My Config - Suggestions?

Hey Guys,

I've done lots of research and put together a configuration for my first gaming desktop. I spend most of my waking hours on my computer, so it's important that everything in my system can handle 10-15 hours of daily usage. I consider myself to be an enthusiast gamer, maybe even hardcore as I spend about 60-75% of my free time gaming. I plan to play lots of Skyrim (w/ HD mods), Minecraft, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and possibly Diablo 3 and Far Cry 3. I'm also hoping to play some older games with ultra-smooth framerates. Games like NWN2 Platinum, Gothic 3, Oblivion, and NWN1 Platinum/Diamond (w/ HD mods and shiny water) and possibly DOS games. I might install Win98 at some point if DOSBox doesn't run a certain game or app, but I'm not sure how much of an issue hardware compatibility will be since the OS is so old.

I do hope to do some 3d rendering, but mostly for game design (no raytraced CG stuff). I hope to compose some music with MIDI and Soundfonts (hobbyist, not professional), but $200 for a soundcard is a little expensive, so I might look for an Audigy. But again, this will primarily be a gaming rig.

I purchased the Dell UltraSharp 2312 IPS monitor per this forum's recommendation (it just came in yesterday; can't wait for the test run on my current system :D ). So, I'll be gaming at 1920x1080 resolution.

My current system is a laptop with a Core 2 Duo T6400 2.0 gHz, Mobility Radeon HD 3650 and 4GB PC6400 DDR2 SDRAM. So I'm hoping this will be a huge upgrade.

My budget is roughly 3 grand. Here's what I came up with (costs $2770 w/o tax):


Digital Storm Dreadnought

config #: 681886

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core) (Requires Z77 Motherboard)  (might switch to 2500k 3.3 GHz if you guys think the heat will cause problems/shorten lifespan of PC; or I might upgrade coooling a bit)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE (Intel Z77 Chipset) (Higher Overclocks and Unique Wi-Fi Features)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 850W Corsair TX850 V2 (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (240GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 520 Series)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital/Seagate/Hitachi/Samsung (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (Includes PhysX)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex Liquid CPU Cooler (High-Performance Edition)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU 4.0GHz to 4.4GHz
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Advanced Recovery Kit (40GB Hard Drive Partition of Image With OS & Drivers)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard:  Logitech Media Combo MK200 Keyboard and Mouse
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Large)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty


Thanks for your time.

Thanks for the suggestions bprat22. Gettting the recovery disk will cancel out the added cost of the upgraded cooling.

Can anyone confirm whether the GTX 680 supports the shiny water option for NWN1? I know it's just one game, but I was looking forward to using the HD mods and it won't look right to me without shiny water enabled.

OC that bad boy. DC has your back.

One last question (for this thread at least, hopefully):

What kind of UPS should I get? The one in the configurator is way too expensive, but I have no experience with this type of device. I do want to make sure it has a good surge protector/suppressor or maybe I can plug it into a surge protector.

Thanks bprat22. I didn't realize someone already asked this question, sorry about that. I did do a search beforehand, I just couldn't find very much info. Anyway, that thread helped a lot.

I did a litttle research and it seems like a good line conditioner will cover most of my concerns. I can handle an outage as long as it doesn't fry my system (or happen during a defrag lol).

I'll keep looking, but I think that the $500 UPS Alex recommended is a bit overkill, it looks awesome but seems like more of a luxury.

Thanks again everyone for all your input. I'll be back with my final build once I ordered it :)