Since this computer is roughly 6.5 years old now and starting to have some issues that are going to require enough parts to fix that it becomes a good idea to just say "fuck it" and build another computer altogether since I'd pretty much have to do it anyway. I'm not really giving myself a budget on this project, because I can just save up and get what I want and I want this computer to last at least 4 years minimum without needing any major upgrades just like my current one. I also don't want it bottlenecked by its CPU like this one is because I couldn't cover the quad core cost back when I built it.
I imagine around August/September I'll have enough money to cover it if it gets in the 2-3 grand range, which it is looking like it will. The good news is that I have all the peripherals, minus a decent keyboard for gaming but those are fairly inexpensive so all the money is going right into the tower and I can pick up the keyboard later since my current two will serve for a bit longer.
Currently my biggest debate is between going with the i7 3770k or the i5 3570k since nothing I'm going to be doing is really going to need the Hyper threading, but I also don't want to be limited by it if, in the future, games and stuff actually start using it. I know Intel has new chips coming out but unless they are massive upgrades to these two I'm not going to spend the extra money since Intel chips tend to be crazy expensive when they first drop and the i5/i7 aren't going to bottleneck me much since I can easily overclock them.
My second biggest debate is if I want to drop the money on a 4TB 7200 RPM hard drive or get a 120gb-250gb SSD and maybe a 2-3TB 7200 rpm for holding videos, music, and whatever I don't need running stupidly fast.
I'm also unsure on the video card situation. Do I really want to deal with ATi cards again? They have been a bit of a pain in the ass in this computer but it got a lot better over the last couple years now that SLi/Crossfire are more widely used and if I go that route I almost have to go Crossfire. If I go nVidia I feel like a lot of games are designed primarily for it and while pricier they seem to have the best cards to just go with a single one. I'm either looking at the GTX Titan or a 2GB GTX 680 if I go nVidia. For ATi I'm probably looking at 2 7970s/7950s in Crossfire but I'm really leaning away from ATi at this point. This is probably where I'll spend most of the money because it is the most important part as far as I'm concerned which is why I'm starting to lean towards dropping the $1000 on the Titan even though that scares me a bit.
I have hashed up some potential builds so you can see what I'm thinking, keep in mind this is going to be a gaming computer first and foremost so I don't have to buy any of the new consoles:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jam34556/saved/1yww
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jam34556/saved/1yBT
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jam34556/saved/1yCq
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jam34556/saved/1yCS
Let me know if you have any suggestions and what you think.
