Building a gaming PC, I need help.

I literally never use my optical disk drive except to burn (I use virtual disk drives) so an upgrade to bluray would be based on whether you use it and what you use it on.. it's easily upgradeable in the future

Windows 8 is my preference as well.. many people don't like it and there is quite a bit of compatibility issues but its quick with your ssd (under 7 seconds boot)

Power supply should be around 1000w (min 750w) get a good brand like corsair or coolermaster etc. If that is dodgy, your whole system is at risk.

For cooling just buy a decent case from coolermaster. . Don't worry about water or nitro cooling, you won't need it with that system

 

Just looked at your case.. it Will do the cooling job no problem.. plus its upgradeable to 5 fans

 

Get a haswell ready 80plus gold certified power supply. I do not know why you would need such a high power supply like Wapzoe suggested. I am running a gtx 670 with 16gb ram, 500gb hdd and 50gb ssd on a 600watt power supply that isnt 80plus anything.

 

I would probably hold off on the 8 and go for a windows 7. I don't know if it's cheaper but it probably is.

 

These are some really nice cases, that are on sale right now. (mid tower) if you aren't stuck on a full tower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139010

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139009

 

Use windows 7, 8 isn't quite there yet.

You don't need 16 gigs for gaming, 8 is plenty. Quality over quantity in that regard. (If you want to save some money)

I built a computer maybe 4 months ago very similar to your build and I will tell you this: I have not used my optical drive or my non SSD hard drive.

I don't know if you watch blu rays or store a bunch of music on your comp (I don't) but I haven't found a use for either yet.

For CPU/PS I would hawk the Newegg sales and just hawk whatever is on sale. Check the user reviews and it shouldn't be a huge deal.

 

Just finished building my first computer, and it was a mini-itx case with a i5-3750k. I've got the thing loaded up with fans, but I'm doing fine with the stock Intel cooler. More cause I'm waiting for a good cooler to go on sale, but stock's doing fine.

Water cooling is also becoming a more hassle-free/maintenance free option as well. Also since you're going with Haswell, have you considered the new gtx 760? Unless you have a deal on the 660 ti it should be cheaper, and marginally better.

 

if i were you i'd go with an intel motherboard. i don't trust gigabyte boards anymore after i spent 300 bucks on a p67 board that didn't last 3 months.

intel gaming boards have come a long way and they are rock solid boards.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/t/build-your-own/

 

windows 7
16gb is not needed for gaming, 8gb will be fine
660ti is good, 760 is alittle better but probably more expensive since it's new, best bang for the buck is a 7950
instead of seagate hdd get a western digital black, better performance
600w psu should be fine (corsairs are usually pretty good)
Asus motherboard all the way for me.
I personally prefer an intel or samsung pro ssd, but that's just me.

 

Just don't use it to click on outliers link.

 

windows 7 gets a vote from me as well

 

Don't get Windows 8 until the first service pack comes out.

 

An above poster linked tomshardware. That site and anandtech are quite reliable in my experience and a good basis for discovering how you should go about building.

I will agree with another poster that you don't need 1000W PSU (unless you are planning to do some heavy lifting in the future with SLI, crazy cooling, etc.). With modern GPU, SSD, and CPU, power consumption isn't as bad and even 600W should be fine.

As for Win7 vs. Win8, they are both fast and fine choices. I would say Win8 edges in speed but has more issues atm. You will need to customize it if you are used to the usability of Win7, which takes some energy. For me, I chose Win8 as you can find some rock bottom prices for it (I think I got mine <$25 on a promotion linked here on Clutch long ago), and I imagine Microsoft will be updating it the most frequently as their primary OS moving forward.

ASUS or Intel MBs. SSD for your OS, huge mechanical drive for your junk (like best ass 2013 photos)

 

The Corsair H100i is a dual 120mm radiator that will fit in your Prodigy, but you lose the ability to install a ODD (optical drive). You could go for a Corsair H80, Antec H920, or a Seidon 120mm from Coolermaster.

16GB maybe overkill, but if you want 16GB, go for it. I actually use 16GB without pagefile and it gets up to 8GB+ with dual screens while I'm playing a game, surfing the internet, and watching some episodes off Netflix/Hulu. Not to mention, it won't slow down and ask for more memory in the process.

I would go for a Blu-ray burning. I believe they're coming down in price so you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone to get a DVD + Blu-ray burner in one.

Get at least a 500W 80+ for your setup. Your mini-ITX board won't take much power compared to a regular ATX board. If you're planning to overclock with both CPU and GPU, you'll probably hit around 300-400W.

 

Also, with the GPU, I'm not sure if AMD is still doing their 3 free games promotion with their 7790 or above GPU line up, but if they are, you might want to look into getting one of those for 100+ dollars worth of free games. (Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, and either Far Cry Blood Dragon or Tomb Raider).

 

Don't understand these people that say to get Windows 7. I'm running Win8 on my gaming machine and it runs like a champ. I benchmark quite often and got noticeable gains after going from Win7 to 8. I know people love to hate because that's what they do, but there's really no reason to build a machine with Win7. 8.1 will be released soon, and I'm running the preview right now on my gaming machine and have had zero issues. Here it is for anyone that doesn't know about it - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/windows-8-1/default.aspx .

I have a Asus GTX 670 TOP edition and this thing is an animal. Highly recommended.