Check my high end spec please

Zirax · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:24

Hi all, putting together the final touches of my rig. Its going to be a big upgrade that will hopefully last a while. Going from a 775 setup so it's going to be one heck of a jump.

Couple of questions to check.

1. The ASrock seems to be a board that is getting good clocks. However with a crossfire setup the layout could be interesting for an aftermarket sound card. Should I be able to get away with a pci-e card in the slot nearest the cpu?

2. Is the power supply good enough for a clocked i7 + crossfire? I would have thought so, just checking.

I may swap out the kingston for xms3 memory. Can you critique this:-

Hazro HZ27WA 10-Bit 27" LED Widescreen Professional Monitor - Black £491.99
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £221.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 Game *2 429.98
OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £169.98
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXV2UK) £96.98
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card 89.99
Fractal Design Define XL Full Tower Case - Black Pearl 89.99
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache 5900RPM - OEM *2 £103.96
Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £49.99
LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £49.98
Akasa SATA-III 50cm Rounded DAYGLO Blue Data Cable (Right-Angle Connectors) £4.99
Akasa SATA-II 60cm Blue UV Data Cable *2 £7.96

Total 2034.32

Ginger-Menace · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:30

drop the 2600k for the 2500k save some money if it juat for gaming

RJC · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:31

PSU will be fine for crossfire.

I'm not sure on the quality of the monitor and the Hitachi hard drives.

Zirax · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:33

Ginger-Menace said:
drop the 2600k for the 2500k save some money if it juat for gaming

I would normally agree with you there, should have said this will be a multi use machine. Mainly the cpu will be getting hammered during the day with a bit of gaming/films at night. I've gone crossfire for a bit of longevity at the high res.

RJC said:
PSU will be fine for crossfire.

I'm not sure on the quality of the monitor and the Hitachi hard drives.

I'll swap the drives for some WD greens. The monitor does have a question mark from my own thread in monitors and reading around. Food for thought, thanks.

Moothead2 · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:34

Go for the Samsung F3 hard drives and why are you buying extra SATA cables?

SneakBS · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:38

Zirax said:
Hi all, putting together the final touches of my rig. Its going to be a big upgrade that will hopefully last a while. Going from a 775 setup so it's going to be one heck of a jump.

Couple of questions to check.

1. The ASrock seems to be a board that is getting good clocks. However with a crossfire setup the layout could be interesting for an aftermarket sound card. Should I be able to get away with a pci-e card in the slot nearest the cpu?

2. Is the power supply good enough for a clocked i7 + crossfire? I would have thought so, just checking.

I may swap out the kingston for xms3 memory. Can you critique this:-

Hazro HZ27WA 10-Bit 27" LED Widescreen Professional Monitor - Black £491.99
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £221.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 Game *2 429.98
OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £169.98
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXV2UK) £96.98
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card 89.99
Fractal Design Define XL Full Tower Case - Black Pearl 89.99
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache 5900RPM - OEM *2 £103.96
Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £49.99
LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £49.98
Akasa SATA-III 50cm Rounded DAYGLO Blue Data Cable (Right-Angle Connectors) £4.99
Akasa SATA-II 60cm Blue UV Data Cable *2 £7.96

Total 2034.32

Where you getting the silver arrow cooler from? I can't find them in stock anywhere!

Looking at a comparison I would probs go for 2 x GFX 570 for the extra it defo looks like you would get an extra kick outta your cards.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-112-MS
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=306

Just my 2 pennies worth though

Moothead2 · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:40

SneakBS said:
Where you getting the silver arrow cooler from? I can't find them in stock anywhere!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-078-TR

They're right under your nose

.

SneakBS · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:45

LMAO I mailed them and got a response today saying they didn't know buy MAYBE next week. Nice one thanks mate!

Zirax · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:45

Moothead2 said:
Go for the Samsung F3 hard drives and why are you buying extra SATA cables?

IIRC you tend to get SATA 2 cables with mobo's. Well the Gigabyte Z68 came with Sata2 rather than SATA 3. No reason why I couldn't use the ones that come with the board for the hdds.

edit:- Quite surprised at the GTX results, I thought the 1280mb would strain at this res.

Moothead2 · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:47

Zirax said:
IIRC you tend to get SATA 2 cables with mobo's. Well the Gigabyte Z68 came with Sata2 rather than SATA 3. No reason why I couldn't use the ones that come with the board for the hdds.

They're basically the same thing and SATA 6gb/s offer no boost over Sata 3gb/s cables, save yourself the money

.