What do you guys think?:

I don't see the point in getting an LGA 1156 Motherboard.  You will get better price to performance with AMD then Core i5.  The LGA 1156 Mobos suffer from the same problems as the AM3 boards when compared to an LGA1366 motherboard and Core i7.  Also Intel Boards run nVidia cards at a performance nerf.

Antec 900 -> antec 300. Cheaper, less noisier.

Wd hdd -> samsung f3. 500 gig platters make it faster and less noisy.

750 watt psu -> 450 watt corsair vx, anything beyond that is overkill.

I'd also take some new ati card instead of old nvidia. 

 Don't buy an ATI card. Nvideo cards overall run way better than ATI cards and have less headaches.

Im on my 3rd custom built PC now. I had the Antec 900 first, then built another pc with the Antec 300 and personally i liked the Antec 300 better. Lights in a computer are overrated and very annoying. Right now i have the Coolmaster HAF case, its amazing and makes the least amount of noise of every one.

---

Originally posted by drazzah
 Don't buy an ATI card. Nvideo cards overall run way better than ATI cards and have less headaches.

---

This was true, like 7 years ago. Time to catch up, ATI and NVidia both release solid products now. Price to performance go Radeon 4870, Physx go GTX 260, DX11 go Radeon 5850. Brand loyalty at this point in time is pretty irrelevant, just pick which of those 3 things matters most to you, price, Physx, or DX11.

 I will stick to my dual ATI HD5870's :)

I switched back to ATI about a year ago and haven't regretted the switch one bit. But I also run AMD processors. There is a kernel a truth to the old adage "ATI runs better with AMD, NVIDIA generally runs better with Intel"

Originally posted by dfan

Antec 900 -> antec 300. Cheaper, less noisier.

Wd hdd -> samsung f3. 500 gig platters make it faster and less noisy.

750 watt psu -> 450 watt corsair vx, anything beyond that is overkill.

I'd also take some new ati card instead of old nvidia. 

I don't agree 100% with stepping down to a 450W power supply. Decide on which vid card (or dual cards if you are considering Crossfire/SLI) and post it here. Some cards will draw 200W when under load. If you want more room to upgrade in the future keep the bigger power supply. Main thing to check is make sure there are two TRUE 12v rails and not just a single or dual 10-11.5v rails. I know it doesn't sound like it makes a diff but if you do want to overclock your CPU, GPU or RAM I would highly recommend this. These components need a constant 12v otherwise you may have some stability issues (which is why I said overclock).

The comment about AMD runs ATI well, Intel runs nVidia well isn't actually true.  AMD supports nVidia's proprietary chipset.  So AMD support nVidia better then Intel.  Infact Intel has a known issue with nVidia GPUs at the moment that decreases their overall performance.  ATI also runs better on AMD.

There are a couple cheaper cases that I have had good luck with,

Cooler Master Centurion 5

Cooler Master RC 690

Antec 300

I would also highly recommend the Antec Earthwatts power sources.  I have had great luck with them.  Newegg has the 650 for $85 with no rebate.  The 650 should be more than enough for what you have.

I'm using the HD you listed as well as the video card.  I can say that the HD is probably one of the best 7200rpm hd's you can buy.  Theres a reason its got such a long manufacturer warranty- its built extremely well. 

The video card gets the job done just fine, but one thing to keep in mind is its size... and i notice your doing a mid tower case and micro motherboard... I can't say for sure if that card will or will not fit, but its a BRICK, it barely fits in my full tower.  But the micro cases might just be shorter, i dunno.  Seriously the video card could be used as a home defense weapon.

edit: OH, and keep your higher watt and high quality power supply.  The video card is a power HOG, don't skimp on the psu like that guy up there said!  (imo)

Originally posted by Kyntor  

I would also highly recommend the Antec Earthwatts power sources.  I have had great luck with them.  Newegg has the 650 for $85 with no rebate.  The 650 should be more than enough for what you have.

 

I'm running the antec 650 earthwatt as well and it runs very cool, which is a welcome change over my last psu which made my case an oven.  About a month of use now and its been rock solid.

just built my son a comp and found this

www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp

www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp

www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp if ya ever want to sli those suckers

that might save ya a couple pennies if ya like TD

Originally posted by Dactyl

edit: OH, and keep your higher watt and high quality power supply.  The video card is a power HOG, don't skimp on the psu like that guy up there said!  (imo)

There's simply no need for that big psu, even 400 watt psu is an overkill.
 

Originally posted by dfan

Originally posted by Dactyl

edit: OH, and keep your higher watt and high quality power supply.  The video card is a power HOG, don't skimp on the psu like that guy up there said!  (imo)

There's simply no need for that big psu, even 400 watt psu is an overkill.
 

No, 400 watt psu is not over kill at all. I regret listening to my friends and getting something smaller. 400 watts is recommended. I actually would say that is perfect. Like the person said before you don't skimp out on psu. 

In fact 400 watts is pretty much standard these days. 

Actually reading up on the graphics card they say: System Requirements Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 36 Amp Amps.)
Two available 6-pin Molex hard drive power dongles

Originally posted by Dactyl

Originally posted by Kyntor  

I would also highly recommend the Antec Earthwatts power sources.  I have had great luck with them.  Newegg has the 650 for $85 with no rebate.  The 650 should be more than enough for what you have.

 

 

I'm running the antec 650 earthwatt as well and it runs very cool, which is a welcome change over my last psu which made my case an oven.  About a month of use now and its been rock solid.

I agree that something like 650 Watt is needed, maybe even more.

You have to look at how many cores the CPU has, in this case it is 4. And that graphic card need power like no tomorrow, just look at the combo deal, a 850 Watt psu!

Another reason why 400 Watt doesn´t cut it anymore is because the amount of fans that is needed cool todays gaming computer.

The most powerful gaming computers out there are equipped with 1000 Watt psu. A tip how powerful psu is needed is to look around at other computers with that CPU and graphic card to get a grip what psu is most commonly used. Usually those computers some room of error so you can upgrade components or overclock without needing a new psu.

However if every single one is using a 750+ Watt psu, then I would say using 500 Watt psu is very optimistic.

This is of course pure speculation, but I would GUESS that at least half (if not more) of the user reviews on high-end dual slot graphics cards where the buyer reports the card "instantly fried after it was hooked up" is due to them running it in their Best-Buy purchased budget econo-computer with some rinky-dink power supply.

If you are home building a gaming machine buy the best power supply you can.  Its investment protection.

---

Originally posted by Joker2240

No, 400 watt psu is not over kill at all. I regret listening to my friends and getting something smaller. 400 watts is recommended. I actually would say that is perfect. Like the person said before you don't skimp out on psu. 
In fact 400 watts is pretty much standard these days. 
Actually reading up on the graphics card they say: System Requirements Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 36 Amp Amps.)
Two available 6-pin Molex hard drive power dongles
 

---

If you want some in depth system measurements I'd read this article from xbitlabs:
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/system-wattage.html

Actual measurements, a GTX295 (remember this card is dual GPU) quad core i7 920 draws 500W peak power, so a 750W PSU is where you want to be for that system. A GTX 260 OC i7 920 pulls 371W peak, so a 500W or 550W covers that fine. Also these peak values are not something you would ever hit during gaming as no game taxes an i7 920 that much (more like 430W for GTX295 and 280W for GTX 260), but if you can find out your total max wattage, then add 50% that's about where you want to be for your PSU.

So, a 400W PSU could handle that GTX260 system but not with a lot of breathing room and the PSU may wear out faster, and SLI'ing later would really be out of the question, but that mobo doesn't look like it supports SLI anyway just Crossfire.

I don't think they have covered the psu's efficiency on that article, the real numbers are still smaller.

People here have totally eaten marketing men's advertisings, when you look at some real measurements you can see they are all a lie.  

When they make PSU requirements for video cards, they do it based on a system that has a heavy power draw to cover all bases.  Often times such PSUs are not required.  Like you only need a 585watt PSU from a quality manufacturer to run an HD5870 in crossfire mode.

They are extreme worst-case scenarios, irl when we are talking about decent quality psus it's far less. Tom's HW did some review while ago, with quad core cpu and 2*295 sli the highest load they had was around 600 watts. You still need to reduce the psu efficiency from that number. 

I would strongly recommend getting a ATX motherboard instead of the micro ATX (mATX) one your planning on getting. They are cramped and often times dont offer all the room you need. Like yout GTX will block other PCI ports