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Although, again, you should buy what's best for you to get RIGHT NOW, if you buy Ivy Bridge you may have the opportunity to improve your CPU down the road without scrapping the whole thing. There aren't going to be any more changes to Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is the evolution of the Sandy Bridge architecture.

If it makes sense and is affordable, Ivy Bridge is the newer and stronger choice. Sandy Bridge is not bad by any means but it's the old platform.

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Although, again, you should buy what's best for you to get RIGHT NOW, if you buy Ivy Bridge you may have the opportunity to improve your CPU down the road without scrapping the whole thing. There aren't going to be any more changes to Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is the evolution of the Sandy Bridge architecture.

If it makes sense and is affordable, Ivy Bridge is the newer and stronger choice. Sandy Bridge is not bad by any means but it's the old platform.

This is completely incorrect. The next generation of Intel processors is called Haswell and runs on a completely different socket and chipset that Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is certainly better than Sandy Bridge in some ways (graphics, power consumption) as I mentioned, but there is no "opportunity to improve your CPU down the road without scrapping the whole thing" if you buy Ivy Bridge.

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This is completely incorrect. The next generation of Intel processors is called Haswell and runs on a completely different socket and chipset that Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is certainly better than Sandy Bridge in some ways (graphics, power consumption) as I mentioned, but there is no "opportunity to improve your CPU down the road without scrapping the whole thing" if you buy Ivy Bridge.

Sandy Bridge is the tick, Ivy Bridge is the tock. I understand that. There is an opportunity to upgrade your CPU with ivy bridge where there isn't with sandy bridge because no one's making new sandy bridge cpus anymore.

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Sandy Bridge is the tick, Ivy Bridge is the tock. I understand that. There is an opportunity to upgrade your CPU with ivy bridge where there isn't with sandy bridge because no one's making new sandy bridge cpus anymore.

Are you suggesting that within the span of a year, a person would buy one Ivy Bridge processor and then upgrade again with another Ivy Bridge processor? Because that's even more nonsense than the last thing you said, considering Haswell is slated for March 2013 release and runs on a different socket from Ivy Bridge. Also, since SB and IB use the LGA 1155 socket, you could absolutely upgrade from a Sandy Bridge processor to an Ivy Bridge.

In technology, there are often older products that outperform updated or more expensive versions. This was the case four generations ago with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 which ran around $250 and it's Extreme variation which ran at $1000. While the Extreme appeared to be better because of clock speed and power efficiency, both chips had the same cache and front sidebus speed so they performed almost exactly the same. The price difference is much more stark in this example, but the difference between SB and IB is similar - better graphics performance and power efficiency, but if neither of those things matter to you and you can get a SB processor on the cheap, "it's newer" isn't really a good reason to get IB.

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So here's my current build that I'm looking at:

COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN3-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior ( $ 89.99)

Originally, I was considering this case, but I changed my mind after realizing the lack of compartments I could hide wires in, which the previous one has plenty of.

ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 ASCR 20000:1 (1000:1) W/Speakers ($179.99)

All considering, this a ridiculously good deal. Hopefully the price will dip down even more when I buy this stuff on Boxing Day or during the Christmas season.

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K ($234.99)

I'm not going to wait for Intel's Haswell lineup. This will do just fine; I've taken everyone's recommendations into consideration about Ivy Bridge, so I've tried to achieve a nice balance between price, performance, and overall longevity.

Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive ($109.99)

From what I understand, Western Digital is one of the best places to invest in for hard drives. I'm going to do what Tycho says, run my OS and temporary files that I'm currently using on an SSD, and store everything else on this. Longevity is key for me.

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) ($99.99)

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 ($41.99)

MSI R7870 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ($228.99)

At first, I was going to get this - from what I understand, NVIDIA but I think that might be overkill for a first build, and besides, it would send me over my budget goal (this is 200 dollars cheaper, and performs remarkably well, according to benchmarks I looked at on Eurogamer's Digital Foundry and AnandTech. If you guys have any thoughts on the matter, please let me know.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ($214.99)

Need the Wi-Fi, because I don't use wired connections at the moment. From what I understand, this card has had mixed reactions, but I trust those from people whose opinions I trust (which were unanimously positive); let me know if you have any alternative solutions in the same relative price range.

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply ($114.99)

Pretty standard: a well made product from a respected company, and 80 plus Bronze certified. At 750w, this will run this rig smooth as butter.

I also might buy this, to maximise airflow. The final cost is $1, 335.90. Slightly past 1300, but not too bad.

So, that is my build. As I said before, I'll be buying these parts on Boxing Day (or at least during the holiday season), but I'm currently unsure whether to buy from an online retailer like Newegg or a local store like Canada Computers or Wintronics. What do you guys think? Ultimately, I'll go with whatever will save me more money, and get my parts safer and faster to my trembling hands. Thanks for all your input Thumbs.

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Looks like a pretty good set of picks. I'd still recommend a GTX 660 over the Radeon, but really you should probably just get whatever you can get the best price on since you're waiting for Boxing Day - at 1080p, a Radeon 7850, Radeon 7870, GTX 660, and GTX 660 Ti would all be more than sufficient. Aside from that, I'd also recommend spending a little more on the power supply and getting modular. Cutting down on the amount of wires in the cases not only makes it easier to get everything in there, but it also increases airflow in the case.

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You want an aftermarket cooler, like this one, because you want it running quiet and because an i5 ought to be overlocked.

:tup: I've used the Hyper 212 in three different builds, love it.

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Looks like a pretty good set of picks. I'd still recommend a GTX 660 over the Radeon, but really you should probably just get whatever you can get the best price on since you're waiting for Boxing Day - at 1080p, a Radeon 7850, Radeon 7870, GTX 660, and GTX 660 Ti would all be more than sufficient. Aside from that, I'd also recommend spending a little more on the power supply and getting modular. Cutting down on the amount of wires in the cases not only makes it easier to get everything in there, but it also increases airflow in the case.

Sounds good to me. At this point, it's just a waiting game to see how far the prices drop in comparison.

Any specific alternatives you can suggest?

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Sounds good to me. At this point, it's just a waiting game to see how far the prices drop in comparison.

Any specific alternatives you can suggest?

Presuming you're talking about the PSUs, I like Corsair and OCZ. I believe all of Corsair's lineup of modular models just have an M on the end, so the alternative to the one you chose would be TX750M. My current box has an OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W, which drives pretty much the same hardware you have listed except with a more power-hungry GTX 560 Ti and a couple more hard drives.

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Modified build list to include the Corsair TX750M and the Hyper + 12 Cooling Fan... thanks.

Is there a big jump between the 660 Ti and the 660, performance wise?

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Modified build list to include the Corsair TX750M and the Hyper + 12 Cooling Fan... thanks.

Is there a big jump between the 660 Ti and the 660, performance wise?

660 Ti is roughly 25% more expensive than the 660 on the average and only about 15% more powerful in terms of benchmarks on the average. The 660 Ti is a great card, but the 660 is clearly a little more budget friendly. It's also worth considering that when you look at benchmarks for cards in this range (250 - 300 USD), the big performance gulfs will likely be at very high framerates or high resolutions. If you're running at 1080p with something like 4X MSAA and high texture quality, pretty much any of these cards will run 99% of games at 60 fps and above.

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So I've decided to wait until summer to build a new computer, primarily because I don't want to become distracted while I'm in the process of applying to universities. It'll just be too, you know, tempting.

With that in mind:

1) I'm looking at my build to have a new Intel Haswell CPU, providing that the consensus is that they're worth it; word on the street is that they'll be out in the first half of 2013.

2) Does anyone know of some good options for external 1TB hard drives that I can sync to my Mac's Time Machine application and eventually use to carry over my Steam files to the PC? I need something that's affordable, long-lasting, and compatible with both operating systems.

Again, I appreciate everyone's advice. You all have been extremely helpful.

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This looks like a possible option. It can be reformatted for PC, even if you get the Mac version. Is there anything better on the market that would meet the same needs?

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On the SSD discussion, I've had 2 Samsung 64Gb SSD's for getting on for 5 years now and they have worked flawlessly - I have them in a mirror config (RAID 0 I think it is) and they copy themselves onto a hard drive, so if they fail I have a copy of my vital, life saving work. Ahem.

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