First system!

Hey guys!

I'd love to hear your input on the system I'm planning to put together. It is also the first system I will be putting together myself. :) Got tired of laptops...

So I want to put together a good system and just use my old laptop for portability, if I'm ever going to need it. 

This is going to be my main computer, so going to do the regular browsing interwebs etc,but mainly going to use it to make music in ableton (no audio card in the build because I have an external one), edit photos in lightroom/photoshop, occasionally edit videos and to play a fair amount games.

Link to PC part Picker: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mifG

And the list:

  • CPU - Intel Core i5 3570K
  • Motherboard - Asus P8Z77-V
  • Memory - Corsair Vengeance 8Gb (2x4Gb) DDR3-1600
  • Storage - Samsung 830 Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
  •                  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM (Storage, really don't need more at this point)
  • Video Card - Asus GeForce GTX670-DC2-2GD5
  • Case - NZXT Phantom 410 Black & Orange
  • PSU - OCZ ZT 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Modular
  • Optical drive - Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
  • Monitor - Asus VS239H-P 23.0"
  • Extra fans - BitFenix Spectre PRO 120mm x2
Don't plan to overclock, at least not yet, that's why no aftermarket cooler and because my budget doesn't allow for a good one. Will definitely get it later.

Cheers! Martin 

I would suggest a 660ti and put the amount saved towards an I7-3770k or 2600k if I was doing editing and that sorta stuff. Just my personal opinion. What games are you going to be playing?

Well not going to do a lot of video editing really. Mainly music, the program I use doesn't even support 64bit mode...

For games everything that's fun, but like Battlefield3, MassEffect3, Skyrim, Metro2033 etc.

Budget wise, here in Sweden getting a 660ti wouldn't make a huge difference whereas an i7 is significantly more expensive.

Thank you for posting :)

Ahh ok. Then overall you have a good build. 

Hmm, interesting, I'm gonna throw a request in here. Can anyone get some benchmarks for Ableton with the i5/i7s and the FX series chips? My younger brother uses Ableton to do a lot of his work and I've never found any solid benchmarks for the program. I've heard that the performance may vary because the bulk of the work is done in some kind of plugin which may favor some CPUs over others. He's not in the position to upgrade his system yet anyways, but I figured it would be good to know. Thanks.

As far as the system is for gaming and editing I'd make a few notes. I've heard (but have not confirmed) that for media processing faster memory can prove useful, you can grab 8GB of 1866MHz or even 2133MHz memory for only a few $ more so it may be something you want to consider.

That power supply is overkill for this system unless you plan to get another GTX 670 and throw em in SLI at some point. If you don't expect to do that then you could stick with a solid 550W and have plenty of power.

Thats a mighty fine Mobo you have there, not overclocking that chip would be a shame, at some point get a good aftermarket cooler and clock the shit out of the chip, you might be able to get around 4.6-4.8GHz if your lucky.