Spec me a sandybridge upgrade!

I know there are a million and one build threads, but I need a little help please.

My PC is currently doing my nut in with its annoying issues (cold and warm boot issues, constant BF4 crashes with my HD7970 etc.). I bought this PC second hand a few years ago so was not responsible for the build, other than adding a so called better GPU! I have done all I can to remedy this but the issues are so random! So, I am using this as an excuse to build a new machine

I do not have a budget, but I am not made of money. I will get a 1070 for the GPU as 1080 is too much for me to justify right now! I want this build for gaming and will not be using a res greater (for the time being) of more than 1440. 1080p now but will get a new monitor soon too.

I have a have decent cooler master case I will probably keep (but offer me a good suggestion anyway) and HDD/SSD's etc. Therefore, I am looking for help with:

Case (tower)
Motherboard
RAM (16 gig?)
CPU/COOLER (quiet)
GPU choice (of the 1070 options)
Maybe new PSU as I am not sure to trust this one!

cheers in advance.

What's the maximum you're looking to spend?

no budget in mind, just decent stuff. I don't want stuff for the sake of no budget though. So, if a 40 quid cooler does a great job then I do not want an £80 quid cooler, for example. I do like to overclock though but will only use one GPU too.

Just thought it might help that's all. I can see people having fun with this.

I'll let somebody else take it from here I'm not great at putting systems together.

that is okay. No budget doesn't mean a fortune, but I do not want to build rubbish either

Something along these lines:


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Avexir Blitz Original Red 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - Red Light= £99.95
• 1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black= £59.99
• 1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060007-WW)= £64.99
• 1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Glass Mid Tower Case - Black= £154.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3 - Intel Core i5 6600K Bundle **£10 Saving**= £291.98
• 1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Spectra RGB 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £449.99

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 1070 EX OC 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £398.99
• 1 x DEFCON 3s - Asus Z170-K - Intel Core i5 6600K @ 4.20GHz - Overclocked Skylake Bundle = £419.96
  • Memory:Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16D
  • CPU Cooler:Alpenföhn Brocken 2 CPU Cooler
• 1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black= £59.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P400S Midi Tower Case - Noise Dampened Gun Metal= £61.99
• 2 x Noiseblocker BlackSilent Fan XK2 - 140mm (1100rpm)= £6.95

Is BF4 crashing on start up? The last few AMD drivers have broken mantle on BF4 so stop using it if you are.

Thought Id say in case it helps you out.

Cheers for the suggestions. I have the corsair H60 cooler currently, not sure if V2 though. I am not really impressed with temps, unless mine is now dodgy. Both look good apart from that thanks.

With regards BF4, it was crashing on loading multiplayer maps, so I upgraded drivers. Then it started giving me red screen pc crash (no error message, just sold red screen after 5-10 minutes). My HD7970 matrix edition runs doom etc. just fine with no crashes etc. It is only BF4 so maybe it is drivers like you said then. Edit to say, yes I had mantle on! So I might try without mantle, ta.

I noticed this morning that my Sata settings in Bios were set to IDE and not AHCI. I remember years ago someone saying with crucial M4 it should be set to AHCI, so I have now done that.

My PC booting issues I thought might be down to some dodgy BIOS setting or my overclock, so again I reset everything to try and fix. I have not had issues this morning on cold or warm bot, but I have not dared to touch BF4

If my PC remains stable again, I might get the 1070 GPU, try that. If I continue to get issues I can then get the other new bits and drop that GPU in to complete a new build then.

PC gaming eh, don't you just love it!

Would have to go searching through the forum but did you buy that 7970 matrix platinum from here when it was on special?

Sure I remember one of the later batches of them that go sold on here cheap as it was EoL had all sorts of problems.

May have been the later 290/290x models though

Maybe your psu is faulty, what model is it ?

yeah I got the matrix from here, on a special I think yeah. It has behaved on other games though I have found.

PSU is a corsair 750TX I think.

After much investigation today it would appear to be the graphics card. I have managed to drop a spare in with nothing else changed from before and I have had no issues all day since in any application. I will contact overclockers about it as I understand it is still under warranty.

New GPU at least 100 percent required now

sirp said:

After much investigation today it would appear to be the graphics card. I have managed to drop a spare in with nothing else changed from before and I have had no issues all day since in any application. I will contact overclockers about it as I understand it is still under warranty.

New GPU at least 100 percent required now

Click to expand...

Glad to hear that you have found the problem now an excuse to upgrade?

yes it is, going to get a 1070 I think when I RMA it.

The 7970 still in warranty? That's surprising. As for CPU coolers, imo go air with Phanteks tc14pe - absolutely top notch cooler. AIOs are pretty meh overall.

Yes it has three year warranty....I bought it Oct 2013

Sweet! Have you already sent it for RMA? Curious to see what you get back.

Not yet....will drop it off as soon as I can.

Poneros said:

Sweet! Have you already sent it for RMA? Curious to see what you get back.

Click to expand...

To now answer our curiosity, an asus rx480 is on its way