Spec Check?

[ttaskmaster]

Heya,

I'm just working out kit for my rig upgrade, mainly so I can play Star Citizen and the like, but also lasting a good 2-3 years without having to upgrade much. This will be my first actual build.

I'm reading the various noob guides and learning as much as I can, but would anyone mind quickly looking over my planned components and offering any recommendations, tweak advice or better options?

Cost is a factor, but it doesn't have to be the cheapest of the cheap as I'm buying bits on a monthly basis. I already have an 1155 Asus P8Z68V with i5 2500K (Scythe Shuriken RevB cooler) and an HD6950 in a Corsair 500R case.
From what little I know about that, I've listed what I think might be good options to go for:

RAM:
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
(I keep hearing that 8gb is plenty, but 16 is affordable and sounds better, heh heh!)

PSU:
Corsair GS700 or GS800
(Yeah sorry, I'm one of them that likes pretty lights!)

SSD Boot Drive:
Kingston 120gb or SanDisk 256gb... not sure which, yet.

Storage HDDs (room for 5):
Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD
(Eventually all 5 spare bays will be filled with 1 or 2TB drives)

OS:
Win 7 64-bit Home


I'll also add a couple bits like a 4-Port PCI-E USB3.0 card, a Blu-ray/DVD 5.25" drive, side panel window mod, maybe a new CPU cooler, fan controller and similar geeky bay mods, but nothing über-fancy. Might not even go watercooled unless I get massively into overclocking.

 

[Doomedspeed]

I have a few suggestions and questions.

Questions first:

• Are you aiming for Xfire (2 x 6950)?
• Do you want to overclock?

Suggestions:

• Vengaence RAM is a bad idea, it clashes with big air coolers.. Get low prfile RAM.
• 16GB is a bit of a waste of Money
• Kingston SSDs aren't great. Grab a Samsung EVO
• PSU depends on Whether you're going Xfire or not.. Look at the Antec HCP range or Seasonic.
• Get a decent/high end aftermarket cooler to overclock that chip to 4.5 (atleast)

 

[DaleTheWhale]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seasonic G series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £107.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £83.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £67.99
1 x Avexir MPower Red Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CRR) £55.99
Total : £335.28 (includes shipping : £16.10).



This to start you off, PSU for if you ever go into x-firing your cards.

It seems you are trying to add stuff for the sake of adding stuff, if you get the right bits then the rest isn't needed at all, for example fan controllers and front bay devices, they just add to the clutter and aren't used as much as you think.

Keep it simple & powerful, use your money on the main components like a new GPU or CPU/Motherboard.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Firstly, thank-you both for the quick responses and great suggestions!
One of my main missions at the minute is simply learning what kit there is out there... along with what it all does!

Are you aiming for Xfire (2 x 6950)?
Do you want to overclock?

Xfire - Not likely, at least not with this rig. Perhaps next build, when I can afford twin GPUs... and if I really need it.

Overclock - Ideally no, not especially. I may beef it up a little, but only if needed and only then under close guidance from those who know far more than me.

Vengaence RAM is a bad idea, it clashes with big air coolers.. Get low prfile RAM.

Good point - Just the sort of advice I was looking for!
Would water-cooling blocks eliminate this issue, or do they tend to get in the way as well?

16GB is a bit of a waste of Money

I was thinking about future builds too, especially since there generally didn't seem that much relative price difference between 8 and 16. Plus most people seem to have 16 (or even 32), so I just assumed...

It seems you are trying to add stuff for the sake of adding stuff, if you get the right bits then the rest isn't needed at all, for example fan controllers and front bay devices, they just add to the clutter and aren't used as much as you think.
Keep it simple & powerful, use your money on the main components like a new GPU or CPU/Motherboard.

Ja, there's a little bit of bling, I'll admit!
I have Shiny Kit Syndrome with peripherals (although I do use every single fancy feature on them) so that's kinda carried over into components.

The USB PCI-E is needed, but is only £20. Blu-Ray over straight DVD drive, again for today's prices I thought I might as well, for when I finally start buying Blu-rays... Window mod will cost me pennies and a bit of time.
The rest can be taken or left.

I'm currently running a Core2 Quad Q6600 (a whole 2.4GHz!) on a 775 mATX with 4gb DDR2, so I have a few other bits that could probably get the new rig running, like a 450w PSU (is that even enough these days?) and a couple of small HDDs... But fortune has gifted me with the higher spec bits mentioned above, so I was looking at first getting that to a state that would do nicely and then add proper fancy bits throughout 2014.
I was also trying to plan in components that would last and carry over when I do upgrade the base Mobo/CPU set.


But yeah, that's a lot to think about and exactly the sort of direction I was after - Thanks again!