New PC - Looking for Feedback

[MunchY]

My mate has put together a little rig for my brother's new PC.
Myself, and especially my brother, have little to no clue about PC parts. I trust my mate but it's always good to get a 2nd opinion, so just wondering what all of you guys think. It'll be used for all-round stuff - gaming, interwebbing etc.
Very maximum budget would be $1100

CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 $199
Mobo: Asrock B75M $69
RAM: G.Skill Ares 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 $59
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (ST2000DM001) $115
GPU: 2GB Nvidia Geforce GTX670 $399
Case: Sharkoon T9/T28 $65
PSU: Antec VP550P $65
ODD: DVD burner $21

Feedback/opinions appreciated!

[SaNE]

Looks fine, If you want to spend the rest of the money i'd go with
$219 Intel Core i5 3570K
$105 ASRock Z77 PRO4-M Motherboard
$36 CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler

Which makes it $1104 (PCCG) but you can the overclock it and get a bit more life out of it in the long run.

[steve_rogers42]

SaNE's idea's sound, i'd keep the processor from the OP and pick up a seasonic/enermax ~520w-600W psu over that antec unit tho,

Or if you don't have to move up to the 670 right now, use a stand in card until the 660 drops, and get a better psu and cpu/mobo until gpu prices are more favorable.

GPU's might do grunt work for gaming, but if your not doing it all the time, a better(read upgradable) motherboard and a higher tier cpu will serve you better in the long run, cards on the other hand can be replaced rather easily.

sigh

spend more on your core/harder replaced things like the psu/cpu/mobo, then look at HDD's and GPU's, what monitor is he playing on and do you really need a dvd drive?

[Tydus]

Or if you don't have to move up to the 670 right now, use a stand in card until the 660 drops, and get a better psu and cpu/mobo until gpu prices are more favorable.

Or simply use the on board video for a few weeks, which is plenty for all desktop/web/video applications and if you do decide to step up to the 3570k (+$20) the on board video can play light games (sc2, cod4, d3, sf4) until you the 660 makes its way here. Personally I reckon you should spend the extra 50 bucks and grab the 3570k and z77mb even if you don't get the cooler, which can be added on later when/if you decide to OC (tho, tbh id also get that now too).

[MunchY]

Looks fine, If you want to spend the rest of the money i'd go with
$219 Intel Core i5 3570K
$105 ASRock Z77 PRO4-M Motherboard
$36 CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler

Which makes it $1104 (PCCG) but you can the overclock it and get a bit more life out of it in the long run.

Sorry if it's a dumb question but what's the benefit of that CPU and mobo? Overclocking probably won't be something he'll be doing. As we are really clueless with anything like that.

@steve Unfortunately we aren't really the type to have stand-in cards lying around, or the cash to drop on a temporary one. So it's best if we can get a card straight up.

[Tydus]

Its really a matter of you get what you pay for and that said, there's a reason that boards so cheap.
The B75 chipset designed for business orientated mb's. The Z77 chipset is the performance orientated chipset.

A quick easy explanation of the +'s and -'s

The z77 board gives you 2 more ram slots (4 instead of 2)
1 extra sata3 port
3x pci-e 16x graphics cards slots (instead of 1)
1 pci-e 1x slot, for sound cards/wireless/raid/etc (these can go in spare 16x slots too)
better on board sound and 7.1 support and optical sound out
Full overclocking features
Full SLI / Crossfire features

one benefit of the 3570k, apart from just being slightly better is the HD4000 graphics engine (the on board video card on the cpu) which is drastically better then all the other i5 on board gpus (HD2500's). This only really matters if you want to wait for the 660 to ship to aus

Don't underestimate your self on being able to OC, its pretty simple to get a rock solid modest overclock going, if your not trying to push the max out of your cpu. With UEFI instead of bios and the hundreds of step by step guides out there you should easily be able to get a good ~15-20% increase going. Sure it gets hard the higher you try and go and getting a stable high overclocks is really hard, but getting modest easy oc's these days is easier then ever.

Really if all comes down to how much money you got, im going to quote Barneygumball in the other pc building thread

I think I might grab the K model anyway. Not so much for now, but if in 1-2 years from now, I want to get a little extra power out of it, I'm gonna be mad at myself for being so precious over $20.

It does suck to be 6months down the road with plenty of spare cash wishing youd just spent the extra little bit, me and plenty of people i know have been there

my 2c