I needed to stop playing this game on my laptop and so the following has been ordered and will be assembled in the next few days, was looking for thoughts or suggestions before I start assembly.

 

Case: Corsair Obsidian Series Black 550D Mid Tower Computer Case

 

PSU: Corsair CX750 Builder Series ATX 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Power Supply

 

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155

 

Liquid Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H80i

 

Additional Fans: Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition

 

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)

 

Graphics card: MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card N660 TF 2GD5/OC

 

Sound card: Onboard

 

Hard Drive(s): Boot: Crucial m4 256GB 2.5-Inch (9.5mm) SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive CT256M4SSD2

Data: Seagate Barracuda 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch

 

Optical Drive(s): Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal OEM Drive DRW-24B1ST

 

Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 24-Inch Full-HD LED-Lit Monitor

 

Wireless Adapter: D-Link DWA-552 Extreme-N Wireless PCI Adapter

 

Keyboard: Logitech Wireless Illuminated Keyboard K800

 

Mouse: Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball

 

Speakers: Logitech X-140 2.0 Speakers

 

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (OEM) System Builder

 

P.S. I also added this... Logitech G13 Programmable Gameboard with LCD Display so I can do my rotations and whatnot with my left hand.

Edited July 5, 2013 by joenewbie
Added Info

Looks perfectly capable. One point on the drives. You lists a 256GB boot and a 3TB data drive. Ample, of course, but wanted to point out that running the whole game on a SDD drive is a bit faster than sticking it on a twirling data drive. You'll see increased performance if you do that, though YMMV as to exactly how much. The NVidia 700 series is out now, and the 680 is a tad bit faster than the 670, if memory serves, though the 670 will do the job admirably well. The rig should last you for some time to come.

Looks perfectly capable. One point on the drives. You lists a 256GB boot and a 3TB data drive. Ample, of course, but wanted to point out that running the whole game on a SDD drive is a bit faster than sticking it on a twirling data drive. You'll see increased performance if you do that, though YMMV as to exactly how much. The NVidia 700 series is out now, and the 680 is a tad bit faster than the 670, if memory serves, though the 670 will do the job admirably well. The rig should last you for some time to come.

 

Long time is the hope, but at least long enough to wait out a price drop on higher end graphics cards, I chose the 660 due to the price point as well as it's ability, same for the case or I would have paid another 60 bucks for the 650 instead of the 550, but yeah. I figure I can add 2 more sticks of memory for 32 gig and change out the GPU every year or two as needed.

 

Oh and I know I wasn't clear, I'll be running most things off of the boot drive and drop movies and music and whatnot on the data drive.. it's more of a bulk storage solution than "data" per se.

defo worth getting a 670 or 760 instead of a 660 if you're buying right now.

 

they are far better and will last far longer, due to 256-bit memory bus

 

= better performance at higher resolutions / higher AA settings

Edited July 5, 2013 by ShakeNBakeUK

defo worth getting a 670 or 760 instead of a 660 if you're buying right now.

 

they are far better and will last far longer, due to 256-bit memory bus

 

= better performance at higher resolutions / higher AA settings

 

Looking at the 760 the price point on that is only about 40-50 more than what I'm paying for the 660... hummm or I can live with the 660 and then in 18 months get one that's 512-bit. *grin* not sure yet.

Should run good. Might need to pay extra attention to flow and clutter with the mid-size.

 

Mouse: Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball

 

You bad ***.

Can i have it its a pretty nice rig!!

Should run good. Might need to pay extra attention to flow and clutter with the mid-size.

 

 

 

You bad ***.

 

There are two HD cages in that case, I'm pulling the middle one out to allow better flow from the front fans, should hit the GPU with that fan once that middle cage is out. Also might open the side panel and add more fans for more airflow on the GPU... Between that and the cable management I hope it will work out... I wish the stupid UPS guy would get here already though... he's saving me for after lunch because all of the above is coming TODAY... lol love it.

Looking at the 760 the price point on that is only about 40-50 more than what I'm paying for the 660... hummm or I can live with the 660 and then in 18 months get one that's 512-bit. *grin* not sure yet.

 

I've got a 660 and it runs pretty much everything I want to play at 1080p / 60fps with no probs.

It's certainly not a bad card.

 

But if I was buying now, I'd probably go for a 760 as minimum.

670/680's are also going reasonably cheap atm, and they are still pretty good.

You can get them stupid cheap 2nd hand.

I've got a 660 and it runs pretty much everything I want to play at 1080p / 60fps with no probs.

It's certainly not a bad card.

 

But if I was buying now, I'd probably go for a 760 as minimum.

670/680's are also going reasonably cheap atm, and they are still pretty good.

You can get them stupid cheap 2nd hand.

 

Well that's part of my thinking coming from a laptop with on board graphics Intel HD 3000 running SWTOR I expect 660 to be enough of an upgrade for me personally in any case, essentially SWTOR is the only graphics intensive game I play at the moment so... yeah. Might let it slide and just upgrade in a year or two or whenever the 660 isn't doing good for me any more... it's one of the reasons I'm going from a laptop to regular rig in the first place, it's modular and I can add and remove things at will.

 

I mean the Mobo and i5 chip could last me 5 years easy before it's truly outdated to the point where it won't run what I want it to.... and the 16 gigs is more than enough and with room to make it 32 gig at a later time. Everything else is piecemeal. Want to add a blu-ray, I have the space, need another HD, I have room for one more too.... technically 4 more but then we're talking about getting cramped with lesser airflow.

 

Even the PSU is more than I need for a single GPU setup.... I'm happy with it but I do know where you're coming from on the card, I just don't know that I need the latest and greatest, besides, if it's really lacking and I feel short changed in some way in 6 months I can upgrade the GPU although I really want to get at least a year out of the graphics card.

 

I'm just gonna be glad to turn up the settings on SWTOR and actually see shadows and a lot lot lot more detail than I do on this laptop.

Should run good. Might need to pay extra attention to flow and clutter with the mid-size.

 

 

 

You bad ***.

 

Nooooooooooooooo! Razer is wayyy better, plus Razer has the ballz to overprice their stuff

 

Coming from a Naga Epic user

I needed to stop playing this game on my laptop and so the following has been ordered and will be assembled in the next few days, was looking for thoughts or suggestions before I start assembly.

 

Case: Corsair Obsidian Series Black 550D Mid Tower Computer Case

 

PSU: Corsair CX750 Builder Series ATX 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Power Supply

 

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155

 

Liquid Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H80i

 

Additional Fans: Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition

 

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)

 

Graphics card: MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card N660 TF 2GD5/OC

 

Sound card: Onboard

 

Hard Drive(s): Boot: Crucial m4 256GB 2.5-Inch (9.5mm) SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive CT256M4SSD2

Data: Seagate Barracuda 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch

 

Optical Drive(s): Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal OEM Drive DRW-24B1ST

 

Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 24-Inch Full-HD LED-Lit Monitor

 

Wireless Adapter: D-Link DWA-552 Extreme-N Wireless PCI Adapter

 

Keyboard: Logitech Wireless Illuminated Keyboard K800

 

Mouse: Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball

 

Speakers: Logitech X-140 2.0 Speakers

 

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (OEM) System Builder

 

P.S. I also added this... Logitech G13 Programmable Gameboard with LCD Display so I can do my rotations and whatnot with my left hand.

 

 

 

Sounds like you've got a lot of money to burn ,. I'd suggest using the Haswell z87 setups, why? Because newer boards are coming out that only support 1150 . Ivy Bridges and z77 old tech/ Haswell and z87 newer more compatible tech. I'm not blasting the Ivy bridge , still is a fine gaming cpu, but will be unusable in newer boards. Something to think about.........

NOW you tell me! I type this on my new rig at the moment, all of the above was assembled overnight now, other than the big data drive and that's because UPS didn't deliver it yet. *sigh* Tomorrow... tomorrow, there's always tomorrow.

NOW you tell me! I type this on my new rig at the moment, all of the above was assembled overnight now, other than the big data drive and that's because UPS didn't deliver it yet. *sigh* Tomorrow... tomorrow, there's always tomorrow.

 

When I wrote this message I was still downloading SWTOR for this rig, and let me just say now, seeing this game in the most extreme detail with 100% everything on and running... WOW... yet nothing like WOW... STUNNING visuals. I've always played SWTOR for the mechanics but now I can really appreciate the view.

 

Ok, back to running my stress test on this rig before any warranties expire, if there is to be a component failure let it speak now or forever just function normally.

 

Happy Hunting all.

Just a quick update for anyone that was following this, I didn't change anything on this build except to remove the top fans and close out the top vent with the sound dampening and added a fan to the bottom flowing in, it was just about tweeking the airflow in the case a bit and being able to keep it running quiet.

 

Overall I'm happy with the build and if I had it to do over again I would have sprung for the slightly better GPU and the slightly better mobo z87.

 

The real benefit of building it myself though, is the same for anyone building it themselves, the modular nature of the thing, if I want to upgrade later I don't have to buy a whole new case, or fans or anything... I figure the item with the shortest lifespan inside is the GPU followed closely by the liquid cooling, don't know how much I trust it after the warranty expires, last thing I need is a leak fouling up other components particularly the GPU as it sits right above it, so that might get upgraded every year or two.

 

Anyone using logitech products as I have, two wireless ones at that, don't use the unifying receiver for both devices if you plan on gaming use each receiver that comes with each device. Was having horrible laggy moments with the mouse or keyboard not responding till I put both receivers in and set them up individually.

 

Anywho, just wanted to drop this in and happy hunting everyone.