Planning a Build - Minimizing Bottlenecks?

Drowningfly

Drowningfly

Drowningfly

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25 Apr 2012
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I've always built my computers by just buying the best performing hardware for what I can afford, but I'm wondering if there is a more efficient way to minimize bottlenecks in the system and possibly save some money by getting cheaper components if the more expensive one would not be put to good use.

I'm thinking of an i7 3820 3.6GHz, 8Gb of DDR3 at 1866mhz, and raiding 2 SSD's with a read rate of 555MB/s each.

Are the processor bus speed and RAM frequency related? Is there any point in spending more on one if the other is holding it back?

How many SSD's would you have to RAID to get full use of the RAM speeds?

Is there anything else that can be optimised when planning a system?
 
Thank you. It will primarily be used for gaming, and I'll probably spend around £750, but I only need the components I listed + motherboard and graphics card, for which I am considering a GeForce GTX 480.
 
Okay, cool.

It would be a waste of money buying SSDs to match the RAM speed - besides it's magnitudes faster anyway. An SSD is good because it helps with loading times/boot times, but you don't need to RAID them to notice that speed.
 
Here's what I'd suggest for £750:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - AMD 3 for FREE Promotion £299.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £161.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £101.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x Akasa AK-CC4007EP01 Nero 3 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/2011/AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/FM1) £21.98
Total : £757.88 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Much better/quieter than a 480!
You don't need the 3820 for gaming, as games don't make use of the extra threads yet - so it's more effective to get an i5 2500K and overclock it!
i5 2500K vs 3820
[gaming benchmarks at the end - the 3820 isn't worth the extra :)]

I assume your case is ATX?
You have a decent PSU?
You have a 64bit OS for the 8GB of RAM?
 
beejjacobs said:
Here's what I'd suggest for £750:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - AMD 3 for FREE Promotion £299.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £161.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £101.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x Akasa AK-CC4007EP01 Nero 3 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/2011/AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/FM1) £21.98
Total : £757.88 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Much better/quieter than a 480!
You don't need the 3820 for gaming, as games don't make use of the extra threads yet - so it's more effective to get an i5 2500K and overclock it!
i5 2500K vs 3820
[gaming benchmarks at the end - the 3820 isn't worth the extra :)]

I assume your case is ATX?
You have a decent PSU?
You have a 64bit OS for the 8GB of RAM?
Click to expand...

+1 for this spec

the 3820 is the SB-E which is good in some ways, but the i5-2500k is just as good and the i7-2700k beats the 3820! no point with the SB-E when normal SB keeps up with it in gaming!
 
Thank you that is incredibly helpful. I had looked at benchmarks but not gaming specific benchmarks. I should have remembered that as that's why I went for a Core 2 Duo over the newer quad cores for my last build. Changing the processor socket also certainly also saves money on the motherboard.

I'm undecided on the graphics card change, as I don't know if the 40% price increase is worth the 5-15% increase in performance, from the benchmarks I've seen.

Instead of getting the 128GB SSD for £120, is it not worth raiding 2 60Gb SSD's at around £60 each if limited SATA connections is not an issue?

Yes to the last 3 questions, I'm assuming I won't need to upgrade my 880W PSU but haven't checked yet.
 
Drowningfly said:
Thank you that is incredibly helpful. I had looked at benchmarks but not gaming specific benchmarks. I should have remembered that as that's why I went for a Core 2 Duo over the newer quad cores for my last build. Changing the processor socket also certainly also saves money on the motherboard.

I'm undecided on the graphics card change, as I don't know if the 40% price increase is worth the 5-15% increase in performance, from the benchmarks I've seen.

Instead of getting the 128GB SSD for £120, is it not worth raiding 2 60Gb SSD's at around £60 each if limited SATA connections is not an issue?

Yes to the last 3 questions, I'm assuming I won't need to upgrade my 880W PSU but haven't checked yet.
Click to expand...

Well if you want a better performance/price graphics card, the 7850 is a great one:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-005-VX&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

The 480s are old now, and power hungry - so I'd recommend something like the 7850 which is more efficient and they overclock well too [see this thread]

With RAID on SSDs you lose some of the features which keep them performing as well as they can [TRIM] - so one 120GB is a better idea :)

If your PSU is a quality unit, that's plenty of power. What make is it?
 
The 7850 does seem more reasonable. My PSU is a Hyper, and in looking that up I realised it's nearly 4 years old. Perhaps I'll upgrade that too after all.

Thanks for all the info and fast replies. You have been very informative.
 
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