New gaming computer (~3000 quid)

Espen

Espen

Espen

Associate
Joined
27 Apr 2011
Posts
28
Location
Trondheim, Norway
Hello again :)

I am thinking of building a new computer, but I am not sure if this is a really bad time to do so. I know there is a lot of new tech comming up, but we all know there will always be a lot of tech around the corner. If someone thinks I should wait for the new GPUs and Ivy Bridge please say so (I guess that will be around Q1/Q2). I will just list up the parts I have been looking at and then ask some questions behind them:

Hardware:
CPU: Intel Core I7 2600K
GPU: 2 x Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP!
PSU:Corsair AX 1200
Motherboard: Asus Maximus IV Extreme P67 vs Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 (I was going to go for the Gigabyte UD7 motherboard, but the shop has stopped selling it. I guess switching to either of the Asus motherboards is not much of a loss? Which one would you go for?)
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR3 Vengeance LP 1600MHz CL9 (I was not sure which RAM to go for, but I guess it's not much difference on RAM these days. These are LP (Low profil), so that would be good for a larger heatsink for the CPU)
Case: Corsair Obsidian 800D
Monitor: Asus VG236HE vs BenQ XL2410T (I have been having a hard time to decide which monitor to go for. I want a 120hz monitor that will mainly be used for 2D FPS gaming)
SSD: Corsair Force GT Series 3 240GB (Not decided, just give inputs)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200RPM vs Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB 7200RPM (Leaning towards the WD Black atm)
Soundcard: Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1
Fancontroller: Scythe Kaze Master Pro]
Blu-ray/DVD-rom: LG BH12LS30
3D-equipment: Nvidia GeForce 3D kit
Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-4
CPU-cooler: Noctua NH-D14 (Should I switch the fans?)

I was also thinking of having 3 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon GT-15 120mm 1850RPM in the top, and switching out all the 140mm fans in the Corsair 800D with Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro PK3 140mm. What do you think?

Hope you guys and girls can help me out. If I forgot anything please don't hesitate to ask!

Kind regards
Espen Andreassen :D

Edit: So sorry about the links, totally forgot, they are now removed! :)
 
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nikeair94 said:
Nice build, how about buying the parts from Overclockers and not the site you linked to. ;)
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but he lives in norway, so its probably easier/cheaper to buy from a shop based where he lives.

im now sure if a Norwegian computer shop/site would count as a competitor, but id remove it just incase you get suspended/banned :)
 
Well maybe if you look errol the guy is from Norway and it would only make sense if the price of pc parts was 50% more expensive. Anyway about your choice of parts looks good to me. The Noctua has some of the best fans in the world on it so no need to change. About the top fans I would go with the scythe typhoons but saying that I know nothing about the noiseblocker ones so just going on the info I know.
 
Quadcore14 said:
Well maybe if you look errol the guy is from Norway and it would only make sense if the price of pc parts was 50% more expensive. Anyway about your choice of parts looks good to me. The Noctua has some of the best fans in the world on it so no need to change. About the top fans I would go with the scythe typhoons but saying that I know nothing about the noiseblocker ones so just going on the info I know.
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Well Sean if you noticed there is a winky face in my post which symbolises me saying it in a slightly joking manner. Nothing to be taken seriously.
 
Its a pretty similar build to mine, with a couple of exceptions. . .

Only thing I can recommend really is:

SSD - Crucial Real M4 256gb
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-010-CR

The read / write speed is slightly less but still 'excellent' & cheaper, which is always a good thing. . .

Other then that it's a pretty high end build. For £3'000 u probably already know that though ;)

D,
 
the corsair 800D is more suited to water cooling, and isnt that good as an air cooling case. if you have your heart set on it then dont worry, it wont be an oven in there, but there is better on the market for less (silverstone raven 2 or 3; coolermaster HAF X), unless you plan to watercool it, in which case stick with the 800D :)

as for the HDD's, if you have the option of the seagate barracuda or samsung spinpoint and they are cheaper, then go for these. the western digital black is generally incredibly overpriced for what it is, and the hitachi deathstar isnt very reliable.

for SSD's if you can get the crucial M4 256GB SSD for a similar price then that would be brilliant (better than the corsair for sure)

RAM: get the cheapest 2x4GB 1600Mhz stuff around thats low profile. ram timings make no difference in real world tests

fans: i'd go for a slower speed version than 1850RPM if you plan on using the typhoons as case fans. not so sure about as a processor fan though

blu-ray: make sure you get a retail version of the blu ray player. there is currently no free software on the market for blu ray playback, so going for the OEM version would cost you an extra £10 or so for software when you are building the PC

motherboard: no need to go crazy with the motherboard. you only have two cards in SLI and a soundcard. something like the Asrock Z68 extreme 4 gen 3 would be perfect as it can run the two cards in SLI at speeds which wont bottleneck them (x8/x8) and other stuff too. i forget the name of the chip that means it can do this, but im sure stulid could tell you
 
i agree with what Reaper has suggested, if you can source the parts he suggested, it save you a big amount of money.

and about the chipset, i think it's the NF(something) chipset :p
havent seen stulid in the forums lately.
 
Agreed with Reaper's suggestions. As it's an SSD you'll won't be writing on it much anyway to ensure long life on it, so read speeds are more important, especially in gaming to help things load faster.

The Noctua NH-D14 is a very good cooler so no need to change the fans, although hoenstly I don't like the colour of them :p.

Apparantly the LGA-2011 Sandy Bridge E will be out in November, might be worth waiting for them, but seeing early benchmarks such as this shows there's no difference with the 2600K (2500K even, most games usually only use 2 cores) when clocked the same. But there's a chance they may be able to be overclocked further. As of yet no one knows. There's also Bulldozer which may be released next month, but there's no signs of how well it performs compared to Sandy Bridge.

High end AMD 7000 series, Nvidia's Keplar (next gen Fermi), and Ivy Bridge are coming out in H1 2012. I don't think it's worth waiting for Ivy Bridge, but for the GPUs, it may be worth the wait as games are becoming more GPU reliant.
 
Reaper 392 said:
the corsair 800D is more suited to water cooling, and isnt that good as an air cooling case. if you have your heart set on it then dont worry, it wont be an oven in there, but there is better on the market for less (silverstone raven 2 or 3; coolermaster HAF X), unless you plan to watercool it, in which case stick with the 800D :)
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I know most people have said this as well, but I just love the looks of the 800D. And from what I have read it seems to be very functional. I know HAF X is probably the best case for air cooling, but in my eyes it's just so ugly :p And I guess the 800D is a nice investment if I might go water cooling later on.

as for the HDD's, if you have the option of the seagate barracuda or samsung spinpoint and they are cheaper, then go for these. the western digital black is generally incredibly overpriced for what it is, and the hitachi deathstar isnt very reliable.
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The Seagate Barracuda only comes in 1TB and the Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB is more expensive then the WD Caviar Black, while the Samsung Spinpoint F3 and M8 only comes in 1TB

for SSD's if you can get the crucial M4 256GB SSD for a similar price then that would be brilliant (better than the corsair for sure)
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They don't sell Crucial SSDs :( The SSDs I can get are for example:
  • Corsair Force GT Series 3 240GB
  • Corsair Force Series 3 240GB
  • OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB
  • Kingston HyperX 240GB
  • Intel 510 250GB
  • Intel 320 300GB

RAM: get the cheapest 2x4GB 1600Mhz stuff around thats low profile. ram timings make no difference in real world tests
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I think the Corsair LP's are the only LP's they sell, but I saw someone saying they did not fit with the Noctua NH-D14, hmm :confused:

fans: i'd go for a slower speed version than 1850RPM if you plan on using the typhoons as case fans. not so sure about as a processor fan though
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I thought this would be no problem with the fan controller?

blu-ray: make sure you get a retail version of the blu ray player. there is currently no free software on the market for blu ray playback, so going for the OEM version would cost you an extra £10 or so for software when you are building the PC
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It seems to be retail :)

motherboard: no need to go crazy with the motherboard. you only have two cards in SLI and a soundcard. something like the Asrock Z68 extreme 4 gen 3 would be perfect as it can run the two cards in SLI at speeds which wont bottleneck them (x8/x8) and other stuff too. i forget the name of the chip that means it can do this, but im sure stulid could tell you
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Hmm, will have to think about it. I will see how much I use on the other parts, and then decide how much I will use on the motherboard ;)

Some more questions:
  1. What do you think about the GPUs? They sell 580s from three companies (Asus, Gigabyte and Zotac), but I guess the Asus are tripple slot and I am a bit unsure about the aftermarket coolers on the Gigabyte. What would you go for between SLI GTX 580s vs SLI CF HD6970 vs 1 or CF HD6990 vs 1 GTX 590?
  2. Which 120hz monitor would you go for? (Mainly for 2D FPS gaming) Most people seem to recommend the Asus VG236HE or the Samsung S23A750D, but I have heard that the new batch (and firmware) of the BenQ XL2410T is a lot better then the earlier batches. Please give inputs! :)
  3. Do you think it's worth waiting for the Bulldozer or Sandy Bridge E release? Or wait until Q1 (probably late Q1) for Ivy Bridge and the new GPUs? It's quite a few months.
  4. I don't really like the colours on the fans that come with the Noctua NH-D14 (like Orcvader), but are there any "good" looking fans that can compare to the noise/performance ratio? I know you have the Thermalright TY-140's that are suppose to be the best fans for CPU coolers when it comes to noise/performance.

Thanks for all the help so far! :D
 
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Gtiracer said:
Your not the same guy from the 205 forum who has the lovely white 205 are you?
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Have to disappoint you and say no :p

Jay794 said:
Are you planning on spending £3000 on a PC? I think you need your head looking at
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Lets just get this discusion out of the way:
I have a lot of cash from an Asus W90 that I got refunded a while back. I am using all of the cash I got back from the laptop on a new desktop to not get any problems with my accounting. From a shop it will be around 3000 quid, but as I am getting it without taxes (28%) and VAT (25%) the price for me is actually £1875, which is the cash I am getting back from the laptop. And my head is just fine! ;)

Now back to the topic, anyone got some answers on my different questions in post #13? :)

Thanks for the help so far!
 
Still think if you're spending nearly 2k on a PC which will be outdated in a few months you need your head examining. You might as well burn it on a Mac lol
 
Espen said:
I think the Corsair LP's are the only LP's they sell, but I saw someone saying they did not fit with the Noctua NH-D14, hmm :confused:
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they should fit just fine. its the non LP vengance that doesnt fit

Espen said:
I thought the faster fans would be no problem with the fan controller?
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my understanding is that the 1850 RPM motor will have a minimum speed that it can spin at, and the 1450RPM one will have a lower minimum speed, however i;m very happy to be proved wrong here


Espen said:
What do you think about the GPUs? They sell 580s from three companies (Asus, Gigabyte and Zotac), but I guess the Asus are tripple slot and I am a bit unsure about the aftermarket coolers on the Gigabyte. What would you go for between SLI GTX 580s vs SLI CF HD6970 vs 1 or CF HD6990 vs 1 GTX 590?
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dont bother with the two cards in one solutions, they are very noisy and are slower than two separate cards (unless you want to spend ~£1200 on the asus mars II)
heres a comparison of the 580 SLI and 6970 crossfire: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298?vs=308
as for which 580 to go for, your right not to go for the asus triple slot card because that would have no breathing room in crossfire


Jay794 said:
Still think if you're spending nearly 2k on a PC which will be outdated in a few months you need your head examining. You might as well burn it on a Mac lol
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there might be newer tech in a few months, but that wont suddenly stop it from being able to play most games at max settings
 
Jay794 said:
Still think if you're spending nearly 2k on a PC which will be outdated in a few months you need your head examining. You might as well burn it on a Mac lol
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If he has the cash for it, why not?!?

Sure it will be "outdated" in a few months, but that's not to say it wont perform for at least a couple of years!
 
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