New build conundrum

I have two monitors at the moment, but that will most likely be changing up.

Primary: Samsung Synch master 206bw 20"
Secondary: LG Flattron 22" TV/Monitor combo
@ 1680x1050

I don't do dual screen gaming, but I do play games on one in native res and watch films/tv on the other. I've had the samsung for 5+ years and it's a little touchy of late so I think it's due to go pop soon like it's twin did a few months ago.


As for the mobo, the crossover element interests me, but I've seen how bad some of the other crossover options have been in the past and it gives me pause for thought.
 
Ok, so I've narrowed things down a bit if you guys could give this a once over:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Dark Rock Pro
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942)
OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Spare 1tb Spinpoint F1
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

OR

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3)
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Silverstone Fortress SST-FT02B-W Black Full Tower Aluminum Case USB 3.0
OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Spare 1tb Spinpoint F1
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
 
I've had the following recomendations for changes if you guys want to chime in:

PSU alternatives:
AX750/850
Seasonic X-760

GPU alternative:
Asus DirectCU II

Mobo alternatives:
P8Z68-V PRO
 
both builds look great, but the case and cooler in the second one are much better. however, if you prefer the looks of the HAF X then go for it. i'd far rather you had a case you liked the looks of but was slightly worse than go for something you dont like the look of bu is slightly better.

as for the waiting game your totally right, you wait for some piece of new tech and then something else is on the horizon. the main reason i was saying to wait is because it sounded like you werent going to be able to get the money together for a while anyway which meant it was pointless recommending you something now as the new stuff might have been a lot better for the money, we just dont know.

if you have the money now then the only thing that might be worth waiting for is bulldozer, as its looking like that will be coming very soon (september 19th). however, whatever you buy now will still be good because its not as though with the release of a new processor everyone in the world is going to buy it making every single game run terribly on the old stuff, so whatever you buy now will still be good for a number of years. also, going by AMD's past record bulldozer probably wont match the sandybridge processors anyway

if you give me a budget to work with i'll see what you can get for it :)

*edit*
as for the other bits all the PSU's look very good. you cant get the seasonic from OcUK so it might mean a second delivery cost for you, but other than that its impossible to say anything bad about it because its a seasonic

the GPU i wouldnt go for because if you look at it closely you will see that it takes up three expansion slots on the motherboard. this means it will have very little breathing space if you add a second one in SLI as the fans will be pressed against the second card. it will also mean you wont be able to add much else in way of expansion cards as all bar one of the slots will be covered by the giant coolers.

there is nothing wrong with the motherboard (its a common recommendation on OcUK) but it is also not as good as the MSI one i have recommended because the motherboard supports PCIe Gen3 (when you have an ivybridge processor in it. this gives you another upgrade option later down the line. if you really dont want the MSI one ive recommended then go for the Asrock Z68 extreme 4 Gen 3. the only reason i didnt recommend that instead is because its £10 more then the MSI and i really cant work out why (it was the same price as the MSI a while ago but OcUK have upped the price for some reason)

hope that helps :)
 
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Absolutely fantastic advice and help flying through here, thank you very much.

My money situation is looking up at the moment and I've managed to get a clearer answer on the money I'll be getting back which, while not ideal, certainly beats not getting it back at all.

It looks very much like I could have £1500 come December at the latest. This is longer than I'd have liked to wait given that the spec you have recommended is good to go now, but I'd have to wait till something stupid like April next year to get the whole budget back and that simply isn't going to happen!

As for Bulldozer, I nerdgasm over an 8 core beast but there's nothing I do that requires 8 cores and, as you rightly pointed out, AMD have been lagging behind Intel just enough for long enough for me to want to stick to Intel.

The card size issue is a good point on the cooling front. As for covering slots, I'm not enough of an audiophile to want a sound card and Raid just doesn't appeal so me all that much, especially with a NAS box on the horizon (April/July next year is the plan), so I can't think of a reason I'd need access to the covered slots. But, yeah, I think I'll go for the MSI one.

I've been thinking about the HAF long and hard and have decided that, although the outsitde appeals more to me than the FT02, the internals of FT02 are so different I want to properly nerd out and have a play with building around the FT02 layout.

PSU-wise, I would really like modular this time around to help me out on the cable management front. Other than that, so long as it does SLI and the socket placement on the MSI card doesn't stop me from having the third bottom case fan in the FT02, I'm happy.

Thanks again, very much appreciated!
 
the card will definitely fit in the silverstone case with all the fans in.

you wont be disappointed with the performance of the silverstone. its just like the raven but it has sound insulation in some of the panels so its even quieter

PSU is modular except for the motherboard cable and processor cable, but they get used anyway so it doesnt matter.

when youve got the money together and want a computer just make another thread and we'll be more than happy to help
 
Fantastic mate, thank you.

I wanted to get a good idea of the sort gear I'll be looking at early to so I can make sure I have the amount I need.

Hopefully I can scratch things together sooner.

Thanks again!
 
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