New Rig - Compatibilty Help

Noble-Kebab

Noble-Kebab

Noble-Kebab

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Hi,

I am about to purchase a new rig and wondered if you guys could let me know if its OK (compatibility etc). Also its kind of above my budget slightly so if you could suggest any cheaper alternative parts that wont jeopardise performance that would be great. I will be using the comp for competitive gaming and music/ media etc etc.


- MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5
PCI-Express Graphics Card £224.99

- Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game Intel Core i5-2500K
3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation
Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99

- Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard -
(Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket
1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
£159.98

- G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel
Kit (F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM) G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3
PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM)
£89.99

- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) Microsoft
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99

- Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache WD10EALX - OEM
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache WD10EALX -
OEM £44.99

I've heard the following is a good mobo? Would it be an equal but cheaper alternative to the Asus i have chosen??

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** [129.15] £132


Any Advice would be appreciated. :)
 
There are reference 6950's on pre-order (as is the one you've picked) for £209.99. It depends if you want the better cooler.

This RAM is £18 cheaper and the slightly slower timings won't be noticeable:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-060-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

The MSI P67A-GD65 is a fantastic motherboard and £28 cheaper than the Asus. Here's a satisfied customer:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18265884

Do you already have a suitable case and power supply?

If you plan on overclocking the 2500K you'll be better with an after market cooler.

I see the processor is on pre-order as well.
 
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Is there a reason u need 16 gig of ram? you would be much better off getting a set of 4 or 8 gig of ram. You dont really need more then 4 for gaming 8 at the most. 16 seems way overkill for a gaming machine if your over budget like u say.

I have the 2500k and the p8p67, really great board, overclocked it to 4.5 on the stock cooler not had any crashes or proplems with it so far :P i know a fair few on here have had problems with the board though.
 
DooMeR said:
Is there a reason u need 16 gig of ram? you would be much better off getting a set of 4 or 8 gig of ram. You dont really need more then 4 for gaming 8 at the most. 16 seems way overkill for a gaming machine if your over budget like u say.

I have the 2500k and the p8p67, really great board, overclocked it to 4.5 on the stock cooler not had any crashes or proplems with it so far :P i know a fair few on here have had problems with the board though.
Click to expand...

The OP hasn't specified 16GB of RAM :confused:
 
All of those in a basket (with shipping) comes to £755 and as you stated it's slightly over budget, I'm guessing your budget is around the £700 mark.

For gaming and media use you won't make much use of 8GB - 4GB is plenty if you need some where to cut down costs.

As for the MSI GD65, that is a quality board and would recommend it over any Asus boards with all the problems they've had.

I would also go with an aftermarket cooler if your planning to overclock, so maybe a spec like this:



XFX ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £132.00

Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache WD10EALX - OEM £44.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98

Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99

Total : £715.94 (includes shipping : £10.50).


This is including a 6950 that's in stock but if you wanted to wait for the twin frozr to become available then obviously just substitute that in at £5 less.

I also included the XMS3 as they are a lot smaller and won't interfere with any aftermarket coolers
 
Thanks for the responses.

To answer a few questions -

Sorry for the confusion posting items more than once. I copied and pasted from the OCUK online basket and the format was all messed up....

I will be maintaining the following things from my old rig - Corsair 620W PSU, optical drive, tower and hard drive (going to use 2 hard drives, old and new).

From the advice in this thread I'm going to Switch the Asus Mobo to the MSI one, going to get a better CPU fan and I'm going to get the OS and hard drive as a bundle. ;)

My only concern now is the graphics card. How much difference do you guys reckon there will be between the one I have chosen (MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB) and a 6950 lesser spec'd but flashed to a 6970? From all the reviews I've read, it seems that the MSI FrozR iii is the best out of the box 6950 you can get. Looking at the specs it does seem quite impressive!

If the difference was only very very minimal I would go for the FrozR iii as although I'm pretty competent with computers I would rather not have to Flash a brand new card as I've never done it before and wouldn't want to risk damaging anything.
 
Noble-Kebab said:
My only concern now is the graphics card. How much difference do you guys reckon there will be between the one I have chosen (MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB) and a 6950 lesser spec'd but flashed to a 6970? From all the reviews I've read, it seems that the MSI FrozR iii is the best out of the box 6950 you can get. Looking at the specs it does seem quite impressive!

If the difference was only very very minimal I would go for the FrozR iii as although I'm pretty competent with computers I would rather not have to Flash a brand new card as I've never done it before and wouldn't want to risk damaging anything.
Click to expand...

The only real difference is the cooler.

The reference MSI 6950 is 800MHz and £199.99 and the Twin FrozR III is 850MHz and £224.99.

I don't think the Twin FrozR II is flashable as it doesn't have a second BIOS. Or at least it's more risky to flash.

Here's a review of the slightly slower version of the Twin FrozR II.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r6950-twin-frozr-ii-oc-review/
 
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Here's the thread on how to flash it. It really doesn't look that hard, and as said in this link (also guides on how to flash for different versions) it says that as long as you save your bios before hand you can always revert back to it.
 
sk82jack said:
Here's the thread on how to flash it. It really doesn't look that hard, and as said in this link (also guides on how to flash for different versions) it says that as long as you save your bios before hand you can always revert back to it.
Click to expand...

If you read the review of the Twin FrozR II then it's not certain that it can be done on that particular card.
 
Surveyor said:
If you read the review of the Twin FrozR II then it's not certain that it can be done on that particular card.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you could do it on the twin frozr models, I just literally saw this in the corner of my eye as I was looking through.

Above method is only for 2 GB HD 6950 reference design cards. If you have a custom design or 1 GB card, then use RBE to modify your existing BIOS. Save the BIOS from your card, load it into RBE, enable the shader unlock option on the last tab, then flash that modified BIOS to the card instead of the one downloaded from this page.
Click to expand...

Thought it would be handy to mention. Sorry for the confusion :D
 
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