Maximum PC

So, gentlemen of The Maximum PC forums, I have been here before and in a similar situation and the help I got from everyone was great! I'm back, looking to build a desktop, mainly for gaming but also some graphic design on the side, but I've been deployed for the last 5 months so my information is a little slow. I'd like some suggestions on the build I'm looking at, and if you have any reasons I should not use a component feel free to let me know. Also, any help with choosing somethings I haven't looked at yet would be good. I'd like to keep it in the 1000-1500 range, but I can go over if necessary. Mostly purchasing through NewEgg and Amazon. So, here's what I'm looking at so far.

MoBo:ASUS P8P67 DELUXE (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67
-At some point with this motherboard I want to run 2 graphics cards, not right away, but at a later date. Not really sure if it has room for 2.

Proc: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
Hmmm, looking at that, I probably don't need a quad core, but I see this suggested in a lot of the max pc's builds.

Monitor: Acer S231HLbid Black 23"
-As far as the monitor goes, doesn't really matter how it looks, I'm just mainly looking for one that's fairly thin, at some point I'd like to run more than one monitor on this rig, too.

Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC

Thinking about using a solid state drive for the boot drive and possibly another SSD for the games, but a 2TB mechanical drive for anything that isn't a game/the OS.

So far what I'm looking at, more to come.

This coming from someone who reads the forums but lacks actual experience. The only time I give advice is when it looks like no one else will. Since your post is 6 days old and no one has responed I will give it a shot.

To start with definetely dont want a P67 chipset. That is like 3 generation ago. For a SandyBridge you want Z68. But SandyBridge is previous generation. So I would consider an Ivy Bridge. Unless you just dont want to spend the money. If you go IvyBridge you want a Z77 chipset. As for the video card. I believe Nvidia's 680 have more power, so at the price of that Radeon 7970 I would look into it.

Here is what I would like to do. (been looking in the same budget range)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($32.12 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($84.99 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card ($399.00 @ NCIX US)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: OCZ 750W ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus VE208T 20.0" Monitor ($112.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech G400 Wired Optical Mouse ($39.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1385.01
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-06-10 21:27 EDT-0400)

I can gurantee some will have things to say about the power supply brand and SSD. But these were pretty popular on the forums a few months ago. You could consider an equivalant Corsair for the power supply. Something like this CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750M 750W. Both of the suggested are modular. You could save some money by not going modular. I do know you want 80 plus rated.Their be enough power their to give you the wattage needed to sli/crossfire if you want to. Which you may need to do if you plan to run dual moniters. I wouldnt think you would need to unless you plan to game or do graphic intense work on both moniters at the same time. One note about the cpu, if you don't want to overclock you may want to save money by dropping the K and the aftermarket cooler. Stock is fine with no overclock. Everything is on that list except a keyboard and I just heard that was a good mouse so I put it in for my build. Do what you want with.

So their is my 2 cents. Hope you find it useful and it points you where you want to go.

I like Bones list better so I'll rate that for you 8Bit hero so you can flesh out from there:

1. CPU Cooler - Even if you don't overclock I would not use the stock cooler. Reviews show CPUs topping at 50C on Idle and upwards of 80 to 90C on load. CPU cooler means idle at 30C and 40-50C on load. Big difference so stick with CPU cooler suggested and don't use stock....especially for a 1300 dollar rig, why cheap out and try and save $30 at the expense of hurting your components from heat.

2. PSU - Its fine but if you want to SLI the GPU at a later date i'd bump to a corsair and an 850Watt silver or gold series. Others might have a better idea but I like siding on the higher side, again $1300 dollar build so why cheap out on one of the most important parts of your computer.

3. Case - The case suggested has no USB 3.0 ports on the front.....find a new case that has USB 3.0 on the front. Style is a personal preference so i won't suggest one other than USB 3.0.

4. Monitor - that monitor is junk for the price. 1600x900 resolution? No way. You can get another Asus monitor at 1920x1080 for about $144, a mere $20-40 more. You will hate 1600x900 resolution so skip that monitor.

5. GPU - Bones is 100% right about the 670 being extremely close (5-10 FPS behind) if not the same (in certain benchmarks) to the 7970 but still $70 cheaper so get GTX 670. They even mark the 670 higher or comparable to the GTX680 so I'd skip that and stick with GTX670.

Not to offend Bones, just improving on your suggestions.

I take no offense. I dont mind getting critiqued. Thats why I ask questions here. The moniter I was mostly clueless as to what I was looking for. Just picked the cheapest with a good brand in the preferred size. Probably should have removed it from the list because of the lack of knowledge and research on the part. But now I know. The case seemed like a cheap decent case. USB 3.0 is not a big deal for me. That was the list I picked out for myself if I ever got the money to build. Thank you for correcting my mistakes and for telling me where I am right.

I had recently come across the 670, and especially once I read a little more about it, I'm foregoing the radeon for the gtx. Consider me sold on that one. And now that I've had more time to read up on the Ivy Bridge it looks like I'll be going to that, too. The only question for the ivy bridge is availability. Also is it possible to get the ivy bridge w/o integrated graphics? Or would there even be any benefit to that? I will be doing some mild overclocking, so gonna have to get a cooler, but i don't really want to spend that much on a cooler. Looks like I'm going to be upping the price range a bit with the ivy bridge then, it's unfortunate because they look to have gone up recently. Not sure if I want to drop the extra cash for the i7. But than I've also got to go Z77 for the ivy chipset? Alright, probably gonna take a bit more time to look for that, though I have heard good things about the ASrock board. And now that i think about it, since I'll be saving a bit on the gpu I should drop the extra on the i7, so it'll work out. Should I worry about aftermarket cooling for the gtx?

Aftermarket cooling on the GPU isn't exactly necessary, at least with the efficient design of Kepler.

I think Intel is basically integrating all of their CPUs with graphics. But there's really no benefit not including them other than lower TDP requirements and power consumption, but I think if the system detects you're using a discrete card, it'll shut that circuitry off anyway. And in fact, it doesn't even show up in Windows (at least in my system).

Alright, so as far as cooling goes I really only have to worry about one for the cpu, how about recommendations on monitors? What sort should I be looking at? I know Masterchi said I could get an asus for about 140$, is the 1920x1080 a decent resolution to game at?