KYJelliott

Thatsnazzyiphone guy's rule was if you go over $150 dollars on headphones, you should be paying half that again for an amp

First off, I wouldn't say either of them have outstanding sound quality. I'm an audiophile and game with my sennheiser hd595's and an asus xonar essence stx, unless I am playing a game with my friends, in which case I will use my g430's because they have a mic. I would say that the sound quality is about the same, the g430's maybe sound  a touch better but I wouldn't say that it is applicable. When it comes to headphones for gaming however, I would ALWAYS choose comfort over sound quality. The reason being is that I would rather be comfortable than have something sound better. I found that the earcups on the orion were to shallow, made my ears hot, and made my ears hurt. The spitfire usb card isn't anything special. It gives you the option of 7.1 like the g430 but I'm not really a fan of any implementation of 7.1 (just sounds echoey). If you can return the orions I would. That said, I do have big ears, which may be why I find most headsets to be uncomfortable, the build quality like an all asus products is nice, and they look outstanding. For me the comfort is a deal breaker, however if you can't exchange them I wouldn't feel bad about the purchase because the orions do sit higher on my list of headsets I have tried. I hope this helps! :)

IMPORTANT: I just checked asus's website spec on your motherboard to see what it was. According to Asus the board will only work with 2nd gen processors.http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8H61/#specifications
 
 So that means sandy bridge not ivy. You should upgrade that board to an Asus p8z77 pro (This:http://ca.asus.com/en/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z77V_PRO/#specifications
 
 or mATX equivalent or your CPU will NOT BE COMPATIBLE.
 
A couple pointers, first off while selecting the parts of a pc can be an easy task, (this fits with this so on and so forth) optimizing it for exactly what you need it to do can pose a challenge. Price to performance is a huge thing. It is smarter to spend the extra 100 dollars to have a system perform well than save 100 bucks and tear it down 2 years earlier. First off the GTX 660 compared to the 660ti isn't a good value. I would definitely jump up to a 660ti for gaming, The psu is important. Because this rig doesn't need a ton of wattage I would suggest an 80 plus bronze at least with about 450-500 watts of power. Jonnyguru is an amazing website for researching power supplies   http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5927 . I personally would recommend the Silverstone SFX series 450 watt 80 plus gold psu http://ncix.com/products/?sku=75786&vpn=ST45SF-G&manufacture=Silverstone%20Technology
This is a great psu for a mid range build quiet, and modular so the build will look tidy. Jonnyguru gave it a damn near perfect score. (Linus swears by that site). I would also suggest jumping up to a 3570 (3570k if your friend is an overclocker). The two  extra cores will seriously improve speeds. Games these days like crysis 3 are moving towards multi core and you have to consider the fact that when the new consoles drop that game devs will be able to leave the archaic console hardware behind meaning having a slightly beefier system will be much better in the long run. Again you will need to change that board to use ivy bridge processors. P8z77-v pro would be my board of choice.With regards to the drive you might want to swap to a black drive because it will be able to load faster. You could also consider a cheap ssd boot drive if interested. The case is more of a personal taste sort of thing but personally I hate cheap feeling cases as well as loud cases. I just recently swapped my Corsair obsidian 800d for a fractal design define r4 windowed version. They are dead silent come in black, white or grey, are relatively cheap, (about 100 bucks canadian) easy to build in, can have side panels, and look outstanding with great build quality. Trust me that case will have you set. http://ncix.com/products/?sku=75045&vpn=FD-CA-DEF-R4-BL-W&manufacture=Fractal%20Design&promoid=1360
 
 
So what I would change, probably running you around 300 more dollars, but A RIDICULOUS PERFORMANCE JUMP is as follows
CPU - 3570 (K if he is an overclocker)
Motherboard - Asus P8Z77-v pro
Ram - corsair 8gbs
Graphics card - ANY GTX 660ti (go with what is on sale) Because of board swap you will be able to upgrade to SLI if desired later on.
PSU - Silverstone SFX 450 watt 80 plus gold
Case - Fractal design define r4 black or white, windowed or non windowed version (personal taste)
Hard drive - Western Digital 1tb 7200rpm black drive
 
Please keep in mind I do not know what the budget is but If you can save for a little longer or afford the extra 200-300 dollars the price to performance ratio will be much better.
Good luck with the build and I will be following this thread. :)
 
P.S. Depending on when you are building you might want to hold off because computex is just around the corner and new hardware will be dropping (Z87 and Haswell)

Guys prepare your face and or palm before you read any further... I just noticed that the 24 pin cable on the psu wasn't clipped all the way in on the psu, don't know how I didn't catch that. I feel like an idiot lol. Everything is working perfectly now and thank you all for your help! You guys are awesome!

Eh, sh** happens ;P

Guys prepare your face and or palm before you read any further... I just noticed that the 24 pin cable on the psu wasn't clipped all the way in on the psu, don't know how I didn't catch that. I feel like an idiot lol. Everything is working perfectly now and thank you all for your help! You guys are awesome!

Guys prepare your face and or palm before you read any further... I just noticed that the 24 pin cable on the psu wasn't clipped all the way in on the psu, don't know how I didn't catch that. I feel like an idiot lol. Everything is working perfectly now and thank you all for your help! You guys are awesome!