New System Build

rob-ward · 16 Jan 2012 at 16:47

Hi All,

I was wondering if I could ask for some assistance in choosing some hardware for a "relativly" powerful Gaming rig. I'm no newb to building machine but I gave up my Gaming rigs several years ago when I went to Uni and so would appreciate some advice on HW Choices now. I won't be buying for a few weeks but want to get a spec sorted.

Currently I am working on a budget of around £700 - £750 but I have a HDD that I will be reusing (WD Black) and don't need monitiors etc and I will by buying OS seperate, Can't beleive I will have to buy Windows for the first time in 7 Years :-(

I have specced a machine that is suitable for SLI but I am only planning to purchase one card at the moment and then in a few months purchase another.

I'm also intending to Overclock the processor(hence the more powerful than needed cooler)

So far I have speced the following:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with Battlefield 3 PC Game** £191.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99

Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £104.98

Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £79.99

OcUK Rage GT 700W PSU 80+ Dual Rail "80 Plus" Efficient Power Supply £60.98

Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.99

OcUK Terminator Gaming Case - Black £38.99

Total : £716.51

Any help/advice on potential issues, improvements etc would be much appreciated.

Unicorn · 16 Jan 2012 at 16:49

Would personally change the ram to 8gb and also change the psu to a corsair branded one or a cooler master.

beejjacobs · 16 Jan 2012 at 16:59

rob-ward · 16 Jan 2012 at 17:44

GrimsbyLAD said:
Would personally change the ram to 8gb and also change the psu to a corsair branded one or a cooler master.

Cheers, one of the things I didn't mention was that i run a large numebr of virtual machines and do image editing hence the reason for the 16GB of RAM. However I was was considering the fact that the RAM might reduce my OC ability, has anyone tried OCing a 2500K with this memory?

beejjacobs said:
Any of these will run that system (never skimp on a PSU!)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-007-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-034-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084#
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-002-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497

For SLI:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-038-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-047-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-004-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-001-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497

That being said, the 650W one's will be fine with GTX560Ti SLI.
Go for the 2GB card if you can, or consider a 6950 2GB?

Also while that supports SLI, it's also a small board. Try this one:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-368-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

There are also better cases for the money IMO:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-010-BX&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1850
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-012-BX&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1850
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-214-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29

Cheers, I have swapped out the PSU for the XFX Pro 750W and moved to the 2GB card, shame there isn't a 2GB card with same GPU speed but the memory is probably a lot more useful.

With regards to swapping to the 6950 while it has more power I prefer to stick with nvidia, firstly because I run Linux and have had major issues with ATI recently, also I use CUDA which kinda limits me to nVidia.

I havn't really decided on a case, the one in basket was there to reserve cash more than anything, will definetly look at reviews of them other cases.

Also I must say i'm very impressed with the reply times on this forum, never posted before so didn't realise how quick people were.

Anyway the spec now looks like this:

OcUK GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98

XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £86.99

Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £79.99

Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.99

OcUK Terminator Gaming Case - Black £38.99

Total : £745.52

Cheers,

Rob

beejjacobs · 16 Jan 2012 at 17:47

Looks good to me. From what I've heard the 16GB of memory shouldn't really affect any overclock.

Fair enough, I prefer Nvidia too tbh

You may find you'll be able to overclock the graphics card yourself, I use EVGA Precision.

Looks a good spec

Enjoy!

honosuseri · 16 Jan 2012 at 17:54

beejjacobs said:
Looks good to me. From what I've heard the 16GB of memory shouldn't really affect any overclock.

Fair enough, I prefer Nvidia too tbh You may find you'll be able to overclock the graphics card yourself, I use EVGA Precision.

Looks a good spec Enjoy!

I concur lol

My one observation is you have opted for the retail CPU over the OEM. The OEM is cheaper and you clearly dont need the heatsink inc with the retail CPU as you are watercooling. I would take that £13 odd and put it back into the case budget.

The zalman z9 plus is a good budget case at £50 odd. Has a digital temp display, fan controller and also is capable of mounting a 2.5 inch SSD drive. Many cheap cases dont let you do this you'd need to buy an adapter plate.

Good luck with the build any probs or what have you, come back to us

beejjacobs · 16 Jan 2012 at 17:56

honosuseri said:
I concur lol

My one observation is you have opted for the retail CPU over the OEM. The OEM is cheaper and you clearly dont need the heatsink inc with the retail CPU as you are watercooling. I would take that £13 odd and put it back into the case budget.

The zalman z9 plus is a good budget case at £50 odd. Has a digital temp display, fan controller and also is capable of mounting a 2.5 inch SSD drive. Many cheap cases dont let you do this you'd need to buy an adapter plate.

Good luck with the build any probs or what have you, come back to us

I always forget the Z9! :rolleyes:

honosuseri · 16 Jan 2012 at 18:05

beejjacobs said:
I always forget the Z9!

It's all good im used to carrying you on my shoulders.....just kidding =P

We've given the OP a good idea of what's possible. He just needs to keep an eye out on offers available at the time he purchases.

I feel i should point out, even with the Retail heatsink he can get a safe OC of 4ghz. By not buying the watercooler he would nearly have enough cash for a small SSD that would fit in that Zalman Z9 case nicely

beejjacobs · 16 Jan 2012 at 18:09

honosuseri said:
It's all good im used to carrying you on my shoulders.....just kidding =P

We've given the OP a good idea of what's possible. He just needs to keep an eye out on offers available at the time he purchases.

I feel i should point out, even with the Retail heatsink he can get a safe OC of 4ghz. By not buying the watercooler he would nearly have enough cash for a small SSD that would fit in that Zalman Z9 case nicely

lol!

That is true, even without an OC getting another cooler is an option for later and SSD's definitely help things.

honosuseri · 16 Jan 2012 at 18:15

beejjacobs said:
lol!

That is true, even without an OC getting another cooler is an option for later and SSD's definitely help things.

Nice to see some people still have a sense of humour

Well he said it won't be for a few weeks, so like i said it depends on offers at the time. He might be able to get the RAM cheaper or whatever, then the spec can be adjusted to suit. Always good to have an idea of what's possible then look around for the best price.

I'd lean more towards having a SSD than a watercooling setup but this is the beauty of custom builds the possibilities are endless

rob-ward · 16 Jan 2012 at 20:18

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the advice,

It's very interesting seeing everyone's point of view and it's making me think about other areas I hadn't considered. I am now thinking about getting an SSD if I have enough cash(if not upgrade as soon as I can afterwards).

It has being suggested that I could rely on the Intel stock cooler and still overclock, this is something I am reluctant to do as I have always found the stock coolers wanting, I am however thinking that I could potentially save some money and replace the watercooler with an aftermarket air cooler. i was hoping to have the potential to overclock to between 4.2 and 4.5. Would anyone be able to recommend and air cooler that would be suitable?

Also I wanted to explain the reason that I am looking at the retail over OEM, simply put I intend to torture this CPU with work until it screams for mercy and I figured having a 3 year warranty instead of a 1 year was worth the extra £15.

Anyway once again thanks for all the info, making choosing components that much easier.

Cheers,

Rob

beejjacobs · 16 Jan 2012 at 20:23

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
People seem to be able to get 4-4.5 out of that cooler

You can always spend more should you want to.

No problem. That's why we're here! Let us know what you decide