Critique my Sandybridge spec please

~Mike~

~Mike~

~Mike~

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2011
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the King's city
So this is my Sandybridge spec, any problems please advise.

Your basket

Dell Ultrasharp U2311H 23" Widescreen LCD Monitor £239.99
Intel 510 Series "Elmcrest" 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive £221.99 *
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 £199.98 *
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Retail £167.99 *
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard B3 Rev £159.98
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz £89.99 *
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply £87.98
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black £74.99
Thermalright Archon CPU Cooler £51.98
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM £39.98 *
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99

Sub Total : £1,126.54
Shipping : £20.10
VAT : £229.33
Total : £1,375.97

* = This Week Only Offer


I've decided to go with the Asus P8P67 Pro and I am aware some people have had problems like the double psot issue but these have now been sorted.

Keyboard will probably be the MS Sidewinder X4 £30ish, no longer available at OcUK?
Mouse not yet decided, max budget £40-£50

Already have a copy of Windows 7.
 
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Not much to say, great components. Watch out for the Archon, it's a big beast. With those kind of coolers, it's always advisable to double check if the case can accomodate them, the motherboard as well as the memory stick (low profile heat spreaders), although the Archon is specifically designed to not get in the way of the RAM. Dunno about the case.

Dell IPS panels are awesome. Got two of them (2209WA, 2407WFP).

EDIT : Looking around, the Archon will fit a CM 690. I can also confirm it can be rotated north-south as well, with the obvious catch that it may get caught with the memory slots.

I prefer the MSI GD65 or Gigabyte UD4 boards as well, but that's just me :) Oh and another heads up for the GTX 560ti SOC, and the GTX 480 range. I would say either of these or the 6950 will be a good choice and mainly a matter of preference anyway.
 
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nice build, I would get some cheap 1333 ram myself and although the archon cooler is awesome!, because SB chips run so cool I dont think its worth the extra money over say a the hyper 212 plus or a £30 cooler.
 
stulid said:
A lot of people seem to be saying that ASUS boards suck/having issues, so a Gigabyte UD4 or MSI GD65 would be a better choice.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-325-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-165-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

And you can save money by getting the "lite" version of that case.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of the issues with the Asus boards, as I said in my OP these seem to have been sorted now. This board got good reviews when it came out.

I've gone with the Advance for the extra features, extra fan & Sata dock. £10-12 more than the Lite.

olivier renault said:
Not much to say, great components. Watch out for the Archon, it's a big beast. With those kind of coolers, it's always advisable to double check if the case can accomodate them, the motherboard as well as the memory stick (low profile heat spreaders), although the Archon is specifically designed to not get in the way of the RAM. Dunno about the case.

Dell IPS panels are awesome. Got two of them (2209WA, 2407WFP).

EDIT : Looking around, the Archon will fit a CM 690. I can also confirm it can be rotated north-south as well, with the obvious catch that it may get caught with the memory slots.

I prefer the MSI GD65 or Gigabyte UD4 boards as well, but that's just me :) Oh and another heads up for the GTX 560ti SOC, and the GTX 480 range. I would say either of these or the 6950 will be a good choice and mainly a matter of preference anyway.
Click to expand...

The Archon is certainly big.:D I've checked the sizes of both the case & cooler and all should be ok. Maybe be a bit tight, case can take a max CPU cooler height of 177.0mm the Archon is 170.25mm.
 
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Reaper 392 said:
not exactly sure when they're due (ETA = overdue), but if you can afford £18 more, you could go for the OCZ vertex 3 SSD (120GB). read speed is 100MB/s faster, and write speed is a whopping 290MB/s faster than the intel SSD
Click to expand...

Reasons for chosing the Intel over the OCZ;

1. Reliability
2. Price
3. Availability

Will mainly be used as boot drive for Win 7 and other programs/games so write speed is'nt such an issue???

Will you really notice the difference?
 
Nope (mainly about small file read / write and access time), and to be honest a top of the range SSD is also overkill in terms of an OS / application drive. A Vertex 2 of C300 will be plenty quick already, but fair enough. YOu may have a difference loading game data, as game data is usually packed together to improve loading times (especially on consoles). So Seq reads will be useful. I don't know how much faster it would be though.
 
Mike306 said:
Reasons for chosing the Intel over the OCZ;

1. Reliability
2. Price
3. Availability

Will mainly be used as boot drive for Win 7 and other programs/games so write speed is'nt such an issue???

Will you really notice the difference?
Click to expand...

not a clue. i just saw the read and write speeds were a lot bigger on the OCZ. didnt realise OCZ had reliablilty problems either
 
Mike306 said:
What about this SSD, £40 cheaper; Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB
Click to expand...

That's what I'd choose personally.

Take the failure rate with a pinch of salt. That was during Q4 2010 iirc, and it is based on RMA components.

Go with Intel if you are unsure. They are good drive (and I agree, there is more than performance to a component).

FYI, I have a Vertex 2e, and I am at around 38GB usage. All my games are on a HD, except a couple (Guild Wars with all add-ons, and another I can't remember).

I also have a notebook with a Samsung PB22J. Even though the drive is crap, it makes a whole lot of difference to the notebook (UL30A, CULV Core Duo 2300 @ 1.2GHz).

Take SSD performance comparison as a relative.
 
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