Am I right in saying this is a gaming PC only? If so, then no more than 8Gb of ram is really needed, neither is the 2600
But…but they are both ugly…
I could get Ultimate 64 for around $80.
Plus one on the i5 2500K.
In addition I would recommend getting a good after market cooler like a Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus and upgrade to the GTX 670.
The 670 is a little better than the 580 in most games so will be a significant step up from the 570.
Thanks for your advice. I switched out the HDD for the 1 tb 7200 rpm that you suggested. I was actually trying to find one of those in the first place but I guess I somehow missed it. I’ve decided to stick with my i7 and GTX 570 for now. However, I may upgrade (once I have the money) to an extreme edition and one of the higher levels of GTX cards. As for the mobo, the one I picked out has five stars and I went with it because of its price/feedback ratio. But there are two more mobo’s I’m considering now that you can take a look at. And as for W7, thanks for the offer, but I’m going with the legit Windows club. Some of the software I need only runs on MS copies 
. And I never really had a budget to begin with. I’ve always gone with the approach that if what I needed costed an X number of dollars, than that’s what I would have to pay to be happy. But I’m trying not to go anywhere above $1450-1500 give or take.
Here’s my new possible mobo choices:
1.) ASUS P8B75-V LGA 1155 Intel B75 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
2.) ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (This one’s a beast. But it looks like it may be worth it if I feel like upgrading to the third gen intel i7’s. But the ones they have now are more than enough so I’m still debating. Pricey, but nice)
Mainboards do not really inflict on performance. They are all standardized at some level and only make out a performance differences in the range of 1-2% since they all use the same chipset with minor differences in Audio-,Lan- and controllerchips. If you’re not going to overclock it is meaningless to buy a K model Cpu nor a high class mainboard like the sabertooth. Don’t go for the shiny. Stick to good brands like Asus or Gigabyte. Don’t buy Asrock/Biostar/elitegroup/jetway.
The first mainboard is very good.
Why the hate for Asrock. Very pleased with my X79 Extreme6/GB. Came with some nice windows utilities like Instant boot (from off to desktop in a matter of seconds) and XFast USB (increased USB file transfer speeds). As well as a very easy to use use graphical BIOS.
I am not sure with Asrock. They were terrible in the past. That may have changed.
I can second Asrock, I have the P67 Extreme 4 and love it. The utilities are a plus too, if you want to use them.
my personal mobo choice is ASUS. great quality and performance, even when overclocking. Especially when overclocking.
Choice of cooler is the arctic cooling ‘Freezer 7 pro’. Yes it is the cheapest one around, but man does it perform.
By first, do you mean the one I put on my parts list or the one I suggested above?
And just a FYI to all: I really don’t plan on overclocking. At least at this time. I just really don’t want to mess with that stuff until I have to
I’m thinking about getting one of those. I’m not sure if it will fit in my case though. Do you think there’s enough space in a mid tower? (Cooler Master 690 ii and a GTX 560 ti)
The CM 690II is giant. Sure it will fit.
it just about fits in my mid tower. But mine is cheap, and has bulky side fans with filters on them.
I’m sure it’ll be fine.
tanks
I found this breakdown of the 570 VS. the 670: https://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-670-vs-GTX-570-Performance-Update
In a nutshell, it compares the performance using some benchmarks and some games on max settings. The significance isn’t too great, but the 670 is clearly the better card. I’m still planning on buying the 570 since its performance is still really good in comparison with its price. But if a game got like 25 fps the 570 as an average and a game on the 670 got like 80-100 frames, then I would definitely be buying that card. I’ll most likely be buying the 670/680 in the future for when I’m running a really powerful game.
As for the aftermarket coolers, I really don’t plan on overclocking so I really don’t need one. I’d still benefit from one, but not as much as I would with overclocking.
And as for the motherboards, should I just go with the one I already have, or should I buy number 1 on my suggested list? The Saber Tooth seems like it’s almost too much for what I need (based on everyone’s opinions).
Under any other circumstance in the world i would agree, but as an intel 15 2500k owner, and your soon to be purchase of the i7 (which uses the same heat sink), i would spend the extra $25 and get a hyper 212+ at least. With good reason though. The heat sinks that come with those cpus are about as good as blowing on your cpu with your mouth. I measured almost 20 celcius more heat before i switched, and without overclocking. Just an opinion, but i wouldn’t use that piece of crap, and i’m sure most owners of our cpu would agree.
A good cpu cooler is really important no matter if you overclock or not. It lowers the power consumption a little bit and increases the cpu lifetime and reduces noise. Take the first mainboard you suggested in the upper post. If you really don’t want to overclock get a normal 2500 or even 2400. They are actually the same, just with a little less frequency. You won’t feel any difference.
Not sure if it was mentioned, but make sure you install the 64Bit version of windows 7 or you may find your 8GB RAM being recorded as a little slim, especially if all that VRAM is on top of it too
This may sound silly, but a know many people with 6GB - 8GB and even 16GB ram and they are running 32bit, because they like XP and did not want to change yet.
if I may be so bold to give you some more advice on this one… you’re spending more money than you need to. Why are you going to spend a little now and then upgrade more in the future if you can afford to do it now?? That’s just spending way more money than you need to.
I have read great things about the Asus Sabertooth. It’s a very unique looking motherboard. I own a P8Z68V-Pro and it was rocky at first but does very well now. If I were building a PC now I would definitely go for a Z77. If you want to stay a tad cheaper then the Z68 is still a great chipset and supports the 3rd gen Core series CPU’s. You just lose some things like native USB3.0 and PCI Express 3.0.
Again. I am telling you save your money and get a Core I5 2500K. There is NO point in the 2600k. Games aren’t even optimized for 4 cores so the hyperthreading is just about useless. It’s not worth the 100 dollars I promise you that. Put that money elsewhere.
My brother has the Hyper212+. It’s a nice heatsink. I’m using the Venomous X with a Different fan. it’s right up there with the Noctua NH-D14.
my Recommendation is ditch the 2600k. Like I mentioned above, I disabled my hyperthreading to cut down on heat and allow for slightly higher overclocks. Use the saved money for a 670. I understand the performance is the same but the heat and power consumption are NOT. The 670 is running on the new Kepler GPU. It’s a smaller process which makes it run with less power and heat. The Fermi GPU was used in teh 400 series cards. The 500 series are just a slightly updated matured Fermi Processor. So it’s the same chip just running faster. I remember reading somewhere that in BF3 the 670 outperformed the 570 by 50 percent. the 570 isn’t 50 percent cheaper than the 670 so the GTX670 is the better price/performance in that regards. Go with the Core I5 2500k and put the 100 to a GTX670. You’re computer will be a better performer in the video game AND video transcoding department. Then you can upgrade to a Ivy Bridge down the road and add a 2nd GTX670 and you’ll be GOLDEN.