Last minute advice

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 05:51

Hi, Im after a bit of quick advice on a build im doing next week. Im after a second opinion on what i have chosen. I have around £1000 to spend and so far this is what ive come up with. The 1 part i cant make my mind up about is the PSU. Do i go with the 900 or 750 Antec HGC.

Motherboard - Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX
Processor - AMD Phenom II 1100T Black Edition
GFX Card - ASUS 2GB RADEON HD 6950
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1866 Mhz (16GB in total)
PSU - Antec HGC-900 High Current Gamer
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
CPU Fan - Coolermaster V8 CPU Cooler
Case - Coolermaster HAF 932

Are there any parts you would consider swapping. any feedback would be great.

Hyburnate · 11 Aug 2011 at 05:59

Go with the 750W HCG

Change the Ram for some Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB you will not need 16GB, trust me
And go with a Corsair A50, read the reviews

Surveyor · 11 Aug 2011 at 09:06

Have you considered a Sandy Bridge build?

The Intel i5 2500K beats the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE in most tests.

2500K v 1100T BE

Those tests are at stock speeds, both processors at 3.3GHz, but the i5 2500K will overclock further increasing the difference.

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 09:58

I will have a go at pricing that up. which mobo would you suggest as a replacement for the crosshair within the same sort of price range? I had a look at this Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 but im a real novice when it comes to intel builds.

Surveyor · 11 Aug 2011 at 10:18

The ASRock Extreme4 is highly regarded. ASRock are owned by Asus.

There's a new version here which is ready to upgrade to the Ivy Bridge processors when they're released and has PCI-E 3.0 which works with Ivy Bridge (PCI-E 2.0 with Sandy Bridge).

When you're pricing this up consider the following:

1) 8GB of RAM is plenty for most people and you don't need stupid fast RAM or low timings for Sandy Bridge. Pretty much any 8GB 1600MHz RAM for £50-£60 is fine. Don't get RAM with tall heat spreaders if you're going to use a big CPU cooler.

2) The Thermalright Silver Arrow is probably the most highly regarded CPU cooler in the £50ish price range but it's a big cooler so you'd have to check it fits in your case.

3) The Samsung F3 is as fast as the WD Black and costs a lot less. SATA 2/3 makes no difference to HDD's.

4) There are rumours AMD may be releasing new graphics cards in the next few weeks.

5) A 900W PSU is overkill unless you're planning on going Crossfire in the future and even then a good 750W unit is enough.

6) It's an i5 2500K processor you need to look at for overclocking. The plain i5 2500 has very limited overclocking potential due to the locked multiplier.

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 10:24

I just threw this together as a starter. any changes you would suggest?

Motherboard - Asus P67 Sabertooth TUF
Processor - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
GFX Card - EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti SuperClocked
RAM - Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB 1600MHz
PSU - Antec HGC-750 High Current Gamer
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
CPU Fan - Corsair A70
Case - Silverstone Raven 3

Surveyor · 11 Aug 2011 at 10:40

Macphisto said:
I just threw this together as a starter. any changes you would suggest?

Motherboard - Asus P67 Sabertooth TUF
I would go for a Z68 motherboard like the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 for future upgradability and you can use the onboard GPU if you ever need to.

Processor - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
Good.

GFX Card - EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti SuperClocked
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card is on offer this week and is overclocked to nearly same extent as the EVGA.

RAM - Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB 1600MHz
Fine.

PSU - Antec HGC-750 High Current Gamer
Something like the Lepa B-Series 750W (not in stock) or 850W (if you want it now). Cheaper, modular and re-branded Enermax. A good 500-600W is plenty if you don't plan on any upgrades such as SLI.

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Samsung F3. Cheaper and just as fast.

CPU Fan - Corsair A70
OK or possibly the Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler or Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler which seem quite popular.

Case - Silverstone Raven 3
Personal choice really.

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:00

Ok, here is where im now.

Motherboard - Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3
Processor - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
GFX Card - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB
RAM - Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB 1600MHz
PSU - Lepa B-Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze'
HDD - Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB
CPU Fan - Corsair A70
Case - Silverstone Raven 3

ive knocked about £200 of what i picked in the OP.

So would you say as a gaming PC for stuff like WoW and ToR this will run better with 2 monitors when overclocked than what i was going to buy in the OP?

R088ieS86 · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:06

Nice.
I prefer the Raven 2, but the case is all about you.
Could you stretch to a 570?

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:11

I was just looking at that. with the money ive saved on changing i was wondering if getting Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz & MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC would make much difference to the performance
or pick one of those as an upgrade and maybe get a SSD for my OS and apps

R088ieS86 · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:13

Depends, what are you using it for?

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:21

R088ieS86 said:
Depends, what are you using it for?

Games. mostly MMO's atm and HD movies.

R088ieS86 · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:22

Keep the i5-2500K would won't see any improvement with the i7-2600K as games don't make use of hyperthreading. But if you can stretch to a 570 go for it

Zid_ · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:23

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:25

would you say go with a 570 or an equivalent HD 6900

Surveyor · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:26

Macphisto said:
So would you say as a gaming PC for stuff like WoW and ToR this will run better with 2 monitors when overclocked than what i was going to buy in the OP?

Unfortunately I know little about those games.

I'd even only be guessing that ToR is Star Wars: The Old Republic.

WoW I believe is quite CPU intensive so an overclocked 2500K is as good as you'll get on that front.

The GTX 560Ti is broadly equivalent to a HD 6950, maybe a touch slower, but the card you've picked has a decent overclock.

The main difference is the HD6950 has 2GB of RAM but that shouldn't be an issue unless you're gaming at high resolutions such as 2560x1440 or 2560x1600. 1GB is fine for 1920x1200 or 1920x1080.

The PSU you've picked is out of stock at OcUK so if you're ordering soon the order will be placed on hold until it's in stock.

Do you have a DVD drive? The new Sandy Bridge boards don't have IDE so if you plan on re-using an old one it needs to be SATA.

Finally are you planning on gaming over 2 monitors such as trying to play games at 3840x1080 (two 1920x1080 monitors)?

That's a slighly different proposition as I'm not sure how that works with AMD or Nvidia cards and obviously the performance hit would be greater.

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:33

Yes. I have dual 1920x1080 monitors.

Surveyor · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:37

Macphisto said:
Yes. I have dual 1920x1080 monitors.

But what do you want to do with them?

Play games on 1 monitor and use the second for other stuff?

Play games across both monitors at 3840x1080 resolution?

Macphisto · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:51

Surveyor said:
But what do you want to do with them?

Play games on 1 monitor and use the second for other stuff?

Play games across both monitors at 3840x1080 resolution?

I play games on 1 monitor and have something else on the 2nd, movies, TV ect.

Jony27 · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:57

with that £200 you saved from switching to a sandybridge spec, you could stretch to a gtx570, which is roughly around £50 more than the gtx560ti. this leaves you with £150, you could either get a 60GB or go all out and get a 120gb.