@Mirado: Btw I have also looked at charts believe it or not and if you have as well , again you would see the little increase between those card and mine. I made this purchase on one thing pretty much . quality for value that fit into my limited budget . Now if you would like to purchase me of those the cards and send it my way I am all up for that.

@Deathshroud said:

@Mirado: No , not really . I will say the 570 and 580 are slightly better but by very much . And again for the price I got on it I really don't thing for a very minor improvement I will return it. Also I don't know where you get the info on ti running hot being a power eater but I really don't have that issue with it. maybe it was just a bad exp you had with it. But mine is running just fine.

Well, from here:

Power consumption figures for the GeForce GTX 480 are truly terrifying. With a total system consumption of 506 watts under load, it was 22% more power hungry than the Radeon HD 5870. Despite being a single GPU graphics card it used slightly more power than the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 at both idle and load, and was comparable to a pair of Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards in Crossfire mode....All that power makes for one seriously hot graphics card as well. The 97 degree load temperature was the maximum temperate that we recorded during our tests, and had the fan spinning so fast things started sliding across my desk towards the test system. The GeForce GTX 480 was truly deafening when running at full load.

And here:

There is simply no denying the fact that the GTX 480 is one power hungry card. Idle power consumption isn’t all that bad when compared to the previous generation of NVIDIA cards but it pales in comparison to the efficiency achieved by the HD 5800 series. Unfortunately, for the performance it gives the GTX 480 is certainly not the best performance per watt card out there....Say it with me: ninety five degrees. We know the chip is supposedly built to run at these temperatures throughout its life without impacting upon its expected longevity but seeing these temperatures for any length of time on a processor is shocking to say the least.

And here:

Power consumption at idle was the highest we’ve seen from a single GPU card at 186W system power draw, 18W more than the HD 5870. At load though it entered a whole new dimension for a single GPU card sucking down a massive 382W while looping the canyon flight demo in 3DMark 06. That’s a full 106W more than the Radeon HD 5870 in the same test, 30W more than the dual GPU Radeon HD 5970 and only 6W less than the dual GPU GeForce GTX 295!
Sucking down all that power has clear consequences for the card’s thermal output, and while the GTX 480 idles at a balmy 20°C above room temperature in our 22°C air conditioned labs with a low and utterly un-intrusive fan noise to match, things change for the worse at full load. The GPU temperature rapidly rises to a heady 94°C – 72°C above the ambient room temperature, where the fan speeds up to whatever speed necessary to keep the GPU from getting any hotter.
The result is a graphics card that runs extremely hot at full load, and that coupled with the unique external heatsink it could easily be rebranded the GTX 480 Griddle Edition - the heatsink in our test rig, which, bear in mind is a roomy Antec Twelve Hundred, hit 67°C, which is enough to burn your skin.

Would you like more sources, or will that do? Keep in mind those were new reviews at the time, and while GPUs have gotten more power hungry (and not by much) they've also become way more efficient (especially at idle). The 480, for all its muscle, was never an efficient card.

Listen, I don't care what you buy, but I just don't understand how you could find a two year old card on Newegg, ignore the fact that the later models were just as powerful and WAY more efficient, and say to yourself: yeah, I'll have that one! Even if you want to argue that the 480 is more powerful then a 570, 670, and 580 (which it's not), you are losing out on the architecture updates. How much money did you have to save to make it worth your while?

holy graphics bottleneck batman , you do realise theyre up to the 6 series btw

and " mine is running just fine" doesnt actually mean anything , the fact is they generate far more heat , and drain much more power than the newer cards .. this does have a huge impact on the lifepsan of your entire system , and also your electricity bill if you are someone who runs your computer 24/7 .

regardless im not trying to tell you you're wrong.. use whatever card you want , i gave away a 460 recently to someone who offered to pay the postage for it, its definatley an upgrade for them..and the price is about as much as i would expect someone to pay for it ..

How much of a bargain did you get? It may just be your perception of value .. its not even an argument that the 5 series was far better in many aspects than the 4 series , and then theres the 6 series , not to mention the actually good ati 7870 etc..

all im saying is you better have gotten that 480 for next to nothing .. because thats what its worth in todays market.

video games however dont give a fuck and will run fine on that card (and espeically your processor etc..) so its all moot.. at least the rest of your components seem to be spot on value for money (anyone arguing about i5 vs i7 clearly doesnt understand shit)

@envane: My Previous card was a ATI HD 3800 series . So going from that to the 480 was a big step up. that being said I understand what is being told to me but then again info on the card itself that I was able to find does not really reflect the "huge leap:" that everyone seems to think from the 480 to the 500 series. in fact some of the 500 series are a huge pieces of crap. I spend a little over 100 bucks on the 480 and Later, if I do want to get a better card like the 680 it will allow me to have that wiggle room to save up for it without feeling like it was a waste and hopefully sell the 480 and break even at least.

Nice build, personally I would have gone with a 480 equivelant in the 5xx or 6xx series, just because it'd be less of a power hog, and cooler.

@Mirado: You seem pretty clued in. What's your take on the 560ti (448 cores)?

@GetEveryone: Well, I loved it when it was new; it wasn't as powerful on paper as a 6950, but nVidia always had better driver support and it was a bit cheaper so I guess it evened out in the end. Since we've hit the new 6xx series, I'd look for the equivalent if it's within your budget, but how cheap are we talking? If you can get it for about $150 it'll still give you a good performance/dollar ratio, better then the lower end 600's at least. If you can swing the extra to hit the 660 or 660 TI, I'd look there as performance moves ever upward and it'll last you a bit longer while doing it cooler and quieter.

EDIT: Also keep in mind this is coming from a guy who's running two 6950s in Crossfire at the moment, so if you want some AMD options I can pass those along as well. Didn't want to seem nVidia biased. :D

Nice, man. Solid machine that I'm sure will serve you well. Some of the parts choices are a bit weird (as, yes, I know, many others have already covered thoroughly), and I would've chosen differently, but at the end of the day, it's a decent build with a good upgrade path (Z77 would provide a better upgrade path, but yeah, whatever!).

i was going to say why an i5 and not a i7 but aparently @AlexW00d answered that.

anyway gratz on the new pc. the tower looks great to

Nice PC build!

@Mirado: im running 2 580s in sli heh , mabye we are both disqualified from complaining about the heat / power consumption of a single 480 ehehe ... but yeah fuck .. 580s are hot enough as is id hate to have sli'd 480s but i guess in the grand scheme of things 1 will be fine

@Deathshroud: hows your cpu doin with the stock heatsink , just interested as alot of ppl go the other way with overkill and get a h100 or something when they dont even o/c , i always reccomend a decent cooler like a noctua nh-d14 or somethin but even that is probably overkill.

@envane: That's some serious firepower, and serious heat. But even though two 580s can really put out the BTUs (as can my 6950s), the cooler designs are way better then on the stock 480; you can at least handle a hot 580 or 6950 with a bit of care, whereas that whole side on the 480 turns into a grill and will blister your skin something terrible. Sure, one 480 won't be as hot as two of ours, but it'll still slam into the TDP wall at full load, and it'll sound like a wind tunnel while it does it.

@deathshroud It's always fun to build a new computer and get it working. I ended up driving with a friend from Vegas to the San Diego area to get a desk from Ikea that fit my space perfectly. My pc's sub was even able to (barely) fit in the door area. The desk was only about $100 but the thickness gives it a quality feel. No gripes about component choice, you bought what fit your needs and budget.

@thabigred said:

@AlexW00d said:

@thabigred said:

I really don't get why, in 2012, anyone would get an any i5 over even the worst i7.

Because for gaming it is entirely pointless? Why would you need multithreading for games that rarely take advantage of more than 2 cores?

I guess I just don't understand why people only game on their PCs. Mine is my hub for everything. Multithreading makes everything better.

What the hell is the average user going to do that requires Multithreading, or where it would make the experience any better? The average game-playing/web browsing person won't notice a difference, and any slight gains made come at such a high cost that it would be better to sink that extra money into a better graphics card/monitor/more money/SSD etc. Literally no reason for most people to ever need an i7 over an i5 at this point.

@Mirado said:

@GetEveryone: Well, I loved it when it was new; it wasn't as powerful on paper as a 6950, but nVidia always had better driver support and it was a bit cheaper so I guess it evened out in the end. Since we've hit the new 6xx series, I'd look for the equivalent if it's within your budget, but how cheap are we talking? If you can get it for about $150 it'll still give you a good performance/dollar ratio, better then the lower end 600's at least. If you can swing the extra to hit the 660 or 660 TI, I'd look there as performance moves ever upward and it'll last you a bit longer while doing it cooler and quieter.

EDIT: Also keep in mind this is coming from a guy who's running two 6950s in Crossfire at the moment, so if you want some AMD options I can pass those along as well. Didn't want to seem nVidia biased. :D

When I built my computer around 2 years ago I went with a 560 TI, looks like the price has come down but not by much ($40). FWIW it still maxes pretty much every game out (except BF3. GTA IV is a little framey too but that's cause of poor optimization on the game's part). I really only pay attention to hardware when I'm about to upgrade so I can't comment on the price/performance ratio, but the vibe I'm getting from people is that if you can wait you probably should.

@PillClinton:yeah I see what you are sayng . But the MB was free , b-day gift and the card I got for super cheap so upgrading is going to be really easy. Plan on probably getting that don by the middle of next year .

@WEB_War4: Thanks for the info I'll check that out . WE have a new Ikea open recently here I will swing by it this weekend

@Grillbar: @snake911: Thank you :)

@envane: Its doing great. I can give you measurements right now becaues I am not home to do so . But I plan on OC ad upgrading it then along with the MB and Vid Card later this next year

@envane: In a nice case with good air flow, Intel's stock coolers are perfectly fine--at stock speeds, that is (and even up to 4GHz with the 2500k/3570k, apparently). OC'd any higher, though, you'd want something more.

So I Built this comp a year ago and now its time for me to upgrade a few things. The item that I feel I need to swap out first is that Video card. I know this is a extreme shot in the dark . But I am looking to get a GTX 970 for $250 or under . If anyone knows a place that sells one refurb or sees a ebay auction or knowns anyone please let me know. I know it is asking a lot but I had to work a ton of overtime to just get this much that I can spend. Thanks for the feedback everyone..even wtih knowing it might be a near 0% chance.

@deathshroud: Wait for Black Friday or the weeks leading up to it since there's bound to be a deal that would fit that price range by then on a flash deal or something similar.

@deathshroud: Extreme shot in the dark is an understatement. You're not gonna find a 970 for under 300, even used/refurb. If you hold out longer until ATI's next batch of cards hits you'll maybe see price drops.

Check out the HardOCP used forums, a lot of people are selling their 700 and high end 600 series cards to make way for 900's. If you can get a 680/780 for cheap off there you're laughing, considering the performance per buck.