New build from scratch

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:28

Hey, I have recently decided to build my first gaming PC in 10 years so I am a bit behind in my technology. I am looking for something pretty future proof as I will be spending a bit of cash on it.
At the moment I am undecided about gpu's so I will make a new thread in the graphics card section.

It will primarily be a mid/high end gaming machine, do you think all of these components will be ok together, plus I won't be overclocking until I get watercooling sorted out.

Heres what I have in my basket so far, I am going for a white/green theme which I will later be watercooling.

Cheers

MOTHERBOARD
Gigabyte X79 G1 Assassin 2 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard - £309.95

CPU
Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail - £249.95

MONITOR
BenQ XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red - £227.99

PSU
NZXT Hale Power 90+ 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply - £139.99

CASE
BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Windowed Case - White - £129.98

KEYBOARD
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2013 Elite Mechanical Keyboard - £124.99

SSD
Corsair Force GT 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) -£105.98

MEMORY
GeIL EVO Corsa 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C10 2133MHz Quad Channel Kit (GOC316GB2133C10AQC) - £99.95

HARDDRIVE
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) HDD - £94.99

OPTICAL
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (OEM) - £74.99

MOUSE
Razer DeathAdder 2013 6400 DPI Essential Ergonomic Gaming Mouse - £64.99

CPU COOLER
Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011 / 1366 / 1155 / 1156 / 775 / AM2 / AM3) - £59.99

SeraphX · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:32

If it's just for gaming, the 3820 would be pretty wasted tbh
If you went for a easier Z77 / i5 based rig, your budget would go a fair bit further.

I'd also change the PSU for a corsair one tbh.

stulid · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:32

So to be clear,

The H60 is just a quick stop gap? and you will be working on a more sufficient cooling system later?

SeraphX · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:36

stulid said:
So to be clear,

The H60 is just a quick stop gap? and you will be working on a more sufficient cooling system later?

mhmm and this, why waste £60 on a stopgap? Just get a mid range air cooler, save yourself 30 odd quid and put that back into the system

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:36

SeraphX said:
If it's just for gaming, the 3820 would be pretty wasted tbh
If you went for a easier Z77 / i5 based rig, your budget would go a fair bit further.

I'd also change the PSU for a corsair one tbh.

Yeah, I want something that will last a while without upgrade, I'm more focused on future proofing rather than saving a few quid here and there, I know the corsair psu's are pretty good, I just chose that one because it's white and im a tart.

stulid · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:38

Another thing is the nearly £100 WD Black 1TB HDD, you can get a WD Green/Seagate Barracuda 2TB for £79.99.

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:38

stulid said:
So to be clear,

The H60 is just a quick stop gap? and you will be working on a more sufficient cooling system later?

Yeah pretty much, when i'm ready to move to watercooling I could probably flog the H60 for more that a standard cooler, but like I said, I'm open to opinions and options, I've been out of the game for a while so need help when it comes to speccing.

cheers

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:39

stulid said:
Another thing is the nearly £100 WD Black 1TB HDD, you can get a WD Green/Seagate Barracuda 2TB for £79.99.

Yeah I just noticed that in someone elses build just after I posted this.

cheers

SeraphX · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:39

Well if it's purely a gaming system, my i5 suggestion would last a good 3 years, at least, games today are more gfx dependent than anything else, Seeing as your so out of the loop so to speak, I run an i5 2500K based system, 16Gb ram, SSD's etc etc and my graphics card is a gtx 480, it's a good few years old, but still manages to flatten most things thrown at it

stulid · 4 Mar 2013 at 18:39

srobrien said:
Yeah pretty much, when i'm ready to move to watercooling I could probably flog the H60 for more that a standard cooler, but like I said, I'm open to opinions and options, I've been out of the game for a while so need help when it comes to speccing.

cheers

If you want a cheap "stop gap" cooler - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-029-AL&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2337

Thats money in the pocket for a proper cooling setup later when you are ready.

Edit,

As above, if you go Z77+3570K then you can get a green themed Z77 board too - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-387-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

stulid · 4 Mar 2013 at 19:00

Just to add, getting things in Green to match the theme may not be easy,

How about a black+white theme?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £279.95
1 x BenQ XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £227.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £161.99
1 x NZXT Hale Power 90+ 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £139.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Windowed Case - White £129.98
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £79.99
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £63.98
2 x Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9W) £53.99 (£107.98)
1 x Corsair Vengeance M65 Laser Gaming Mouse - White (CH-9000023-EU) £49.99
1 x Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU Cooler - Black (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £44.98
Total : £1,413.41 (includes shipping : £22.20).

Just need a white keyboard.

What GFX card did you have or were thinking of getting?

pastymuncher · 4 Mar 2013 at 19:03

If you decide on Z77 just remember it's a dead socket that will be replaced in Q2 by socket 1150 with the launch of the Haswell cpu's. With the recent price hikes the 3570k is overpriced now as well. In fact cpu pricing is getting as stupid as GPU pricing now.

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 19:21

stulid said:
If you want a cheap "stop gap" cooler - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-029-AL&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2337

Thats money in the pocket for a proper cooling setup later when you are ready.

Thanks, looks like a good solution.

stulid said:
Just to add, getting things in Green to match the theme may not be easy,

How about a black+white theme?
What GFX card did you have or were thinking of getting?

Thanks for that, some good alternatives I will look into them. Yeah the black/white looks good but I would prefer a bit of colour, I just chose green because its highlighted in the motherboard I chose and you can get a green highlight kit for the shinobi case.

As for gpu i'm still undecided, probably either 670/680 sli a 690 or titan if the budget can stretch.

pastymuncher said:
If you decide on Z77 just remember it's a dead socket that will be replaced in Q2 by socket 1150 with the launch of the Haswell cpu's. With the recent price hikes the 3570k is overpriced now as well. In fact cpu pricing is getting as stupid as GPU pricing now.

Yeah thats why I would prefer the X79 as support for the socket will probably last a lot longer, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I will be spilling the best part of £5/600 on gpu/motherboard.

stulid · 4 Mar 2013 at 19:23

Just to point out, the Alpenfohn cooler I linked to only fits socket2011, so its only a "stop gap" for that build.

For your reading pleasure, here's Sin0822 review of the UP4 - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...Z77X-UP4-TH-Review-Thunderbolt-for-the-Masses

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 19:26

stulid said:
Just to point out, the Alpenfohn cooler I linked to only fits socket2011, so its only a "stop gap" for that build.

Yeah but if it works well you can't go wrong at that price.

twera · 5 Mar 2013 at 09:11

If it's for gaming, go all out on an i5-k build. As seraphx mentioned, you'll save quite a bit of ££. I'm running an i5-3570k for gaming and it's amazing.

What's your budget?

srobrien · 23 Mar 2013 at 17:48

So had a bit of a think and decided to change the case and also to opt for the Titan, I was seriously torn about the GPU, but I was pretty sure I wanted to go nvidia, I got a nice surprise bonus from my work so I thought I might as well go Titan.

Was over in Dubai last week and managed to pick up a razer black widow elite keyboard, Lachesis mouse and scarab mousepad tax free so pretty happy about that.

I am also going to stick with an all in one water cooler as I think a custom water cooling set up will be a while away until I'm confident in building it.

Here is my revised basket, hopefully the image shows as I'm stuck using the tablet until I can get a pc built.

R