Help me build a beast.

JButlerUK

JButlerUK

JButlerUK

Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2011
Posts
369
Location
South Yorkshire
Hi folks.
5 Years ago I built a nice PC sorting my like £1500.
Since then it’s been running fine and playing everything like a beast but now it’s becoming out dated and thanks to a little more funds available to my hobby I am wanting to upgrade.
HOWEVER I have basically been out of the loop for the last few years and before building my new PC I wanted some expert input.
I have a Thermaltake Armor+ VH600lBWS liquid cooling system: (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/chassis/fulltower/armorPlusESA/vh6001bws.asp

I am happy to keep using this case but going to add an extra combined reservoir/pump for better cooling.
==================================================================================

Draft PC Build:
Processor:
Intel Core i7 960 3.2 GHz Socket 1366 8MB L3 Cache
(not fussed on spending a fortune on a chip as its a lot of cash for little benefit IMO)
G Card:
Zotac GTX 590 3072MB GDDR5
With/ EK GTX 590 Full Cover Waterblock from overclockers UK – (Is this the best water cooling block?)
(Most important bit for me so hence heavy investment, also with water-cooling added)
Motherboard:
Asus Rampage III Extreme X58 Socket 1366 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard
(Worst bit for me to choose, cannot be arsed reading all reviews etc, just chose this one, not sure why, like the colours lol. Other than that I currently have an 680i motherboard atm and it stresses me out with manual overclocking so I am wanting an all singing and all dancing MoBo that is gonna do as much of the overclocking for me as I basically wanna set this thing up and leave it as much as possible)
Memory:
Corsair Dominator GT 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C9 2000MHz
(Had corsair stuff before and not let me down yet)
Hard Drive:
Some SSD to run my core programs with a Terabyte backup secondary HDD.
(To me a HDD is a HDD, not fussed on details here)
Power supply:
Got a 850W beast from a few years back that’s still working fine so not needed.
==================================================================================
And that’s pretty much it. That lot will prob set me back about £1500 again but should last me a few years yet. Let me know if you have any suggestions based on sound reasoning and not bias.
Also let me know if there are any compatibility issues in my setup or if any new impending stuff coming out soon is worth waiting for, like I said I am ashamed to admit it but ive not been in the techno PC loop for a while.
Cheers, Joe.
 
29c7x2v.jpg


you could get 24gb of Ram for about £16 extra, went a little over £1500 but not to worry its just an idea :D
 
^^ £1.6k spec with a 60GB SSD :D i think you can do better than that.
and SB only works with dual channel RAM
 
Last edited:
Jony27 said:
^^ £1.6k spec with a 60GB SSD :D i think you can do better than that.
Click to expand...

and the GTX590. well known for being the second hottest thing in the universe (nothing is hotter than a mcdonalds apple pie)

as people have said the case looks like it will handle anything you throw at it, but you should really consider a i5 2500k + Z68 build.

also, you are quite unlikely to have any watercooling blocks that are compatable with todays tech since they are 5 years old, and socket 1155 wont have existed back then (i doubt socket 1156 existed either). if you want a res/pump upgrade your going to need an entire new loop tbh

with £1500 i would do something like this:

YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £233.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £183.98
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £164.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £53.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £29.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.98
Total : £1,074.89 (includes shipping : £10.00).

this leaves £425 for two full cover 570 blocks, a socket 1155 (or 1156) waterblock, new pump, new res and any other new watercooling bits you might want

what 850W PSU do you have? if its not a really good one i wouldnt trust it to run all this and a watercooling setup
 
Reaper 392 said:
that would definitely mean the OP needs a new PSU. only the very best 850W PSU's can power a GTX580 SLI rig, let alone the watercooling stuff to go with it
Click to expand...



What I never wrote any of that.
Joking I realised my post was wrong before so I edited.
 
Reaper 392 said:
that would definitely mean the OP needs a new PSU. only the very best 850W PSU's can power a GTX580 SLI rig, let alone the watercooling stuff to go with it
Click to expand...

Incorrect. A good 750W has enough power to run a decent system with 580 SLI, a good 850 would give lots of headroom.
What exact PSU is it that you have, OP?
 
Sorry, I'm not familiar with Anandtech's or guru3d's test methodologies. Is that DC draw, from the wall? Or DC draw from the system internally? I.e. is that taking into account the PSU's efficiency or not? I couldn't find it mentioned on the page you linked. I can tell you that under realistic full load (Heaven, max tesselation, SLI enabled, plus LinX) with 2 overclocked 580s and a 4.2GHz 1366 i7, I haven't seen the TX750 break a sweat. Equally, I've seen an OCZ SXSII 700W fail to power a stock 590, overheating and shutting off within 30 minutes of Heaven. It's very dependent on the quality of the unit and the power it's actually able to provide.
 
Well the op maybe be in luck if has a good quality one but if it's from 5 years ago it's unlikely so yeah captain unlikely he might have to buy a new psu.


Sorry just couldn't resist the pun.
 
anuraj said:
Yes but I don't think any game can stress like furmark.
Click to expand...

OCCT stress test can take more power than furmark. while the OP wont be using it much, it is the best stability test i have found for overclocking graphics cards. it would be a shame if he couldnt run it for fear of blowing the PSU
 
anuraj said:
Well the op maybe be in luck if has a good quality one but if it's from 5 years ago it's unlikely so yeah captain unlikely he might have to buy a new psu.
Click to expand...

Hence why I asked:

CaptainUnlikely said:
What exact PSU is it that you have, OP?
Click to expand...

I wasn't suggesting that a new PSU was totally unnecessary, just saying that an 850W isn't a hard requirement for 580 SLI.
 
Reaper, i was agreeing with your post about 850w :(



During the stress tests we measured power consumption based on the power draw from the entire PC.

The methodology is simple: We have a device constantly monitoring the power draw from the PC. After we have run all our tests and benchmarks, we look at the recorded maximum peak; and that's the bulls-eye you need to observe as the power peak is extremely important. Bear in mind that you are not looking at the power consumption of the graphics card, but the consumption of the entire PC.
Click to expand...
 
Yes, I saw that, thanks. I was hoping a clearer explanation was available, but from that I'd assume this is power draw from the wall, so not taking into account the PSU's (in)efficiency/wasted power.
 
Hi OP
welcome to the forums :)

why not consider one of our prebuilt systems

the Ultima Mosasaur we sell comes with everything you are looking for.

add the SSD option [120gb] as well as a second GPU and windows 7 HP 64 and you have a top spec PC with a warranty for under £1500
this system in that configuration would decimate every game up to 1080p easily.

cant really ask for more than that :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom