Final Check for me please

Dannae

Dannae

Dannae

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Joined
27 Aug 2011
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14
Looking for any incompatibility issues e.g. If RAM is compatible with the motherboard.

No interest atm in overclocking any aspect of the system, main focus is on cooling and quiet hence the case, Mobo and Graphics card.

Will wait for the Ivy equivalent but wanted to include the I5-2500k for completeness :)

Many thanks in advance

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 680 Phantom 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £529.99
1 x Intel 520 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £217.99
1 x Asus Z77 Sabertooth Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £167.99
1 x Corsair Professional Series AX650 High Performance 650W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CP-9020006-UK) £109.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £109.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Gold 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9G) £99.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £93.98
1 x Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card £83.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
1 x Edimax EW-7438RPN N300 Universal Wi-Fi Extender £39.98
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer i30 Intel Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1155/1156) £32.99
Total : £1,850.92 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
Many thanks for the speedy replies and the advice :)

If I went with the gold vengeance for aesthetics only what quality contained water cooler would people recommend for a non overclocked cpu? Just a bit concerned about "water" being in the case from a few H100 horror stories here and elsewhere (forgive my paranoia!).

Alternatively is there a higher profile air cooler you would recommend? I remember seeing someone with heat spreader vengeance ram and this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-013-XG

But could have been a grey moment :s

One final question - Do I have to change the settings in bios to make the system aware of the ram? eg is it defaulted to 1333mhz for example and I need to change the profile to 1600mhz?

Thanks
 
Last edited:
Fair enough! This is a decent water cooler:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-006-CS&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=2262

There's bound to be horror stories but they're quite safe :)

However if noise is concern they can be noisy I think [compared to an air cooler]. Judging by this picture the cooler MIGHT be okay:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/zardon/arctic-freezer-i30-review/3/
but it depends on the exact motherboard of course, and could be very tight.

That cooler you posted above does seem to have good clearance but I can't easily find any info on exactly how much. If you seen pictures of people with vengeance RAM underneath it then that is good!

The system will pick up the RAM, but it will default to 1333MHz. You can easily set an XMP profile to get it to 1600Mhz in the BIOS.
:)
 
Dannae said:
Many thanks for the speedy replies and the advice :)

If I went with the gold vengeance for aesthetics only what quality contained water cooler would people recommend for a non overclocked cpu? Just a bit concerned about "water" being in the case from a few H100 horror stories here and elsewhere (forgive my paranoia!).

Alternatively is there a higher profile air cooler you would recommend? I remember seeing someone with heat spreader vengeance ram and this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=hs-013-xg

but could have been a grey moment :s

one final question - do i have to change the settings in bios to make the system aware of the ram? eg is it defaulted to 1333mhz for example and i need to change the profile to 1600mhz?

thanks
Click to expand...

this review of that cooler:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4388/xigmatek_prime_sd1484_hdt_cpu_cooler_review/index5.html

Shows that it does not have good RAM clearance.

Is this for gaming? the simplest solution might be to buy 8GB of RAM, which is plenty for gaming. As this will only use 2 RAM slots and therefore should fit with most smaller coolers.
 
Hi there,

I would agree that the RAM + cooler combination are not a good mix as the RAM heatsink will likely get in the way of the cooler. However, I wouldn't suggest resolving this by going for a liquid cooler. I say this because generally liquid coolers perform as well as decent air coolers but cost more and run louder (plus they have the possibility of a leak).

Instead, this RAM kit is pretty cool looking, performs great and won't have any issues with a large CPU cooler. Also it's a bit cheaper than the gold RAM, but just as fast.

The RAM is indeed defaulted to 1333MHz (as are all RAM sticks on this platform) - so you need to go into the BIOS and turn on the XMP profile in the memory settings part. However, this may be different with an Ivy Bridge CPU, as their standard memory speed is 1600MHz (compared to 1333MHz for Sandy Bridge).

Also, I personally wouldn't pay £530 for that GTX 680 as it is a lot more to pay for a custom cooler and the 2 year warranty from gainward isn't ideal. Instead, I would recommend the Gigabyte GTX 680 windforce. This card is £450, comes with the fantastic windforce 3X cooler, is overclocked to almost the same level as the gainward and the 3 year warranty from Gigabyte is widely regarded as one of the best.


Finally, I know it may just be aesthetics you went for the ASUS Sabretooth motherboard, but would you consider the Asrock Extreme4 board? It uses a similar colour scheme, is a quality board and is a good deal cheaper.
 
Can I just ask why you are getting an external sound card when you have 7.1 built into the motherboard? (surely onboard sound cards are more than good enough these days for most people)

Also if you are looking for wireless in the desktop why not get the


Asus P8Z77-V PRO Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard [90-MIBHS0-G0EAY0DZ]
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-513-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

Again this mobo has inbuilt wireless.


Again just my view here but if you are spending £530 on a gpu why not spend an extra £20 and get the 4gb version
KFA2 GeForce GTX 680 EX OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-013-KF&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2255

Maybe I am missing something but why on earth is it almost £100 more than the OCUK one at 424. If it is simply because it runs slightly faster then is it really worth £100 more.
 
davetherave2 said:
Can I just ask why you are getting an external sound card when you have 7.1 built into the motherboard? (surely onboard sound cards are more than good enough these days for most people)
Click to expand...

I would disagree with you on the sound card, as if you have a decent speaker system or headset then you really can tell the difference between an onboard sound card and a nice discrete sound card (like the D2X).

Though I guess the question of whether it is worth the high cost for the extra audio clarity is valid.

I would also agree with you on the graphics card, that Gainward is a rather crazy price considering it isn't that special. If the OP will be able to make use of more than 2GB of VRAM then the suggestion for spending a bit more on a 4GB card is a good one. Though more than likely the 2GB will be sufficient - if this is the case then the Gigabyte Windforce 3X offers basically all of the benefits on the gainward alongside a lower cost and a better warranty.


As for the wireless, would you consider going powerline? Powerline is a technology which uses the wiring in your house/office to form a virtual ethernet connection with other network connected devices on the same wiring system with compatible adapters. Compared to wi-fi it is much lower latency, faster connection speed and more reliable. Also, you can get this nice 2 adapter powerline kit for the same price as that wifi extender in the OP.
 
I guess what I am trying to get at is why get the audio card when you don't even know how the on board card performs. If you find that works perfectly well then that's £80 which could have gone into upgrading another part such as cpu, ram, cooler etc.

Surely onboard cards are now at the same sort of level as the entry level discrete cards. Surely they are not as bad as they used to be back in the late 90's early 00's.

I personally haven't had a discrete card since the nforce2 chipset days I have found onboards more than adequete for my needs.
 
They are certainly a lot better than they used to be, but entry level sound cards still do beat even the best onboard sound.

For example this Xonar DG card only costs £19, but it is considered quite a bit better in terms of audio clarity and amplification compared to modern onboard sound cards.

It is worth the OP considering adding a sound card later - but given their budget it isn't exactly forcing them to compromise on other areas and considering they did chose one of the the best sound cards (and not the most expensive) then I would guess that the OP knows something about sound cards and consequently has a decent sound system that will make use of it.
 
Firstly thank you for all the responses and it gives me a lot of food for thought :)

I think I will opt for the low profile ram so I can fit (almost) any air cooler - What would you consider to be the most silent at stock cpu speeds?

I take your point on the graphics card ;) I will only be using a 1920x1080 screen but want to future proof a little so 2GB will be enough.

I share a connection (I live at my place of work) next door and my connection is transmitted by a booster station next to my wirless laptop. I only need a single station as I don't use any any other tech around the house. Is the edimax I have mentioned above ok for my purpose? I understand about the powerline though :)

Audio card - I understand about perhaps waiting till I hear what the onboard is like - good tip. I am planning on getting a decent headset and speakers so I'll see how I feel about it when I hear it.

I went with the sabretooth for its aesthetics, its temperature sensing and cooling "blah" - I aim to use the 550D with all of it's soundproofing features rather than opening panels/vents etc so it will provide a warmer environment than "normal".

Thanks again and feel free to continue with anything I may still need to consider.
 
Looks like money is no object for you so why not pay a bit extra for the 4GB version of GTX680? Or if it is, have you considered the 7970 now that their prices have dropped?
 
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