Final System Build Check Before Buying!!!!

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 09:54

Hi guys, as the title suggests, I'm FINALLY ready to buy all the parts. Just want to make sure everything is fine and will fit etc. (First time buying so don't want to regret anything). Also, will that psu be enough for sli in the future? The description and reviews seem to suggest so.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £269.99
(£224.99) £269.99
(£224.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £159.98
(£133.32) £159.98
(£133.32)
Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi-Tower - Black (with Fan Controller Repair Kit) £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
XFX 750W Black Edition Modular Power Supply £96.98
(£80.82) £96.98
(£80.82)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8) £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
(£74.99)
OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £88.39
(£73.66) £88.39
(£73.66)
Corsair Hydro H60 CPU Cooler with free Akasa Apache Fan (Socket LGA1366 / 1155 / 1156 / 775 / AM2 / AM3) £54.98
(£45.82) £54.98
(£45.82)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £33.98
(£28.32) £33.98
(£28.32)
LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.16) £16.99
(£14.16)
Sub Total : £923.56
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £187.46
Total : £1,124.77

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:24

PSU is possibly a touch light for 570's in SLI. Guru3D recommend 850W:

Power consumption

I assume you'll be installing your games on the 1TB HDD given the size of the SSD.

You might want to consider the Samsung F3 instead of the F1. The F3 is quite a bit faster and worth the extra £6 in my opinion:

Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB Review

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:27

Thanks for the help. I'm now thinking of getting a HD6950 instead just to save a bit of money for the psu? What do you think?

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:28

And yeah, I'll go for the Samsung Spinpoint F3 as you've suggested.

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:45

According to this review 570's in SLI are a quicker than 6950's in Crossfire:

Radeon HD 6950 CrossfireX Review

But both produce very acceptable results and with 2GB 6950's available at around £200 they're £50 cheaper than the cheapest 570's.

The Twin FrozR III 6950 is £64 cheaper than the Twin FrozR III 570 and the 6950's are in stock.

Plus the 2GB of VRAM of the 6950 can only help if you like to turn on the eye candy.

A 750W PSU should also be enough for Crossfired 6950's though it wouldn't hurt to get something with a bit more overhead.

Remember that you can't flash most of the 6950's available now to a 6970. This includes the Twin FrozR III.

Edit

Have you considered the motherboard.

The Asus P67 boards seem to be the most temperamental.

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:50

Thanks for all the help man. I'll be sure to post pictures of my build once it's done. Thanks.

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 10:54

I should hang on for a few more opinions before you spend your hard earned.

Have you considered this motherboard:

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** with FREE Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler

Only £125 at the moment.

Fantastic board and overclocks really well.

The only niggle is the placement of the front panel headers for Crossfire but it should be workable.

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:03

Surveyor said:
I should hang on for a few more opinions before you spend your hard earned.

Have you considered this motherboard:

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** with FREE Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler

Only £125 at the moment.

Fantastic board and overclocks really well.

The only niggle is the placement of the front panel headers for Crossfire but it should be workable.

That was my first choice but just general browsing through these forums I seem to observe a sort of mixed reaction for that motherboard. That's why I was a bit put off. What do you think?

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:15

bongla316 said:
That was my first choice but just general browsing through these forums I seem to observe a sort of mixed reaction for that motherboard. That's why I was a bit put off. What do you think?

I can't say that I've seen much of a mixed reaction to the MSI.

If anything it's the Asus boards that have had a mixed reaction. For some people they're fine but there are a fair few who've had problems.

Most people sing the praises of the MSI P67 boards.

The only negative comment I recall is regarding the placement of the front panel headers but hopefully these could be fitted without too much grief.

Here's a review of the MSI P67A-GD53 which is the GD65's little brother:

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) Review

The GD65 is the same as a GD53 but with a few added features. Or looking at it the other way a GD53 is a cut down GD65.

If you're thinking of getting a GD65 make sure to get the one on offer at £124.99. OcUK have it listed at £139.99 as well!

But, as I said above, wait a while before ordering and you'll get some other ideas/opinions.

J-FRO · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:33

I'ill confirm that I would go GD65 over Asus, that's what I've done and am waiting on my board tomorrow. I chose it specifically because I see very little complaint with MSI boards and the GD65 has everything I need and a little more, giving me the opportunity to go xfire at x8x8 if I want and the color scheme is nice too

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:41

With the money you save by getting a 6950 Twin FrozR III and the MSI P67A-GD65 you'd be a fair chunk of the way towards a second 6950.

Drop the Corsair Hydro H60 CPU Cooler, and use the free cooler with the MSI board, and you're three quarters of the way towards a second 6950.

Make those changes and add £50 or so to your budget (if you can) and you can have Crossfired 6950's now!

You could even drop down to 4GB of RAM as most games won't make any use of more than that.

bongla316 · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:43

Okay. So after some more 'research' I seem to agree with you guys. I've only seen one complaint on the MSI board (the one Serveyor said) and I found a whole thread full of complaints about the Asus P8P67 board lol. I'll just wait for a few more opinions. But I have a question, how do the MSI's usb headers work? The description says that it has one usb header to support two ports each. Oh and how much better is the ASROCK z68 mobo than the MSi (if at all)?

Surveyor · 12 Jun 2011 at 11:50

bongla316 said:
But I have a question, how do the MSI's usb headers work? The description says that it has one usb header to support two ports each. Oh and how much better is the ASROCK z68 mobo than the MSi (if at all)?

The MSI has one header which will support 2 USB 2.0 ports and one header which will support 2 USB 3.0 ports.

These are for the front mounted USB ports on your case.

There are also 8 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports on the I/O panel.

I assume you mean the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 at £144.98 as the cheaper PRO3 only has 1 PCI-E x16 connector so no Crossfire or SLI.

The short answer is I don't know anything about that board.

Stulid has one and this is his build log:

My latest system tweaks

Edit

A final point.

There seem to be a fair few comments regarding the reliability of the OCZ Agility SSD's.

You might want to look into that.