nukafish

Okay, your system seems pretty old, I'd start with a new CPU/Motherboard and RAM, 2x4GB at 1333Mhz/1600Mhz with a CAS of 9 or below, it is the common preference of RAM, manufacturer doesn't really matter, I'd go with Corsair for warranty if you're truly worried. Overclocking? Yes? z87 motherboard. Not overclocking and no plans to? H87, H81, H81, or B85 motherboard. If you plan to overclock, you will need a z87 motherboard and a CPU with an unlocked multiplier, i.e. 'k' skew CPUs such as a 4670k, getting an i7 like a 4770k would be futile as it will offer you little to no performance gain in gaming. If it is truly hot where you are you should get a Hyper 212 EVO, it's a very good budget cooler, overclocking or not, it will be useful as Haswell (4xxx Intel CPUs) run very hot due to bad thermal paste between the IHS. Optionally, you can get a 3570(k) (last gen) with a z77/H77/etc. motherboard. Ivy Bridge (3xxx Intel CPUs) are still relevant, as well as it's previous generation Sandy Bridge. They don't run as hot as Haswell, but I don't think heat will really be an issue with a good CPU cooler. If you're on a budget, go with a system not for overclocking, 4570 is close to the 4670(k) in performance, as does the 3470 vs 3570(k). For a GPU, Will you be gaming on one monitor at 1080p or below? 7870 XT or a 270x from AMD If you'll be using more than one monitor, a 7970/280x (AMD), you could also go with a 4GB 770 (NIVIDA), though NVIDIA tends to be a bit more expensive. If it is within budget, you can always grab an R9 290 from AMD, or a GTX 780 from NVIDIA.

And here I am rejoicing that those old designs have been rejected in favor of better cooling :wink: I have a GTX 780. The 780ti is not worth the money, in my opinion, due solely to its memory. I use multiple monitors. Games are starting to get more VRAM intensive. If a $700+ card doesn't have at least 4GB of VRAM, I think you're being ripped off. The GTX 690 is significantly better in terms of cost + longevity + performance. Now, if the 780ti releases a 6GB version I will jump on it faster than you can say Rumplestiltskin. So far no confirmation. You have to take into account memory speed, the 780ti outperforms a 6GB VRAM Titan in 4k, it also is cheaper. The 690 only has 2GB of VRAM, it's two downclocked 680s, so I'm not sure where you're seeing a dual-GPU being a better deal than a powerful single GPU.

Microsoft did admit that Windows 8 was a failure to the consumer, since no one liked it, they added the start button because people asked for it back, if it was up to them they wouldn't have put it back, but they want to try to do what the consumer wants, though they haven't done a great job.

Microsoft doesn't want competition against their API, of course they're not going to go with Mantle, Mantle is supposed to be easier and allow more options for devs to work with, for all we know it could be the next best thing, but, as we have no benchmarks or any companies supporting it other than DICE, we have no word if it will be succesful, though if it offers the performance increase being speculated, it can be a real game changer. If you can afford a 290 then it's a much better option (as long as you get a card with a non-reference cooler) don't mistake the 290 as an underclocked 290x though, the 290 has less stream processors.

2GB is enough for 1080p gaming, I'd get 3GB (280x) for future titles and if you want to go with more than one monitor in the future, the 280x is a rebranded 7970Ghz with better power consumption, the 770 is a rebranded 680. 770 - Shadowplay, CUDA, and G-Sync 280x - Mantle Support, more powerful in OpenCL/OpenGL applications, better multi-monitor support (Eyefinity) I would personally go with the 280x as it soon will come with the AMD Never Settle Bundle (3 free games)

Yup, but people tend to easily forget that CPUs are not only used for games. AMD's FX 8350 can beat even Intel's Ivy Bridge "Extreme" i7s by a large margin in some tasks. In gaming, FX 8350/8320 are somewhere on-par with i5 3570K in single/dual-threaded games, and between it and i7 3770K in games that can utilize an octa-core. Another thing to mention, the HT on Intel's i3 and i7 chips have lower overall gain than AMD's module implementation. An i7 3770K gains some 20% better multi-threading performance over i5 3570K, with near-identical per-core performance. An FX 8350 gains 60% increase in multi-threading performance over Phenom II X4 965, also with near-identical per-core performance. That's when using software that can take advantage of all threads. AMD's module implementation in Piledriver FX-series flops on software that isn't optimized for it, but gets some impressive results on software that is. With the Steamroller around the corner (architectural improvements, cca 25% increase in performance, backwards compatibility with AM3+) and more games being optimized for AMD's K10 (consoles run on octa-core AMD Jaguars), it's possible that Intel's large lead may become a thing of the past in the next generation of games. By the way, when you compare CPUs in performance, you compare them with a similarly priced equivalent, it's the price/performance that matters the most, not performance alone, unless you have a crap-ton of money or do professional 3D work. The only thing Intel has in 8320's price range is i3 4340 and i5 3350p, both of which are overall on-par with it (rock in per-core, flop in multi-threading), and both of which are locked. Yes, FX 8320 draws 125W while i5 3570K draws 77W. Temperature difference? Oerclocked FX 8320 runs cooler than i5 3570K on stock, same cooler. Performance difference? i5 3570K wins by cca 60% in per-core and 4% in multi-threaded applications overall. Overall performance difference? 14% in favor of i5 3570K. Price difference? Around 70$ in favor of 8320. Price/performance ratio? 30% in favor of FX 8320. Is 14% overall performance increase worth 30% more money spent on CPU alone, the same money that could go into a better graphics card? Not in my opinion, FX chips will run most older and modern games at over 60FPS on 1920x1080 and if not, there's always performance through overclocking. The FX 8320 is in regards of gaming performance slower than a Core i3 3220 btw., has been benchmarked. Can you find me said benchmark?

You're using an mATX motherboard, this case supports ATX boards and under, you should be perfectly fine. http://www.microcenter.com/product/381663/Crafted_Series_Phantom_410_Mid_Tower_ATX_Computer_Case_-_Black $80 http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.asp?px=CJ&scriteria=AA79815#.Um5sexCnYdU $80 You could try going through Ebay if you're trusting enough, I recommend going through a real retailer in case there happens to be any problems and you need to RMA the case.

MISTAKES CANNOT BE FORGIVEN! All is good, don't mind me, just being critical of things. :laugh:

The Samsung and Crucial SSD that we're on the topic of have been around for 2-2.5 months on the retail side, they've been priced at around this though being the $500-$600 marker, so not totally new, but a bit of a step in the evolution of cheaper SSDs, yes. All though I agree with you on the performance aspect, I don't see an average user transfering 20tb of data on a normal basis. As for gaming, the only thing it truly has an effect on is load times which aren't even bad for most games, unless it isn't optimised very well, it's not going to do anything for FPS, an average user or someone looking for speed could always buy a cheaper and or smaller SSD and use it for caching on your HDD or just buy a Hybrid SSHD. *I don't mean to come off as condescending or argumentative, just having a chat and discussion about SSDs.

I don't think they're anywhere near a decent price point yet, I don't need Windows to boot in a few seconds and load times in games aren't terrible. I'm never in that much of a hurry that I need to spend hundreds on quicker load times. I agree, $600 to store data when you're not on a professional or enthusiast level is a big strain, still though, it's better than those huge 4-digit priced PCI-E SSDs, but that is why it's a luxury at the moment, and yes, I've never (not that I'm aware of) had to sit more than 6-12 seconds on a loading screen in a Triple A game, unless it was a game in alpha/beta of course.

This is a bit old to be honest, but it is very interesting. It is interesting to see SSDs get bigger while watching the prices go down, but, they're still awfully expensive, I can get a WD Blue or a Seagate HDD for $60 or less with the same memory capacity, though of course it will not be nearly as fast, I don't need to but up Windows in 4 seconds or archive huge files, SSDs seem like that last luxury item you should be getting next to a 80+ Gold/Platinum fully-modular PSU. Under a circumstance where you use this for professional use, this seems like quite the deal though, especially when PCI-e SSDs are so expensive and take up more valuable space as well as being more fragile.

Getting that Xeon would offer no performance increase of a 4670(non-k), i7 vs i5 in gaming it changes nothing, and though ASRock has gotten better with their motherboards on the x87 line there are better choices from Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus.

A 670 is a bit faster than the 760, a 770 is a rebranded 680, I'd recommend getting a 7950/7970 due the the low price on them and great performance, if you wish to stick with NVIDIA I'd say get a 670 or 680/770.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1T3F3 8320 is the same exact chip as the 8350, just not clocked as high out of the box, you can easily OC the different or even go higher. 7970, it's stronger than the Asus 7950 and cheaper, though not as good looking. Better PSU, 850 for crossfire if planned in the future, arguably you could go with 750 but this unit was decently priced compared to the Corsair CX750 and others, cheaper RAM, 1333 speed RAM will not remotely effect your gaming performance, if you want it to be higher you can easily OC the RAM yourself, it's also cheaper, Seagate 2TB > WD Black, WD Black is fading out now that you can buy a cheap small SSD and just run important programs off that with much higher speed, the Barracuda models from Seagate are exceptional anyway and much more affordable, the board you chose is great, some people prefer the UD5 due to better VRM but if you're not doing a big OC it wouldn't matter too much, the cooler you also chose is a very good cooler for the price so no need to change there, the case is preference so I don't need to bother changing that.

What would be your preferred form factor, mITX, mATX, ATX? With mITX you're limited to one PCI lane so you can only do a single GPU, mATX usually allows up to 2 GPUs meaning you can crossfire/SLI, ATX is full sized, you can go anywhere from single to 4-way SLI, though I'd never go over 2 GPUs because you'll run into a lot of problems. How heavy is your CAD work, would you say it's on a professional level? I wouldn't recommend a Titan, they're really expensive and you're better off with a 780 or two, the 290x was just released and it does better than the 780 and Titan, especially at high resolutions. (The current state of the 290x though is that it is noisy and hot due to it only having a reference cooler at the moment, Asus, Gigabyte, and other companies will be doing their own non-reference cooler designs shortly.) Are you planning on running more than 1 GPU (i.e.) Crossfire or SLI? Are you looking to build your computer or having someone do it for you? If you're buying premade you're going to pay a fortune compared to what you'd pay building it yourself or having someone build the parts you bought. Do you have any HDDs you're going to reuse? Will you be using Windows 7 or 8? I'd recommend Windows 8, it boosts faster and is shown to have a minor increase FPS as well as having better core utilisation.