Maximum PC

Alright so here it is. I just want to make sure....
1. That it's all compatible.
2. I'm not wasting money on something I don't need.
3. That there isn't something else that is way better and only a little bit more expensive.
4. Looking at the 800-1000 range for price. Maybe a tad more if it will make my PC that much better.
5. Want to make sure anything I buy isn't crappy.
Below are the links for everything I want to buy...

CPU: AMD FX-6300 $140

Motherboard: ASUS M5A99X $140

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series $50
-Might get more RAM but not sure

GPU: HIS Radeon HD 7850 $165

Hard Drive: WD Green 500GB $55

Disc Drive: LG Blu-ray Combo Drive $50

Case: Rosewill THOR V2 Full Tower $130

Power: Rosewill Lightning Series 1000W $170


Suggestions on changes are welcome and encouraged. I'm fairly educated with computers. Helped my friend build one but never did my own. I've been meaning too for a long time just never had the money. As far as the keyboard, mouse, and monitor go I don't have any to recycle into my build. Haven't looked into that part much. I wasn't sure on the power supply or the graphics card so I just did a little research and picked one. I would prefer HDMI outputs if possible and would eventually like to get another graphics card to "Crossfire" with my first one. I guess newegg is preferred but if its cheaper somewhere else including shipping then I would be willing to switch. Thank you in advance.

Well, I have a lot of changes that I would suggest although what I would suggest depends if you're an AMD fanboy or not. Currently, with a few limited exceptions, Intel beats out AMD in the price/performance wars by a pretty fair margin. With that being said I'm going to give some feedback on your build and some alternative builds:

CPU: Not a bad CPU really, but it does not hold up well against an Intel i5 at all. Do you happen to be near a Microcenter? They frequently have deals running on i5 2500k & i5 3570K processors that would really help on your budget for this build.

Motherboard: Decent motherboard with a decent feature set. If we go Intel this will obviously have to change.

RAM: If you plan on overclocking there is some Samsung RAM available for about the same price that works extremely well that I would typically recommend. The RipJaws also works fine though.

GPU: I'm partial to nVidia myself but AMD has been getting better and the 7870 is a very good bang for the buck card. Not sure if I would recommend the HIS as I prefer the Gigabyte WindForce and MSI Lightning cards although I think the Lighting would be out of your budget

Hard Drive: Well, you have to load your programs somewhere. But your budget has room for an SSD, I'm going to recommend one in both of my builds.

Disc Drive: I have one myself, works great for me

Case: That is one BIG tower, do you plan on putting in a full watercooling loop? Lots of folks don't realize just how big a full tower case is nowadays and most of the time you're typically going to be fine with a mid tower

Power Supply: Massive overkill in this section by far. Nothing listed in your build really draws that much power. For reference in order to actually need this much juice you're either running a quad SLi/CrossFire setup or a full watercooling loop with SLi/Crossfire

So, here are my alternate builds for both AMD and Intel:

AMD Build

CPU: AMD FX-6300 Link
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4 Link
RAM: G.Skill RipJaws 2x4GB DDR3-1600 Link
GPU: Gigabyte 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256 bit GDDR5 Link
SSD: Samsung 840 120GB SATA III Link
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Green Link
PSU: Corsair CX 600 Link
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium Grey Link

Total build cost (not including shipping/taxes): $897.92

Newegg link to list here: https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySa ... D=21580245

Intel Build

CPU: Intel i5 3570k Link
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme3 Link
RAM: G.Skill RipJaws 2x4GB DDR3-1600 Link
GPU: Gigabyte 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256 bit GDDR5 Link
SSD: Samsung 840 120GB SATA III Link
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Green Link
PSU: Corsair CX 600 Link
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium Grey Link

Total build cost (Not including shipping/taxes): $1,012.92

Newegg link to list here: https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySa ... D=21580305


I should note that if you have a Microcenter nearby you can purchase the motherboard and CPU for either build at a lower price than newegg.

Edit Just realized that I forgot to include an optical drive in both of my builds, silly me. Simply include the previously referenced blu ray drive from your build in both of mine and tack on $50.

For some reason I cannot access those links. It keeps telling me to log in or it says I have to wish lists.

That's odd, well I just set them as public again. Give me a few moments and I'll post individual links to parts as well.

ok thank you. i gotta ask why the i7 is more than an i5. I realize its newer but the GHz ratings are almost the same so why pay more?

Thank you so much. With that I will be going with an i5. Also another question I have is if you think 600watts really will be enough? I do plan on getting more RAM and possibly another GPU to crossfire later. Also I think im going with the THOR V2 anyway. I love the look of it and it just seems like a solid case. Also is a SSD necessary? What is the point of one of them? Does it improve computer performance by that much? Also decided on the Samsung RAM I think

I recommend against going Crossifire down the road. Either put it in now or upgrade to another single GPU solution should you need to down the road. Going SLi or CrossFire doesn't always increase performance and it introduces a whole host of potential issues. If you want to go with the Thor case that's fine I just recommended the R4 because it is an extremely solid and well built case. My next build in all likelihood will reside in an R4 or whatever the most recent equivalent Fractal Designs puts out at the time I build it.

In regards to your other questions however I'll address them point by point. 600 watts is more than enough juice to run the systems I've specced above. I'm running the same PSU in my system and if anything I'm drawing slightly more power. My system config for reference:

CPU: Intel i5 2500k @ 4.0Ghz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H
RAM: 16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis DDR3-1600
GPU: eVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti SC DS 1GB
SSD: OCZ Vertex Agility 3 120 GB
SSD: Crucial M4 128 GB
HDD: Seagate 7200.11 1TB
HDD: Seagate 7200.11 2TB
Optical: LG Super Multi Blue

The SSD is used to cut down the amount of time it takes to load programs. Yes it is a very noticeable difference between an SSD and a mechanical hard drive. My system starts from a cold boot and is at a completely loaded Windows 7 desktop in under 20 seconds. I wouldn't say it's necessary but I have zero plans on building any PC without a SSD from this point on. Heck I even upgraded my Core 2 Duo laptop from it's standard hard drive to an SSD and see a difference in how responsive it is.

So if I go with an SSD what do you recommend I store on there then? Also what about cooling for my CPU? Should i get something aftermarket?

I would go with your operating system and programs that you run on a frequent basis. It's hard to load a lot of games on these drives since you're only working with 120GB of space but I typically only load a few of my more frequently played games along with a few applications that I use on a regular basis onto my drives and I'm just fine. Typically you should be able to load the OS and around 5-6 games (more or less) plus your frequently used programs. It's not critical that games are loaded onto these drives since most games are just fine running off a mechanical hard drive but it makes a difference when doing things like launching your browser or media editing programs as well as use of those programs.

OK one more questions about cooling. Willt he THOR V2 have enough air flow and also do I need something aftermarket for cooling my CPU?

As long as you don't plan on overclocking your CPU then it should have plenty of airflow as would any other case. However if you plan on overclocking I would highly recommend upgrading from the stock cooler to something else. What that something else is depends on what kind of overclocking you would look to achieve. For most folks something like the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO should be just fine and is quite affordable.

OK thanks for all the help. Ill post here again if i have any more questions.

I found this very helpful as I am looking for a first build. Thanks for all the info OP and everyone who responded.

I think this case will work but im not positive. It says it supports motherboards up to 11 by 12 and graphics cards up to 11 inches. Its made by Apevia and has 5 fans. It is also a mid-tower

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144266

It'd work fine as I don't think the cards we've recommended go over that measurement and that's the size of most standard boards. However I'm not a big fan of the way it's laid out on the inside and there seems to be a lack of cable management options. In that price bracket I'd recommend one of the following instead:

Fractal Design Core 3000 - $69.99
Antec 302 - $69.99
Lian Li LANCOOL - $79.99
CoolerMaster CM690 II - $89.99

Cases tend to be a bit on the personal choice side and you've probably noticed that all of these are not flashy on the outside, but what they lack on the outside they more than make up for on the inside to keep your components cool and cables routed out of the way.

I would like something with a clear side to display the inside. I would also like something with red LEDs because I like the flashyness. You are right though when you say that the one I chose seems to lack cable management so even displaying the inside wouldnt matter cause it would be a mess anyway lol. I also liked the one I chose because of the amount of fans as well. I wanted to get something that would display the temperature as well but then I decided "whats the point of displaying the temp if you cant do anything about it anyway." I guess ill just keep looking....

You want red? Get one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812170031
And one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811992004

I will definitely be getting something like that thanks. Another question I have is if I get a case that has say 4 fans. Will I be able to hook all that up? I mean I would imagine that there is some sort of limit right?

Well there's really not a limit to the number of fans you can have in a case, other than the number of mount points. Most motherboards have at least 3 or 4 case fan headers along with one header for the CPU heatsink fan. If you go beyond that number of fans you can still use them they just may not be all controlled by the motherboard. You could get a separate fan controller like I have in my system which is a Scythe Kaze Master Pro that can handle 6 fans and has a temperature sensor to go with each fan. You could also use splitters off the main power supply although you won't have control over fan speeds in that case and they'll just be running at full speed all the time unless they have their own built in thermal sensors. Insofar as case choices go there are still a few good ones with windows. Not really my preference but there's really nothing wrong with it either.

Fractal Define R4 with window - $129.99 (my favorite of the bunch by far)
Antec 900 - $99.99
NZXT Phantom 410 - $99.99
CoolerMaster Storm Scout 2 - $99.99
BitFenix Shinobi - $71.99

Those would be the primary recommendations I would make if you're looking for a case with a window within a reasonable price range.