My New System

[Drarkan]

So 750W is enough for the system i want then?

[Drarkan]

Hmmm... I think the 1200w might be the way to go. Gives me more room for expansions.

[Ualaa]

If there isn't a lot of difference in the pricing, the higher watt power supply has more room for expansion in the future.

I'd think the 750watt would be fine, but do personally have a trend to go for bigger/more powerful options when the cost is close enough.

[Drarkan]

its about 300 for the 1200w and 200 for the 750, i'd have to check that, but i'm gonna watch game of thrones, so i'll google it after. i may just opt for the 1200w

[kasper3577]

Can you list everything you are using (even if you already own it) for your new system?

My recommendations as for what I have read in this post:
the i7 2600k if by far the best processor out for the money
the z68 gigabyte motherboard is better for overclocking than the asus, having a dual bios is a great feature when overclocking a system...asus motherboards are ok for a more experienced overclocker...they are a bit finicky unless you know what you are doing when overclocking. If you aren't overclocking, either board is as good as the other.
As for memory, if you choose the gigabyte board, Patriot memory might be your best choice as the two companies do work together when building new technology...thus Patriot memory has the highest compatibility to gigabyte boards.

as for the power supply...the size of the wattage doesn't mean as much as it used to...the video card requirements are more important nowadays.

EVGA Website

EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SE
* 1024MB Memory
* PCI-E 2.0 16x
* 648Mhz GPU Clock Speed
* 3400Mhz Memory Clock Speed
* NVIDIA SLI ready
Requirements
Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amps.)

This is a minimum for a single video card - The 12V1 or first 12 volt rail needs to have a minimum of 24 amps to fully power and run this card at 100% performance.

EVGA GeForce GTX 580
* 1536MB GDDR5 Memory
* PCI-E 2.0 16x
* 772Mhz GPU Clock Speed
* 4008Mhz Memory Clock Speed
* NVIDIA SLI ready
Requirements
Minimum of a 600 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 42 Amps.)

Same as above, for a single card, but now the 12v rail needs 42 amps for 100% performance.

Keep in mind, these are both minimums for the 100% performance ratings of the cards, but also keep in mind, the higher the amperage the more heat the card will produce. Last note...hooking up a power supply with a 42 amp rating to a gtx 460 card will produce about 70% more heat in that card than using a smaller amperage psu with 24 amps. So, going too high will also cause a performance drop in the card(s) based on the card overheating before hitting the 100% performance ratings. General rule of thumb here is use the minimum recommended amperage for a single card + no more than 6-8 amps in the psu. For 2 video cards, go 1.5 times the wattage, but try to keep the amperage about the same.

For a good example:
one GTX580 video card needs:
a minimum of a 600(max at 660w)watt psu with the 12v rail at 42-50 amps
two GTX580's:
a minimum of a 900(max at 990w) watt psu with the 12v rail at 42-50 amps.
For each card after the second, the math gets more complicated as it depends on how the lanes of the gpu works on that specific motherboard. Most boards do a gpu1 x16, gpu2 x16, gpu3 x8, gpu4+ x4 pattern.
What I mean by the above line is using a single card in gpu1 slot runs at x16 lanes of traffic, 2 cards in slots gpu1 and gpu2 will run both at x16 lanes, running 3 cards will run all 3 cards at x8 lanes, and running 4+ cards will run all cards at x4 lanes. For the simple math and general rule, assume each card past the first one needs 1.5 times the minimum wattage of the first card.
So, the third GTX580 would need a 1200(max 1320w) with 42-50 amps
and the fourth card would need 1500(max 1650w) with 42-50 amps.

The max wattage's are the minimum + 10%; going 50-100 watts above the max values is fine, but will start creating more heat in the gpu section of your computer, thus will need more cooling. But, going 50-100 watts below the minimum will start dropping the 100% performance rating on each gpu. They will run cooler this way, just not at 100% of what they are rated for.

***NOTE: all of the above about the power supply is for air cooling. If you are using liquid cooling for the gpu(s) you can use up to 2x the minimums for each card, so long as the amperage stays in the same ranges + 2 amps - instead of 6-8 amps above, you can go from 8-10 amps above with no extra heat issues. For extreme cooling like liquid nitrogen, you can do 2.5 times the wattage and no more than 10-20 amps higher than each card needs.***


for a hard drive, I would go with something like:
for the OS and pagefile system:
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD4500HLHX 450GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
for the games, the 120GB ssd you picked is a great choice at that price, just keep in mind that the higher the read speed, the better the game will run.
and some 2TB drive for backups and everything else, speed of this drive does not matter as you most likely won't be running things directly off this drive. This last drive isn't really needed if you can fit everything else you need on the primary OS drive.

Since wow is processor intense, you won't want any form of air cooling on the cpu. A basic sealed water cooler like the Antec 620 liquid cpu cooler will be plenty if you don't already have some form of liquid cooling for your cpu.

Lastly, the number of monitors will directly affect how you want to set up the video cards for your system. For a single monitor, a single card with 3GB's of memory is better than dual cards with a total of 3GB's of video memory. For dual monitors, two non sli identical cards will run better than a single card running both screens and two cards in sli. For example: a single 32" 1920 x 1080i LCD tv monitor will run good with 2xGTX460's with 1gig of memory shared on each card(in sli mode), but will run better on a single 570 card with 2gig's of memory. But, two of the same monitors will run better on two non sli gtx460's than they would with a single gtx570 or two gtx460's in sli mode.

So, basically, using the 2600k i7 1155 processor, a z68 gigabyte motherboard, and a minimum of 8gigs(max of 16gigs) of patriot ram at 1600+ speed...
What I would need to know to finish a recommendation is:
1. how many monitors and what is the max resolution of each one
2. type of video card(s) you plan on using
3. anything you already have that you plan on using for your new system
4. the website you are using to get pricing information local to you.

And I am assuming that the 1600-1800 you have available is in Canadian dollars as your profile says Vancouver, BC.

I will be away from my computer for a few hours, but will check back before I go to bed later on tonight.

[xartin]

here's why i recommended the 3TB seagate

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB Hard Drive Review

would you believe a 7200rpm hdd gets as good or better performance as a velociraptor and will be less noisy...

[Tim]

Stupid Seagate doesn't fully list the operating power usage on the drives. Only the "average" which is BS. When a drive is in full seek and max arm move move it can use 40w+ of power, not the 9ishw they mention.

Ugg, marketing needs a slap in the face from the spec department.

[Drarkan]

Ok, so I have 800 bucks roughly to work with this friday! Gonna try and get the necessities like Mobo, ram, CPU so I can get it fired up and do the reset later. I'll upgrade the power after. I found out that I actually have a 400W power supply in my computer right now. Think that will be enough to run the i7 and the new mobo? at least for a while till I upgrade? I have only one video card. Its an ATI GTS 450.

[Tim]

Hell yea, did you get everything ordered today?

[Drarkan]

Ok I did it! 1200$ roughly was the bill, thought I would only be able to do 800 now and 400 later, but the wife said get it out of the way! I love her goddamnit! Pics soon to come! Not everything I got was what I posted here, I was a noob and learned (before I went to NCIX) that you can't put an LGA1155 chip (the i7 2600k processor) on a mobo with sandybridge aka 6 slot memory. Well I learn something new everyday!

I'll post the pics in a few hours, or days depending on my mood. I'm quite tired from work and have to settle down before I even play wow, which is SOOOOO SMOOTHE!!!@!@!@