Hi as the title suggests i'm building my first gaming PC and would like some help on my build.

My build so far consists of

Intel Core i5-3570K Processor

Corsair H80 Liquid CPU Cooler

EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Graphics Card

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H Motherboard

8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM

128GB Samsung 830 Series SSD

2TB Western Digital Caviar Black Hard Drive

750W Corsair TX750W Modular Power Supply

Fractal Design Refine R4 Case

Sony DVD Burner

(This is also my first time using this forum so sorry if it's messy)

I would really appreciate some help as to whether this build is any good and if anyone who really knows there stuff could maybe say what kind of games I would be able to play on this PC that would be great.

Thanks

Looks fine...

State of the art cpu and graphics card, and all the surrounding components are solid as well.
I would usually advise you to go with a standard edition graphics card instead of a factory overclocked one, but since we're just talking about a $10 difference in price, its not really a biggie.

Pretty nice.

I would avoid the Liquid Cooling system unless you are extremely anal about your ability to overclock. I have had water systems in the past and the thing that nobody seems to talk about is condensation. If you buy a water cooler then you have to take care of any condensation that builds up in your PC. It can be simple as taking a minute or two out of your day, but it is something you have to do every day because forgetting to take care of it will destroy your PC. Condensation is not that big of a problem if you are living in a place like Canada, but if you live anywhere it is warm / humid (ie. Florida) you are better to just forget about it as an option. Just buy a nice air cooler if everyday maintenance is not your thing.

Other than that, things are looking good. I would pick up a less expensive version of the 680 because you obviously know how to overclock (otherwise liquid cooling is useless), and I would splurge on the 256 gig version of the Samsung SSD because it so much faster in comparison to the 128 gig version that they might as well be two different products - tho any SSD, no matter how shitty, is still an order of magnitude better than a spindle drive.

You don't need liquid cooling unless you are really going to go hardcore with the overclocking.

I know some people will balk at this, but it seems like you aren't on the strictest of budgets so I suggest just spending the extra $40 or whatever slapping another 8GB of RAM into it. You can never have too much and 8 is perfectly fine. I just think it is so cheap, why not?

@snipe: Those closed loop watercooling systems are by-and-large overpriced for what they deliver. Save your money and slap a $30 air cooler on there; just about any aftermarket cooler can handle moderate overclocking, and you shouldn't be doing any heavy OCing for gaming. Everything else looks fine; what resolution are you playing at? I hope you aren't pairing that 680 with some shitty 17" screen.

@tycobb: No, I think you have the right idea. RAM is so cheap that there's almost no reason to have as much as you can, and while 8GB is a healthy minimum I've found that moving to 16GB can be of use in certain situations. If he transitions from that H80 to a cheaper air cooler, he'd certainly have the budget for it, and that's assuming he wasn't able to just spend a bit more, like you speculated. Either way, I think it's sound advice.

@mtcantor: @mirado: Yeah I showed this build to my friend and he recommended the cooler master X6. what are your opinions on that?

@devildoll: @davo: @monetarydread: @mtcantor: @tycobb: @mirado: thanks for all of the replies and tips it has really helped me out.

@snipe: The X6 suffers from some poor acoustics, if some of the reviews are to go by. For the king of cheap (but good) air coolers, I usually tell people to go with the Hyper 212+ or Evo, and since the Evo has dropped in price on Newegg to more or less match the Plus, I'd go with that.

That's assuming you aren't doing serious overclocking. You might need a little more oomph in the cooling department if you want to crank that thing up crazy high (in which case I'd recommend something from Noctua), but you shouldn't have any reason to do that if all you are planning on doing is playing games, and any after-market cooler can handle moderate overclocks. Plus, you could always get a different cooler in a few years if you really want to stretch the life of your CPU, since it shouldn't be more than a $100 investment for the craziest, top of the line cooling solution, outside of a full blown watercooling loop (which have fallen out of favor since these CPUs have been proven fine to just run on air cooling alone).

@snipe: I recently bought this tower and I am very happy with it. It's pretty much the same price as your mid size twoer and you also get 4 fans already included. The only "cons" I say about this case is this:

• Only has one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 on the front however, it does have an external SATA port on the front.
• the 200mm fans the case support are actually 192mm and MUST use the ones from NZXT.

Either then that the case is well built and has amazing value.

@mirado: So just to be 100% sure you recommended the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler right? Sorry I just don't want to get the wrong one.

@mirado: Ok sorry to annoy you again but i'm just a bit worried if i'm missing any essentials because as I said this is my first time building. like a sound card or something. I also want to use wi-fi so do I need something for that?

@snipe: Yeah, that's the one. I understand your concern about getting everything right, but you really don't have to worry when it comes to something like coolers. As long as the cooler supports your socket type (so if you have a socket 1155 board, your cooler of choice needs to say it'll fit that), practically any of them will be better than the stock cooler.

A sound card isn't necessary (your motherboard has onboard audio and your GPU should also support HDMI), but if you want to do wifi, you'll need either a usb adapter, or a PCI card. I don't have much experience in that realm as I usually keep everything wired, but you can't go too far wrong if you stick to the better reviewed usb adapters on Newegg. I'm sure someone here might have a recommendation as well.

Best of luck, and don't stress out. You've got all the core components locked up, so the rest is just gravy.

No don't pour gravy in your computer oh god!

But he's right. Just take it slow, your first time you'll probably run into some problems like you forgot to plug in a cable or something silly like that. Just watch some videos on youtube and read the manual for the mobo, they usually explain well enough.