Thoughts on my build..

seb500

seb500

seb500

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Nottingham
Building a new computer, before I order, can a few of you give your opinions and suggestions. I have a few concerns and questions about it, but before I ask them, here is the build:

YOUR BASKET

1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with BattleField 3 & Batman: Arkham City PC game** £194.99
1 x Radon 720a AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.80GHz @ 3.80GHz Overclocked Bundle £194.99
1 x Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive £133.99
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
5 x Akasa AK-191-BL Blue Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 Pin £29.95
1 x Akasa AK-MX002 PSU and Fan Noise reduction Kit £3.98
1 x Akasa AK-TK-02 Cable Tidy Kit £2.99

Total: £791.32 (Inc. DPD Next Day Parcel Shipping of £13.75)

GFX - I'm torn between the 560 and 6870. Comparison websites show the 560 is better, and the one in my build has better specs and comes with BF3 (I want!). But the 6870 is cheaper, opinions?

CPU Cooler - The one provided in the bundle isn't that good and is loud, would it be worth investing in a better air cooler or Antec Watercooler?

PSU - Seems fine, am I right? I've always thought the quality of the PSU is what counts, but I haven't used Antec PSU's so I am blind as to how they perform.

Case - Looked at a few reviews, but would it be worth going the extra mile and buying a CM 690-II?

Noise Reduction.. - I want to try keep a quite PC, has anyone used these?

That is all, thanks for reading, any advise or suggestions are more than welcome!
 
I would go for the 560 TI, especially with the two free games. I think the performance is somewhere between the 6870 and 6950. And that is before the factory overclock on that Asus card.

Also for the price of that bundle I would buy a i5 2500k retail, asus z68 motherboard and 8GB DDR3, no cooler but I can hear you can overclock the i5 to 4GHz on stock cooling.
 
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bobbyspangles said:
I would go for the 560 TI, especially with the two free games. I think the performance is somewhere between the 6870 and 6950. And that is before the factory overclock on that Asus card.

Also for the price of that bundle I would buy a i5 2500k retail, asus z68 motherboard and 8GB DDR3, no cooler but I can hear you can overclock the i5 to 4GHz on stock cooling.
Click to expand...

I only chose the AMD bundle because its already overclocked, you get more cores and warranty. I haven't overclocked before, so this way I get what I want and have someone to blame if it goes wrong!

You suggest: i5 2500k + ASUS z68 + 8GB Kingston RAM?
 
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Na got one from previous

oh and I'm going to buy a new HD when prices drop. For now ill use the SSD and an external one
 
Mostly gaming, possibly music production but I have a lappy with an i7 for that :) I was thinking about an i5 bundle before, but was taken by the whole 6 cores and a bout 100 quid cheaper thing. So i5 is better? I defo do want speed! :D
 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR instead of the corsair ssd

overclocking the sandybridge isn't too difficult from what I've read(not had first hand experience yet, my first sb build has had to be put on hold as had to rma the motherboard), the extra cores on amd will only come in usefull if you're using programs that make use of them(in general usage and gaming the i2500k is faster).

if you're not planning on going sli/xfire than the asus you linked to will be fine, but if you have any plans for xfire/sli you'll want a mb with pci-e x16 that does x8/x8 when in sli/xfire(mbs with x16x/16 are quite a bit more expensive). also if going sli/xfire in the future ou'll want a psu with 750w(650w should be ok but better to have some 'headroom').
 
Why that SSD? Less write speed?

I don't really plan on SLI which is why I have a nice solid 500watt one :)
 
Re-think;

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Whats wrong with that SSD then!
 
Corsair and OCZ uses the Sandforce controller, which came with loads of problems such as not being detected even in BIOS, system not responding and even BSOD. A few users still have these problems even after firmwire releases that should have fixed these problems. The Crucial uses the Marvell controller, and have not had any problems at all since it's release. It's by fair the most reliable SSD on the market.

Everything in your new spec looks good. The 2500K is really easy to overclock as well compared to older processors. All you do is whack up the multiplier, and when it gets unstable, increase the voltage a bit and carry on. 4ghz is pretty much near garanteed on stock volts, 4.5ghz with a bit of voltage tweaking, and if you're really lucky, you might be able to reach 5ghz. Just don't go over 1.37v.

EDIT: 1100T vs 2500K: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=203

You can see the Sandy Bridge quad core beats the 6 core Phenom in almost everything at the same speed.
 
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seb500 build yourself a system around a i5 2500k mate and don't worry about overclocked bundles, we will help you here how to overclock the i5 2500k setup you choose, also try going for a Z68 gen3 motherboard, something like the asrocks is a good place to start. That way you will spend the money on hardware that is good ;). Also get the Antec Kuhler H20 cpu cooler, rest is really up to you graphics , memory, also forget the SSD for now get yourself a decent hardrive (I know they have gone up in price but still some okay ones on OcUK's site and if you shop around). Also the money you save on the SSD stick that on the graphics card (you are then into gtx 570 type cards), you will see more benefits that way, SSDs are future upgrades really, that is if you really need it after setting the system up you may find it is more then fast enough as it is, as I have found with mine.
 
It is very simple to overclock Sandybridge, you just have to follow the magic rule of not setting the Vcore to anything higher then 1.35-1.38v for the i5 2500k's and nothing should go wrong apart from an unstable system that you adjust down till stable. Took me 10-15mins to overclock mine with 2 different profiles and both profiles tested overnight didn't fail and temps were fine, I even reduced the vcore on them both and tested the next night and still were fine, may try to reduce the vcore again at some point for them profiles, at moment I have it set at stock because don't see the need for it being overclocked at the moment and only overclock to 4.8Ghz when I use FSX, I never tried higher then 4.8Ghz, this chip may do 5Ghz + at good vcore and temps but not bothered about that right now 4.8Ghz gave me some great temps and low Vcore and was more then happy with that.
 
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this is about my budget purgatory, and im pretty happy with it. got all the components and the potential to overclock with this board :) Whats the cheapest Gen 3 atm?
 
seb500 said:
this is about my budget purgatory, and im pretty happy with it. got all the components and the potential to overclock with this board :) Whats the cheapest Gen 3 atm?
Click to expand...

Another £100 more then the one you picked, don't worry about Gen 3 mate if you are on a budget, it is not here or there at the moment and god knows if it will really show any benefits with the next generation PCI-E 3 graphics cards. You picked a nice board at a good price there mate, I didn't realise it was that good the price on that ;). Only thing I would do is have a rethink about that SSD, is it really worth it for you ? it's a lot of money for maybe to save you 1 to 2 secs boot up time and little faster apps startup if you have a good drive already, I don't know.. I know personally SSD would be the last thing on my list on a new build and would rather put the saving into a better graphics card or motherboard. Up to you mate enjoy your system when you get it.
 
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Purgatory said:
Another £100 more then the one you picked, don't worry about Gen 3 mate if you are on a budget, it is not here or there at the moment and god knows if it will really show any benefits with the next generation PCI-E 3 graphics cards. You picked a nice board at a good price there mate, I didn't realise it was that good the price on that ;). Only thing I would do is have a rethink about that SSD, is it really worth it for you ? it's a lot of money for maybe to save you 1 to 2 secs boot up time and little faster apps startup if you have a good drive already, I don't know.. I know personally SSD would be the last thing on my list on a new build and would rather put the saving into a better graphics card or motherboard. Up to you mate enjoy your system when you get it.
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the asrock extreme4 gen3 is £100 more but there are cheaper gen3 motherboards, on here the cheapest is £115

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-192-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990
 
Hmm, just watched the vid - seems pretty stupid not to get that :P Do we know when they are instock? Kind of wanted to order my PC on monday..
 
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