Building New Rig - Some Advice Needed

painter24 · 26 Mar 2011 at 14:50

Due to financial constraints, I'm going to be putting this rig together as and when £££ becomes available. Here's what I've decided on so far:

Coolermaster HAF X

"Radon Allosaur" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.40GHz Overclocked Bundle - Asus (going for the OC'd bundle - quite n00bish with overclocking myself, would like the piece of mind, not to mention the warranty that comes with having it done by Overclockers.)

MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC Twin FrozR II 1024MB (intially I'm starting out with just the one of these cards, but again, as money permits I'll add another.)

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache X 2

As for the PSU, I want to future proof the rig for future additions to it, i.e. an additional GPU so was looking at the:

Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply

...will this be adequate for a SLI set up and the OC'd CPU?

Ok, so that's it more or less. What I was wondering is, do you guys think the HAF X is overkill for this set-up, I mean....the thing is huge. But, there's plenty of room for expansion in there.

Also, are there any items in this list you'd change for something else, eg the GPU. Do you think I should buy the items from the CPU bundle seprately and choose my own cooler and RAM (and learn to OC), or are those supplied with the bundle totally adequate?

I would be really interested and grateful to hear some opinions /advice on the above.

Thanks in advance

painter24 · 27 Mar 2011 at 08:31

Hi again,

I'm a real novice builder and really would like any pointers as to this set up is workable.

Thanks again

Trusty · 27 Mar 2011 at 08:49

Looks good, you could save some money and buy separately obviously. OC'ing is'nt difficult but it depends on how much time you have on your hands, with the already OC'ed bundle, it literally is just a case of loading a bios profile.

The PSU is overkill but leaves you in good stead for future upgrades (SLI/XFire) so i would just leave it.

As for the rest of the system, looks fine. Personally i would choose the 6950 over the 560. You can flash that card to a 6970 which is superb value.

Comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330?vs=292

The case is a matter of opinion, i don't really like the look of the Haf...not enough straight edges for my liking.

hybrid572 · 27 Mar 2011 at 10:54

First off, build your system all together, rather than as and when. It makes RMAing possible in case a part doesn't work, and gets you far better value for money.

Secondly, if you're gaming at 1920x1080, the following will perform exactly the same for considerably less money:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £90.00
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition Power Supply £50.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
1 x Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black £29.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £575.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

In terms of overclocking, it's incredibly easy with the i5 2500K chips. Even if you don't know what a voltage is, you simply activate OC Genie on the BIOS and your motherboard will work it all out for you.

Cookeh · 27 Mar 2011 at 12:53

Hi painter, and welcome to the forums

I couldn't agree with Hybrid more here, the system above is a very good spec for the money and will happily run all games at 1080p - it'/s also much cheaper, surely a positive if you're under financial constraints?

While your spec was good, the HDDs you chose are stupidly overpriced, as both the Samsung SpinPoint F3 Hybrid chose and the Seagate Barracuda are faster and much cheaper!

If you're looking to SLI/CF however you will need a different mobo, and a more powerful PSU.

Something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD55 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £134.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition Power Supply £73.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.60
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1155/1156/1366) £20.99
Total : £629.63 (includes shipping : £11.75).

painter24 · 27 Mar 2011 at 18:05

Thanks very much for all your advice guys, much appreciated. Going to re-think my build using the advice given. For example, I haven't even considered ATi cards, haven't used them for around 7 years or so, iirc the drivers used to be pretty bad back then. Also, some games had issues with ATi cards. How are things these days?

Also, as I intend going SLI/CF at some point, I'm going to go with either the Asus board or the MSI board linked by Cookeh, and therefore a suitable higher powered PSU, preferably modular. As for the financial constraints, I can afford to purchase the list in my OP over a period of 3 months. It's not the cost, it's the fact that due to other commitments I can't afford to get everything all at once. So saying that, I'm looking to get the biggest bang for my bucks that I can, although, the point re: the HDDs I mentioned in my OP is duly noted, I'll re-think this for sure. I haven't bought a new rig since 2007, and have only upgraded a GPU since then, so I'm out of touch with things a little.

Apologies also, I should have mentioned in my OP that this is exclusively a gaming rig and will be run at 1900x1200.

Thanks again guys, and any reassurances you could give regarding ATi cards would be welcomed.

)

Cookeh · 27 Mar 2011 at 18:34

The MSI board I linked is actually better than the ASUS board as it's got a better cooling and power system.

It also isn't suffering from any of the issues currently afflicting ASUS boards :confused:

If you're going to SLI/CF then you'll need either a 750W (like the XFX in my post above) or a 650W respectively (ATi cards are less power hungry

)

Problem with purchasing over 3 months is that it's a very long time in terms of hardware - for example, in 3 months time Bulldozer (AMDs new chips) will be out, and as of yet we're unsure as to how they'll perform - they could be SB beaters for less money, or could have comparable performance for a significant difference in price.

They'll be new graphics cards in 3 months I don't doubt