Around £1500 for a build! Help me spend it!

Dont buy the motherboard from Scan.

But looks ok - As we said, the Ridgeback wont fit under the D14? Dont bother with getting it just to take the heatsink off, just get the Frostbyte in the first place.

Also, do you really need a blu-ray drive...?
 
jamesriley94 said:
Dont buy the motherboard from Scan.

But looks ok - As we said, the Ridgeback wont fit under the D14? Dont bother with getting it just to take the heatsink off, just get the Frostbyte in the first place.

Also, do you really need a blu-ray drive...?
Click to expand...

I threw this together around 12am last night, so i forgot to change the memory :P

I've never had a problem with scan, whats the issue with this motherboard and Scan?

Also the blu-ray drive was mainly to keep me up to date with new computer games. Don't want a situation where i buy a new computer game and can't install it because i don't have blu-ray.

But in hindsight most games are downloaded, so maybe its not needed.
 
I bought a blu-ray drive as well and tbh it doesn't get used at all. I download all my games from Steam or other online sources. Even all of the programs I use like Visual Studio were downloaded online. You can get the setup files for near enough anything online as well as purchase legitimate CD keys, so no real need for any sort of drive. I'm probably going to remove the blu ray drive from my machine as it's the least used component.
 
LOL.


No PC games will ever go to blu-ray.
They're already trying to abolish disks and get everything done online. Because the disks are only install files, it's cheaper to split them across even 5 DVDs than 1 blu-ray as they have to pay loads in royalties per disk to Sony for it.

As for the Scan thing - I've never had a problem myself, but I hav heard horror stories of people receiving faulty motherboard, sending them back to Scan who have blamed it on a bent CPU pin on the board. I've seen this a couple of times in the same situation, and the pins on the motherboard that are bent in their pictures are in such random places, it'd be impossible to actually do this by installing a CPU.
But, the customer is left, out of pocket, with scan in possession of the motherboard and scan refusing to do anything about it.
Of course the emails by the workers at scan all end in: 'Scansure insurance covers for this kind of thing...'

So basically, if you're buying a motherboard from scan, you have to buy scansure, cause if it arrives faulty, there may be very little you can do about it.

Then, with the added price of scansure, other retailers are probably cheaper
 
Those are only for CPU...

To add a GPU, you need a £70/£80 block, plus another radiator.

So realistically, to watercool it, you're looking at around £350 extra. Also, the DDCs included in that kit is pretty loud.

I wouldnt buy one of the kits like that from overclockers.

Look at: http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Cooling-Kit--D5-EX-Series-Kit-pid-15997.html

But you'll still need to add another rad to it somewhere, plug tubing, more fittings and the gpu block.

You'd probably save about £20 by buying the parts separately, as you wouldnt be using the fans, tubing or fittings.

May want to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cseLyQzK_7I&feature=results_main

And think about changing the case if you do really want to do this
 
jamesriley94 said:
Those are only for CPU...

To add a GPU, you need a £70/£80 block, plus another radiator.

So realistically, to watercool it, you're looking at around £350 extra. Also, the DDCs included in that kit is pretty loud.

I wouldnt buy one of the kits like that from overclockers.

Look at: http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Cooling-Kit--D5-EX-Series-Kit-pid-15997.html

But you'll still need to add another rad to it somewhere, plug tubing, more fittings and the gpu block.

You'd probably save about £20 by buying the parts separately, as you wouldnt be using the fans, tubing or fittings.

May want to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cseLyQzK_7I&feature=results_main

And think about changing the case if you do really want to do this
Click to expand...

Well after watching that video he said that the kit he was testing was overkill for the CPU but great for CPU and GPU and he was only using 1 radiator? So shouldn't i be able to just buy a GPU block?
 
So the XSPC Raystorm D5 EX240 seems like a viable option, apparently you could use the 1 rad, but i'm not sure on how effective it would be. It could also fit nicely on top or inside the case and with the fans in the respective places.

Would i really need another rad (like a 120) for adding a GPU?

Also would i need a higher wattage PSU?
 
Did you watch Tom's video?

Considering he's running a similar set up to you (CPU and GPU) on a 60mm thick 360 rad, and his temps arent exactly the coolest.
You'd be trying to acheive the same cooling on a 35mm thick rad?

You would definitely need another rad to run it, and even with a 60mm thick 120mm rad added to it, you're still gunna struggle.

When I was planning on cooling my 3770k and my 7950, both with relatively high OCs, I was looking at an EX240 and an RX240, and some people even didnt think that would give me the best temps.

IMO - you cant really start a watercooling budget 'because you have enough money left over from your parts'. You need to allocate the exact parts you need for it, and then try and find the money.

Just think it over - is it really going to be worth spending over £400 on something that still wont give you the best temps.
 
jamesriley94 said:
Did you watch Tom's video?

Considering he's running a similar set up to you (CPU and GPU) on a 60mm thick 360 rad, and his temps arent exactly the coolest.
You'd be trying to acheive the same cooling on a 35mm thick rad?

You would definitely need another rad to run it, and even with a 60mm thick 120mm rad added to it, you're still gunna struggle.

When I was planning on cooling my 3770k and my 7950, both with relatively high OCs, I was looking at an EX240 and an RX240, and some people even didnt think that would give me the best temps.

IMO - you cant really start a watercooling budget 'because you have enough money left over from your parts'. You need to allocate the exact parts you need for it, and then try and find the money.

Just think it over - is it really going to be worth spending over £400 on something that still wont give you the best temps.
Click to expand...

I think ultimately your right. So sod the watercooling! :(

So that leaves me with between £300 - £200 to spend on increasing the quality of the spec.

So if i stuck with an i5, would i not be better getting the Sandy over the Ivy due to the TIM issue and increased temps when OC?

Looking at Intel Core i7-3820 and a MSI X79A-GD65. Should provide a bit of a performance increase, only major differences is the smaller die and nm on the i5 and the more threads and bigger cache on the i7?

16gb Mushkin? Worth the extra 8gb?

Asus Xonar Essence ST? Does the Xonar still suffer from compatibility issues and poor drivers?

What do you think?
 
I think - stop trying to spend money when you dont need to! :)

I feel this is going to be a long post...

The only difference between the i5 and the i7 is Hyperthreading. However, there is no game out that's even optimised to use 3 cores fully, very few fully use 2, and most still linger around on 1. Take Diablo 3 for instance. Because of this there is absolutely no performance difference whatsoever in gaming between the i5 and the i7. Hell, in 99% of cases there's not even a difference between an i3 and an i7. The only time the extra cores/threads are used, is in video rendering, and other imaging software, which you are not using. It therefore will literally make no difference whatsoever if you buy the i5 or the i7, so save money and get the i5. If you have future proofing in mind - you're already future proofing in not getting the i3, and no games will use even 4 cores of your i5 for a long long time, by which you'll have upgraded the PC anyway.

Now the TIM...

There isnt really even an issue IMO. You can overclock to around 4.5/4.6ghz before temperatures start to rise to higher levels than on Sandybridge. However, in order to overclock to this level on both sandy and ivy - you'd be putting more volts through the chip than it can even handle for a 24/7 OC. Someone recently on these forums even was saying they had their 2700k running at 5ghz, and it was stable for 1 month before it started requiring more and more volts. This is degradation, and you never want to be putting so many volts through it that it causes degradation, and so you want to leave it at around the 4.5/4.6ghz mark anyway. At which point - Ivy is better anyway, so you may as well stay with Ivy.

The 2011 3820 will actually be worse - as it's a locked multiplier and so you wont be able to OC it to as high levels very easily at all - so forget that idea completely.

Now the RAM...

Windows is coded in 32 bit (regardless of whether you have 32 or 64 bit OS). This means the OS itself can only ever use maximum of 4gb of RAM. And I really mean maximum as the OS will very rarely go above 2gb. All software that you will be using - ie - games, are also coded in 32bit. So they can only use a maximum of 4gb. This means, your computer will only ever use a maximum of 8gb anyway, so it's a complete waste of money anyway. So no - it definitely is not worth the other 8gb.

As I've already said for the Soundcard, the Z77 board's soundcards are already good. You don't really need a soundcard anyway...but, you may decide you want one... You may as well go without and save the £130 on the soundcard, and use the onboard sound. If you dont think it's up to par, then you can buy the soundcard. It just seems pointless to me to buy it because you're expecting the onboard sound to have issues - when it most likely wont.

Hope this clears a few things up - and I think I'm gunna copy and paste this into a word document, as I've written the same old crap about the CPU and RAM usage so many times now, I may as well just copy and paste it in :)
 
jamesriley94 said:
I think - stop trying to spend money when you dont need to! :)

I feel this is going to be a long post...

The only difference between the i5 and the i7 is Hyperthreading. However, there is no game out that's even optimised to use 3 cores fully, very few fully use 2, and most still linger around on 1. Take Diablo 3 for instance. Because of this there is absolutely no performance difference whatsoever in gaming between the i5 and the i7. Hell, in 99% of cases there's not even a difference between an i3 and an i7. The only time the extra cores/threads are used, is in video rendering, and other imaging software, which you are not using. It therefore will literally make no difference whatsoever if you buy the i5 or the i7, so save money and get the i5. If you have future proofing in mind - you're already future proofing in not getting the i3, and no games will use even 4 cores of your i5 for a long long time, by which you'll have upgraded the PC anyway.

Now the TIM...

There isnt really even an issue IMO. You can overclock to around 4.5/4.6ghz before temperatures start to rise to higher levels than on Sandybridge. However, in order to overclock to this level on both sandy and ivy - you'd be putting more volts through the chip than it can even handle for a 24/7 OC. Someone recently on these forums even was saying they had their 2700k running at 5ghz, and it was stable for 1 month before it started requiring more and more volts. This is degradation, and you never want to be putting so many volts through it that it causes degradation, and so you want to leave it at around the 4.5/4.6ghz mark anyway. At which point - Ivy is better anyway, so you may as well stay with Ivy.

The 2011 3820 will actually be worse - as it's a locked multiplier and so you wont be able to OC it to as high levels very easily at all - so forget that idea completely.

Now the RAM...

Windows is coded in 32 bit (regardless of whether you have 32 or 64 bit OS). This means the OS itself can only ever use maximum of 4gb of RAM. And I really mean maximum as the OS will very rarely go above 2gb. All software that you will be using - ie - games, are also coded in 32bit. So they can only use a maximum of 4gb. This means, your computer will only ever use a maximum of 8gb anyway, so it's a complete waste of money anyway. So no - it definitely is not worth the other 8gb.

As I've already said for the Soundcard, the Z77 board's soundcards are already good. You don't really need a soundcard anyway...but, you may decide you want one... You may as well go without and save the £130 on the soundcard, and use the onboard sound. If you dont think it's up to par, then you can buy the soundcard. It just seems pointless to me to buy it because you're expecting the onboard sound to have issues - when it most likely wont.

Hope this clears a few things up - and I think I'm gunna copy and paste this into a word document, as I've written the same old crap about the CPU and RAM usage so many times now, I may as well just copy and paste it in :)
Click to expand...

Appreciate the post thanks.

Sorry if i'm starting to **** you off, but i need all the advice i can get when i'm about to spend £1500 on a new computer.

The list has changed slightly:

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz
Phanteks PH-TC14PE
Corsair Obsidian 650D
MSI Z77A-GD65
Samsung 128GB SSD 830
Corsair Professional Series AX650
Corsair Vengeance 1500 Dolby 7.1
Roccat Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
8GB Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback
Samsung SH-S222BB/RSMS DVD Drive

Still haven't decided on the graphics card yet :rolleyes:

Decided to try the Phanteks over the Noctua. Few degrees performance increase and its something different so why not.

Samsung 830 is miles better then the Force GT after looking at anandtech's comparison tool.

Still worried over the keyboard and headset mainly. I might change the front intake fan on the 650D with an air penetrator and replace the external top fans with scythe gentle typhoons, just worried as the last scythe i had sounded like a jet engine. Would i benefit from a fan controller?
 
It's not annoying me at all dont worry. There's the same kind of people every day with a grand or so to spend on a new build, who just seem to think because a part's more expensive it means it's better in every situation.

1 issue with that - the RAM wont fit under the cooler. You need to get the Frostbyte version, not the ridgeback. Also, the only red frostbyte at Aria is 2133mhz which you dont need, and again it wont benefit you, so get the 43 or 45 quid Black frostbyte, or the radioactive stuff.

Dont get a fan controller, they're nooby :) Usae voltage resistors. The Scythes are 'overkill' if that word can even be used for a fan. I'd go for more of the Air Penetrators for the LEDs (I use 5 of them myself btw)

What are your concerns over the keyboard and headset? Also, what mouse do you use?

Last thing - please stop looking at benchmarks. They give no indication of real world performance.
 
seumasbeathan said:
Just go with the 670 mate
Click to expand...

Thing is, as you can see here

systemmj.png


There is a £40 difference in grand total price from the 670 to 680. :huh:
 
Which 670 and 680 specifcally are you looking at?

A 670 with an aftermarket cooler will overclock to a higher level (and so perform better) than a reference 680.
 
jamesriley94 said:
It's not annoying me at all dont worry. There's the same kind of people every day with a grand or so to spend on a new build, who just seem to think because a part's more expensive it means it's better in every situation.
Click to expand...

Aye which makes me concerned i'm annoying people! :lol:

1 issue with that - the RAM wont fit under the cooler. You need to get the Frostbyte version, not the ridgeback. Also, the only red frostbyte at Aria is 2133mhz which you dont need, and again it wont benefit you, so get the 43 or 45 quid Black frostbyte, or the radioactive stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah the ram is the Radioactive version, just forgot to change the name in the spreadsheet.

Dont get a fan controller, they're nooby :) Usae voltage resistors. The Scythes are 'overkill' if that word can even be used for a fan. I'd go for more of the Air Penetrators for the LEDs (I use 5 of them myself btw)
Click to expand...

I shouldn't admit then that i thought they looked cool :p

What are your concerns over the keyboard and headset? Also, what mouse do you use?
Click to expand...

Just i can't find any good reviews and no personal opinions from people, just makes me wonder if there any good.

I have a Roccat Kone+ mouse. Fantastic bit of equipment. Apart from the noisy scroll wheel.

Last thing - please stop looking at benchmarks. They give no indication of real world performance.
Click to expand...

But without first hand experience and other peoples opinions its all i have to go on :(
 
jamesriley94 said:
Which 670 and 680 specifcally are you looking at?
Click to expand...

My miscalculation there is actually £86 different between the 670 and 680.

The 680 is a http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=49836 Though i'd just remove the cooler and replace with an after market if it was a poor cooler.

The 670 is a http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...s+Graphics+Card+w/+Backplate+?productId=50350 Again if the cooler is crap, i'd just change it.

A 670 with an aftermarket cooler will overclock to a higher level (and so perform better) than a reference 680.
Click to expand...

Surely the obvious problem there would be i'd overclock the 680?
 
Ashton187 said:
Just i can't find any good reviews and no personal opinions from people, just makes me wonder if there any good.

I have a Roccat Kone+ mouse. Fantastic bit of equipment. Apart from the noisy scroll wheel.



But without first hand experience and other peoples opinions its all i have to go on :(
Click to expand...

If it's good, it will get reviewed - and people on these forums will have them.

That why we're all saying get the 670.

As for the keyboard and headset, Corsair products are good, and the headset will be fine, don't worry. What's your budget on the keyboard?

The Corsair K90 has a lot of good reviews if you're prepared to spend £95 on it. I have one myself, and I cant fault it.

Get the 670, but make sure you get a non-reference cooler.

Get one of:
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=49979
or
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=50381
 
jamesriley94 said:
If it's good, it will get reviewed - and people on these forums will have them.

That why we're all saying get the 670.

As for the keyboard and headset, Corsair products are good, and the headset will be fine, don't worry. What's your budget on the keyboard?

The Corsair K90 has a lot of good reviews if you're prepared to spend £95 on it. I have one myself, and I cant fault it.

Get the 670, but make sure you get a non-reference cooler.

Get one of:
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=49979
or
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=50381
Click to expand...

Having a look around at the reviews of the K90 would suggest i should buy that instead.

So changed the keyboard. :lol:
 
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