Building a rig for the first time.

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:26

Hey everyone.

This Christmas I'm going to be building a rig for the very first time. I have dabbled in upgrading ram, cleaning components and have a rather well versed yet general knowledge of what im doing. However i wanted to get an opinion on what im going to build, whether it will work well and any tips and pointers you can all give.

I am building this for gaming and as a red line i am trying to get a good performance for Skyrim on Ultra high settings. as well as general work plus posibilitys for future upgrading. so without waisting any more time, for those of you who have read this far, here are the components i had in mind:

Case:
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case

Motherboard:
Asus P67 Sabertooth

C.P.U.
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz

C.P.U. Cooler:
COOLERMASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler

Power suply:
OCZ ZX Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply

R.A.M.
KINGSTON HyperX T1 DDR3 Desktop Memory - 8GB DIMM RAM

Graphics card 1:
Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5

Graphics card 2:
Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5

Hard Drive 1:
HITACHI COOLSPIN HDS5C3020ALA632 Internal 3.5 SATA Hard Drive - 2TB

Optical drive:
LG BH10LS30 Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Rewriter

Wireless network card:
Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter

Fan Controler:
AeroCool V12XT 4-Channel LCD Touch Panel Fan Controller

So (and please be honest) what do you think?

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:35

stulid said:
So you are buying this around closer to Xmas time?

yeah, probably around the begging of December and building it on boxing day

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:37

stulid said:
Then come back around that time, looking now is kind of pointless as as I said the price changes and deals change weekly and even daily.

Price isn't really as much of a concern as you would think. i really need to know if it will al work together properly.

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:40

Anewbe4u said:
When having cards in sli, do you effectively have 2gb or just the 1gb still?

The data is basically cloned from one card to another. so no you don't get the combined Vram

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:41

stulid said:
Ok, yes everything works together, but the RAM maybe to tall for the cooler.

okay thanks

and ill get some measurements together to check the hight issue.

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:50

I dont really feel confident with water cooling, im a bricklayer not a plumber

so i think i will go with more low profile ram.

as for the graphics, maybe if i go for a

EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

that would sort the Vram shortage plus not jump the price too far (i have a budget but not one that can take a 570 or 580)

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:55

stulid said:
2Gb is better - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18344284

Your spec was two 1GB cards wasnt it in SLI? and not a typo error.

yeah i was thinking the two would give the boost i need to get the good fps performance for Skyrim, BF3 etc.

Trekkie · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:59

The monitor is going to be a 1080p LED backlit.

Thanks Joe, ill give those a look

Trekkie · 27 Nov 2011 at 00:02

stulid said:
A single GTX560ti wont find that a struggle, get the 2GB card and see how it performs.

Okay cheers

Doing that will also help me avoid the "why do you need two?" question from the missus

Trekkie · 28 Nov 2011 at 23:40

thanks guys

just one more thing. About the motherboard, like i said, i have a basic knowledge and i know my way round a computer. but could i do better for around the same amount of money?

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 00:00

stulid said:
Said it before, say it again, get a Z68 board.

This is better for £5 less - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-188-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990 - but come xmas time who knows?

is the bard quality any better?

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 00:13

stulid said:
It is, and its more feature filled.

It also has PCI-E3.0 support with ivybridge to both PCI-E 16X length slots.

ah yes

i see it also has OC Gene 2, that would help me a lot i think (if it is any good)

thanks man

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 00:18

Okay, iv updated my list, what do you think?

Case:
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case

Motherboard:
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68

C.P.U.
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz

C.P.U. Cooler:
ANTEC Kühler H₂O 920 Liquid CPU Cooler

Power suply:
OCZ ZX Series ZX1000W-UN 1000W ATX PSU

R.A.M.
KINGSTON HyperX T1 DDR3 Desktop Memory - 8GB DIMM RAM

Graphics card 1:
EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

Hard Drive 1;
HITACHI Deskstar Internal 3.5" SATA Hard Drive - 1TB

Optical drive:
LG BH10LS30 Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Rewriter

Wireless network card:
Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter

Fan Controler:
AeroCool V12XT 4-Channel LCD Touch Panel Fan Controller

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 00:33

stulid said:
As its a gaming rig, perhaps you should get the i5 2500K and up the GFX card?

The PSU is a bit much also.

yeah £80 is a big price for an extra 5 FPS.

and with the money saved from that and the PSU downgrade to 850 watt i could get a gtx 570 ti 2gb

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 00:44

i see

how do i tell what wattage i need?

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 01:01

Okay so here's what i have now:

Case:
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case

Motherboard
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68

C.P.U.
Intel Core i5-2500K

C.P.U. Cooler
ANTEC Kühler H₂O 920 Liquid CPU Cooler

Power suply"
OCZ ZX Series 850W ATX PSU

R.A.M.
KINGSTON HyperX T1 DDR3 Desktop Memory - 8GB DIMM RAM

Graphics card 1:
EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD 2560MB GDDR5

Hard Drive 1;
HITACHI Deskstar Internal 3.5" SATA Hard Drive - 1TB

Optical drive:
LG BH10LS30 Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Rewriter

Wireless network card:
Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter

Fan Controler:
AeroCool V12XT 4-Channel LCD Touch Panel Fan Controller

What do you think? will it blend?

Trekkie · 29 Nov 2011 at 01:05

Nice

thanks for your help mate

Joining this forum and talking to you was a hell of a lot of help

cheers

Trekkie · 1 Dec 2011 at 22:26

I just ordered all the gear. it should be here on Monday (apparently)

Its safe to say that i am very very excited, this week has been amazing, first a pass my driving test and now my build which i have aptly named "The Project" is on its way

Trekkie · 1 Dec 2011 at 22:39

Yeah i got the lower price. must have only been within seconds after i hit confirm

Trekkie · 1 Dec 2011 at 22:41

mxoagentjohnson said:
If you are just gaming, take away the i7 and use an i5 2500 sandbridge if needed, better for gaming, if you are video editing and other stuff, go for the i7, i use an i7 [email protected] but thats because i video edit and stuff.

yeah we went through all that. i got the i5 2500k 3.3ghz