New gaming pc

[yak]

Planning to buy a new gaming pc in the following months, this is the initial specs I'm looking at:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£59)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£87)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II FAT BOY PUSH/PULL CONFIG LIQUID CPU COOLER (£79)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

For the processor I will probably end up going for the i7 3770 when it becomes available.
Thinking about future proofing, do you think it is worth going for the i7 extreme processors or are they just a waste of money as most games won't be optimised for 6 core processors?

My current pc (i7 920, Radeon HD 5870,...) should be able to be able to survive a while still but after the original graphics (gtx 295) card frying up (without OC'ing), I fear that other parts will follow soon and don't want to spend more money on to just drag it out.

I realise that i5 processors will still provide decent performance but I'm thinking more about the coming few years.

Cheers!

 

[Corfate]

You're right, most games atm don't utilise all the cores on the i7, or the hyperthreading it offers

Theres no guarantee the other parts will fry, things can fail at any time

The i5 will still be a great CPU in the next few years, but the i7 really is future proofing

You could upgrade to the 850W PSU to SLI another 680 in a few years. The Liquid cooling is overkill, the fenrir will be fine for your needs

 

[yak]

You're right, most games atm don't utilise all the cores on the i7, or the hyperthreading it offers

Theres no guarantee the other parts will fry, things can fail at any time

The i5 will still be a great CPU in the next few years, but the i7 really is future proofing

You could upgrade to the 850W PSU to SLI another 680 in a few years. The Liquid cooling is overkill, the fenrir will be fine for your needs

Thanks for the advice!

Hopefully it will change soon, as more developers are starting to focus on PC games again.

Our latest games use different settings depending on the amount of cores, although it messed up a few years back when it thought the i7 was an 8 core processor... (has luckily been fixed for the latest games).

I know the liquid cooling is overkill but that will keep the noise down and as a result the girlfriend complaining when I leave it running over night to download something or leave something running.
Also a bit more future proofing in case I end up overclocking in a few years.

The 850W PSU sounds like a good idea, as you said for the possibility of SLI or when NVIDIA releases a new dual GPU like GTX 295 or 590.

 

[yak]

Just hope no new technology will be announced for a while...

First I was waiting for kepler, now I'm waiting for Ivy Bridge, maybe I should stop looking at hardware websites and forums until I've ordered...

 

[Corfate]

Haha the more you wait, the older your specced up rig will become Yeah more stuff will come out, but you could think of it like that all the time and never order anything

 

[yak]

Haha the more you wait, the older your specced up rig will become Yeah more stuff will come out, but you could think of it like that all the time and never order anything

True, was waiting quite a while for the 680 but seeing that it's only a couple of weeks for ivy I guess I can just wait for that and not look at other stuff.

Just one more thing, would you expect to see a performance increase using Bigfoor Killer + Homeplug as opposed to using a dongle to connect to router.
I'm guessing yes but if not better save the money for games...