New build - Advice

Griffyn · 5 May 2011 at 12:54

I don't tend to upgrade as often as I should but thinking of the below spec to keep me happy for a couple of years. Is there anything else I should think about or change to get the best bang for my buck?

I will be watercooling everything so I went for the 6970 over the 6950 due to the better ram. I will get a 320 and 240 radiator for this case which should keep everything cool. My only concern is the PSU but heard its good for 900W. For reference I game on a 1920x1200 screen, I know the gpus are overkill now but as mentioned won't upgrade PC for 2 years.

2 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Games Pack
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive
Corsair Obsidian 700D Full Tower Case
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 ** B3 REVISION **
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Retail
Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Retail Black
Total : £1,644.67

lolwithtim · 5 May 2011 at 12:59

You do know you can unlock the ATI 6950 to a 6970.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18221844

The 6950 2048MB cards are between 200-230, although quite a few are in preorder at the moment.

Griffyn · 5 May 2011 at 13:12

lolwithtim said:
You do know you can unlock the ATI 6950 to a 6970.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18221844

The 6950 2048MB cards are between 200-230, although quite a few are in preorder at the moment.

Yep, hence my point about the better ram on the 6970, from what I have seen the 6970s getter better clocks than the 6950s when using water

lolwithtim · 5 May 2011 at 13:22

Griffyn said:
Yep, hence my point about the better ram on the 6970, from what I have seen the 6970s getter better clocks than the 6950s when using water

Thats fair. The games make the card a better deal as well. I don't know that muh about water cooling, lol.

Everything else looks good. The power supply should be able to run everything, but I don't think by much. Corsair are usually a good make.

Griffyn · 5 May 2011 at 13:27

lolwithtim said:
Thats fair. The games make the card a better deal as well. I don't know that muh about water cooling, lol.

Everything else looks good. The power supply should be able to run everything, but I don't think by much. Corsair are usually a good make.

My friend is going to buy my current rig so to sweeten the deal was going to give him the 2nd game pack if I decide to x-fire 6970s. As it adds quite a lot to the cost especially having to get two waterblocks as well.

I have a corsair PSU now and would definitely use them again, just not sure whether to get the next one up in terms of power.

Griffyn · 5 May 2011 at 17:21

Is the PSU going to be enough for this build or should I get more POWAH? Thanks

Cookeh · 5 May 2011 at 18:19

1x GTX580 would run everything perfectly fine for 2 years at 1920x1200 without issues of having to get correct drivers, or irritating micro-stutter than tends to afflict two or more cards running in parallel

PSU will just about cope, depending on clocks on cpu and gfx.

I would consider 800w/850w ideally if you want to overclock.