Building My own mean machine. ;)

Hey Guys How are you all doing?

So, This is my first time building my own PC. I have researched all over the internet and decided on some components for my PC. These are:

intel i5 2500k
motherboard asus sabertooth p67
GPU nvidia gtx 590 or 580
ram will be a cosair 1600mhz 4gb
powersupply around 1000W
hardrive a sea-gate barracuda 7200rpm 32mb cache 1Tb

Now, Can you guys tell me how well it is and still suggest some other components which give better bang for the buck. I am not compromising on GPU here because it will be for gaming. So, which one should i go with 580 or 590 which is 2( 580).

Also what will be the estimated price of this system? Also how about a small 40-60gb ssd for windows which should be cheap and also fast???

If you guys can suggest a better hardware configuration in the same price as this system will cost than that will be much appreciated.

A K series processor is not needed unless you intend to overclock.


Highly unlikely you will use anywhere near 1000 watts. My system, with a 2500 processor, uses 144 watts under full load.

Most people would tell you shy away from Seagate, but you can have bad luck with any drive.

You can get a 40 gig SSD for under 100 dollars and a 60 gig for around 130. I'd go with Intel or Crucial.

ignatzatsonic said:

A K series processor is not needed unless you intend to overclock.


Highly unlikely you will use anywhere near 1000 watts. My system, with a 2500 processor, uses 144 watts under full load.

Most people would tell you shy away from Seagate, but you can have bad luck with any drive.

You can get a 40 gig SSD for under 100 dollars and a 60 gig for around 130. I'd go with Intel or Crucial.

Okay I don't plan to mess with the processor so I should save some dollars from that.
The gpu uses most of the power. I selected these components on ibuypower.com and their configurator suggested that it will use 850mw.
There are a lot of choices still in intel ssds so I'll be going with the faster read speeds I guess.

If you are not going to overclock, you have no use for a P series motherboard. Get an H67.

Most PSU configurators are notorious for overestimated power requirements because there are a lot of trashy power supplies out there and the video card makers are afraid you are going to buy a trashy one rather than a good unit that can actually supply what it is rated at.

I wouldn't get overloaded in the SSD specs. Read/write performance for fairly small files is most important, but any SSD is clearly faster than any spinning drive. Intel has an edge in reliability by all accounts.

Make sure you get 1.5 volt RAM.

What is with the 1.5 volt ram? Never heard this term with ram before... :)

All RAM has a volt specification. Some motherboards are more cranky about it than others and the word is that Sandy Bridge is fairly cranky.

RAM is a highly critical component and the last thing you want to take a chance on. There are dozens of choices out there for 1.5 volt RAM for a Sandy Bridge processor.

You should pick your motherboard/processor combination first and then find the 1.5 volt RAM known to work well with the motherboard. Easily done.

No need to get 1600 speed RAM either. The Sandy Bridge standard is 1333.

htb2050 said:

ignatzatsonic said:

A K series processor is not needed unless you intend to overclock. (snip)

Okay I don't plan to mess with the processor so I should save some dollars from that.

The price difference between a 2500 and a 2500k is small. If you're contemplating an expensive 580 or 590 graphics card, you may as well get the 2500k. Your choice, but I suggest a little online reading about overclocking Sandy Bridge CPUs. With the unlocked (k) CPUs, it's quite easy.

okay so I finalized the list of specs and these are


processor---------------core i5-2500k

motherboard-----------ASUS P8P67pro

gpu----------------------Sparkle GTX 580 1536MB

ram----------------------G.SKILL RipjawsX 4gb(2x2) or 8gb

casing-------------------antec tweleve hundered

psu----------------------ANTEC TPQ-1000 1000WATTS CONTINUOUS POWER

hard drive--------------seagate 1tb 7200.12

keyboard

dvdwriter

display=DELL LED DE2011 20" WIDESCREEN BLACK LED

Total=USD $1717.22 with 8gig ram or $1638 with 4gigs!

I will possibly get it in june on the earliest and december if things don't go well. It all depends on my marks in the exam. Prices will be lower at that time too. and GTX 590 will be available in Pakistan so I may go with that.
Wish me luck.