Looking for some pointers on my build - first time

[Maddog]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to stay at $1,100 or less while making a new gaming build as my laptop I use for class is starting to struggle quite a bit. Most of the parts I am pretty sure are what I am looking for, but any pointers/tips on my pending list such as cheaper parts for equal or better value (obviously) and checking to make sure everything will run compatibly are really the areas that I am looking for help - this is my first time ever building my own.

ASUS P8P67 Pro B3 Intel P67 Motherboard

Intel Core i5-2500K

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B Vengeance Desktop Memory Kit - 8GB (2x 4GB), PC3-12800, DDR3-1600MHz, 9-9-9-24 CAS Latency, Intel XMP Ready, Unbuffered

OCZ OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G Vertex 2 Solid State Drive - 60GB, 2.5", SATA II

I am having trouble picking between a graphics card

1) MSI N570GTX Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 570 Video Card
2) ASUS EAH6950DCII/2DI4S/2G Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II Video Card

I still have to decide on:
- a case (doesn't have to be flashy) that will fit everything and allow for good air flow
- power supply (I don't know how much I will need)
- heatsink/fans
- hard drive (at least 500GB)
- and a DVD drive

I understand that keeping under the $1,100 may be tricky, but I was hoping this is where some much more experienced builders/shoppers could help me out with here.

Thank you very much

 

[BrokenAtari]

Get a sata III ssd. Your motherboard supports it and its a lot faster. Get 3+ discount hard drives and put them into the SATA II ports and run them in RAID 5.
For future upgrading perposes I would go with a 750W antec or corsair power supply.
Go with the Nvidia graphics card. It supports various acceleration technologies not present in AMD video cards, that can improve performance in games and video editing.

 

[Maddog]

Thanks for the help BrokenAtari - but what do you mean by running them in RAID 5? and by 3+ do you mean 3 or more hard drives. Can you please give me an example of the hard drives you are referring to?

 

[BrokenAtari]

Yes, I mean 3 or more hard drives. You can connect them to the sata II ports and run them in raid 5 mode. It is a feature of that motherboard you can enable from the bios. Any same size sata drives can be used.

 

[Maddog]

What is the benefit of running 3 separate smaller sized hard drives as opposed to one large one in a sata ii port?

 

[BrokenAtari]

RAID 5 offers you reducancy and improvment in speed. If one of the hard drives fail you don't lose any data. Also if one hard drive is busy it can work with the others.

 

[Maddog]

Ok cool. Thanks for all the tips BrokenAtari.