All round computer spec

Associate
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Hi guys, I am intending to go for my first PC build soon, I was hoping you could take a look at these components, in particular the ram and motherboard I practically picked out at random as I have no idea what would go with the rest if the bits.
Also, I was wondering why the 2tb drive was cheaper than equivalent 1tb, I would prefer to use the smaller ones really but seems a waste of money...

Computer will be used for a lot of photo editing, some gaming, perhaps a little video editing and general use. Hopefully it will be fairly future proof as well, as I intend to keep it quite a while'. I also would like the PC to be fairly quiet if at all possible...

Cheers!
Ed
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Caporegime
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Associate
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case is down to personal preference but below is another option
PSU seems a tad overkill
below is a lot cheaper and will probably give you the same performance (overclocking potential might be slightly less with cpu cooler but nothing drastic)
Also Heatsink does come with paste, but the paste it comes with is horrendous. which is why ive put some artic silver on there.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £269.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 660 OC Twin Frozr 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £89.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £76.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £66.66
1 x TeamGroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316GM1600HC11DC01) £53.99
1 x Aerocool Xpredator X1 Midi Tower Case - Black/Red £49.99
1 x Zalman CNPS9900-MAX Red LED CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £39.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
1 x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £8.99
Total : £981.64 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Associate
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Nice tips guys, in terms of SLI, I don't intend to upgrade lots in future, however in a year or two when the current GPUs are cheaper second hand etc, I thought SLI would be a cheap way of improving the rig. I gathered from those comments for using two cards, it's best to stick with NVidia, is that correct? I was mainly going by benchmarks when I selected that card, but I guess that doesn't tell the full story

I will change the RAM and SSD to the ones recommended by you guys - in terms of the PSU, while overkill I have read a lot about avoiding cheaper PSUs on this forum, so I went with the one on the recommended components section, would there be any disadvantages to getting a lower rating one?
 
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Caporegime
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Firstly dude, remove the competitor name.


SLI is a cheap way of getting a performance boost, pick up a 2nd hand card and slot it in along side the existing one.


A 660 is faster than a 7850 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/660?vs=549 - thats stock speed cards, the ones above are overclocked in some way or another (except the asus which looks to be stock speeds), the Gigabyte 7850 has the highest clocks of them all.

The 7850 come with three free games currently.


In terms of the PSU, 1000watts is overkill and a 750W PSU is still plenty for a pair of cards (indeed its even fine for a pair of GTX670's/ATI 7970's etc) the Silverstone PSU is not a rubbish unit.



If you want a over the top PSU - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-213-SV&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2283
 
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Firstly dude, remove the competitor name.


SLI is a cheap way of getting a performance boost, pick up a 2nd hand card and slot it in along side the existing one.


A 660 is faster than a 7850 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/660?vs=549 - thats stock speed cards, the ones above are overclocked in some way or another (except the asus which looks to be stock speeds), the Gigabyte 7850 has the highest clocks of them all.

The 7850 come with three free games currently.


In terms of the PSU, 1000watts is overkill and a 750W PSU is still plenty for a pair of cards (indeed its even fine for a pair of GTX670's/ATI 7970's etc) the Silverstone PSU is not a rubbish unit.


If you want a over the top PSU - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-213-SV&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2283

Sorry did not realise that was considered competition, removed!
Sounds like I can save some cash on a PSU, I will grab a 750ishW one, cheers
 
Soldato
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Stulid made some nice changes. If you will only be doing a little video editing it might be wise to consider the i5K instead, by all means keep the 16GB of RAM as that will help.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC Twin Frozr Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N670GTX PE 2GD5/OC) £299.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance C70 Midi Tower Gaming Case - Military Green £109.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £94.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Notebook/Apple Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128N/EU) £89.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £66.66
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £59.99
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3/FM1) £49.20
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £1,097.28 (includes shipping : £13.75).



i5K loses the hyperthreading but still has Quicksync support. The 670 is a much better GPU than the 660 and it's CUDA support will assist with the video encoding tasks, as I'm sure you know. This 850W silver rated XFX PSU is cheaper than it's 750W version........strange pricing but there you go ;)

Look forward to seeing what you decide on :)
 
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Okay, here is where I am

In terms of this PSU, to get a 'gold' rather than 'silver' it will cost around £50, what would I actually be getting for this, except perhaps a lower energy bill?

@honosuseri, I am fairly set on the i7, I am sure the i5 would be nearly as good performance, but some things you just 'want':D

photo-1.png
 
Caporegime
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Okay, here is where I am

In terms of this PSU, to get a 'gold' rather than 'silver' it will cost around £50, what would I actually be getting for this, except perhaps a lower energy bill?

@honosuseri, I am fairly set on the i7, I am sure the i5 would be nearly as good performance, but some things you just 'want':D

photo-1.png

A Gold PSU might see you saving £5 a year on the electricity bill (really depends how longs its on for)


The Silver Arrow is a competing product (and currently cheaper)

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/thermalright_silver_arrow_cpu_cooler_review,9.html

Finally I know a little something about thermal pastes (I done a test) there are better pastes now available than the Artic Silver5, but the Silver Arrow comes with the really good Chillfactor3, so you don't need the Artic Silver5.
 
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A Gold PSU might see you saving £5 a year on the electricity bill (really depends how longs its on for)


The Silver Arrow is a competing product (and currently cheaper)

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/thermalright_silver_arrow_cpu_cooler_review,9.html

Finally I know a little something about thermal pastes (I done a test) there are better pastes now available than the Artic Silver5, but the Silver Arrow comes with the really good Chillfactor3, so you don't need the Artic Silver5.

Silver arrow sounds very good, is it as quiet as the noctua? Seems a decent way of saving ~20 quid incl paste.

I will have a think about the PSU and see what I think.
 
Soldato
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That's up to you fella. All you are paying for is the Hyperthreading, personally I'd use the i5K and pump the cash back into the GPU and OC both the CPU and GPU.

Your basket is looking much better now with stulids changes. You should listen to him about the paste and I too have recommended the silver arrow, it's just as good as the Noctua and I think it's colour scheme ties in nicely with your olive case. Your build your rules though fella
 
Associate
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Sounds like the silver arrow is the one to get! They are fairly large coolers, the low profile ram should be fine for the bottom of it, will the case have any issue fitting it in do you think?

Thanks again!
 
Soldato
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The fitting may be a bit on the tight side, but it should go in. From what I have found looking around the case should fit cooler up to 170mm in height.

If you do get that case and one of the large air coolers would you post up on here how well it fits? I'm looking at options for a new case and like the look of the C70 but I'm not sure if my cooler (a Phanteks PH-TC14PE) will fit.
 
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The fitting may be a bit on the tight side, but it should go in. From what I have found looking around the case should fit cooler up to 170mm in height.

If you do get that case and one of the large air coolers would you post up on here how well it fits? I'm looking at options for a new case and like the look of the C70 but I'm not sure if my cooler (a Phanteks PH-TC14PE) will fit.

Unfortunately, the case was marginally too small the silver arrow cooler, it would fit in, but the window touched the larger fan. I put the window on the outside of the case, which looks okay, but I would preferred to have left it inside.

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