Making first gaming Rig! Need advice por favor!

[Moosepeepee]

Hey guys, I am building a new gaming computer cause what im currently using is an apple POS.

If you guys could please provide some insight, I would really really appreciate it.

As of now, I am only running two copies of D3 and am thinking of expanding to more ( depending on yalls input).

What I am looking for:

I wanted to keep it <$1500. and so far the list I have ran me for $1492.17 -- shipping and tax included. I already ordered it, but stupidly should have sought advice from the forums first; however, because I JUST made the order, I can change a couple of things and/or send back items if need be.

On what settings could I comfortably play a graphic intensive game like BF3 on a system like this?



- I already have 8 gigs of 1333mhz DDR3 ram I was going to throw in it, how many d3 bots could I seamlessly run with this amount of Ram? 16 gigs? Should I bother getting gaming specific ram?

- I already have a copy of windows, though I was thinking about using linux. Any reasons why I shouldn't use linux?

LIST OF ITEMS PURCHASED:

Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 - BX80637I53570K

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case

GPU: MSI AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 DVI/HDMI/2xMini DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card R7950 TWIN FROZR 3GD5/OC

Optical Drive: Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal OEM Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black)

Primary Storage: Crucial 128 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT128M4SSD2

Secondary Storage: Western Digital 2 TB WD Green SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive

Motherboard: Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI Dual LAN Dual UEFI BIOS ATX Motherboard GA-Z77X-UD5H

Monitor: HP x2301 23-Inch Micro Thin LED Monitor

Wireless Adapter: Rosewill RNX-N250PCe (RNWD-11005) Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express 150/300Mbps 2T2R 64-bit/128-bit WEP, TKIP, and AES WPA, WPA2


Any insight would be a HUGE help as this is my first attempt at building a computer.

Thanks guys!!

[welbewoll]

ok first of all, a botting rig is "fundamentally" different from a gaming rig

for a botting rig you want to have
- an i7 for the hyperthreading, from what i gather a non-k processor preferably for the virtualization features (which k processors don't have, and overclocking does not give you that much when running vms apparently)
- you don't need a powerful gpu, only extra vram
- 16 gig of ram should cover ~10 bots

now mixing a botrig with a gaming pc is a bit weird because some of the stuff is contradicting, but ofc you can just go for all high end stuff like that overkill gpu you selected (in a way)
- 3 gig of vram is way too much for gaming (on that 1080p screen)
- a HD 7950 on the other hand is way too much for botting

another thing: i would run vmware esxi on a botrig to minimize host os instead of wasting resources on windows 7 as host (i have not tried esxi yet but i assume you can just normally dual-boot though)

anyway, here is my feedback:

cpu - solid choice, keep in mind though that an i7 would be better for botting

gpu - for my taste the one you chose is over the top for both gaming and botting, ask yourself if you really are playing the latest games like all those fancy egoshooters etc. i am still running my 2.5 year old gtx260 which easily handeled 6 bots, plays dota2, d3 and all the normal stuff without hickups; ask yourself: do i want a gamer build or an enthusiast build? imo its better to get a solid mid-range gpu and update after 2 years, instead of throwing a lot of money at a high end piece; but gpu really is a lot of personal preference

ssd - this is a good choice, i have only heard good things about it; BUT you could take a look at ocz's vertex 4 which supposedly blows the other mainstream ssds away in terms of performance and compares in pricing/gb afaik

hdd - good choice

monitor - have you seen 1080p on a 23 inch? if you are fine with that then ok, i feel like 24'' is the minimum for 1080p; again this is a matter of preference

wireless nic - i have to put a disclaimer here: i barely know anything about these, but what i know is that the last time i checked out of curiosity these things were totally overpriced, and i don't see much point in putting that thing into a desktop pc; at the very least consider getting a good wireless router or access point and simply connect a cable to your pc from there

mobo - fine, i have no complaints about gigabyte motherboards, price is ok, its a popular solid board; now on newegg there are a few ppl complaining of defect boards etc. but with motherboards i see the same thing across the board (pun) with asus, msi etc. there are always a few bad eggs

one final thing: you have not mentioned a psu there, now both of my custom builds were fried because of bad psus, the first one killed my motherboard i think, the second one killed my cpu but actually the psu itself still powered the motherboard (only the cpu power cable was defective) and i've spent a good 10 hours trying to figure out wtf was going on; so keep in mind that if you skimp there it can kill your expensive parts and also the lower efficiency will result in a higher electricity bill which can amount to a tidy sum especially if your pc runs 24/7; lastly (even though i don't know if this is still going on) some manufacturers will cheat and put in shorter cables or stuff like that so they e.g. manage to barely get the 80+ bronze certification

my current psu is an expensive one from seasonic which seems to be very well respected as a company as far as psus go, and i am amazed at how much difference in noise this psu makes because my pc is barely audible now; the last one i had was an ocz x-stream 600w which isn't even that cheap but it still killed my old i5 750 ;/ -- so keep that in mind: psus are important and gamer builds often neglect that which can result in a lot of hassle if you get unlucky

//edit
@linux - getting wine to work properly can be hard, i only run a server/htpc with linux and i know my way around the basics (last year i've set up a digital signage system running linux e.g.) and while i am confident that i would be able to fight my way through setting up wine for games, it is not something i ever intend to do; imo windows 7 is a really good end-user operating system while linux isn't. it seems like (infrequently, but constantly) things just keep messing up and you have to google around and tinker until they work again; so if you are into that kind of thing then ye.. go for linux - but probably prepare to re-compile wine or install patches that fix this or that oddity in this or that game because this or that and blablabala. my POV is that windows 7 is the end user OS while linux is a run-and-forget OS for servers, htpcs and that kind of stuff