New i7 2600k Sandy Bridge - Complete System - Comments and Suggestions Please

Socrates470BC

Socrates470BC

Socrates470BC

Associate
Joined
22 May 2011
Posts
399
Location
Perthshire, Scotland
Component Description
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1. Coolermaster HAF-X chassis
2. CORSAIR Professional HX850W Power Supply Unit
3. ASRock P67 Extreme6 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard - B3 Revision
4. Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz (Sandy Bridge) Socket LGA1155
5. Corsair H70 High Performance CPU Watercooling Kit
6. Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
7. Sapphire ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express (Updated from 5770)
8. OCZ 240GB IBIS Series 3.5" SSD
9. Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200rpm 64MB Cache 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Desktop Hard Drive
10. LG BH10LS30 10x Blu-Ray Rewriter DVD-/+RW Lightscribe SATA - OEM
11. Integrated - Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec Premium Blu-ray audio support Supports THX TruStudio PRO
12. Altec Lansing FX3022 black speaker system
13. Dell ST2420L 24" Full HD Widescreen Monitor 5ms 16:9 DVI VGA HDMI (Black) (3yr Manufacturers Warranty)
14. MICROSOFT Digital Media Keyboard 3000
15. Microsoft Wired Intellimouse Optical 1.1 White Win32 PS2/USB
16. Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit DVD - OEM - Service Pack 1
17. MICROSOFT Office Home and Business 2010
18. Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 1 User 1 Year - OEM
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Total Cost Including VAT is approximately £2,517
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Main Usage:

Web Developer / Gaming / General Purpose / HD Video Rendering

Single screen at the moment, but need to allow for an additional 1 or 2 screens. I like to display as much as possible on each screen, but do not want text to be too small, currently have a 1600x 1200 screen on a 20" monitor. So nothing less than 1600 wide or 1200 high.

Also interested if anyone has used the OCZ IBIS SSDs as a boot disk.

Requirements:
Fast Boot
Multi tasking - Supporting all of these applications loaded at the same time:
3 instances of VS2010, 1 Instance of VS2008, 1 instance of Sql Server Management Studio, 2 Instances of Internet Explorer,
1 Instance of Expression Web SuperPreview, 1 Instance of Microsoft Outlook, 1 Instance of Photoshop Elements, 1 Instance of Tweetdeck.

Instances of Word / Excel / Snagit / Camtasio Studio / Expression Blend will come into play occasionally.

System should be able to change between applications quickly and compile projects quickly.

In the past I have generally spec'ed my system from Dell, but this time I would like a little bit more free dom in my choices and a bit more bang for my buck.

I would also be interested in using one of the companies (like overclockers) to build my system. I am a software guy not a hardware guy. Are overclockers flexible enough to allow certain deviations from their standard build options?

Plan to ask builder to overclock processor to somewhere between 4.2GHz and 4.5 GHz. I normally run my system off a UPS and switch it off each evening, but would like to be able to safely run it 24x7. I do have some concern that the H70 water cooling kit may need to be changed every couple of years ( as may be true of any water cooling system).

Any suggestions or comments would be most appreciated.


Thanks in advance
 
Last edited:
Your spending a fortune and getting the best cpu you can pretty much buy at the moment but then getting a 5770 for gaming? Would be better off getting a 120gb SSD and a 570gtx card instead or something.
 
James J said:
Your spending a fortune and getting the best cpu you can pretty much buy at the moment but then getting a 5770 for gaming? Would be better off getting a 120gb SSD and a 570gtx card instead or something.
Click to expand...

i;d consider what you do on the machine before doing this - a 5770 will game perfectly fine up to a point and if you are needing the more powerful cpu - the current spec is good. If you do a lot of gaming and not as much hd rendering, for example, then go with the alternative above :)
 
judging from the price, Total Cost Including VAT is approximately £2,320.
this is going to be a beast build, make a log, keep us updated with pics xD
good luck!
 
@ James J Yes, the graphics card is where I held back on the budget, but that is because development is the most important aspect of the build and gaming is a nice to have good performance.

The graphics card should be able to handle up to 3 screens for dev work.

The other part which concerns me is using the H70 watercooling. I really do want a build the best and forget for 2-3 years. Only maybe adding additional memory and changing the graphics card or adding more storage.

I would like the system to be fairly quiet and, if air cooling would work on this build with moderate overclocking then that may be a better way to go.
 
Socrates470BC said:
@ James J Yes, the graphics card is where I held back on the budget, but that is because development is the most important aspect of the build and gaming is a nice to have good performance.

The graphics card should be able to handle up to 3 screens for dev work.

The other part which concerns me is using the H70 watercooling. I really do want a build the best and forget for 2-3 years. Only maybe adding additional memory and changing the graphics card or adding more storage.

I would like the system to be fairly quiet and, if air cooling would work on this build with moderate overclocking then that may be a better way to go.
Click to expand...

Fairplay and I suppose it depends on the settings you wan't to game at. My only concern is that a 128bit memory bus graphics card at 1920x1200 res (which is what Im guessing your monitor is) wouldn't really give you much headroom if you expect the system to last for a few years, from a gaming point of view. A 6950 would be the better choice for that due to keeping the 3 monitor layout with just 1 card (you'd need more than 1 card with nvidia) whilst being able to game at high settings.


Thats completely upto you though, however I'd definitely switch the H70 for the current deal ocuk has which is the H60 (its newer) with the akasa apache fan for free with it. Its VERY quiet (I own both myself) and allow you to overclock extremely well with good temps to boot. Its also cheaper :)
 
Also weird question but do you happen to be a student or know one? If so you can save a fortune on windows and office enterprise edition (has everything).

Student prices for windows directly from microsoft is £30 for W7 home edition whilst office enterprise edition is £48. Would save you a fortune going down that route.
 
@ James, On reflection, I agree with you about the graphics card. I had chosen the 5770from a previous budget build, but the 6770 is more in keeping with the rest of the spec and the 6770 should handle 3 screens (for development) at 1920 x 1080 easily. I have updated my spec in the original post to reflect this.

As a professional developer using properly licensed software is mandatory.

I guess the main question that I have outstanding is, could I get away with air cooling?

Any comments on the ASRock motherboard?
 
good board. I would take it over the Asus Sabertooth. However, you could probably achieve the same kind of thing with a MSI P67 GD65.

Top air coolers actually outperform the water kits. However they are big, heavy, can limit your choice of RAM, but very quiet (I'm referring to Noctuas). I'm really toying with the idea of returning to air cooling, with a NH-D14 or NH-C14.

However, spending £30, you can get very good overclocking on sandybridge already. Probably around 4.2GHz on a 2600K, cool and quiet.

a 6970 is a big, power hungry card. That's fine really, but I bet you'd be as happy running a 6950 2GB, or a GTX 570 (well, ... not exactly cheap either).

my £0.02.
 
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