Anyone willing to help a noob out?

[JCBenton]

Edit: I've decided to build my own rig, ordering the parts time at a time. Thanks, guys!



Original message:

First thing's first: this will probably be a long message and I don't expect anyone to sit through it all; I can understand that new people can get irritating after a while. I'm currently in the process of saving for a moderately expensive rig from Cyberpowersystem.co.uk, but I'd like to know if I've got the wrong ideas.

An important thing to know is that I'm *not* a builder, but I didn't know where else I could post this. I only recently subscribed to a custom PC magazine and therefore I'm not exactly confident in my ability to recognise what I do or don't want. Perhaps you could help me?

The rig I currently theorise on the site is through the p67 intel configurator, to take advantage of the Sandy Bridge processors. Here's the theoretical rig:

A Thermaltake Armor A60 chassis

Sharkoon Silent Eagle 120mm fans (I'd imagine they're in addition to the included case fans.)

Sandy Bridge i5 2500k CPU

Cyberpower's small watercooling kit (takes up one bay)

Asus P8P67 Deluxe P67 motherboard

8GB 1800mhz triple channel memory RAM, Kingston Hyper X Blu series

2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX580s in SLI mode

Cyberpower's 1000w gaming power supply (Would gladly change for a Be Silent PSU, but I've read that the fans aren't enough to keep up when things heat up)

2x1tb Sata-III hard drives

CoolerMaster Thermal Fusion 400 Extreme thermal compound (The reason I mention this is because I have no idea if the water cooling system would render this option redundant or not)

Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

Over clocking set to 'safe and stable' (10-20%)

On the side, sure I may be interested in getting some lights, perhaps a Xonar Xense in the future, but I'm wondering if anybody sees anything wrong in particular about this build.

For instance, would some cards be too big for the chassis? Would the rig be too loud or too hot? Would the sharkoon fans be a waste? Would a 1000w power supply truly be enough if I intended to add the said Xense in at a later date? Would the overclocking settings be truly safe over long periods of time? Is the specific type of RAM a waste of money? Would the chassis even fit two 580's in along with an audio card and perhaps even a wireless card? (Although there's always USB wireless access points as an alternative, I'm told) Also, what of their (Cyberpower's) noise reduction technology?

I understand this is a lot to ask and that clueless noobs can be frustrating. I'd just like to understand what I'm doing so I don't make mistakes when it comes to purchasing a rig; I don't want to have to spend hours on the phone or over email discussing with support over how we could make this work. I'd like to pay and sit around waiting for it. It's all subject to change, of course.

Thanks for your time.

 

[adicool96]

First of all change the chassis. Get a silverstone Ft-02. I would recommend you not go watercooling on your first build so get the noctua nh-d14 for the cpu. And get the corsair ax1200 or hx 1000w psu.

 

[cbiltsouris]

woah slow down there tiger,

1. what are ur needs and what do you want to get out of the rig

2.Noctua fans and heatsinks are the best

3. for the power supply go with corsair

4. ram - mushkin

5. artic silver mx3 or noctua pro thermal grade compound

6. no way in hell is that system gonna be faster without an ssd, look at kingston or corsair

7.case: look at the nzxt phantom or fractal r3 or the new xigmatec tower thingy thats coming out

8. if u want high end go with the gigabyte ud7 for the sandy bridge

9. are you planning to watercool ur 580s?

10. and what in the world would you be doing with TWO 580s? its alot of money to spend, consider just one

well go from there

 

[JCBenton]

As for the watercooling, the rig I have right now currently has a water cooling system and it's been fine for the past two years. Remember that I'm not assembling this; I have no previous building skill and I'm just choosing what Cyberpower has to offer. If that's a really bad choice then please say so.

As for my needs, high quality gaming with high frames per second, because I can't stand dipping below 45 when it gets rough. Occasional video rendering, but that's not exactly a priority; I can deal with slower rendering times.

Could somebody explain SSDs to me? Do they help in terms of gaming?

As for watercooling the 580s, there are the more expensive options, but that means upgrading the case to a full tower and spending even more dosh.

 

[adicool96]

Dude building a pc aint all that hard. You would most probably get better value too. Just have look around the internet for pc building guides and youll find them aplenty. Look at me im 14 and i built my pc when i was 13. Also you can expect loads of help from members here and also you grt to learn an important life skill

. Neways i would go with what sources told you.

 

[cbiltsouris]

ok lemme tell you somthing

1 580 will do all your needs without trying

ssd (solid state drive) make ur system a hell of alot faster loading programs and stuff, itll make a 7k system faster

corsair,seasonic,antec or be quiet are the way to go hands down (everyone will back me up on that)

if u want really high end stuff hell why not a 2600k and a ud7 and overclock the thing 5ghz, thats what pretty much everyone is doing lately

REMEMBER there is maintenance that is involved with water cooling, even once its all built for you.

 

[JCBenton]

So I should stay away from Cyberpower and definitely start looking further into becoming a builder. Gotcha. As for the theoretical rig, was there anything else I've done wrong that I could learn from?

 

[adicool96]

I would say not to go to 5 ghz 24/7. But sources i agree with you.

 

[INMATE183]

Google things you like the look of. I became good/ok at building my rigs by a learning curve of mistakes

It seems to me you have alot of money to spend on this rig you are wanting to build?

You will only probably need one 580 tbh and dont do drive bay water cooling PLEASE, if you are going to WC do it properly

.

If your burning cash get a lian li case! from what im seeing and reading you probly like the look of some of these?

Do abit of reading b4 you overclock anything also as that will be an expensive learning curve, and from the items you are wanting to put in the rig and overclock might not be needed at all? Maybe buy a pre built rig from Scan.co.uk their rigs start from £500 and go up to £9000 or these might give you some ideas on performance and spec ideas.

All in all i go with what i like the look of, what I think will work best in my situation, furture proof, silent, these are what I look for.

Air cooling will be a good start if this is your first build do you not think watercooling is kinda jumping in at the deep end (excuse pun).

 

[cbiltsouris]

1. build it you self

2. stay away from cyberpower

3. always get the noctua stuff

 

[Filekutter]

Nothing but good advice all around here, sir. I also think you could look beyond just having a "nice" rig and go for the joy you'll experience when you actually build the rig yourself. Its not hard at all, just intimidating to the beginner, but we all were in that place once before. Google is your friend here; just google for the most basic information of how a computer is constructed, and what the basic wiring/connections to the motherboard are. After you've perused a few different sites, open the case of the computer you now own and identify those parts. Then, just get a screwdriver and strip that case of everything. Put everything in order on a nice NON-static flat area... pop a beer and put it all back in. That will be epiphany number one. You'll see just how darn easy it really is. I remember the first time I put in a new processor, I was scared, thrilled, and absolutely bouncing off the walls when the rig booted up.

 

[JCBenton]

Well my budget is definitely intended to be below £2.5k. I'm not burning cash but I do want the best performance possible for my money. I'd like to experience DX10/11 games without horrible framerate, above 60, preferably, although I know that's asking a lot in terms of DX11. I'd also like it to last, hence the SLI idea. See, my original idea was to get that rig done for me and not have to worry all too much about how to overclock, how to install each individual piece, which is probably all very basic things, here, but for my experience in building, I may as well be a console gamer.

So water cooling isn't necessary, gotcha. I'll have to look into installing CPUs onto motherboards and then venture into installing fans for it etc. A long road ahead, I guess.

Let's suppose I still want SLI at some point. Is it possible to get such a thing working with an audio card in a mid tower such as an a60? I'd like the chassis to be smaller than the one I currently have. (Thermaltake Spedo)

Also, going back to solid state drives. Are they necessary? Will they impact my framerate? Sure, I may be willing to spend a lot on video cards, but the prices I'm seeing on these SSDs are immense. For less than that I could theoretically have 2 terabytes of sata III, which, embarassingly, is probably better than the HDD I have now.

 

[Filekutter]

If you go as high-end as you're saying, you won't need to OC immediately for good framerates at all. Remember, for gaming, just like movies, the FR base is 25/second. So anything above that is just creamy goodness. The specs you're quoting will give you more than that easily w/out the OC. This will allow you oodles of time to research it and even jump in. I have to point out the old days of quake 3... there, the technique was to pull as much of the graphics "goodies" OUT; but that was becos of Quake's code. Every little bit of graphics power you had, would go towards your physics tricks if not used in drawing each refresh. This enabled insane strafejumping, and all kinds of other fun.

 

[INMATE183]

SSD will just (considrably)affect your loading times read and write speeds, also silent. I only use 500gb drives mate as I dont need anything bigger( with 2 more 500gb for backups) alot of people get a small ssd and use it as their boot drive. I just use a seagate hybrid drive (4gb onboard ssd) whih is cheap and good

BANG FO BUCK! is my name really

a single 580 again will be more than fine for your needs!

and the money you save you can use for a bunch of watercooling stuff when you feel confident!

Dont worry about overclocking, builod the thing first then think about overclocking, def a thing NOT to rush into £££!

 

[cbiltsouris]

yeah building a rig is seriously that easy its not funny

1. put standoffs in case

2. lay mobo on a nice surface, pull the cpu latch, very carefull place cpu in the socket the right way

close the latch (use a little force) it will NOT break anything

3.apply a very small amount of thermal paste and spread it with a buisness card

4.put the heatsink on (may have to mount it on the mobo first)

5. place the mobo in the case and place the screw in the standoff holes

6 screw all the holes in

7.mount ur power supply and do the cable managment

8. most cases today have a tooless optical drive design so just slide ur optical drive in one of the bays an press the latch to lock in to place

wire the sata and powerconnector to the psu

9. get your ram sticks and put them in

10. put ur graphics card in the pci 16x slots

wire them up to the psu

11. ge ur ssd and hdd and place them in there bays and wire them up

12. put any fans that u need and mount them on the case\

DONE! fire her up and you will be in the bios

 

[JCBenton]

Thanks for that, sources. I'll take note of that, for certain! I'll try looking up some video guides, as well. Also it's more than likely that there'll be a guide in the magazine I subscribed to at some point.

I need some clarification, though: Let's say my motherboard, processor and video cards are all capable of overclocking. All overclocking is is sending stock items into a state of overdrive by letting them use more voltage, correct? I can do all that later, once I'm pleased with the stock results? I'm fully aware that it's not particularly safe to overclock a massive amount, that I should only really increase anything by 10% or so.

Also, about RAM? What are the benefits of 1800mhz/triple channel over 1333mhz/dual channel? I assume it will just, in general, be faster even with many background programs like kaspersky running, or do I have the wrong end of the stick? Ho-ho. Ho...

And just on the side, I really appreciate the advice and the patience. Thank you.

 

[cbiltsouris]

u wont be using tripple channel mem for sandy bridge, only if you are going to use 1366 socket

I have a 1366 board so I have to use tripple channel memory, for overclocking all you really need to know is if you have a noctua nh d14 u can have a really nice overclock and also very good cpu core temps at the same time. me i have a i7 950 4ghz at which DOESN NOT go over 58 degrees at MAX LOAD 4.2ghz and for 4.4 arent that much hotter tbh dont worry about ur cpu longevity if u get that cooler mate

 

[JCBenton]

Ah, I re-read my magazine and it makes a little more sense, now: the 1155s currently support only dual channel 1333mhz ram. Also, fun fact: the guide gave me a simple step-by-step guide on how to overclock on a 1155 board. Bonus! Also, thank you for the cooler recommendation!

 

[JCBenton]

Also, sources, I have a question: That d14 cooler... I don't suppose it would fit onto a P8P67 Deluxe, due to the heatsinks, would it? Also, would it block off the ram entirely, or would the ram be fine if inserted before the cooler? It just... Y'know. Looks like a beast.

 

[Aurus_OC]

Also, sources, I have a question: That d14 cooler... I don't suppose it would fit onto a P8P67 Deluxe, due to the heatsinks, would it? Also, would it block off the ram entirely, or would the ram be fine if inserted before the cooler? It just... Y'know. Looks like a beast.

It does fit with no problems at all. I got the Deluxe and the D14

You will need to insert your ram first though, but that's not that difficult