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luigi_t8

luigi_t8

luigi_t8

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Joined
15 May 2011
Posts
27
I'm building a budget gaming rig. After a fair bit of research i've come up with this spec, i already have HDD, monitor, mouse, keyboard, network card etc. please advise me on any changes i should make to get the best bang for my buck and be most reliable etc, this is my first build from scratch by the way.spec as follows:

Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
£159.98(£133.32)

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
£155.99(£129.99)

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99(£124.99)

NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case - White
£109.99(£91.66)

Corsair TX 750W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXUK) £79.98(£66.65)

Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3)
£56.99(£47.49)

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
£35.99(£29.99)

Sub Total : £624.09
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £127.57
Total : £765.41

thanks, LT
 
change motherboard to this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-170-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906
reasons:
- asus motherboards have been having a lot of problems
- i still does crossfire at a good speed (x8/x8)
- it still has SATA 6GB/s and USB3
- it saves £50


with the extra money get either of these graphics cards instead:
HD 6950 2GB revision 1
GTX480

*edit*
thats also a very big power supply for one graphics card, but not enough for two GTX 480's in SLI, or two GTX 570's in SLI. it will be fine for 6950's in SLI, even if they are flashed into 6970's though
 
Reaper 392 said:
change motherboard to this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=mb-170-ms&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906
reasons:
- asus motherboards have been having a lot of problems
- i still does crossfire at a good speed (x8/x8)
- it still has sata 6gb/s and usb3
- it saves £50


with the extra money get either of these graphics cards instead:
hd 6950 2gb revision 1
gtx480

*edit*
thats also a very big power supply for one graphics card, but not enough for two gtx 480's in sli, or two gtx 570's in sli. it will be fine for 6950's in sli, even if they are flashed into 6970's though
Click to expand...

the reason i liked the asus is that it's meant to be good on overclocking? i've read afew comparison reviews where it came out top in every one. i found the asus for £125 so it would only save £15. ok so as i won't be going sli for a while if not ever would it be better to just go for the tx 650 or even the gs 600 for that spec?

edit* as for the video card, i think the 480 is a fair bit better as the 6950 is only just a bit better than the 470 according to this:http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
 
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luigi_t8 said:
the reason i liked the asus is that it's meant to be good on overclocking? i've read afew comparison reviews where it came out top in every one. I found the asus for £125 so it would only save £15. ok so as i won't be going SLI for a while if not ever would it be better to just go for the TX 650 or even the gs 600 for that spec?
Click to expand...

GS 600 would be perfectly fine for a single card. generally the OCZ stealthxtreme 2 600W is the PSU thats recommended for a single high end Nvidia card (simply because its the cheapest good 600W PSU here)
 
ok thanks, so i've been comparing motherboards a bit more and there really arent any features that the asus has over the msi. are they practically the same in terms of performance?
 
luigi_t8 said:
ok thanks, so i've been comparing motherboards a bit more and there really arent any features that the asus has over the msi. are they practically the same in terms of performance?
Click to expand...
the only thing i can see that the asus pro thing has over the MSI the VRM (whatever that is)

asus: 12 phase VRM
MSI 6 phase VRM (SFC)

from this site: http://www.overclock.net/intel-moth...fficial-intel-p6x-motherboard-comparison.html

personally, i'd take the MSI because its £50 cheaper, and hasnt got as many complaints as top gear
 
Reaper 392 said:
the only thing i can see that the asus pro thing has over the MSI the VRM (whatever that is)

asus: 12 phase VRM
MSI 6 phase VRM (SFC)

from this site: http://www.overclock.net/intel-moth...fficial-intel-p6x-motherboard-comparison.html

personally, i'd take the MSI because its £50 cheaper, and hasnt got as many complaints as top gear
Click to expand...

Custom PC reviewed the MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) this month.

They overclocked a 2500K to 5GHz @ 1.42V.

They said "the VRM circuitry is this motherboard's party piece as it remained cool even when we were shoving bucket loads of extra voltage through it with our fast overclock".

Note that this motherboard only has 2 USB 3.0 ports (the header on the motherboard doesn't have a USB 3.0 controller chip) and no firewire.
 
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Surveyor said:
Custom PC reviewed the MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) this month.

They overclocked a 2500K to 5GHz @ 1.42V.

They said "the VRM circuitry is this motherboard's party piece as it remained cool even when we were shoving bucket loads of extra voltage through it with our fast overclock".

Note that this motherboard only has 2 USB 3.0 ports (the header on the motherboard doesn't have a USB 3.0 controller chip) and no firewire.
Click to expand...

blimey 5ghz that's pretty good. would i be able to get that with the silver arrow?

sorry i'f it's obvious (i don't really know much about all of the various ports and chips etc ) but what does that actually mean in terms of performance and functionality?
 
luigi_t8 said:
blimey 5ghz that's pretty good. would i be able to get that with the silver arrow?
Click to expand...

Most likely. the SA is one of the best air cooler. If not 5GHz, 4.8GHz I would think.

sorry i'f it's obvious (i don't really know much about all of the various ports and chips etc ) but what does that actually mean in terms of performance and functionality?
Click to expand...

Not much point overclocking past 4.4GHz imo. Fun, sure but practically, it's overkill for general use, gaming, ect... I'd overclock until I reach somewhere below the thermal limit, say around 70C. On a SA, that would be well past 4.6GHz, while still remaining relatively quiet. Comparing a good cooler and a top of the line cooler, at lower speeds, it's mostly a matter of noise rather than actual cooling performance.
 
ok thanks, i'll probably be asking for guidance when it comes to overclocking time but i think that can wait until i've actually built it. two more quick questions:

What do you anticipate the bottleneck in my system will be when i've overclocked everything? (i'm right you can overclock gpu and ram too ?)

has anyone had any experience or know about what the phantom is like as a case ie space and ease of build aswell as temps and airflow?
 
My take on the graphics card situation,

I got a GTX470 here, very fast card, I paid £200 for it a while a go, now at £150 its great, the reference design of that Zotac can make a nice bit of noise when it gets really hot.

For £175 this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-130-ms&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

is a bit quicker, and the custom cooler will remain quieter.

same card - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/msi/gtx_560_twin_frozr_ii/23.html - I think, there two different ones, at slightly different clock speeds.
 
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how do the 470 and 560 compare ? half the comparisons the 470 is on top, half the 560 is on top. I suppose with those fans i could overclock the 560 better.
 
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