Generic "First Home build - spec help!" thread

[Catch!]

I'm looking to do my first home build. I'm not really looking to play brand-new games at ultra specs, but reasonably high would be nice

I'm also keen to stay with Nvidea by default (just because it's what I've always used), but I'm not obstinate - if there's a good reason to switch, I will.

Lastly, I'm leaning towards getting a single graphics card to start with, and then using SLI at some point in the future. Will that need a far better power supply than the one selected? (Again, if there's a good reason for me not to SLI, by all means let me know!)

Anyway, I've done some research, and have a tentative build:

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CASE - Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black

CPU - Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor

Motherboard - ASRock Z77 Pro4 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

RAM - Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz C9 Dual Channel

Graphics - KFA2 GeForce GTX 660TI EX OC 2048MB GDDR5

Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM

Power Supply - PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III Series 600W 80 Plus Bronze Modular Power Supply

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

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Now, in order to cut costs a little, there's a couple of substitutions that I thought could make;

Antec 300 Case

GTX 480 / GTX 640Ti / MSI GTX 660 OC Twin Frozr 2048MB GDDR5

Possibly also a different hard drive - I'm only really going to use this for gaming, so I'm not even sure I need 500gb tbh. Would it be worth me getting a solid state drive? Looking online people seem to get a big improvement in performance, and I think I'd be more inclined to install the OS on the solid state to start with and get a better graphics card later if it's a choice between the two.

Would any of those subs work?
Are there any better substitutions that would?
Is the build I've suggested hopelessly incompatible?
Shall I stop asking questions now?!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Catch!]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £89.89 (includes shipping : £8.25).



I would suggest getting this motherboard if you're not going to sli. Gigabyte have better RMA support in the UK and it's also cheaper. The rest of the spec looks good

Thanks for the advice - that'll save me a bunch if I decide not to SLI.
If I decided not to, which of the alternative graphics cards would you recommend?
Is the frozr GTX 660 one going to be near as good as the GTX 660TI, or is there a pretty big difference? The video card benchmarks site would appear to indicate not, but tbh I'm a bit lost when it comes to the various graphics cards.