New System - component selection

Benny · 2 Sep 2011 at 10:52

Hi All,

My 4870x2 died a couple of weeks ago meaning my planned upgrade has been brought forward.

I have been saving for a long long time to replace my age old system and want a quality PC with quality components. I'm not made of money so I want to be
sure that what I have chosen is going to serve me well. Now I'm not really an overclocker but when the components start to age it is something I may tinker with.
I'm reasonably computer savvy but no expert and would like some feedback on the kit I have considered for a build.

GPU
Is this GPU overkill if I'm not going to be clocking it? I just want an powerful card as I like to game at 1920x1200 with high settings and good frames 60-70+ (online MP). Games such as RO2 and BF3.
Reviews seem to point at this card being aimed at enthusiasts etc. Is it still a decent top end card regardless of the clocking features or should I aim at saving a bit of dollar and get something a little cheaper.
I like the idea of having plenty of VRAM for AA. Even at 1920 res/ I like to set it on at least 2x.

Motherboard
Is the board a bit overkill for my purposes? I have read reviews that it is a very fast, quality board. Have always used ASUS and they have always been rock solid.

Memory
I still need to drop some RAM in the system and looking for some decent Dual Channel DDR3.

Storage/Drives
I have opted for the Velocirator as I have a Raptor and a Raptor-X drive (150 GB). Been very happy with their performance. These will be used for storage (design work).
The 300gb Velociraptor drive is solely for my steam folder really. I won't require huge TB drives.

The 120GB SSD is for my OS and running the odd non-steam game. BF3 and other games.

So if you could give me some constructive feedback as to whether the money I'm spending could be better spent on other components or if what I have chosen is decent enough. I would really appreciate it.

Cheers

Benny

King Damager · 2 Sep 2011 at 11:03

Coming from someone who owns a Force 3, swap it out for a M4. The firmware issues aren't major, but they are a pain occasionally

CPU seems justified on the basis you say you're doing design work, so no issues there.

Motherboard does seem to be a bit overkill :S I'd normally recommend the ASROCK Gen 3 boards at this point, however, with only one year warranty, perhaps they're not quite the best choice for you. I'd therefore suggest waiting and seeing what others suggest Mobo wise...

As for RAM, pick up what you can... You can get 16GB now a days for less than £100 if there's a good offer on... You'd probably want some Corsair/Kingston RAM.

GPU is definitely a bit overkill, by all means go for one of the 580's with 3GB GDDR5, but certainly don't need the extreme lightening one.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-153-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812 This is a perfectly good substitute, however if you don't plan on upgrading for a long time, maybe go for http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812 due to EVGA's epic warranty!

Everything else looks fine, oh except maybe the OEM blu-ray player... If you don't have a licence for something that plays Blu-ray discs (PowerDVD or the suchlike) upgrade to the non-OEM version because otherwise you won't be able to play blu-rays....

kd

mp260767 · 2 Sep 2011 at 11:08

motherboard wise have a look at the z68 versions.

would think a standard 580 gtx would be more than sufficient for your gaming needs moving up from the 4870x2.

depending on how there used as "storage" and the size required i'd maybe consider a 2nd ssd over the raptor, or maybe a small gb hd.

edit:
with the ssd's check the hard drive forum, as mentioned by King there are issues of sorts with some of the drives so worth double checking things.

Benny · 2 Sep 2011 at 21:29

thanks for the feedback. With Regards to RAM I think 16GB is a bit OTT for me.
Defo a great deal but think 8GB is more than enough for my needs.

Been looking at this little package.. although not available on Overclockers.

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Dominator GT, DDR3 PC3-14900(1866),
NonECC Unbuffered,9-10-9-27, DHX, XMP, 1.50V

I thought the OCZ ranged had a few issues on them but not the corsair ones.
Sounds like the crucial SSD's require a firmware update before they reach their full potential.

As for the GPU the clock speeds are higher on the lightning for a 3gb card. Guess I need to decide whether the extra
cash is worth the extra performance really. The EVGA cards certainly do loook pretty damn fine.
Plus a 10 year guaratee is certainly something to sway me. After the loss of my current card I was gutted to find it
only had a 1 year warranty. :/

I have swapped over the DVD drive, overlooked it being OEM.

Still looking over motherboard reviews at the moment. I have heard great things about the ASROCK boards but want to stick with ASUS really.

Cheers

B

King Damager · 2 Sep 2011 at 22:24

Benny said:
I thought the OCZ ranged had a few issues on them but not the corsair ones.
Sounds like the crucial SSD's require a firmware update before they reach their full potential.

If you're against firmware updates then your only real choice is Intel...

Both the OCZ, and Corsair latest drives will require firmware updates unless you want occasional BSOD's and lock ups... Even running the latest firmware I have issues -.-

The Crucial change isn't as big a deal, and from the OCUK site, it seems they're shipping them with the latest firmware anyway

kd

Benny · 2 Sep 2011 at 22:39

I don't reallyjust like things to work straight outta the box. have anything against firmware updates. Just that I haven't done it previously. Somebody has placed a step by step on the HDD section of the forums and it seemed pretty straight forward. I just want things to work straight out of the box. As does everybody. Thanks for your reply KD.

B

R088ieS86 · 2 Sep 2011 at 23:31

£1800 to play with? Good job on the saving front, I don't have the will power to do that!

I'm running a 580 for 1920x1200. works very nicely indeed!

Your rig does look very good.

If i had that money this would be my rig:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 580 Matrix Platinum 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £399.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £283.99
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £239.99
1 x Silverstone Fortress 2 FT02B-W Windowed Gaming Case - Black £219.98
1 x Corsair Professional Series HX1050 Professional Series 1050W Modular Power Supply (CMPSU-1050HXUK) £179.98
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £77.99
1 x Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £49.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41.99
Total : £1,780.07 (includes shipping : £16.85).

Let me explain my madness

64GB SSD for your windows install. Keeps the install nice and fresh with no clogging up.
256GB SSD in place of your raptor, quicker and nicer on the ears.
1TB HDD for anything else you want, music/videos/whatever.
** OCZ and Corsair suffered the same issues as they both use the sandforce controller. Crucial use the Marvell controller. Corsair actually recalled an entire model of their SSDs.

Retail BlueRay drive, comes with playback software which you would otherwise need to purchase.

Asus GTX580 Matrix, pre overclocked and looks very cool through the side window.

Silverstone Fortress 2 FT02B-W, as silly as it sounds everything is rotated 90 degrees to faces up. hot air rises. (I also think it looks nicer than the 800D which I would only consider if I was going full H20)

Silver Arrow. In the top 2 for air cooling and cheaper by far than its rival!

Just a few ideas.

Jony27 · 2 Sep 2011 at 23:42

justa reminder that the Asus Matrix is a 3-slot card, so SLI'ng them would mean theyre right on top of each other.

Benny · 3 Sep 2011 at 20:11

thats a decent build actually R088ie. Thanks for taking the time to knock it up. Been thinking about the crucial SSD and will defo be going with that. Not sure about swapping out the Raptor though. It makes sense to use a 256gb SSD for STEAM and a 60GB SSD for the system. Just a lot of dollar. I guess I could some less expensive elemtns of th build and divert the funds towards the SSD's

Motherboard is still something I need to decide on really. The ASUS Matrix was a card I had been looking at but wish it came with 3 gig or Memory. Do you think 1.5 is adequate? I have noticed a lot of the 3 gig cards have lower clock speeds than the 1.5 versions (obviously brand dependant). So may end up going for it in the end. I need to have a burchers at some more reviews/benchmarks.

As for the silverstone case that was a consideration and seems a top case although I'm not sure what to do now. All my carefully layed plans appear to have been scuppered.

As for the saving I was forced to, I got robbed and they nabbed my first Build PC. So been stowing away the pennies ever since.
Been hard work considering I have two other hobbies hustling me for money.

Cheers

B

R088ieS86 · 3 Sep 2011 at 22:57

I only popped the Asus card in there because i think it looks cool. But it is kinda impractical as its, like Jony27 pointed out, a triple slot cooler.
3GB of VRAM is normally only necessary for high resolutions like 2560x1440/2560x1600.
Back down at our scale (1920x1080/1920x1200) it makes very little difference.
Any 580 will fit your bill, so it will all depend on how much you want to spend on it.

There is a cheaper silverstone case which is also very good: Silverstone Raven 2 RV02B If you didn't want to go the whole hog on the FT02B.

If your worried about your pennies give us another budget you would like to work towards. I'm sure we could sort you out with something.