Thoughts on my potential new rig

[Blade of Grass]

Hey Guys,
As tis the season, I have an influx of cash, and am planning to build a desktop. I'm Canadian, BTW.
I'll be doing light gaming (The Sims, Civ, Stalker COP, Spore, maybe Far Cry 3, maybe TF2 and some others), photo editing, video encoding/editing, and browsing, I'm hoping to get more into gaming (seeing as I now have more free time).
The current planned rig is $1075, but I'm a can be a bit lenient about the price (+/- $100).

So, here's the plan:

i5-3570k/MSI GD65 combo - $339.99 with $30MIR

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo - $27.99

Corsair low profile 8GB 1600MHz - $50.99

MSI 7770 - $74.99 with $40 MIR

Corsair C70 - $79.99 with $20 MIR

XFX 750 Semi-Modular 80Plus silver- $79.99 with $10 MIR

Windows 7 Home Premium - 97.99 (I don't need to link this... I hope)

Noctua NT-H1 Pro Grade Thermal Compound - $3.99

ASUS DVD drive - $16.99

WD Caviar blue1TB - $64.99

Total before tax = $991.95
with tax = $1120.90

I also have one 120GB SSD that I will be using for storage/boot. Yes, it is enough space for me.
I'm also hoping to add a water cooling loop in the near future.
So, what do you guys think of this build? Any suggestions? Please try to use www.ncix.ca for suggestions, seeing as it's easier for me to only have to go to one store.
Or should I get the stuff that on sale, and wait/save up more for different/better stuff?

 

[Bang]

Looks pretty good but I would thrown in a WD 1TB for storage. SSD's are great for bot drives but 120GB wont get you very far. Five or six games off Steam and that puppy will be full. PC's are just to versatile trhese days and make great entertainement units. One thing to keep in mind: the life of the SSD is limited by the number of writes, hence the storage drive. If you have a habit of playing a few games, uninstalling, and installing new ones, youll greatly reduce the life of your SSD.

I would also go for faster ram, as 1866 is only a few bucks more than 1600 and youll get better performance.

 

[Blade of Grass]

Looks pretty good but I would thrown in a WD 1TB for storage. SSD's are great for bot drives but 120GB wont get you very far. Five or six games off Steam and that puppy will be full. PC's are just to versatile trhese days and make great entertainement units. One thing to keep in mind: the life of the SSD is limited by the number of writes, hence the storage drive. If you have a habit of playing a few games, uninstalling, and installing new ones, youll greatly reduce the life of your SSD.

I would also go for faster ram, as 1866 is only a few bucks more than 1600 and youll get better performance.

Thanks, It's funny, I was just looking to add in a caviar black, and this confirms that idea, I'll update the OP.

 

[Spoon_E11]

I think you have got this the wrong way round.

1. Cut that PSU out. EVGA make bad PSUs
2. $180 motherboard and $100 GPU?


I put a similar build for someone else. anyway here this is in GBP (which using currency converter should be similar)

Now I might cut down the GPU to a GTX 660 (non TI) to meet your budget. Depends what you can stretch to.

anyway that would be closer to what I would spend the money on.

 

[Josh Weston]

The above build is a very good option.
If you're going to get a storage drive, i'd just use a WD Green. You don't need a WD Black for holding music
I'm also bias against Seagate for reliability's sake.

 

[Blade of Grass]

Well, since their is only a $20 difference between the blue and black, is it worth it?
Also, the 1TB blue is cheaper then the green.

 

[Blade of Grass]

From reviews, the XFX 750W XXX 80Plus silver looks great.
Jonny Guru gave it a 9.7.

 

[Bang]

I'm sure theres nothing wrong with an XFX power supply. Its just that youll see lots of posts around here that are obviously biased toward Corsair and Seasonic psu's. In the end only you can decide what is right for you, and what is in the right price range. Cost is the biggest factor in 90% of all purchases.

The great thing about buying cheap parts like the 7770 is we dont feel so bad when we ditch them a few months later for something we couldnt afford at the time of our original purchase If the 9750 is what you really want the 7770 will work till you can afford it, then sell the 7770 to someone else.

For pure storage, go WD Green or Blue, but if you think you might end up running some games off your storage drive, go the Black. I reckon most gamers are like me. 500GB of games simply will not fit on a 128GB SSD, so I (we) inevitably will be forced to run some games/programs off a HDD, and if thats the case you might as well go for some performance on it.

One great thing about the GD65 is you have 8 sata ports to which you can add drives. Only one will typically be used for an optical drive while the other 7 can be used for SSD/HDD. Feel free to add storage to your hearts content. You'll have plenty of options availbale when you need them.

I currently run 1 Samsung 830, 128GB SSD, 1 Samsung DVD-RW, and 3x HDD, leaving 3 sata ports to use any time I feel like adding a new drive, which will be after I get an H100i, AX760i, and C70 case next month.

You have to love options.

 

[Spoon_E11]

The above build is a very good option.
If you're going to get a storage drive, i'd just use a WD Green. You don't need a WD Black for holding music
I'm also bias against Seagate for reliability's sake.

Current build has 2x caviar blacks (striped) but a previous build (w/ a conroe CPU) had a seagate HDD and I have been using their Ext HDD for a while, no such issues.