First time Builder

[badams]

I am going to attempt my first build and was hoping for some help. Please let me know if I should stay away from anything or if I am going in the wrong direction. I do not plan on overcocking at all. I was also wondering if my power supply was over kill and if I should stay away from the asus mother board. Any advice would be a great help on any of the items i'm looking at. I am looking for the best setup from the below listed items and if there are any better alternatives please let me know. I'm still learning.

thank you!

Cases:
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior

Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Hard Drive:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Graphics Card:
ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ...

MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

MSI N460GTX Hawk Talon Attack GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ...

Memory:
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C8

Mother Board:
ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 ...

Power Source:
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power ...

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 ...


And
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400

[xenocide]

Get the ASRock motherboard, and 750w is overkill for that setup, drop it down to the 650w Corsair PSU (same series) and you'll save some money. With said saved money, I reccomend going for the 6870 or even all the way up to a 560Ti for the GPU.

EDIT: Also, noticed you have 2 HDD's listed. I'd go for the WD Cavier Black personally, I've never gotten a bad product from either though.

[gumpty]

Looks good.

What xenocide said +

• You said you don't want to overclock, but for what it's worth, pay the extra $20 for the 2500K - think of it as $20 for the extra speed and the insurance against catching the OC bug any time in the future - you wont have to buy a new processor.
• Again for what it's worth you might as well get 1TB drives these days - they are so damn cheap.
• Get yourself a cheap aftermarket CPU cooler like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 - your ears will love you for it.

Also on the hard drive front - don't worry about a drive not being 'SATA 6Gbps' - HDDs can't get close to filling the bandwidth of the older standard, so you wont notice any appreciable difference - buy it on price-per-GB.

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by gumpty

[*]Get yourself a cheap aftermarket CPU cooler like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 - your ears will love you for it.

The stock cooler that came with my i5-2500k is much quieter than the Freezer 7 Pro I had on my Q6600 was. Unless they changed something other than the brackets on it (which I haven't heard) then it won't make much of a difference, and if he doesn't end up going for the 2500k and OCing will be pointless. But in the same vein, I reccomend getting some Arctic Silver 5 and a $2 thing of Alcohol from Walmart and getting rid of the crap thermal massacre that comes on the stock HSF...

Also, Newegg has a sale on a WD 1.5TB CAvier Black HDD right now (for the next 22 hours) that would be worth looking at. Just ensures you don't overload your HDD and suffer.

[gumpty]

Originally Posted by xenocide

The stock cooler that came with my i5-2500k is much quieter than the Freezer 7 Pro I had on my Q6600 was. Unless they changed something other than the brackets on it (which I haven't heard) then it won't make much of a difference, and if he doesn't end up going for the 2500k and OCing will be pointless. But in the same vein, I reccomend getting some Arctic Silver 5 and a $2 thing of Alcohol from Walmart and getting rid of the crap thermal massacre that comes on the stock HSF...

Fair enough. I haven't used a stock cooler in years.

badams, where are you based?

[badams]

Xenocide and gumpty- thank you so much for the look over,

I will change out the power supply. I'll check out the 560TI price, which brand is the best?

I listed at least two items of for everything just because I wanted to make sure I was getting the best option for each item. I was thinking of getting two 500 GB hard drives and possibly using my old hard drive from my other computer too. I read some where that the 1tb+ drives have some stability issues so was thinking of just doubling up on the 500 gb drives.

I will also use the Asrock mother board, its to bad because the ASUS seems like it has so much potential. Would it be abetter option to just wait for the z68?

It it important to get a cheap after market cpu cooler since I won't be over clocking? I will consider the 2500k as well though it is $229 while the one I choose is $189

[Crap Daddy]

If you don't plan to overclock there is absolutely no use in buying and aftermarket cooler. The Intel one is doing its job as it is supposed to and is quiet. And yes, go with the i5-2500K just in case, some time down the road you might consider OC and then you have all you need (also you can change then the cooler). Z68 doesn't bring too much to the table, it's out now and it has a premium price. I use the ASRock Extreme4 and I can say that for it's price point is the best feature packed board. You will see. As for GPU's I like EVGA, solid, reliable and great support.

[gumpty]

Originally Posted by badams

I read some where that the 1tb+ drives have some stability issues so was thinking of just doubling up on the 500 gb drives.

I haven't heard that. It might be true, but regardless, if you buy two 500GB drives you've doubled your chances of a HDD failing. Any instability issues that 1TB drives have is unlikely to approach twice the failure rate of 500GB drives.

That said - ALWAYS back up your data!

Originally Posted by badams

I will also use the Asrock mother board, its to bad because the ASUS seems like it has so much potential. Would it be abetter option to just wait for the z68?

I don't think so, given that you are going for a dedicated GPU, you will have little use for the integrated graphics, and P67 looks to be slightly cheaper at the moment.

Originally Posted by badams

It it important to get a cheap after market cpu cooler since I won't be over clocking? I will consider the 2500k as well though it is $229 while the one I choose is $189

From what others have said, no I don't think so. Definitely go for the 2500K, even at $40 extra; I've read of people getting over 4GHz on the stock cooler (that's free performance!) - so you can have a play around with it if you are curious. If you don't get the 2500K you wont have that option and will never get anything more out of your processor.