone, seasonic, pc power and cooling, or xfx.

I can go 2k, but I’d like to stay in the 1k - 2k range.

Should I be getting 2 4GB of 1600 Ram?

I doubt I’ll need to overlock with the current setup atm. Getting an aftermarket fan later down the road might be a good idea, but not necessary.

Thanks for the suggestion on the power supply.

Is there a website that you can input all your parts and see if it’s running efficiently?
 
I would go with an Intel 2500k, and a Z68 Chipset Motherboard, with a GTX 570 or a GTX 560Ti or an HD 6950, with a 550W PSU from Corsair/Antec/Silverstone/Seasonic.
8GB of DDR3 1600MHz of memory with some decent timings.
And 2 60GB SSDs in RAID 0 and 1 big HDD for your storage needs.
 
Intel is better, so if you have the money, which you do, then you can do Intel.

But I do agree, the only difference is gonna be with rendering/multitasking. For gaming you probably won't notice a difference.
 
that's why i had said if he'd like to save some several of those things are luxuries, mainly the 2600k, a single ssd is un-needed, and i put 2 so he could raid 0 them too, a 580 is way more than needed, the mobo can come down in price, stuff like that are just luxuries.
 
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