I'm building a PC and would like your thoughts and ideas!

After everyone's help, here is what I "think" I'm going to go with, let me know what you think, the rest of this below is jibberish: 
 
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=27044668  
 
So the time has come where I'm going to be updating my PC. I'm planning on building one, but I'm in a little bit of foreign territory here and would like any help, useful suggestions or hints to if I'm in the right or wrong direction. Also, I'm not wanting to upgrade for at least 4 - 5 years as my laptop thus far has lasted that long and is still a good laptop, I just have more demanding work at the moment. 
 
Here are my needs: I do graphic design creating band artwork and such, recording music, recording podcast, light video editing for web and Youtube  (nothing in 1080 or blu ray extensive) and gaming. 
 
Here's what I have so far:   
 
- OS: Windows 7 
 
- Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX  
 

 - Processor:  Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K  

If you have the money for a 7970 you should really be buying the higher end Intel i7, not the dreadful bulldozer. That's my first and foremost thought.

E: Don't use any sort of Beats anything. If you want a sound card you should buy an Asus Xonar. Any will do.

E2: The different between the 7970 and the 6850 is pretty huge.

@Bobby_The_Great: Why the hell are you getting a 980 as your CPU? That's a dead platform, duder. It also costs a grand on its own so I have no idea where you are getting that $1500 total pricetag from.

If you are really desperate to blow a grand on a CPU then go with the 3960X, but you really don't need any more then the 2600k. You also haven't listed your power supply.

And do not bother with liquid cooling. New CPUs do just fine on air.

@Bobby_The_Great: I'd go for the 2700k if I'm honest. Buying a 1366 now seems silly. Although I've not the most Intel experience, so yeah.

People still buy sound cards? I thought it was pretty much proven that those are unnecessary these days, unless it's your job to work with audio or something.

If you're building it yourself you really shouldn't be trying to build something to last 4 years.

Most of the high end stuff is drastically overpowered for what you currently need.

Try and find something that will give you the most bang for your buck now and just replace it in 2 years. If you're building it yourself then you'll be able to easily replace what you want when the time comes.

Some of the best value parts are the i5-2500k and the Geforce GTX 560 ti

My opinion... what are you using 16GB of RAM for? I'm upgrading to 8GB and I pretty much haven't used all 4GB (except when I'm leaving stuff running in the background)

I video edit a bit and several things can make the difference when video editing (such as how fast your computer can access the hard drives)

A good sound card does make a difference, I just hope you got some good headphones to get the full experience out of your sound card. (bass and treble are much clearer on a good soundcard and everything doesnt sound flat)

If you have a budget in mind, I'd stick to it and not blow everything you got. You'll most likely want to upgrade in 3-4 years anyways because of the technology leaps.

That's all I have to say for now.

If you have the money to blow on the 7970 the go with that. If you are looking at the 6800 series then go for the 6870 not the 6850. Price difference is really low and the 6870 the better choice.

@Bobby_The_Great: You don't HAVE to shave it down if money is not a problem. Go for the 3960X and slap some 680s in there and a nice 1KwH power supply and we can really take this fucker off to the races if you want to drop like $3k into it. The key is updated parts:

CPU: Socket 1155 or 2011. 1155 is a bit more budget and a bit older but nothing to sneeze at and even the best systems usually never use more then a 2700k as a CPU.

Motherboard: Match the CPU socket. Other then that, doesn't really matter much as long as you don't go budget.

GPU: 7970 or GTX 680. The 680 is more but also more powerful.

RAM: 8GB is all you really need, but 16 (4x4) is cheap in your price range. Lower timings (5-5-5-12 vs 7-7-7-15 or so) are better, speed in Mhz should be 1333 or 1600. (You won't notice that much of a difference either way).

SSD: Sort of a scrum. OCZ makes some good stuff, but people like Crucial or Intel or Kingston and so on.

HDD: I'm partial to Spinpoints from Samsung.

Sound Card: Not really necessary.

PSU: At least 600W for the 7970, more for the 680 and even more if you plant to overclock your CPU with either. Shouldn't need more then 800W no matter what, and 750W is probably the sweet spot. That'll give you room to overclock and even add in a 2nd GPU down the line. Make sure to get something with a good 80 PLUS rating (silver or better), my brand of choice is Corsair.

Case: Personal preference. I like the HAF X because you have a ton of room to work with, but some people think it's a bit too blocky. Just make sure it can fit the GPU, those fuckers are big.

That should put you around $2k when all is said and done. You'll have a pretty monstrous system, with room for a 2nd GPU if you like.

I would suggest nvidia over ATI. They are usually more expensive but the drivers are better, the games support nvidia better and it uses physX on some good titles.

@AlexW00d said:

E: Don't use any sort of Beats anything. If you want a sound card you should buy an Asus Xonar. Any will do.

E2: The different between the 7970 and the 6850 is pretty huge.

E3: No new Half-Life.

Processor: Intel Core i7-3960X

Mobo: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme

Ram: 64GB G.Skill Ripjaw 2133MHz CL 9-11-9 (8x8GB)

GFX: 4 x Leadtek GTX580 1536MB

SDD: 4 x Corsair Force Series GT 240GB RAID 0

PSU: Enermax MaxRevo 1500W

Cooling: Custom Water Cooling Loop

Media: Pioneer BDR-206 Blu-ray Writer

Case: Silverstone Temjin TJ11

Monitor: 3 x Dell Ultrasharp U3011

Power Protection: Eaton 5PX 2000VA + EBM Battery Pack

Sound: Audioengine S8 + Audiengine 5

Headset: AKG K 702 + Burson HA-160D Amplifier

Keyboard + Mouse: Razer Black Widow Ultimate + Razer Mamba 4G

@ about $18k, this should keep you at peak gaming performance level, and also provide the ability to launch spaceships if the need happens to arise.

@Bobby_The_Great: I usually don't bother to put together specific builds as I do like a million of these over at Tested, but it's rare that I get someone who has the same budget that I do and I like to keep potential builds that I would personally use. With that in mind, I give you this.

Some thoughts:

Most 680s are out of stock. You can replace it with a 7970 for a small drop in performance, or wait until they come back in. It's there solely to give you an idea of the price.

The motherboard and the case are both customizable depending on your needs/tastes. Those two are good examples of what would work. Modify them as you see fit.

You can slap a heatsink on the CPU to replace the stock one that comes with it. Most people spring for something like this, and it's only another $40 onto your budget which should put you RIGHT at $2k.

Otherwise, you should be good to go with that. Feel free to bounce any questions at me.

Processor: Intel Core i7-3960X

Mobo: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme

Ram: 64GB G.Skill Ripjaw 2133MHz CL 9-11-9 (8x8GB)

GFX: 4 x Leadtek GTX580 1536MB

SDD: 4 x Corsair Force Series GT 240GB RAID 0

PSU: Enermax MaxRevo 1500W

Cooling: Custom Water Cooling Loop

Media: Pioneer BDR-206 Blu-ray Writer

Case: Silverstone Temjin TJ11

Monitor: 3 x Dell Ultrasharp U3011

Power Protection: Eaton 5PX 2000VA + EBM Battery Pack

Sound: Audioengine S8 + Audiengine 5

Headset: AKG K 702 + Burson HA-160D Amplifier

Keyboard + Mouse: Razer Black Widow Ultimate + Razer Mamba 4G

@ about $18k, this should keep you at peak gaming performance level, and also provide the ability to launch spaceships if the need happens to arise.

@Bobby_The_Great said:

S

- Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX

- Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K

That motherboard is for AMD processors. I can't believe nobody else has noticed....

Anyway, what you need is an Intel 1155 Socket motherboard something like:-

Asus P8Z68V-PRO

@Bobby_The_Great: I find it easier to build things over at Newegg vs just listing the parts; like you said it cuts down on searching but it also prices it, allows for fast modification, and let's you save it so it can auto-notify you when things come back in stock. I've spent far too much money over there.

Keep in mind the potential modifications and additions that I listed and you'll having a banging system in no time.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Bobby_The_Great said:

S

- Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX

- Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K

That motherboard is for AMD processors. I can't believe nobody else has noticed....

Anyway, what you need is an Intel 1155 Socket motherboard something like:-

Asus P8Z68V-PRO

As said before, you have the WRONG motherboard. I repeat (and quoted :)) You need a 1155 socket motherboard. Air cooling is fine for most people unless you want to overclock. A stock fan will do but if your budget permits, go for a large fan. Does your case have a lot of room? Will it be able to accommodate a large fan?

@Bobby_The_Great said:

So the time has come where I'm going to be updating my PC. I'm planning on building one, but I'm in a little bit of foreign territory here and would like any help, useful suggestions or hints to if I'm in the right or wrong direction. Also, I'm not wanting to upgrade for at least 4 - 5 years as my laptop thus far has lasted that long and is still a good laptop, I just have more demanding work at the moment.

Here are my needs: I do graphic design creating band artwork and such, recording music, recording podcast, light video editing for web and Youtube (nothing in 1080 or blu ray extensive) and gaming.

Here's what I have so far:

- OS: Windows 7

- Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX

- Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K

- Ram: 16GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]

- Hard drive: 256GB Solid state drive and 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive

- Graphics card: Radeon HD 7970 3GB VRAM give or take, maybe save a few bucks and get a 2GB, thoughts? I also could save quite a bit going for 1GB DDR5 Radeon HD 6850 [2 DVI, 2 mini-DP, HDMI. VGA adapter] , but that seems like it would drastically affect game performance.

- Heat sink: air or liquid, can't decide? Air is easy to clean, what kind of maintenance is needed for liquid?

- Primary drive: 1 Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner (dont' see a need for 2)

- Ethernet port (don't need wi-fi as this'll be a desktop)

- Ports: 15-in-1 memory card reader, 4 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0

- Sound card: A sus Xonar

If you want the best, get the Nvidia GTX 680 if you can get a hold of it, better performance and runs more efficiently then amd's top of the line cards. More future proof.

Also Stick with Air cooled. The pre fabricated water cooled units aren't any better and are quite loud when the heat gets going. the only advantage of water cooling is space. a custom set up can cost in the $100's and maintenance on it is cumbersome. make sure your case is big enough, the best air cooled fans are pretty big.

-Also the on board sound should be good enough to not buy a sound card.

-you could save some money with using a 120gb SSD. load your os, games, and whatever other time intensive programs you have. everything else should go on your HD. I'd recommend the crucial m4's

-built a many computers

@Bobby_The_Great said:

@jrob8604: @JOURN3Y: Here is what I "think" I'm finally going to go with, let me know if I'm missing anything: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=27044668

Everything looks good but i'd still recommend buying a gtx 680 then the current card you have in there. they start at 499, $20 more but you get better performance and is less of a power and heat hog. read the reviews on it, it pretty much trounces the 7970 in every category. $20 well spent

Also that fan is just average. Its fine if your not going to overclock your rig and push it to its limits. but if you plan on getting everything out of your processor and still keep it running cool i'd get http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018 Its what i Use and its a beast. I had my 2500k at 4.8ghz stable with it. also it will fit your case. Actually almost everything will fit that case lol. its the best case you can buy imo.

If your not going to OC your rig then that fan is fine.

@Bobby_The_Great:I have the N520 for my build. Does the job just fine. The two major differences is that the N520 has two 92mm fans instead of one 120mm fan and it's copper base plate is unified as opposed to the mashed design the 212 evo has. Less chances for air bubbles.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057

Unless you already have a license, don't buy Windows 7. Use the Windows 8 Consumer Preview until the final release later this year.

@jrob8604: I was looking at that particular Noctua model but with the case I have it wouldn't fit at all. I barely touch the RAM with the N520. There's like a millimeter gap between the RAM and the fan. Also my case has the PSU on the top so again I don't have room for that beast. Maybe when I get a full size tower I will upgrade the heatsink.

@mordukai said:

@jrob8604: I was looking at that particular Noctua model but with the case I have it wouldn't fit at all. I barely touch the RAM with the N520. There's like a millimeter gap between the RAM and the fan. Also my case has the PSU on the top so again I don't have room for that beast. Maybe when I get a full size tower I will upgrade the heatsink.

Yeah, the case is the deciding factor on fans like those. Mine almost touches. just ready your specs on your case and fan, and see what matches up. thats one advantage watercooling has is you save a lot of space.