Overclock and Build Noob - Can you help

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9 Nov 2011
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Apologies for the questions which may seem basic to you clever guys

I’m an overclock noob 

I’m looking to build a gaming / workstation (for processing large digital images)
I think I’m after an i7 2600k with over clock, 8gb ram, a good but not the best (due to cost) gpu. I’ve listed some questions and would be grateful for advice

1. What OC
I’m not sure what OC to select. Clearly I want extra power but not at the risk the CPU / MoBO / Peripherals being at greater risk of expiry due to being overworked. Hope this makes sense. There are multiple OC, stage 3 at 20% seems OK; I feel wary about max OC’s in case this impacts stability and / or life of CPU & RAM etc. However as I said I’m an OC noob.

2. What MoBo
Considering the above, using socket 1155, there is a range of Mobo’s e.g. P8P67V, P8P67Pro, P8268v etc
I want a good mobo but no point spending money for features I want use, unlike some of you clever OC guys. Perhaps the P8268v is sufficient

3. What GPU
As always, the best GPU is overpriced, second best and below are always a fair bit cheaper as is always with leading edge elements.
I have no affiliation to nVidia or ATI having used both in the past. I also always get confused as whether to buy a single card now and in the future consider an SLI / xfire buying the same but now cheaper 2nd card to pair it with or to in future sell current card on ebay and buy another 2nd / 3rd best card of the future as a replacement etc, hope this makes sense
Screen wise I have single 24”monitor, no plans for dual monitors. I’m sort of thinking the ATI 6950 2gb, or 6970 (but may be too expensive)

4. What Case
A good case, with cooling abilities considering the OC but not something too expensive where I could use the money elsewhere. Needs to fit under a desk. I have had a Cosmos S in the past, one with touch on/off button rather than press button and it was a disappointment as it started switching itself off sometimes, drove me mad

5. Budget
I thinking around 1200 / 1250 incl VAT. I have no Blueray DVD’s, I like I having 2 DVD trays, why don’t OC offer option of a 2nd tray? I don’t really know enough about having an SSD cache (20Gb) to consier it or am better off spending the money on other components e.g. I don’t mind waiting a few extra seconds for it to boot-up. I’d rather have a fast rig when running / better utilities

I’d be very grateful for your advice. It’s a lot of money to spend and I want to get right.
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply Greavesy

OC - Do I need to worry much about the I7-chip expiring early if OC'd ?
Z68 - I assume standard is OK, no need for Pro
GPU's - do you guys favour single cards over xfire/sli etc per my scenario above
cases - nice selection -

Cheers
 
Greavsie - Thanks again, I think Asus will do it

Smed - I use CS4 so same thing. i wonder what the actual performance difference is? Is it tiny or significant

I'm nearly sorted now, thanks guys!
 
Thanks again guys. It appears I'm going to go over my budget :(

I think I've settled on the Corsair Carbide 500R case. Its starting to get good reviews for a case under £90 plus most importantly its got good cooling and an in built fan controller.
So its that case, i7-2600k with OC, 8gb ram, 2 DVD optical drives, GTX 570 or ATI 6970 I'll read-up more) and a 1tb WD cavier SATA HD at 6gb/s 64mb cache (this should alleviate the need for a small SSD cache drive) and Corsair 650w psu

Thanks again for your help, its a confusing place sometimes with to much to choose from
 
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