Greetings,

Yeah I know I'm late for Skyrim(my old rig mobo got fried recently). So I decided to build a new rig instead of changing the mobo(It was 4 years old rig, so I think it's time to change). I visited newegg for some goodies, and here is my new rig specs:

1. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103913 Will be overclocked to 4.0GHz
2. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102918 x2 Crossfired Better than Radeon 6990 x1?
3. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157267
4. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314 If I got some money left, I will buy 2 of these
5. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160. Not really sure about this. If anyone have any recommendation for case that can fit in these rig, then post it
6. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136792. Yeah I'll wait till Thailand floods settled down and the price will come down a little
7. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171056
8. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099. Or maybe Hyper 212 PLUS? Or Corsair H50 Liquid CPU Cooler?
9. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054 x2 Do I really need this
10.VGA Cooler?
11.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271003
12.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052
13.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118049

What about SSD? Is it worth buying? If yes, what are some good SSD brand? Gaming Keyboards, Mice, Headsets?

Note that I just picked up these stuffs based on Newegg rating, So if you got better recommendation, then post it.

Also I'm always a fan of AMD+Radeon combos, But that doesn't mean NVidia+Intel combos is not considered(it's just that I'm not familiar with them. So if you got any Nvidia+Intel combos to recommend, then please post it.

Thank you for your time and Happy Skiing....I mean Happy Skyrim .

P.S: I don't know where should I post this. So feel free to move it to its appropriate place

I just ordered parts for a new computer myself. Most of my parts are different, but some are similar or exactly the same.

I went with the http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=haf+x&x=0&y=0 tower over 932, and the Newegg blue exclusive version at that. It comes with dust covers and is large enough to fit anything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLFbjR97moM it's indeed large enough to fit larger future motherboards.

I ordered the Hyper 212 EVO over the Corsair H50, which I was originally considering. I will eventually install a good liquid cooling system, but I didn't want to use the stock heatsink and the EVO is so cheap I couldn't pass it up. I don't know how they compare to each other in performance though, so either one is a good choice I think.

Can't help you on the PSU. I ordered a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010 as it was recommended to me elsewhere and verified here to be a good choice. Maybe someone else can say which might be better and why?

I ordered Ripjaw X memory and not Ripjaw. I don't fully understand the difference between the two, I only know that the X was recommended. There's so many options though. (EDIT: Ok apparently X is optimized for Intel builds http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/285519-30-ripjaw-series)

As for Radeon vs Nvidia, after a lot of research I went with Nvidia. The Radeons are good cards (my current comp is AMD + Radeon) but there seems to be constant driver issues, and the Nvidia GTX 570 outperforms the Radeon 6970 in most game benchmarks. Neither are the top-end cards but both are practically the same price. I went with this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130687&Tpk=evga%20gtx%20570%202560mb. It costs a little more but it has the same 2g as the 6970, which is twice as much as a regular GTX 570. I don't think you can go wrong with either choice, but be aware of driver issues.

GTX 570 2560MB is 320 bit with overall better benchmarks, Radeon 6970 2GB is 256 bit with overall worse benchmarks and driver issues. That's what did it for me.

Case fans always help. The HAFs come with 4 I think and you can add more, and more is always good. Just make sure you're buying the right size.

You know what, I'll just link my thread and you can see what I went with if you want to compare. My final choices are at the bottom of page 1.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1265786-building-i7-2600k2700k-system/

And yeah the floods svck. I'm only doing a 1 TB HDD for now. I was going to get a small SSD for the new caching feature of the Z68 motherboards, but I'm hearing some disturbing reports of unrecoverable systems after a crash from playing a game or whatnot. I'm holding off on it for now.

I'd go intel personally. 2500k @ 4ghz+, Nvidia GTX570 and you don't need a 1000w psu unless you are planning to sli. 550 is ample.
Get a Gold rated one to save power and run cooler.

If you're going for gaming, a hexa-core is pointless. ESPECIALLY if Skyrim is your first game of choice. While the PC specs claim you'll want a quad-core for better results, benchmarks have shown that the game makes effectively no use of anything beyond 2 cores. You'd be better off taking a Phenom II X4 965 and saving some money, while maintaining a likely higher level of OC room. In the other direction, there's a LOT of people behind the Core i5 2500K.

Even with a pair of 6970s, I doubt that a 1000w unit is actually necessary. That's more reserved for quad-GPU setups.


What I'm seeing suggests the 6970 generally holds a slight lead over the 570... (I.e, it generally goes 590 > 6990 > 580 > 6970 > 570 > 6950 > etc.) And no evidence of driver issues, really... Minus the lack of Crossfire support in Skryim at the moment, that is. But since TES 5's so very un-demanding of the GPU, even a single card of that level is complete overkill.

Case: You'd be much better of with the HAF X over the 932, I've had both and for the extra money the X is a much better value.

PSU: Even a 750W is enough for 570's in SLI with some power to spare, you shouldn't need to go all out with 1000W's or more unless you're looking to future proof. I'm using the Pro Series Gold AX1200 and I can say it's VERY efficient. Same goes for anything by Corsair.

GPU: I'd recommend Nvidia here, AMD drivers aren't very reliable and Catalyst is an absolutely awful program. You'll save a few bucks on a Radeon but the performance difference is negligible.

CPU: If you're looking for the best value gaming CPU out there right now, go with a i5 2500k. Sandy Bridge blows anything that AMD has put out of the water, it'll last you and it's a very solid overclocker.

1. Unless you have some obsession with AMD, go Intel, everything I've read says Intel blows AMD away.
2. Yes, crossfire would be better, the 6990 (like the GTX 590) is two mediocre GPUs fit onto one card. But I would suggest going for Nvidia (2 GTX 570s).
3. The board you go for depends on the socket, I don't know about AMD boards, but if you go for a sandy bridge chip, then I'd suggest an EVGA p67 board.
4. Ram seems fine, kinda slow and not that much given what you're spending on the rest of the system though.
5. Case is all personal taste, as far as functionality the 932 and HAF X are amazing cases and very easy to work with.
6. Consider 2x 1TB drives in raid 0.
7. While people suggest that you could do fine with much lower wattage PSU, I wouldn't. I personally don't like using near 100% of the PSU all the time, and having a high wattage PSU running at lower % capacity means its running cooler, which is always good.
8. Hyper 212 plus is a great cooler, the CPU specific liquid cooling set ups don't seem to be much better than higher end air cooling, and the noise they make is annoying to me.
9. I doubt it, the fans on the HAF X and 932 are pretty good.
10. No need, just set the stock fan speed manually, auto is garbage.
11. Hope you actually have a 7.1 system.
12. Monitors are also personal preference, I've heard that one is good though.
13. Make sure you avoid Blu-Ray burners, terribly unreliable right now.

I personally think SSDs are a colossal waste of money. No faster than what you can accomplish with a raid setup, which will be MUCH cheaper and give you much more room. If reliability is a concern you can use RAID 10 (or 01), most mobos have support for it.

Edit: Clarification for choosing Nvidia. The drivers for Nvidia are much better, the config is much easier to work with. Also, since games are moving towards DX11 Nvidia comes out ahead as it handles tessellation far better than Radeon cards.

Intel i5's are where its at. More cores is totally useless tbh. Unless you do a lot of video editing or compile a lot of C.
I don't recommend Ati. Hardware may be better value for money but their drivers are terrible and nobody develops for them. Its all about Nvidia.
SSD's are great. The Agility 3 on a SATA III port is win sauce and cheap as chips.
2TB hdd raid? What for? Do you have 2Tb of smutt??
1 Samsung f3 1TB disk on a SATA II channel for dumping fraps and storing movies and stuffs is plenty.