Guild Wars 2

Processor – i5 3570k

Cooler – Hyper 212 Evo

Mobo – Asrock z77 extreme4

GPU – Palit Geforce gtx 670 jetstream

HDD – 1TB seagate baracudda

RAM – 2×4 kingston hyperx memory 1600mhz

PSU – Coolermaster GX 650w

Case – Coolermaster 912 HAF

OS – Windows 8

an optical dfrive

BenQ 21.5" 1920×1080 monitor

Hyper 212 Evo may be replaced with an Antec Kuhler H20 620. I’m choosing Windows 8 because it is cheaper. if possible, i would like to reduce cost without sacrificing too much performance. Suggestion would be much appreciated. i haven’t bought anything yet.

Windows 8 performs better than win 7 in every way, boots, turns off faster, everything is silk smooth, everything load faster and games perform better. I own windows 8 myself and can confirm those results, windows 8 is just better, sure it has a new interface but u can use the normal desktop enviroment, also as a gamer ask yourself, how much hours per day u spend at the desktop anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs25ZkAS-gY
U probably will be ok with a 660ti instead the 670 since u willl be playing at 1080p. Other than that build looks pretty solid, i don’t think is worth to reduce the cost on other components.

how bout a CM 690II advanced for case? i really like to get one but not sure about air flow though.

how far will you overclock your cpu? Evo is quite nice but if you will go all out i’d suggest water cooling anyday

about 4.2 ~ 4.4 maybe? anything above 25 on WvW will be ok for me. i’m thinking about getting a 660ti. about 100 dollars difference here. and a 7970 is slightly cheaper than a 670 here.

Edit: just checked newegg, 7970 really is cheaper. xD

for that clocks evo should be enough and 7970is way better than a 670..

yeah, but ya know, the physx technology and some other flashy stuff……. now i realize why Nvidia cards are more expensive than ATI.

off all the games out there only like 40-50 games uses physx..

If u play Tera get Nvidia, it will give u easy 10+ FPS over any AMD card due physx cripling ur CPU while running AMD. Every other game not running Unreal Engine will be better on AMD. Nvidia pricing is really bad, they offer crappy memory even on 670 and 680, they suck at high resotutions compared to AMD, they basically cheap out on their memory in order to get more profit out their cards.
So basically only consider Nvidia if u play a lot games using physx, other than that the 7970 is a no brainer, it will just smoke the 680 while being way cheaper.

Uh, don’t know where you got this from, it’s plain wrong. Nvidia and AMD both use 6gbps GDDR5 clocked at 6GHz (at least the GHz edition does), AMD just has a broader interface of 384 bit instead of 256 bit (with Tahiti) which has nothing to with quality whatsoever, it’s a design decision. My GTX 670 is actually running at 7GHz, the memory overclocks quite well. Also, Nvidia doesn’t suck at high resolutions, AMD is just a bit limited in lower resolutions and then shows its true power in high resolutions where the frontend doesn’t limit. Additionally, for many the price is rectified by NV’s enthusiast features like NVAPI (Inspector), AA bits, 3D Vision support and MGPU advantages – if you don’t care about that, get an AMD card, they’re just as fine, my last card was a 5870 and I didn’t really have any problems with it.

Which ever side u choose to go on with Nvida vs AMD, try to keep ur afterkmarket card option limited to Asus, Gigabyte, and EVGA in most casses. Palit for example dont tend to be very good.
If u decide to go down to 660ti level performance u would want to also look at the AMD Sapphire 7870XT as it is cheaper and has simular performance. Its not a Asus, Gigabyte, or EVGA, but since there is only mainly 2 choices of Tahiti 7870XT/LE cards, Sapphire is the best choice and usualy widely available. It is only 2gbGRAM though, so it wont do well with high resolutions above 1080p + High AA.

Also ur PSU, if i were u i would go for a Corsair unit, a TX650 would be a good choice, they have better quality. The specific one u mention in ur OP isnt of a very high quality.

Iruwen.3164:

Uh, don’t know where you got this from, it’s plain wrong. Nvidia and AMD both use 6gbps GDDR5 clocked at 6GHz (at least the GHz edition does), AMD just has a broader interface of 384 bit instead of 256 bit (with Tahiti) which has nothing to with quality whatsoever, it’s a design decision. My GTX 670 is actually running at 7GHz, the memory overclocks quite well. Also, Nvidia doesn’t suck at high resolutions, AMD is just a bit limited in lower resolutions and then shows its true power in high resolutions where the frontend doesn’t limit. Additionally, for many the price is rectified by NV’s enthusiast features like NVAPI (Inspector), AA bits, 3D Vision support and MGPU advantages – if you don’t care about that, get an AMD card, they’re just as fine, my last card was a 5870 and I didn’t really have any problems with it.

Every Nvidia Card has a very low bus speed compared to AMD at the same price range, which limits the GPU performance at high resolutions and high filter counts, is not where i get that from, it is a plain fact about how videocards works. They cheap out on the bus speed cuz they consider their slower bus are “just fine” at the price range the cards are target at, which means a little extra profit 10$ 20$ in savings out of that, dosn’t seems like a lot but if u multiply that for millions of cards sold in a year it is a decent ammout of profit. Nvidia sucks at high res talking about 3 monitor configs for example that is why a 7970 come as close as 20% slower than the GTX titan while the 680 is about 40% slower. That is also why the 7970 crossfire wipes the floor with the gtx 680 SLI (still talking about 3 monitor comfigs). Nvidia cards have better GPU but the memony interface is just crippling the performance in 9/10 keppler cards.

When it comes to graphics cards, go with what you can afford, be it nVidia or AMD, both have their pros and cons, you’re wanting to run in a 3-monitor setup, which will reduce performance no matter which gpu maker you get.

As for the PSU, ensure that it is an 80 Plus model, I went for a Corsair TX750 80 Plus for my new rig and an nVidia GTX 660 OC, Direct CU w/2Gb GDDR5. My cooler is an Arctic Extreme Rev.2 and my choice of cpu is an Intel i5 ‘ivybridge’ quad-core cpu at 3.80Ghz. Ram is Corsair 2×4Gb Vengeance at 1600Mhz..