New Rig - please critique.

[Grognard]

Ok, I should be getting this thing in a week or two. I know its a better than decent rig, and I want to say that up front so it doesnt look like I am fishing. Quite to the contrary... I know that somewhere I must have fucked up... and could have done better, but this redlined my pricepoint at 2k. So, what are the BAD points about this thing I need to be aware of, other than the price of convenience...

Case: NZXT Guardian 921 (looks like a vanu symbol on the front, 'cept for the red)
CPU: i5 3570 (10% OC), asetek 550lc liquid cooling
Mem: 16 GB DDR3 2133 (Corsair Vengeance)
GPU: NVidia EVGA GTX 670 FTW (1080mhz)
MB: ASUS P8Z77-V LX
Power: Corsair 750w TXv2
HD OS: 256GB OCZ agility 4 SSD, HD data: same thing
Sound: Creative SB Audigy SE
Network: Intel Pro 10/100/1000
Monitor: 24" LED 1920-1080 Sceptre E246W
OS: Windoze 7 home premium 64bit

...and some misc shit.

My opinion is that I did pretty good, for being rusty at planning a new rig, but I am no longer up to speed on good combinations to avoid bottlenecks.

Thank you, up front.

[Goku]

What company are you buying this from? For $2K compared to building one yourself that isn't a good price at all for what you are getting IMO.

Right now I will say you are wasting money on the liquid cooling system. I would avoid OCZ SSDs due to bad CS and QC issues in the past, look into Crucial, Samsung, or Plextor. PSU is over how many watts you need, max I would get for that system is 600W. Soundcard maybe a waste of money, seems like a low end one so probably isn't that much better compared to onboard. Is that a dedicated Intel nic you get getting? If so thats even more money you are wasting. The RAM doesn't benefit from the extra speed, drop it down to either 1333MHz or 1600MHz, 8GB is also plenty. If you are really interested in overclocking do it yourself. 10% is nothing for what they are probably charging you, and you won't notice a difference in anything most likely.

You get build a BAD ASS rig for $2K buying your own parts.

[Vancha]

Firstly, how on earth do you reach 2k with that? Putting it together on PCPartPicker it falls somewhere around $1500-$1600.

Case - This is ancient. Cable management is non-existent. Since you like the look of it, I'd look at these Zalman cases and get whichever you prefer. #1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811235033&name=Computer-Cases) #2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811235027&name=Computer-Cases) #3 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811235036&name=Computer-Cases)

RAM - Overkill. Get this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313086&name=Desktop-Memory) and you can have 16GB for $58. 2133mhz is gratuitous and means you're paying $114 at minimum. Unless you're benchmarking, the difference between 1333mhz and 2133mhz will be negligible.

Motherboard - I typically recommend this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304&name=Intel-Motherboards). It's sufficient for most people's needs. You'll should be able to get 4.5-4.6Ghz overclock and unless you plan on going SLi in future (you shouldn't), it'll do you fine. That'll save you another $50.

PSU - 650w is fine for that build, if not 550w. This (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182131&name=Power-Supplies) should be good, as long as the deal's valid. Otherwise this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182068&name=Power-Supplies) or this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031&name=Power-Supplies) should do nicely.

SSD - OCZ doesn't really have a good reputation any more. This (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147164&name=Internal-SSD) is pretty much the best deal going right now.

Sound card + Network card - You probably don't even need these.

Monitor - I can barely find this available, but it sounds like it's decent. I'm not really up on monitors.

Edit: This is why I shouldn't go off doing other things between hitting reply and hitting submit.

[Goku]

Pretty sure hes buying from a company that builds computers. That watercooling unit is only available via prebuilts I think.

[Vancha]

Ah, the price of convenience makes sense now.

Well then in response to "somewhere I fucked up" it'd have to be buying the pre-built. With their configuration you're paying $400+ for the convenience, but with my/Goku's fixes you're paying an extra $700 for a worse computer and convenience...More than a third of the price.

Is there any chance you can cancel? If you're really unwilling to build it yourself, you'd at least be better off buying the parts separately and getting a computer shop to build it for you.

[Rbstr]

Like they've said, there's no reason to get fancy ram. Get DDR1600 (or 1333 but the price difference is peanuts, so why not?), 8gb of it in two sticks. Buy 8gb more in like a year if you need it.

My rule is to never pay for overclocking. Especially paying someone else to do it for you. If the OC gear runs the cost up to that level you should just get a better CPU with the money instead.

The basics are good, the i5 and GTX670 are pretty much where an enthusiast would want to be without paying way too much. The motherboard is good but a bit pricier than you really need.
Forget the Audigy SE card unless it's free. You can either do much better with a newer card or save money and go with the onboard stuff.
I think that Intel 10/100/1000 is the integrated ethernet so it's no problem. If it's not, there's no reason for it unless you have some special needs you haven't talked about.

[Grognard]

See what I mean :) its been a long time since I have done this kind of thing, 5 years or so... I knew I fucked up in a couple of places...

Although, some of the things I did were a matter of the "deals" that were free upgrades, so why the hell not. For instance the PSU was supposed to be a 650, but the 750 was a free upgrade, so I got it. Also, the SB Audigy, and Net card, was just to get the processing off the CPU for that kind stuff, and it should be as good or better than the onboard, and costed very little.

As for the RAM, I guess I actually fucked up, cause I thought it would be faster, and I thought there was some kind of support for that much RAM in windoze 7, so my bad. I do tab out of game for stuff during gameplay, and I hate to wait... LOL. The overclocking hardly cost a thing, so I took it, I may go to 4ghz on my own anyway. I have had 8 gigs for a long time now, and the 16 gigs was just something I wanted to do for future expandability, and shitsngiggles. It wasnt a huge expense at any rate.

The MB/CPU/GPU are where I put most of my thought, and apparantly it shows lol... I really LIKE the ASUS/INTEL/NVIDIA combination, and it would take 100 liberators to knock me off of that opinion. So I am happy with that part of the build (and I wanted to go back to a Sound blaster card...).

Thank you for the heads up on the SSDs, I am very new to that technology, but the price on those were VERY good with respect to other brands, and I wanted two. My logic (faulty?) was that it would, at least, be faster than raptors, even if slower than other SSDs, so that is why those are in there. Ill have to take the hit if they are unreliable HDs. I still think the concept it makes sense, but am now concerned with reliability. The first SSD was a free upgrade, from a non-SSD drive.

Oh gentlemen, as for convenience, I am not quite capable of fully building a Rig myself, not with any confidence on it being correctly done, and I would get frustrated learning as I go, and still not be sure I got it right. So, I did the configurator at iBuypower because I like their computers, this being my second one.

Again, thank you for the critique. I knew it was comming :) At least the core unit is good, should I need to adjust. Happy hunting.

Grog

PS: The liquid cooling didnt cost much, and I live in a very hot city (Bakersfield Ca). Later, if I OC to keep up, instead of upgrade, its in place already, and I kinda just wanted to try it out...

PPS: The actual cost was $1884, the rest was tax and ship to California. There were other things that uped the cost like speakers, 3yr warranty, etc. that I didnt mention cause its minor peripheral stuff I needed. Little bit of extra nickle-dime-to-death, but not too bad.

[Rbstr]

Well, Windows can use the RAM. It's just that there aren't really practical situations currently that would use 16gb. PS2, for instance is 32bit and can't go past something just short of 4 (IIRC). Using up a 4 more GBs on other stuff in the background is pretty crazy.
Eventually you'll probably want it...but it'll be much cheaper.

That tends to be the standing viewpoint for advice we give: Get the most for your dollar and don't overspend for "future proofing" because computers get so much better and cheaper so quickly that you're often better off spending half as much twice as often.

The extra NIC really is a waste, the overhead is tiny and it wont make a difference.
I am a big fan of a soundcard but it's all about sound quality rather than frame rates (the quality difference can be large, I don't know the pricing you're looking at but there are likely better choices. And, unless you're getting it cheap from them, it's super easy to install on your own). Adding either of those is the last place to go for more frames per second.

[SiNNCaKeS]

Been longtime pc gamer but always bought prebuilt cuz I didn't trust myself building my own. But times have changed and youths has choke tutorial vids on every aspect of building your own. Especially newegg, linustech, etc....
Also I did it so I know each and every part based on research I did on them. Now I am a proud owner of a first time beast build, quality parts for lower price, and that can be upgraded easily.
I highly suggest u do the same.

600S Corsair white case
MSI MPower Z77 Mobo
MSI 670 Power Edition
750 watt gold cert corsair psu
3570k CPU
8 gig corsair vengeance 1600
Samsung 128
R.a.t 7 albino Mouse
24" BenQ 120 hz monitor
Generic hdd

Got all this and shipped to Hawaii for $2200!
Yes Hawaii, shipping is a bitch but.....
This rig owns and I couldn't be happier

[Vancha]

Been longtime pc gamer but always bought prebuilt cuz I didn't trust myself building my own. But times have changed and youths has choke tutorial vids on every aspect of building your own. Especially newegg, linustech, etc....
Also I did it so I know each and every part based on research I did on them. Now I am a proud owner of a first time beast build, quality parts for lower price, and that can be upgraded easily.
I highly suggest u do the same.

600S Corsair white case
MSI MPower Z77 Mobo
MSI 670 Power Edition
750 watt gold cert corsair psu
3570k CPU
8 gig corsair vengeance 1600
Samsung 128
R.a.t 7 albino Mouse
24" BenQ 120 hz monitor
Generic hdd

Got all this and shipped to Hawaii for $2200!
Yes Hawaii, shipping is a bitch but.....
This rig owns and I couldn't be happier
Was it as hard as you thought it'd be? When I built my first computer I felt like it was basically an older person's version of this (http://www.ecobabyandhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sorter.jpg).

Thinking about it, the money people spend on the premium of a pre-built is probably more than the cost of breaking one of the components they don't trust themselves with.

[SiNNCaKeS]

Not gonna lie to you. I watched YouTube videos over and over until I felt confident. When I got all my componets, i was so excited that I built it with a flashlight cuz wife was asleep and I didn't want to wait. I be first to admit that it was a stupid thing to do, especially installing CPU and then watercooler (also got thermaltake water 2.0 too). But it all work on start up without a hitch.
Get started with this
Newegg TV: How To Build a Computer - Part 1 - Choosing Your Components - YouTube
Finish the series then just watch linustech on best parts