My new Sandybridge rig... Opinions?

SpEJay

SpEJay

SpEJay

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Joined
4 May 2011
Posts
17
Location
Nottinghamshire, UK
Hey folks, i've just got sorted with a new build for myself & thought i'd share it for opinions, OC advice & anything you wish to talk about, here's the setup :

Asus Maximus IV Extreme
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz
Antec Kúhler H2O 620/920
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6990 4096MB
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD
WD Caviar Black 2TB
Corsair Pro Gold 1200W PSU
16Gb Corsair Vengeance mem
Bitfenix Colussus chasis

So, my thoughts on the choices i made...
Firstly, money was no object pretty much, but i didn't want to blow too much cash on things which were pretty irrelevant or go stupid, so i decided on the sandybridge build to pretty much get top bang for the buck so to speak...
Iam a 3d artist & heavy gamer, so speed & gpu power was the aim, i started with choosing the Core i7-2600K, because the OC ability is quite large, getting a stable 5ghz from it & being quad core, i think is plenty enough without jumping upto 6 cores and the money needed to stay with intel, and of course it wouldn't be the sandybridge route.

The mobo is feature heavy, will be great if i go crossfire sometime in the future & suitable for some decent OC opportunities, it was a no brainer to get what i think is the best mobo here.

Same goes for the graphics card, i spent days researching & couldn't distinguish what was best for me, that is between the 6990 i've settled for & the GTX590, basically a toss up of the pro's and con's of both cards left me really indecisive as to what choice i should make.
In the end, i've always had ATI for my graphics power, and couldn't resist what the 6990 offers, with the largest problem i read about being from the noise levels, i came to the conclusion...
That the case should help & the fact that my pc will actually be a good 6 foot away from me, so i went for the power house...

The case choice, basically after reading all the reviews on the Collosus, it was obvious, it was near perfect for my tastes, except not the best cooling going for it...
It was a choice between the Collosus & the HAF X, i think in reality the HAF X is probably the better choice, better cooling, looks good depending on your tastes, but wouldn't do anything to keep my 6990 hush...
The Collosus on the other hand, has that unique feel to the case which also acts as a bit of a noise barrier, it also looks really good... For me personally, iam a fan of lighting everything up lol... And has all the features i could ask for too & to solve the cooling issue, well to begin with iam using all the fans & making sure the aircooling is as top notch as can be, and eventually when i feel confident with watercooling, i'll go that way, which again, the Collosus is capable of nicely.

The 16gb of ram is the most currently available, plenty enough for everything & i'll upgrade to 32gb when it's possible, i think the brand is good & although i've never OC'd ram before, iam sure i'll get to that eventually, if it's needed or even worth while?

The vertex 3 SSD... Well best price for speed as far as i've seen, we're talking 500mb/sec for everything, a decent enough 120gb, perfectly suited for me & using that drive to store / use for all my 3d things, speed is essential when doing things with large files, which is what i do a lot of... Not to mention the obvious benefits with everything else...
I've gave it a friend with a 2tb WD HDD, nothing extra special about it, just plenty of space for storage & decent speed.

Lastly, the PSU, well huge power incase i decide to go crossfire in the future, and probably one of the best to buy from what i've seen, decent PSU is a must for me, so i've bit my tongue about the price, and looked at the future potential of it.

So all in all, i could have ended up with the GTX590 & in the HAF X case, being my only two choices which i was seriously considering doing differently, what's your opinions on this?

Lastly, as far as OC potential goes, where do you think i can go with this rig? What would you suggest i do for a stable OC & get the extra juice? Iam not interested in going to extremes, just juicing up & keeping it all stable and happy...

SpE.

(cheers for the advice on cpu cooling!)
 
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You won't be able to overclock much with the stock cooler, probably get to around 4.5GHz before your temps start getting silly. You should post in the Overclocking & Cooling section A.S.A.P with regards to water cooling (if that's the route you wanna go) if you wanna start getting some serious overclocks on that beast :p lol

Here's a nice little guide to get you going in the right direction:

P67 Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide For Beginners

The best air coolers out there at the moment are the Noctua D-14 and the Thermalright Silver Arrow. Not much between them performance-wise but the D14 is priced a lot higher but then the silver arrow is a pain in the backside to install apparently.
 
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R088ieS86 said:
Good for you.
What you using it for? must be some serious CAD work to warranty all that RAM?
Also, thats a monster PSU considering what your powering!
Personally would have got 2x580's in SLi :p
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Iam a graphics artist & yeah it does warrant as much oompth as possible, unfortunately you can never get enough power, as an individual without the use of renderfarm, the sky is the limit.

As for the PSU, my choice was considering the future, as for right now the graphics card requires somewhere rating up around 400 W, running two of those beasts & anything else in the future... The PSU will be well worth the investment upfront.

I've looked at all the options for running two or three graphics cards, but i decided on the power of the lone 6990 for now, it's plenty enough to begin with, again, future wise, i'll double up & take advantage of the future pricepoint in doing so.
In the end i narrowed it down to one beastly card to begin with & then i'll go the two 6990 route, instead of starting off with two 6970's for example.

Price wise it was somewhere around £2000, that's including a few other bits and bobs, cables, extra fans etc...
 
sk82jack said:
You won't be able to overclock much with the stock cooler, probably get to around 4.5GHz before your temps start getting silly. You should post in the Overclocking & Cooling section A.S.A.P with regards to water cooling (if that's the route you wanna go) if you wanna start getting some serious overclocks on that beast :p lol

Here's a nice little guide to get you going in the right direction:

P67 Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide For Beginners

The best air coolers out there at the moment are the Noctua D-14 and the Thermalright Silver Arrow. Not much between them performance-wise but the D14 is priced a lot higher but then the silver arrow is a pain in the backside to install apparently.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the advice & links, i've been reading some people have gone upto around 5GHz with aircooling... But yeah, i'll have to go the watercooling route to get those serious overclocks & not worry about the temp, which is where i've gotta do my learning ^_^
It's one of those things i've always avoided without even considering it until now, so i'll go hunting!
 
Surveyor said:
You've spend the best part of £2k and didn't even get a CPU cooler?

Enjoy anyway.
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Well i've got a couple days before i build, so that's enough time to finish getting anything extra i need, i want a decent start with this rig & push it with upgrading afterwards, so iam looking into watercooling as the first step of that.
 
Air cooling could be "problematic" as you have all 4 slots used with tall RAM. Many heatsinks encroach above the DIMM slots, so you need low RAM (without heatsinks) or just 2 sticks in slots 2 & 4 (slot 1 gets blocked).

So watercooing is your only option, not that it's a problem. You could use a "custom" system, building a loop that cools CPU and GPU. But I'd stick to a closed loop (CPU only) eg H50/60/70, and make sure you've got enough case fans to keep the GPU happy - it should be fine at stock speeds, and there's no need to overclock it as it's a beast already.
 
Fffing amazing Rig if i do say so myself ;)

Would love to know what Monitor/Monitors you're rolling with or about to buy?

Please post some pics for us !
 
Hey guys, cheers again for the responses...

I've been doing some research into the CPU cooling... I narrowed it down to not being afraid of self contained water cooling via the Corsair H70 or Antec Kúhler H2O 620... Air cooling would indeed give me problems over the closest DIMM slot, something i don't want to bother with.

After looking further, it seems the Kuhler beats out the H70 with a new gen of plate, better hoses, that kind of thing & is easy enough for my none water cooled mind to handle.

So i've decided to get the Antec Kúhler H2O 620... Only i want the 920 for the software controlled side, which is not instock yet here, so i've contacted Antec to buy direct from them... They have 6 hours to respond or iam getting the 620 from here lol, patience isn't something i practice...

As for pics, well iam building over this weekend, so i'll get taking all the pics of everything as i go along then & be sure to post them here... Any requests, just say, i've got a very good camera for the ultra up close and personal macro happyness.

As for the monitor setup... Well as a graphic artist, several monitors makes sense, however i've got a few ideas in mind which might sound a little silly to you guys, but is insanely normal for me...
Right now i have a 50", 42" & 32" full 1080p set of tv's to use, hold on don't judge me yet... This allows multiple instances of alsorts of programs, to use on all the tv's & with more than myself going at it too - at the same time, the bigger the screens the better for me, despite any percieved restrictions, iam actually considering this to be the better option for me personally.

However, a more sane thing to do would be to forget the tv route & just go with monitors, but for gaming.. I prefer 50" over several monitors anyday...

Iam actually upgrading later this year to a 3D projector, over 100" & all that good stuff, so the missus will be happy & i'll take full advantage with my new rig. So yeah it's all up in the air for now, but my main 50" tv iam intending on using is very good with my current pc, so i don't see much need in going back to a 3 monitor setup, or like now with 5 monitors from the 6990... 50" sits better with me.

(i'll update my OP with my cooler choice)

(Is there any other self contained water cooling available that i could easily handle elsewhere in my rig that would be beneficial?)
 
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do you just have money to burn? bet those starving little africans wouldn't mind a sandybridge rig.

not that they could plug it in...
 
Lovejoy! said:
do you just have money to burn? bet those starving little africans wouldn't mind a sandybridge rig.
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Ha yeah not quite money to burn, just a very worthwhile investment for me, as much as i'd enjoy giving my monies to the needy, it's not quite as easy to do these days!

Rexton said:
That's 1k overkill for my needs. Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to post pictures. We all love pictures here.
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Sure will post some pictures, anything specific, i'll make a list of photos to take.

Angerer said:
Wow can't wait to see your setup, I am waiting in anticipation ^^
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You're not the only one lol, i can't wait to get started, been quite sometime since i built a new rig, so it's really getting my mouth watering!
 
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