For the SSD im going with the OCZ vertex 4 128gb SSD, my audio is my 7.1 tritton headset with my maximus V inbuilt 7.1 but i am thinking of getting a xonar  7.1 essence STX.

I also did Further research on the graphics card i was going to buy and in australia, the ROG matrix 7970 platinum is 80$ cheaper than a gtx 680 direct cu ii top and the CU ii top costs 689$ australian dollars whereas the  7970 plat costs 599.

so thats 80 bucks for a difference in 2 frames which isnt cost effective. for power supply i am going for the XFX 750 watt core edition.

This whole pc would only cost around 1500 if i was in america >_> which i wish i was at this point because australia ramps the price of much of the hardware. The direct cu ii on amazon is 549$ while in australia on average its up near 700$

which is why it deos cost that much and not near 1500-1800

Originally posted by Quizzical

And why 4 TB of hard drive storage?  Very few people need anywhere near that capacity.  You could just get one hard drive up front, and later, on the off chance that you actually do need more, it's easy to add another hard drive.

remembering the 6.4 GB computer I had in 2000...

reading about a 4 TB one in 2013...

I did not see it coming.

In all honesty, if you are running only one video card, 500w is all you need.. (Provided its a quality brand and is 80+ Certified)

My little Shuttle XPC is running an i7 3770k, 16GB 1600 Adata RAM, Gigabyte 660 2gb, and a 500gb Velociraptor with power to spare. (I'd have no qualms about adding in another HDD, a Blu-Ray drive, and a mPCIE ssd)

For the most efficient use of your power supply you want something that will be using around 90% of the rated maximum.  While its nice to have the overhead, its mostly wasted and also ends up costing more in electricty, unless you plan to add a second video card. 

As for the case, I'm going to assume that many parts of Australia can get fairly dusty.. Heck, I don't consider it to be dusty here in NYC, but .. it gets dusty.. So unless you're going to invest on getting alot of fans, which in turn makes alot of noise, I wouldn't use a HAF X.

The dust buildup inside HAF cases can get pretty bad if there is a lack of airflow, and then theres the issue of the noise..  If neither of those are issues, then go for it.  Otherwise I'd suggest something eaiser to move to clean.  Such as a Bitfenix Prodigy, its mITX form factor, but it has plenty of room in the case and is also much easier to clean due to its size and horizontal motherboard placement. 

In the mITX form factor, you're likely to be limited to 16gb of memory for alot of motherboards just due to the memory slot constraints, however, asus makes extremely good mITX motherboards as well.  You shoul dhave no issues with overclocking with mITX, as you can fit a large cooler into a Prodigy, as well as the fact that you aren't doing LGA2011 which would require a case the size of the HAF X for all the fans.

Edit: I just noticed the part where you said you're getting it custom built.  Most of this wont apply, since most places won't offer mITX.. Oh well, I tried =D

I looked at the prices and they really aren't THAT much higher that you would need a $2400 budget to make a decent workstation/gamer PC unless the majority of that is going into Labor costs.

PCs these days are really easy to build, there are videos all over the internet showing you what to do. You could easily do with $1400 rather than $2400 when considering parts alone.  I doubt labor costs $1000 to put a PC together, if it does, then someone is trying desperately to rip you off.

Edit:

Keep in mind that if you plan to expand ATX is always the better choice, but personally, I only run one video card, and I don't need obscene amounts of memory, so mITX is great for my uses. 

As always, take ANYONES advice with a grain of salt.

Unless you're planning on a 3rd graphics card (or need a 3rd PCI-E slot for an expansion) I'd get the Gene.  

If you want to go with 3 Graphics cards you'd want to go for a LGA2011 build over a LGA1155 anyway because the 1155 doesn't have enough PCIE Lanes and the graphics cards will bottleneck.

Edit: Just a small tidbit, ALWAYS choose a powerful single card over dual cards, this shouldn't be an issue with your budget though.

Lol 2400.....that better include a 60 inch monitor.

But seriously 2400$ is definately overkill.

I'd steer clear of Asus video cards unless you want always outdated drivers.

Instead I'd get the MSI 7970 Lightning. It's cool running, very overclockable, has better components than Asus, and spins backwards at start up clearing dust out. Unless you like Microstutter steer clear of Crossfire/SLI/Dual GFX. There is no game out now or in the forseeable future that cannot be maxxed out at 120fps on an overclocked 7970. No point in splurging when next gen cards are always around the corner.

There is little to merit going with the older Z77 Socket 1155 motherboards. They are pretty much at end of life feature wise. If you are spending 2400$ get the X79 board and a 4 core Processor. The 4 channel DDR3 is worth it. Ivy Bridge-E is comming in 2013 and will be worth it.

Get the Asrock Extreme6 the reviews on it are very good and it comes with an awesome sound card. Overclocks better than the Asus boards. 

As for Ram I would get the Gskill ripjaws Z series CL8 1866 1.5v quite a bit faster and probably has a good chance of running stable at 777-21 1600 timings.

So going with the newer platform you save on a better motherboard (newer technology, and future proof). Avoid overspending on a niche market GFX card that probably uses outdated Asus custom drivers. And save a bit of $ on the processor. (The 4 core socket 2011 processor is cheaper than the 3770K and can be upgraded to 6-8 core precessors later)

IMO you don't need a rediculous case, a simple Rosewill one will do the trick. Spend the money on a nice SSD, an awesome network card, Mice, Gaming periphials, speaker system, better monitor....etc. It's just going to sit as far away from you as possible anyway.

Problem with going LGA2011 is that he wants to overclock, so he'd have to go with a 3930k or above, which is more expensive and requires more cooling than a 3770k.  It does however have six cores over four.

SB-E also has 40 PCIE lanes over 20 of IVB, which is moot when using one video card.

Quad channel DDR3 only has an advantage of giving you the ability to add more, smaller ram sticks, over more expensive larger ram sticks. Realistically you MIGHT get 10% more performance out of it, which IMO, is not worth the extra cost of SB-E and X79 for his puropses.

If he was going to not overclock I would have reccomended a LGA1155 Xeon.  They are cheaper and have no integrated graphics, and also binned for better thermals.

Network cards are mostly pointless provided your motherboard sports Intel LAN, and he already picked out his audio/peripherals.

Also I don't understand the whole 'Niche' graphics card comment.. Since Nvidia and AMD provide all the drivers.. Anyone who downloads drivers from the MFG rather than Nvidia or AMD are misinformed.

If you DO go with LGA2011 you would do well with water cooling.  Infact, trying to OC a 3770k that high would do well with water cooling depending on your average room temperature. 

Originally posted by Ponn

Problem with going LGA2011 is that he wants to overclock, so he'd have to go with a 3930k or above, which is more expensive and requires more cooling than a 3770k.  It does however have six cores over four.

Why get the 6 core SB when 6 core IB is on the way? Just get the 4 core 2011 and ebay it and upgrade later this year.

SB-E also has 40 PCIE lanes over 20 of IVB, which is moot when using one video card.

Why is it moot if the price is the same?

Quad channel DDR3 only has an advantage of giving you the ability to add more, smaller ram sticks, over more expensive larger ram sticks. Realistically you MIGHT get 10% more performance out of it, which IMO, is not worth the extra cost of SB-E and X79 for his puropses.

There is no extra cost. go look at the prices of what I reccomended.

If he was going to not overclock I would have reccomended a LGA1155 Xeon.  They are cheaper and have no integrated graphics, and also binned for better thermals.

The reason to go with 2011 is not the current crop of 6 cores but the upcomming Ivy bridge-E to be released later this year. The 4 core I7-3820 2011 processor can OC to 4.5 easy and is only 299$ so your overclocking agrument is flawed.

Network cards are mostly pointless provided your motherboard sports Intel LAN, and he already picked out his audio/peripherals.

No....network cards like the Killer 2100 are not pointless. go read the reviews vs on board internet.

Also I don't understand the whole 'Niche' graphics card comment.. Since Nvidia and AMD provide all the drivers.. Anyone who downloads drivers from the MFG rather than Nvidia or AMD are misinformed.

Asus tend to use custom drivers for such cards. The ones from AMD will not work. 

I you DO go with LGA2011 you would do well with water cooling.  Infact, trying to OC a 3770k that high would do well with water cooling depending on your average room temperature. 

Standard direct touch tower heatsinks with a push/pull fan cool just as well as an H100 at a fraction of the price.

Even if he already picked out the periphials wouldn't it make sense to change them since the Asrock Extreme6 is just as good if not better than the Asus offering and comes with top notch sound. 

So I went back and re-read some of the Killer NIC reviews, because this last post piqued my curiosity.

And.... Nope, they still pretty well suck. And out of stock (at Newegg and Amazon, at least).

The best review I could find said that it did actually raise FPS by about 3-5%, but that the ping improvements were marginal to the point that it could very well just be attributed to random internet traffic, and there were many driver issues, and the effect on real gaming experience was negligent and not perceivable. The same level of performance could be increased by a small overclock for free.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2111/11

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Our current opinion is, without FNapps, improved performance across a wider variety of titles, and a significantly lower price tag, this card is destined to be nothing more than an interesting footnote in the annals of hardware history.

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Given that there is no new stock anywhere, and all the customized computer boutiques (CyberPowerPC, iBuyPower, etc) were practically giving these things away a year ago, I'm thinking we've already seen that footnote in history. The internet is only so fast, and there's only so much you can do to make it faster. It's like trying to convince someone to go out and by a Maserati - yes, they are very fast cars, but owning one doesn't change the speed limit on the freeway.

Originally posted by Ridelynn

So I went back and re-read some of the Killer NIC reviews, because this last post piqued my curiosity.

And.... Nope, they still pretty well suck. And out of stock (at Newegg and Amazon, at least).

The best review I could find said that it did actually raise FPS by about 3-5%, but that the ping improvements were marginal to the point that it could very well just be attributed to random internet traffic, and there were many driver issues, and the effect on real gaming experience was negligent and not perceivable. The same level of performance could be increased by a small overclock for free.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2111/11

 

---

Our current opinion is, without FNapps, improved performance across a wider variety of titles, and a significantly lower price tag, this card is destined to be nothing more than an interesting footnote in the annals of hardware history.

---

 

Given that there is no new stock anywhere, and all the customized computer boutiques (CyberPowerPC, iBuyPower, etc) were practically giving these things away a year ago, I'm thinking we've already seen that footnote in history. The internet is only so fast, and there's only so much you can do to make it faster. It's like trying to convince someone to go out and by a Maserati - yes, they are very fast cars, but owning one doesn't change the speed limit on the freeway.

That was the origonal bigfoot card from 2006. The 2100 is quite a bit newer/better. Putting up hardware from 2 generations ago is bad form.

They aren't that expensive and will last many years. even a small network advantage could be worth it. But then again the broadcom NIC on the Asrock Extreme6 paired with the asrock network program works prety well. I'd only get one if I had money to burn. Offloading the firewall and processing to the card might be the only reason to get one.

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Originally posted by grndzro

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Originally posted by Ridelynn So I went back and re-read some of the Killer NIC reviews, because this last post piqued my curiosity. And.... Nope, they still pretty well suck. And out of stock (at Newegg and Amazon, at least). The best review I could find said that it did actually raise FPS by about 3-5%, but that the ping improvements were marginal to the point that it could very well just be attributed to random internet traffic, and there were many driver issues, and the effect on real gaming experience was negligent and not perceivable. The same level of performance could be increased by a small overclock for free. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2111/11  

---

Our current opinion is, without FNapps, improved performance across a wider variety of titles, and a significantly lower price tag, this card is destined to be nothing more than an interesting footnote in the annals of hardware history.

---

  Given that there is no new stock anywhere, and all the customized computer boutiques (CyberPowerPC, iBuyPower, etc) were practically giving these things away a year ago, I'm thinking we've already seen that footnote in history. The internet is only so fast, and there's only so much you can do to make it faster. It's like trying to convince someone to go out and by a Maserati - yes, they are very fast cars, but owning one doesn't change the speed limit on the freeway.

---

That was the origonal bigfoot card from 2006. The 2100 is quite a bit newer/better. Putting up hardware from 2 generations ago is bad form.

They aren't that expensive and will last many years. even a small network advantage could be worth it. But then again the broadcom NIC on the Asrock Extreme6 paired with the asrock network program works prety well. I'd only get one if I had money to burn. Offloading the firewall and processing to the card might be the only reason to get one.

---

Anand posted the release of the 2100, but didn't even bother to review it. I did find a couple reviews of the latest, which is cheaper, but still out of stock/not carried in most places:

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Since the Killer 2100 makes such a mild performance increase for online gaming we'd suggest making sure your video card and processor are up to snuff before you drop $85 on the Killer 2100 as we see this gaming NIC as the last piece to a gaming system build. we feel this was because the only time you would see a significant real advantage in latency with the Killer 2100 is on LAN only.

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http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1478/6/

Doesn't really change my opinion at all. Yes, it's cheaper, but it's still a hunk of junk.

That is more hassle than it is worth, considering he is going to have it built by someone.  If he was experienced in building computers, sure, I'd tell him to buy the SB-E and then ebay it later for the IVB-E, but he is not, and is going to end up spending more money to have someone end up replacing it for him.

I wouldn't reccomend touching BCLK (for the same reasoning as above), which is what you have to do to OC a 3820 past 4.3ghz, where the 3770k would outperform it anyway in cases without the need for the 40 PCI-E lanes. The only advantage that the SB-E would have its 2MB of extra cache.

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying about Quad Channel DDR3.  It would end up cheaper, because you can add multiples of smaller sticks rather than larger more expensive sticks at the same performance levels.  However that doesn't justify the extra cost of a good x79 motherboard, and a K or X skew processor (Which comes with 2 extra cores). IVB clock for clock will be faster when comparing four cores to four cores.

On a CPU with enough cycles to spare, a Killer NIC card isn't going to drastically improve performance for how much it costs. In essence it is 'useless'.  Of course, everyone has thier opinion, and this is mine. And nitpick: its Onboard 'Ethernet' not 'Internet'

..Who said anything about a H100? If you're going to go with a SB-E and with a budget of $2400, you'd get a custom built water system.

Originally posted by grndzro
yea, I'd never buy one either :)

But you would recommend it to someone? Is that not in bad taste?

Originally posted by Ponn

That is more hassle than it is worth, considering he is going to have it built by someone.  If he was experienced in building computers, sure, I'd tell him to buy the SB-E and then ebay it later for the IVB-E, but he is not, and is going to end up spending more money to have someone end up replacing it for him.

If he is studying for game design then I would say he is competant enough to swap a processor.

I wouldn't reccomend touching BCLK (for the same reasoning as above), which is what you have to do to OC a 3820 past 4.3ghz, where the 3770k would outperform it anyway in cases without the need for the 40 PCI-E lanes. The only advantage that the SB-E would have its 2MB of extra cache.

There are some nice guides for Overclocking the 3820.  37x multi and 125 BCLK with 1.36 vcore is EZ. Again the quad core 2011 is a stopgap till the 6 core IB's arrive.

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying about Quad Channel DDR3.  It would end up cheaper, because you can add multiples of smaller sticks rather than larger more expensive sticks at the same performance levels.  However that doesn't justify the extra cost of a good x79 motherboard, and a K or X skew processor (Which comes with 2 extra cores). IVB clock for clock will be faster when comparing four cores to four cores.

220$ for the Arock Extreme6 is quite a bit less expensive than the 380$ Asus Maximus V. Unless he needs Thunderbolt. Ram is cheap nowdays, might as well splurge a lil on 16gb, or even 32. For graphic design I'd definately get 4 8gb sticks. 

These look particularly good  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226386

On a CPU with enough cycles to spare, a Killer NIC card isn't going to drastically improve performance for how much it costs. In essence it is 'useless'.  Of course, everyone has thier opinion, and this is mine. And nitpick: its Onboard 'Ethernet' not 'Internet'

I try not to pay much attention to propper grammar.

..Who said anything about a H100? If you're going to go with a SB-E and with a budget of $2400, you'd get a custom built water system.

Too much hassle for a couple degrees IMO. Dual fan towers with direct heat pipes work wonders, and are quiet. Save the $ for a socket 2011 IB 6 core processor later.

Originally posted by Ponn

Originally posted by grndzro
yea, I'd never buy one either :)

But you would recommend it to someone? Is that not in bad taste?

Ya got me. But for a no expenses spared gaming rig I would.

I have picked the 7970 Matrix platinum over the 680 direct cu ii top, and because of that ive grabbed a 27" ips panel, now for the case haha. i like the HAF X for the 1x 230mm front, the 1x 200mm top, the 1x rear and the 1x side fan, and my room isnt that dusty so i should be fine and the room temperature is around 20-24*C on average, a nice cool temp concidering im in western australia.

If i could have bought the stuff from amazon,i could have got the asus rampage iv formular with a gtx 680 and the IPS monitor, but due to the stuff not shipping to australia i have to go with aussie hardware, and plus the company that are custom building it dont include the x79 raneg on their custom build page, and the only one that has the x79 on it is the 6000$ one which deosnt look worth even 3500.

im grabbing the ips panel from over seas and im getting an 23" HD monitor