New build conundrum

solefald

solefald

solefald

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Joined
22 Aug 2011
Posts
18
Hey all, I wanted to jump on here and ask your advice after lurking around here for a while.

What I have now:
E6750 @ Stock (Touchy mobo put a stop on OC'ing)
4gb OCZ DDR2 1066 mhz (2x2gb)
ATI 4890 1gig


I had £2000 for a new rig and nearly grabbed a 2600k rig but was convinced to wait and see what the next Intel release brings if I'm spending that sort of money. Problem is, some stuff that came up over summer has wiped out that budget and it’ll be at least early February until I can save that sort of cash back up (If I live extra-thrifty).

Something has just come to my attention though:
2 x Asus 768MB GTX 460 TOP edition graphics cards

1 x i7 920 D0 CPU, does 3.8ghz on low voltage
1 x Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard

1 x Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel

Coming to a grand total of £378, second hand.

It's been looked after very carefully and has been run at cool temps in an air conditioned room. All of it also comes in original boxes with all original anti-static sleeves and all cables/extras.

What I'll be using it for: Gaming.

I have the following sat waiting to unlock on release:
Dead Island
Deus Ex 3
Spacemarine

I'm looking at BF3, Rage, Colonial Marine, Stalker 2, a couple of other high end games too.

So, verdict?

I’ll be throwing it all in a Cooler master HAF with a nice big PSU, a nice big cooler and lots of extra fans to help with the overclock.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
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Thanks for the reply!

My post was a little unclear on the case/psu/cpu cooler situation: I'd need to buy that too.

As for being desperate for an upgrade: Yeah I kinda am. Lots of lovely gaming to be had in the next few months and my rig simply wont cut the mustard. I can play it, but it'll bring back horrible, horrible memories of attempting to play Doom 3 on a 9600 512mb.

I've looked at an i5 build but I'd much prefer an i7 based rig.

It's been a few months since I priced up the i7 rig I was looking at and the £1050 you've quoted there is a lot more apetising that the £2000 build I was looking at.

I was having a quick look and I price up the parts I'm looking at at a fair bit more than £450-£500 (GFX being £350 for the pair new). Where do you get your parts?

EDIT: Ban hammer avoidance
 
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@Reaper 392

Cheers for the advice on the i5 rig. I'm not a big fan of the i5 but I did have another look at the build I had in mind, and it has dropped by nearly £600

I've updated what I was originally looking at:
i7 2600k
Asus Maximus IV Gene-z
8gb 1600mhz DDR3
GTX 590 3gb
XFX BE PSU
Dark Rock Pro cooler
SilverStone FT02B

£1399.33

and I'd slap in a 1tb HD I have in a caddy for a while till I save up a little more of an SSD.

But, again, this would take a fair while to save up for, especially seeing as how I have a handful of birthdays, special occasions and christmas to get in the way of the saving.

EDIT: Apparently I was going to travel in to the future and buy an 8 series Nvidia card...
 
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@Reaper 392

Damn. Where the hell do you shop?

Good point on the i5/i7 performance. I'd based it around a spec I'd seen and assumed the performance jump betwen i5 and i7 was similar to the early models.
 
Right, level with me on this, because I get no end of "Just wait for X" or "If you wait another 4 months you can have Y".

If I save my cash till January/February and buy the rig you've outlined (with adjustments based on price changes and GFX releases), will I hover my finger over the checkout button and then be told that I'd be wasting money buying that build and I should buy some gear that is being release in Q2/3?

I don't mean that to come off as snappy or ungrateful, but it's the bane of my life trying to put together stuff like this, saving the money and being told to hold my horses. I end up in a never ending loop.
 
Not meaning offence and don't take this in an agressive way, but: There we have it.

I don't consider a new board and a CPU to be a small upgrade. And it would simply not be the case of waiting until January (I'm betting February/March in reality) for the new ivybridge stuff and then grabbing that. It's always a month before there's solid info showing if new tech is worth it, reliably solid info any ways.

I didn't upgrade to a Q6600, 6gb of ram and a pair of 9800gt's because I was told to wait for the i series. i series came, I see they might be worth it, I save the money: BOOM, wait for second gen. I save the money for second gen: BOOM wait for ivybridge.

It'll never end.

My worries about waiting for ivy is that the rough price for the chip I would probably want is something ridiculous like £1200. The cheapest chip being a crazy £450.

I'd have to play every release between now and most likey February on my rig (see first post) and it'll kill the experience of the games I have lined up.


EDIT: unnecessary profanity
 
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The issue I have with popping an Ivy in the same board is that the board will be a crossover board. These things tend to be lower performance, less features and not the ideal platform for the latter of the two options available for the board.

Bit like the mistake I made buying the Asus P5KC DDR2/DDR3.
 
Back to Reapers suggestion:

I've not had a good opinion of MSI motherboards for quite some time now. I tend to see lots of people having issues with those boards.

What makes the 1 x MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98 superior?
 
I have two monitors at the moment, but that will most likely be changing up.

Primary: Samsung Synch master 206bw 20"
Secondary: LG Flattron 22" TV/Monitor combo
@ 1680x1050

I don't do dual screen gaming, but I do play games on one in native res and watch films/tv on the other. I've had the samsung for 5+ years and it's a little touchy of late so I think it's due to go pop soon like it's twin did a few months ago.


As for the mobo, the crossover element interests me, but I've seen how bad some of the other crossover options have been in the past and it gives me pause for thought.
 
Ok, so I've narrowed things down a bit if you guys could give this a once over:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Dark Rock Pro
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942)
OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Spare 1tb Spinpoint F1
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

OR

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3)
MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Silverstone Fortress SST-FT02B-W Black Full Tower Aluminum Case USB 3.0
OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Spare 1tb Spinpoint F1
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
 
I've had the following recomendations for changes if you guys want to chime in:

PSU alternatives:
AX750/850
Seasonic X-760

GPU alternative:
Asus DirectCU II

Mobo alternatives:
P8Z68-V PRO
 
Absolutely fantastic advice and help flying through here, thank you very much.

My money situation is looking up at the moment and I've managed to get a clearer answer on the money I'll be getting back which, while not ideal, certainly beats not getting it back at all.

It looks very much like I could have £1500 come December at the latest. This is longer than I'd have liked to wait given that the spec you have recommended is good to go now, but I'd have to wait till something stupid like April next year to get the whole budget back and that simply isn't going to happen!

As for Bulldozer, I nerdgasm over an 8 core beast but there's nothing I do that requires 8 cores and, as you rightly pointed out, AMD have been lagging behind Intel just enough for long enough for me to want to stick to Intel.

The card size issue is a good point on the cooling front. As for covering slots, I'm not enough of an audiophile to want a sound card and Raid just doesn't appeal so me all that much, especially with a NAS box on the horizon (April/July next year is the plan), so I can't think of a reason I'd need access to the covered slots. But, yeah, I think I'll go for the MSI one.

I've been thinking about the HAF long and hard and have decided that, although the outsitde appeals more to me than the FT02, the internals of FT02 are so different I want to properly nerd out and have a play with building around the FT02 layout.

PSU-wise, I would really like modular this time around to help me out on the cable management front. Other than that, so long as it does SLI and the socket placement on the MSI card doesn't stop me from having the third bottom case fan in the FT02, I'm happy.

Thanks again, very much appreciated!
 
Fantastic mate, thank you.

I wanted to get a good idea of the sort gear I'll be looking at early to so I can make sure I have the amount I need.

Hopefully I can scratch things together sooner.

Thanks again!
 
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