So I have been looking at PC Case Gear, and a brand new 680 showed up (for $40 less than the previous cheapest, and has 4GB of GDRR5). Will this build be okay, or will i need more cpu power, or is the brand not good ect.
CPU : FX-6300 - 145.00
Motherboard : ASRock 990FX Extreme3 - 135.00
RAM : G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8 GB (2 x 4GB) 1333 Mhz CAS Latency 7 - 65.00
GPU : Leadtek GeForce GTX 680 4 GB - 520.00 (7970 - $100 less BUT I will be utilising CUDA)
Power Supply - Thermaltake 700W TR2 80+ Bronze - 99.00
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 3TB - $140.00
Antec 100 Case - 65.00
Samsung DVD/RW - 22.00 (Cheapest in Australia)
Also, I will mainly be playing BF3, Planetside 2, Borderlands 2 and the occasional SWTOR.
The games you are going to be playing dont really need a whole lot of CPU power so you should be fine, however, i dont have any experience with the 680 but i think you might need to up the power supply a bit? just a suggestion. However, this build looks great and should be able to handle any game easily.
Does Leadtek still exist? Well a refence card is reference - no performance difference between the brands unless some specific models are factory overclocked.
Are you going to SLI another GTX 680 later on, or add a PhysX card? If not, you might want to go with a SeaSonic G-series SSR-450RM 450W 80+ Gold certified. Tightest voltage regulation in its price range. SeaSonic quality. There's also a 550 and 650W model of the same series.
1333 is pretty slow memory - I would recommend getting some 1866mHz or faster memory. I love my 680 4GB - I got the EVGA FTW+ version and both the build quality and performance are phenominal! I would get a SeaSonic 650W or more PSU so that you have enough headroom to support multiple graphics cards in the future and have lots of overclocking opportunity.
That's alot of vRAM on the card. You're using Adobe CS pro? Does it need that much VRAM? Also I think the 680s are ridiculously overpriced, i'd downgrade to a GTX 670, you'll see 5% loss in performance, 0% difference in photo editing and save around 25% ~ $100.
I am using CS, and i am thinkling about SLI in the Future. Also I already have a 60GB Corsair SSD. 670 is pratically the same? Cool, because i was wondering about an EVGA 670 2GB FTW, or the standard EVGA 670.