Sorry, but this is a spec check thread

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

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Hi all,

I'm hovering over the 'order now' button, even though I know I should wait until August, I want to buy now!!!

So, is this ok? Machine is for gaming and photo editting mainly. Gone for 8Gb RAM as I regularly run Photoshop and Lightroom side by side, and working with 21MP RAW files is bringing my current machine to its knees.

Plan is for SSD to be my boot drive with a few key apps. New 1TB drive to be my main app/storage drive. Then I have another 1TB which I will use to store all of my photography RAW files/exports on.

Thanks in advance

specn.png



EDIT: Would this RAM be worth it? It's only £40-50 more.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-294-CS

Or this : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-110-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1389

Is triple channel better than dual channel?
 
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Id didn't think i5 supported triple channel, and everyone keeps saying that no more than 4gb is needed, so 12gb is crazy talk.

Spec looks really nice, kinda jealous.
Interested to know why you went for p67 and not z68?
 
timmillwood said:
Id didn't think i5 supported triple channel, and everyone keeps saying that no more than 4gb is needed, so 12gb is crazy talk.

Spec looks really nice, kinda jealous.
Interested to know why you went for p67 and not z68?
Click to expand...

Yeah I've just read that myself, so it looks like this RAM is a good bet.

I went for P67 because it's the first one I clicked on, I suppose I should find out was Z68 is now :p
 
Couple of minor changes:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-051-AK&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990 - z68 motherboard for only a fiver more. Don't be put off by the brand, it's a great board.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-078-TR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat= - Silverarrow CPU cooler is very good for it's price and may even outcool the H70. Just make sure the cooler fits in your case though as it's very big.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279 - Sata3 HDDs are pointless marketing tools. This drive is very fast I've heard and is a fraction of the price.
 
I would stick with the RAM you have in the pic. I'm not sure how RAM intensive image editing is so I would probably stick with 8GB to be safe but if it was gaming alone 4GB would be fine.
The Western Digital is overpriced with no noticeable speed increase over this.

Everything else looks fine :)

EDIT: Would also back up most of what Moothead says, apart from that the Z68 is actually £15 more. It is worth it though with the SSD caching and Lucid Virtu features. The cooler he specced is about as good as it gets with air cooling, all depends on if you want the silence of a watercooler. :D
 
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You don't need Z68 if you have a discrete graphics card.

H61 chipsets are for basic low end users who want the SB integrated gprahics but will not OC them.
H67 chipsets are for those who want to use the SB integrated graphics and OC them.
P67 is for those who have got a discrete graphics card and want to OC the CPU.
Z68 combines H67 and P67.

4GB is only enough for gaming. For Photoshop and Lightroom side by side, then as much RAM as you can afford is recommended.

SB does not support triple channel.

The Vertex 2 is one of the slower SSD's. I would recommend going for one of the Crucial M4's or at least a Vertex 2E. You could also buy the fastest SSD available, the Vertex 3, but a lot of people are having random BSoD and system crashes using the sandforce controller.
 
Actually Z68 motherboards do have more features over the P67 than just integrated graphics such as Quicksync, Lucid Virtu and SSD caching as I said above.
 
What is Lucid Virtu?

With only a 60GB SSD, you are going to find it fills up pretty quick and might not have enough free space reserved for caching.
 
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For the sake of a fiver he may aswell go for the superior Z68 board, SSD caching may come in handy too. I agree about the SSD to actually, go for the Crucial M4 :).
 
It allows you to switch between integrated and discrete graphics depending on the program you are using. If it is a program that isn't particularly graphics intensive, you can use the integrated saving on power and heat.
 
Little bit more ££ but better CPU for use in your Adobe Programs. The only Z68 feature you may end up using is Lucid, which is a power saving feature. No Adobe programs use Quick Sync and SSD caching will only be useful if you don't use the SSD as a boot drive (or you have a drive bigger than 60GB)
Kept Case and Graphics card as they are personal choices.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £254.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 Game £203.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £114.98
1 x XFX 750W Black Edition Modular Power Supply £99.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £90.98
1 x Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £84.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £62.39
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.98
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £43.99
Total : £1,019.77 (includes shipping : £13.75).
 
About 20GB is perfect, Intel released the 20GB Solid-State Drive 331 drive to be used with Smart Response
 
R088ieS86 said:
I only have Windows 7 on my SSD and its currently taking up 41GB / 58GB
So give it time and it will fill it!
Click to expand...

Really? I am sure mine is about 20GB, only installed Win7 about a week ago though, I didn't think it would grow so much

Just checked and it's at 16GB
 
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Wow, thanks for the help everyone. Looks like I still need to do some tweaking.

I'm now considering upping the SSD size, but not sure I can stretch the budget. If I hold out until August I might be able to stretch the budget a bit further. Decisions decisions!!

Really appreciate the help so far, learnt some useful stuff :)
 
THere is a bit of fat in win 7. Most inportantly, you need to make sure all your temp files, backup & restore points, users files (music, videos...) are stored on another drive. YOU can use a file tree viewer thingy to find which directories take the most space. But win7 and a few programs shouldn't take more than 30 GB.

Secondly, with 8GB, you can disable virtual memory. I use an old drive for my temp folders, backup & restore, that kind of thing, and it's working prety well so far, although the size on the SSD is creeping up, I think I'll need another 'cleanup' session son.

WIth Smart Response you dont have to wory about those things, but it's not as quick as a SSD. It's a bit like those hybrid Momentus XT drives.
 
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