Help building a new PC

I am a fan of the Sandy Bridge but the new Ivy Bridge is 30% faster so if you OC then get a i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge with K on the end of it. As for which one? Up to you if you need Hyper Threading go i7. Board? Z77 if you want PCI 3.0 if not P67 or Z67 if you want SSD cache.

 

pretty close to my current set up. Except for power supply and video card.
I've got an i5 2500k 3.4 "turbo boosted" to 3.7
16 gig corsair ram
amd radeon hd 7970
1155 gigabye motherboard
corsair enthusiast 750 watt power supply
oh and 3 24 inch widescreen monitors running eyefinity

OP : Also might want to look into the 560ti for video card. really solid bang for your buck and can run pretty much anything on max settings no problem.

 

Okay guys, I've done a lot more reading. I've been through all posted lists and read about all the recommended products you guys posted for me.

I've put together a mix of what you guys posted. Let me know if all this will work well together, and if I've messed up anywhere. And of course if this setup would blaze through games, or if i'm lacking somewhere.

Corsair Carbide Series 500R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811139009 (NewEgg)

GIGABYTE GV-R785OC-2GD Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814125419 (NewEgg)

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
Item #: N82E16820233246 (NewEgg)

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813128544 (NewEgg)

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
Item #: N82E16827135204 (NewEgg)

Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Internal Hard Drive (NCIX US)


Intel Core i5 3570K Unlocked Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail (NCIX US)


OCZ Z-SERIES 1000W 80+ Gold Certified 24PIN ATX 83A 12V Afc Modular Power Supply W/ 135mm Fan (NCIX US)

This leaves me just under budget. Opinions/suggestions? I hope all this stuff works together lol

 

I would invest in a SSD as a boot drive.

 

Two things about what you posted before and your new build:

You chose a 1000w Gold Certified power supply. That power supply will never put out 1000w because it is Gold Certified and wastes more. At best it will put out around 870w. Anyway, you have overkill in that area and are just going to use more electricity that your system will never need or use. It would be better for you to go with a smaller supply that is Platinum Certified even if you still go the 1000w way. The one I suggested is 700W and should put out about 650w at most.

Your system will at most need about 434w according to Newegg calculator, which means that the 700w I suggested is more than enough and has wiggle room. Even if you added another card in the future, you would only need 600w, which means that even then you'll have wiggle room. This also means you save $100.00 now which you can put toward a more future proof processor like the i7, more RAM or pocket change for a rainy day.

Hard Drive. You chose one that has a 3GB/s connection whereas you should get one that has a 6GB.s connection. Speed is not only dependent on the RPMs, but very much on the connection.

Processor is decent. Memory is good and expandable. Graphic card can have another one added if ever needed, but it is future proof for the time being. Motherboard is awesome. DVD Burner is personal preference. Case is nice.

As for your Mac comment. Mac's are much more fluid than Windows will ever be, but that is mainly because Mac hardware is specifically put together for their OS, which is why you do not see anyone selling custom Macs, other than a Hackintosh that you can make yourself. Apart from being more fluid and much more stable, they lack on the gaming side because of lack of decent graphic cards. I personally prefer a Mac for everything that does not have to do with gaming, which is why I am making a Hackintosh build which will boot up as Mac for everything not gaming, and then boot up as Windows for ridiculous good performance gaming.

Anyhow, hope all this helped.

 

I've read about these, and a fast boot up is nice, but i'm not impatient enough to throw money at one at the moment.

The 1000w power supply that I posted is actually $99.99, that's $30.00 cheaper then the one you recommended. That's why I went with it. I chose the I5 after reading two articles about the I7 being great for imaging and graphics editing software but being very little difference from the I5 when it comes to gaming. I think they said something like you get another 100MHz from the I7 over the I5 for another $150.00 over the price of the I5. In the future, i'll probably pop in an I7, but I think the I5 will do fine for now. The main part of the I7 is Hyperthreading which is great for Video and image editing, but nearly useless for gaming.

I'll have to look into the hard drive further. I didn't see the 3GB/s on the ad. I surely want a 6, not a 3.


Thank you for all the help!

 

The HDD you listed says SATA3, which would lead me to believe it's a SATA III hard drive, which is 6.0Gb/s. SATA II is 3.0Gb/s. Definitely go with SATA III.

 

OCZ PSU is mediocre. Advertised wattage is a joke. Like mentioned. Get something better even in the 700 watt range from Corsair Sparkle XFX. Trust me 6GB vs 3GB is a joke on mechanical drive. Get a 128GB SSD. Use it as a boot drive and run some application with it even a game or two. i7 gives your Hyper Threading. It fools the app to think you have more core then you do. So I would stick to a i5 and just OC. On air those Ivy Bridge should hit 4.2-4.4 and on water even higher.

 

Consider a small ssd drive for your OS. I've heard it can really speed things up considerably. Even a 64gb drive would be sufficient, then use the 500GB as your app storage.

 

this ^^^

Just built me a new system with and SSD as C: drive and a spinning 2TB E: drive for data storage. Windows experience rating of 7.4. Best spent $150 for speed. SSD are different and do require some changes to OS and tweaking but the manufacture usually has utilities that do that for you. You can probably get away with a 120GB if you can keep just programs and some cache on it. I bought a 250GB and it's probably overkill. Now if I can just keep my wife from downloading garbage and putting it on my C: drive.

 

Seconded on that.

Just put SSD's in my laptop, iMac and the work PC's that I built for our lab. We have two identical desktops (I can send you the spec's - with displays they came out to just over 1200) one with an SSD and the other with out. The difference is night and day and I much prefer the machine with the SSD, the system responsivness is almost instantaneous. Unfortunately the machine I built without the SSD is my work machine and I am quite unhappy with my self for not putting an SSD in there. The ~$120 investment is well worth it. I would personally recommend getting the Crucial M4 with the 3.5" mounting kit, 64 or 128 gb depending on how many applications you plan on installing and then keeping all "data" on a seperate large 1 tb drive with a decent size cache (and avoid the "low power" drives)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148525

Most of the other suggestions on here seem pretty good. When looking at stuff like ram and the motherboard, make sure that the motherboard has SATA 3 (6.0gbps), USB 3.0, and that both the CPU and Motherboard can handle the ram that you put in it. It is pointless to buy really fast ram if the CPU and Motherboard can't attain the speeds, might as well just buy ram rated at the max speed of ram that the CPU/MOBO will handle.

Good luck with your build!

 

I run a 64GB M4 as well. I wish I would have gotten a 256 or higher. But as a boot drive its amazing. I stil have about 30GB left. I wish I went with a larger SSD so I can run more games off of it.

 

Alright, ill look into a combo of SSD and HDD to see what kind of deals I can find. I will also look through other options in power supplies. Thanks for all of the ideas everyone. I'll post up what I find. I want to get it right before I hit the buy button.

 

Okay, so here we are again!


Corsair Carbide Series 500R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811139009 (NewEgg)

MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814127663 (NewEgg)

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
Item #: N82E16820233246 (NewEgg)

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813128544 (NewEgg)

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
Item #: N82E16827135204 (NewEgg)

SPARKLE R-FSP700-80ETN 700W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified Active PFC Power ...
Item #: N82E16817103086 (NewEgg)

Intel Core i5 3570K Unlocked Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail (NCIX US)



Okay, I went with the original PSU that I Liquid I suggested. After looking more into them, it's the best platinum "bang for your buck".

Now, all I need is a 240G SSD. What brands are best, and what should I be looking for? I'm going to just start out with a 240G SSD, and purchase a big HDD down the road.

There seems to be a lot of options when it comes to SSD, and with these things being all new to me....Any suggestions?

 

Seriously, go with an Intel CPU and nVidia GPU.

The unlocked i7s are raw, liquid CPU horsepower sex and while the ATI gpu's occasionally build a one-off or family that'll outperform a similarly priced nVidia, it don't last long.

ATI/AMD are here just to keep Intel and nVidia honest, really. Unless its for something server architecture or a ridiculously specific build for a very niche task, it just isn't worth the money/time/driver hassle.

My stepdad used to race Mopars back in the 1970s. He had a 1970 Duster with a 318 block that pushed just under 620 HP and ruled Moroso for a number of years.

Fast forward to replacing it:

"I'm gonna build a Ford or GM next. I can get the same performance for half the time and a third the cost."

 

You must have missed my post above yours.

The guys here have already convinced me to go with Intel. Back in the day, AMD rocked. It appears that Intel is currently the leader though.

I actually chose a different video card after reading many bad reviews about the drivers for the card i previously had selected. This one has rave reviews and is the same price.

I'm currently trying to find out more about SSD's. I'll be running an SSD as my main drive for a while and want one that will perform like i would expect from a SSD. A 240G is what i'm looking for, so i'm currently reading reviews on them. I believe I have what I want, and that everything will work well together, thanks to the Tech nerds on here, like myself.

 

I did miss that, sorry, my bad. I replied while eating dinner about halfway down the page so I could dump my dishes in the dishwasher and go upstairs to my main rig.

There's also a reason I specified drivers for the video cards

Depending on your budget, the 560GTX is a great bang for your buck right now.

I don't use the SSD much personally, since most of my bottleneck comes from network latency rather than client side issues. I 'make do' with a 10kRPM and it works fine, for a ton cheaper.

 

The 560GTX is nearly $100 cheaper then the one i'm going with.

The WD VELOCIRAPTOR 10k RPM 300GB HDD runs about $200.00.

The Crucial M4 256GB SSD also runs about $200.00.

 

Wow, those prices sure have changed since I looked last.

*shuts up, cowers away quietly