Building a gaming rig. First timer.

My suggestion would be to bump the caviar blue drive to a caviar black. You will get better performance and won't have to spend much more money.

The case and the mobo are going to fit together...they are both ATX.

RileyRandom said:

I spent a couple of hours comparing parts and seeing if they are compatible with each other, and i think this is a good set up. Tell me if i'm wrong, also tell me if all they will work together.

Lite-On IHAS424-98 Internal DVD Writer - DVD+R 24X, DVD-R 24X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, Lightscribe at TigerDirect.com


Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB, 7200rpm, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM at TigerDirect.com


XION AXP Gaming Series AXP600 Classic Mid-Tower Case - ATX, USB 2.0, eSATA, 11x drive bays, 2x 120 mm blue LED fan, Black at TigerDirect.com (too small for motherboard?)


MSI NF980-G65 Motherboard - Socket AM3, NForce 980a SLI, ATX, RAID, SATA, Gbit LAN, Hybrid SLI, 3-Way SLI at TigerDirect.com

Corsair Dual Channel 4096MB PC10600 DDR3 1333MHz Memory (2x2048MB) at TigerDirect.com

XFX HD577AZNDC Radeon HD 5770 XXX Edition Video Card - 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, CrossFireX Ready, Dual DVI, Display Port, HDMI at TigerDirect.com

Corsair TX750W 750-Watt Power Supply - ATX, 140mm Fan, SLI-Ready, SATA-Ready, 80Plus at TigerDirect.com


AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition AM3 CPU HDZ965FBGMBOX - 3.40GHz, Socket AM3, 6MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB, Retail, Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com

1 question-Why are you planning to buy an triple-sli board when you are planning to buy an ATI card?
Edit: The RAM timings seem a little high, mine 1333mhz are just 7-7-7-20
Edit2: Tigerdirect does not always have the best prices, a great alternative is newegg.com
Edit3: Why don't you step down the Phenom II x4 965 to a Phenom II x4 955; they are both black edition processors and a simple multiplier bump would bring you the same performance

My suggestion would be to put the same items in a cart at Newegg then compare price. While I am a huge fan of Tiger, On a recent build Newegg was 250 cheaper. Also spend more time deciding on your rig. If you are asking here you will definetly get some good advice, But there are a lot of options to look at and that can't be done in a couple hours.

My recommendations:

Buy a GIGABYTE branded motherboard. They're super reliable, have good tech support and have decent options. MSi are good but they're more expensive, GIGABYTE mothboards tend to be the cheaper yet reliable alternative, similar to Honda vs Volkswagon. For example, this board supports 2-way Crossfire (If you really want that, I don't recommend it) and it's got DDR3 memory with AM3 support. It's also $50 cheaper than the board you're looking at.

Whether you get ATI or NVIDIA for the graphics card (I recommend NVIDIA due to personal experience.) get a board that supports that cards bridging component (CrossFire/SLI). However, you only really need that capability if you plan on using it. The difference between one and two cards in SLI isn't like adding a whole new card. It's usually between 10 and 30% increase. You'd do better off getting a nicer card than you will using SLI/Crossfire no matter how cool it seems.

Make sure to get a case that's got decent airflow and lots of fans. Gamig rigs can get hot, especially if you go with SLI or CrossFire. This case by NZXT has room for up to 8 fans and could give you optimum airflow. Just make sure that you have enough room for your motherboard/cards. If you buy an ATX motherboard, you need a case that can fit that size.

Get a few hard drives if you can. That way you can set one up as a main drive, and another as a slave for storage, etc. It'll also allow you to easily access system images and such for when you inevitably have problems.

Get a decent sound card to go with your gaming system. There is nothing worse than buying a nice gaming system w/ a quad core processor, high end gfx but buy no external sound card and end up using Realtek crap sound. The most popular gaming sound cards are the Sound Blaster X-FI series but you could also go with the HT | Omega series.

Short List of Recommendations:

NZXT Beta Evo Case (Up to 6x120mm, 2x140mm) - $40
No Crossfire: GIGABYTE GA-890XA - $140
CrossFire: GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA - $180
G-SKILL 2x2GB DDR3 1333 (10600) - $110
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black - $160
Zalman CPU Cooler - $50
NVIDIA: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (896MB, 448-BIT, GDDR3) - $200
ATI: GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD 5830 (1GB, 256-BIT, GDDR5) - $230
Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (7.1 channel) - $80
Corsair 750Watt PSU (4 x PCIe) - $90
2 x Western Digital Caviar Black (640GB) - 2 x $74.99
ASUS DVD Burner (SATA, 24x) - $25
COOLER MASTER 120mm Case Fans (4 in 1 pack, 44.73 CFM) - $13
2 x NZXT 140mm Case Fan (62.5 CFM) - 2 x $13

Total: $1145 - $1185 before tax (if applicable).

Notes: If you want to do crossfire/SLI get the $180 motherboard. This one can support two graphics cards fully functioning, the other cannot. However, if you end up wanting CrossFire, you'll need to get Radeon Cards as GIGABYTE motherboards don't support SLI. I still recommend an NVIDIA card, but I don't recommend crossfire or sli. It runs them at x16 and x8 instead of two @ x16. You could probably go with a few less fans, but since they're cheap I wouldn't skimp. You could also go without the CPU Cooler, but it'd help keep your CPU cool in the event that you're doing heavy gaming. If you do buy that case with those fans be sure to install them properly. You'll need three of the smaller fans blowing air in, one smaller fan blowing air out in the back and the two larger fans blowing air out from the top. That'd give you one in the front, two on the sides, one out in the back and two out on the top along with the PSU fan. The two on the sides could be slower if you wanted. As long as you have the two larger fans plus one smaller fan going out with the three others installed you'll have a negative pressure system because the cumulative CFM of the out fans will be higher than the in fans. This will make sure your system stays cool. It'd have a total of 135 CFM In and 170CFM out.

If you want to spend less, let me know how much and I can spec out a system for that price.