Building a gaming rig for the first time

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1

Hi, looking for opinions/feedback from those who have been building custom rigs for some time now.

This is my first attempt at building my first gaming rig.Yes i have done my research and i do have moderate information on building a gaming pc. Although it wouldnt hurt to have some one else with experience to look over my parts and give me feedback Not on a real tight mudget. so here are the list of parts i have so far:

 

CPU-

AMD FX 8350

AM3+

eight core

4.0GHz

8MB L3 cahce

4X2MB L2 cahce

 

MOBO-

MSI 990FXA-GD80 V2

AM3+

AMD 990 FX

 

RAM-(x2)

Kingston Hyper X Beast

16GB Kit

2X8GB

DDR3 SDRAM 1600

 

GPU-(X2)

XFX Double D Radeon HD 7970

3GB 384 bit DDR5

925MHz

 

Wireless Network Card-

TP Link TL WDN3800

2.5 GHz

300Mbps

802.1 a/b/g/n

 

Boot up SSD-

Kingston SSDNOW

V300 series

240GB

 

Storage HDD-(X1)

Seagate Barracuda (ST3000DM001

3TB

7200RPM

64MB Cache

 

Optical Dive-(X2)

ASUS DVD+RW

 

PSU-

Thermaltake Tough power XT

PLUS PLATINUM CERTIFIED

ATX 12V 2.3 & SSI EPS 12V 2.92

 

CPU Cooler-

CORSAIR Hydro H100i

 

Tower-

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001RD

 

in total this build will cost me around $2,000USD

looking for help on the OS install and first boot up and etc..

so please give me feedback and would appreciate the help a ton!!!

 part picker below!

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Criosphinx/saved/1tc8

 

 

 

2

any reason you are buying 3 individual 1TB HDDs? I'm sure you could find one 3 TB for cheaper

3

No reason. but at the time i didnt even consider a 3TB stand alone hdd.

thanks for the suggestion. will make the change now.

4

I'm not sure that cpu will handle 2 7970s. I would of went intel for a pc like this.

5

pc part picker plz

6

What?! Of course the 8350 will handle that! heh eh (shhh Logan can hear us...)

In all seriousness the 8350 will be fine. 

7

Beast rig!

8

well then what CPU should i go to if the current one i have listed cant handle two GPU's..

right now is the perfect time to start suggesting what i need to change.

i though the eight cores would have been enough to this.?

9

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Criosphinx/saved/1tc8

10

 

yes it is! It's maybe 5-15 fps in certain games! When games will use more cores, this will even come in handy! Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu8Sekdb-IE

 

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RoYcl0j2ME

go to 3:25

 

Posted this a ton of times, I think a lot will cheange after they put the new layout on the site. (espeacially a search button!) 

11

 That is a sweet rig, have fun eating for the rest of your life! Jokes aside, that is a nice rig, however rather than get two disc drives how about get one disk drive and a blu ray drive? At the rate your spending money, 20-30 bucks extra will not make a difference lol. In addition, when you get Windows 8 I suggest you invest in StartisBack, then you'll have the nice traditional Windows start menu ect. Unless you are like one of those crazy people who actually ENJOYS Windows 8. 

Here is Logan's review of StartisBack (and start8 but its a lot more costly for what you get):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YqUAg3cQxQo

 

12

Slightly overboard on PSU, I'd say go with a 1000W Or so. Also the 8350 is gonna do FINE its a beast and can easily handle 2 GPUs. 

13

nice post. going to get this for my rig for sure.

14

 No problem, glad I could help, hope you have fun with your new rig!

15

how about booting up for the first time?!?!

16

UPDATE:

already placed the order for the AMD 8350!!

17

Cpu is in, motherboard is in, Phantom 630 is in. My first set of Kingston Hyper x Beast ram is in(2X4GB(8GB)), now placing the order for my second set of ram and my cpu cooler NZXT Havik140.

will save the GPU's for last seeing how NVidia and AMD are just getting started on releasing their next gen GPU's this summer.

18

I would get the whole system at once, prices will change, and you will hit your head because everything you bought could've been 10% cheaper.  

19

Well, at that budget, I would have just went with an Intel CPU to avoid any potential bottlenecks with SLI/Crossfire.  You should be fine though.  Nice build.  And at this point I would recommend HD 7970s over GTX 680s.  They are cheaper, and you can usually get a bundle of free games from Newegg with the purchase of a high end AMD GPU.  If you have enough patience, I would definitely wait and see what the next gen GPUs have in store.  I'm most curious to see what AMD has for us this year.  Even though I was glad to see that the GTX 780 is now using 3GB of VRAM, I'm not too impressed with the price to performance ratio.

One last thing, you can save some cash by going with this PSU if you want...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050751YS/?tag=pcpapi-20

It'll do everything that $160 PSU does.  Quite honestly, it may even be better than the NZXT PSU considering it is manufactured by Seasonic.  You can't really go wrong with either, but I figured I would try to help you save some money.

Good luck with your build.  And don't sweat the OS install.  It's easy.  Just throw the disc in your blu ray player, make sure your boot order is correct, and then follow the on-screen instructions.  Boot order usually isn't much of an issue these days.  When I first installed the OS on my system, it automatically booted from my flashdrive.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  I'll do my best to answer any you may have.

20

Thanks for the save on the PSU.

going to get it next week.

the reason why i want the GTX680's vs the 7970 because i have been reading articles that most mainstream games have issues with crossfire such as Crysis2,3 and even BF3. which i want to play.

A second reason why i want the GTX680 in SLI, is because of the new release on the GTX 780. That being said, the prices will drop on the 680's. So price drop, compatability and also that fact that the GTX 680 out performs the 7970 on most mainstream games. Such as The crysis series, the BattleField Series. These are pretty much the only series i plan on playing for the time being till the "next gen" titles come out such as "Watch Dogs" , etc.

And of course the GTA series. Im not big on boarder lands or any RPG's.

but yeah. I'll be sure to PM you with a question.

And yes, installing the O.S is an issue, simply because i dont know how to make my SSD my boot drive(to direct the OS to be installed on the SSD rather then my 3TB HDD).