This is my first build so it probably doesn't make any sense. I'm intending to use it for medium- to high-level gaming. I want to run things on medium/high settings depending on the game (nothing very high or extreme) at 1080p between 40 and 60 fps. I also want to do some light video editing on it, but that's not its main reason. Peripherals are included in the list as I only have a useless office keyboard and mouse and a 4:3 monitor all of which are just spares from my mum and dad at work. Any advice would be much appreciated. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/MbyWJx
For this price, 2 260's are still not as good as one 290x with the speed RAM increase in my build , videos will be less of a headache. The motherboard is much more of an overclocker with a 12+2 powerphase.This board sacrifices your keyboard mouse and headset and gains better Mobo( although I love those ROG boards),l blu ray drive, better vid card faster ram same wifi card Looses AIO water cooler in trade for Noctua air cooler (go all the way water cooling, or none man.)
Thanks for the advice. I'll probably stick with Windows 8 and the peripherals I was originally going to have, though, because I'm a big fan of the R.A.T 7 and I like the Isku FX. :) But I might stick with the Maximus VII Ranger because I want to keep the color scheme as red and black.
I agree with the above on 1 GPU over 2. If you were to have a build with 2 GPUs it makes more sense if you added one down the line to extend the life of your build or if you were already buying the most powerful GPU available and wanted more power therefore making dual cards the only option. Otherwise its not really worth the compatibility issues. The other disadvantage with 2 lower end cards is less ram. The cards render frames independently therefore you only have 2gb ram in effect, not 4gb. Getting a higher end card would give you 3-4gb depending on your choice.
Personally I would spend a little less on motherboard and cooling and go for an i7 instead of i5. Games are starting to utilise more than 4 cores and with the consoles using 8 cores it seems logical that a lot of future games will utilise more than 4 cores.
To give your system a really snappy and smooth feel I would recommend a SSD as your OS drive. You can get a Samsung 840 evo 120gb or similar for around £50.
In terms of a good single GPU for 1080p gaming I think an R9 280x or GTX 770 and above depending on budget would be ideal. You could prob do quite well with a bit less say GTX760.
Looks like a great first effort! The one thing I would recommend, however, is replace the 2 GPU's with a single more powerful GPU with more VRAM but within the same price as 2 R6 270's. Some of the advantages are same or BETTER performance, lower power consumption, less noise (2 less fans), and the ability to upgrade in the future to a crossfire/SLI arrangement when funds are available thereby extending the life of the system. To keep with your red/black colour scheme I would recommend the ASUS R9 280X DirectCU II.