Project Reality Forums

I'm planning on spending around 10.000 SEK, which is aprox 1000 EUR, 1000 GBP or 1400 USD (give or take a little). This is what I got so far:

Case: Fractal Design Arc (black)
PSU: Corsair Gaming Series 600W 80+
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 3,4Ghz (Ivy Bridge)
Video card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2048MB
RAM: Corsair 8GB (2x4096MB) CL9 1600Mhz VENGEANCE LP
SSD: Samsung SSD Basic 830-Series 256GB
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black

Whaddya say?

The A-DATA SSD is not optimal for a gaming PC.

The 600+ PSU is good for a single graphics card rig. Your ASROck motherboard can do SLI/Crossfire in the future,

- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot (PCIE2: x16 mode)
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)

just make a choice if you plan to do a 2 cards in the future buy a slightly more powerful PSU now to save money for future upgrade. If you have no plan to buy 2 graphics cards in future, you are good with the 600W+ PSU.

Everything else is nice.

I would bump the PSU to a 700 or 750, for headroom


Just echoing what Lito said, maybe a Samsung SSD...got one on sale, for nearly half off. However, it was only 128 GB.

That i5 is gonna be a workhorse, and if you plan on overclocking...watercooling. Even if you aren't, I would think about a water cooler, to be safe. Your call though.

To add some info to my prior post, the A-DATA you are looking at is fast, but it's still a SAndforce 2200 controller. While almost all bugs have been fixed, it is truly a gamble to buy one. That being said I use a Sandforce 2200 controller myself as a secondary drive just for Games installations.

Right now, if you can find this SKU code: MZ-7PC256D/AM, 256 GB Desktop Installation Kit Samsung 830 SSD
it's the probably best value for the money. Limited time promotion.

And one of the SSD comparison charts available online:
Tom's Hardware's SSD Hierarchy Chart : Best SSDs For The Money: July 2012

Yes, GTX x70 ones ftw, I got a 570, really happy!

What Lito is saying about HDD, go with Caviar Black - very good HDD Rest looks fine.

Well, the WD Caviar Black and the WD RE4 are the same mechanical drive.

This is a technical discussion, the TL :d r version is, Caviar Black is a better drive for a gaming PC.

Here is the long answer:

Caviar Black is the consumer version, and the RE4 is intended for hardware and software RAID.
From everything seen in online reviews, they are made on the same production line, and tested to RE4 standards. Any burn-in tests that fail are then labeled and boxed as Caviar Black drives.

For your home gaming PC, the Caviar Black is cheaper for the same drive. The RE4 is the overall better drive and has a better firmware. RE4 has TLER (time limited error recovery) which is required for hardware RAID to be 99.998% stable.

Using it to store movies music and pictures at home, go with the Caviar Black, it should be 20% to 40% cheaper depending on your country.

I use a Corsair GT series SSD and it is incredibly fast and uses Sandforce 2200. Not a problem with it yet.
Newegg.com - Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F240GBGT-BK 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Swapping the HDD for a Caviar Black then. Now, should I pic the Samsung SSD Basic 830-Series 256GB or the Corsair SSD Force GT 240GB? The Samsung has slightly more space and the Corsair is slightly faster.

Btw, just to make sure, there are no new awesome products coming out in the coming months that would be worth waiting for? Assuming they're not super expensive of course.

AFAIK there will not be any new super awesome got to have products released until CHristmas buying season. The last product we've been waiting for was the GTX 660 Ti released 2 weeks ago, but that is one step below your GTX 670 option.

If the price per formatted Gigabyte is similar, I suggest the Samsung 830 for two reasons
1. reliability.
2. When either drive is half full, the Samsung will be substantially quicker on reading large files.

Between the two SSDs, The actual speed difference is not going to be noticeable in almost any games except Arma2 (including DayZ), Supreme Commander 2, Metro 2033, and Crysis 2.

It's a solid build with either drive, good luck and come back and ask for help if you run into any trouble during the actual build.

I guess I'll stick to the Samsung then. Thanks for the help guys!

You thought about a CPU cooler? After market ones can improve system longevity and general room temps considerably, keeping the CPU cooler will give it an easier life .

Not necessary, but will also reduce the amount of hot air being bellowed out your PC, which is great for winter, but in summer might get a tad stuffy .

As a side note, no need to go OTT, most after-market coolers do the job, again no need to go for watercooling, unless you do the whole rig (which would be expensive!), it serves no real life benefit to air cooling, and will require you to spend more money on better fans (for corsair at least), as they're quite noisy.

(Sorry double post fail)

U got the GTX 670?

I'd personally would not buy an ASRock Mobo. Go with Asus or Gigabyte. Do your homework though on which one.

Agree with everyone else on the WD black edition conventional hdd.

Get a more powerfull PSU. 750 - 850 to make sure you have the room to upgrade. Corsair PSU's and Ram are freaking awsome.

This is my PSU and it's solid. http://www.corsair.com/en/power-supply-units/ax-series-power-supply-units/professional-series-gold-ax850-80-plus-gold-certified-fully-modular-power-supply.html