Hi from Australia, would love help with building my 1st.

[fanniseed]

Good morning Tom and OC3D patrons,

I'm totally new to building and have had a good look over this site and a lot of uTube PC stuff and other reviews, I have a grip on it some now(I think!). But as I am sure you hear often, still dead nervous of f****ing it all up.

I've chosen this forum to ask as the reviews have such good detail and all the gear I can see components are tested on gives me confidence and the answers on the forum part seem pretty grounded.

This is what I have come up with so far:

I'm using this online shop here in Oz http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php

CASE: Xigmatek Elysium Super Tower Case Black (no window) $185 AU

The case - huge, cheap good looking and upgradable plus a hard drive dock on top which is cool

PSU: CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 1200W $283.00 AU

The PSU - I know it is way over sized but I am hoping to keep it for at least the next computer.

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K $339.00 AU

The CPU - after the hyperthreading for photoshop etc, plus a (k) incase later i learn to overclock.

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SuperClocked $559.00 AU

Unsure here on what GPU will suit the CPU, I won't overclock untill I actually need the speed.

QAlso am going to run 2 22 inch & a 27 inch screen at their standard res

M'Board: ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard $179.00 AU

Z68 - prices here are all with $30 dollars of each other on the 1155 chipsets,

so may as well grab the latest.

RAM ?

Unsure on what I will need for both photoshop side and game side

SCREENS:

I have one old dell 22 inch and want to buy another 22 inch and a 27 inch, for now cheapo's with standard res but hopefully next build I'll grab a high res

CPU cooler:

Unsure as the case I want has a huge fan on the side and may limit the space for a heatsink, so was thinking of a H20 kit for the cpu such as the corsair ones as they are flatter.

Cooling in general

My room heat here in Australia often hits 45 celcius.. and may have to use the best set up here I can with the push pull style in fans.

I am after help in avoiding bottlenecking anywhere at stock speeds.

My budget is up to $2500 or even $2700 but happy to settle under that.

Also have to grab a new drawing tablet and keyboard & mouse.. maybe $200 to 250 of my budget.

Overclocking The turbo boost technology is as far as I could do so far.

Anyone have any knowlage/advice to share?

Thaaaaaaaaaaank yooooooooou

 

[Excalabur50]

G'day your list is ok but i would change the psu to a Corsair. As to Cpu cooler the best to get for here is either the Noctua NH-D14 or the Thermalright Silver Arrow. As to Ram you can buy 16 gig of say Corsair Vengeance low profile or G.Skill Ripjaws fairly cheep and they will fit under the coolers. Also take a look at the Gigabyte 580 Super Overclock Tom did a review of it recently and it is a very good card and it's cooling is very good I got a Mate in Melbourne to put them in his and his wives rigs and they love them. If the case you have chosen is a bit difficult with cooling take a good look at either the Corsair 600T white or the Silverstone Raven RV02. Hope this helps and good luck with your build.

 

[ThatBattlefieldGuy]

Good day

Your list seems pretty good, you've chosen a gen 3 mobo so you can easily upgrade to ivy bridge next year if you choose to do so. Excaliburs recommendations are on the money, grab a D-14 and some G.skill Ripjaws ram and you'll be good to go.

You should also take a look at the CM Storm Trooper, the xigmatek case looks pretty cheap IMO. The trooper has plenty of ventilation and cooling and will accommodate plenty of your future builds. Also it has a 2.5" bay at the front. Also I don't think you can go wrong with a Corsair HX-1050 power supply. Its semi-modular but the next step up (AX1200) is $360 and too expensive in my eyes.

Good luck with everything and make sure you post pics of your build. Have a merry Christmas mate.

 

[fanniseed]

Heya!!

Thank you both of you... and Merry Chrissy to you all as well. I am having a good look into your suggestions, so far yeh, have swapped to the vid card.. it's just a few dollars more and the cooling does look really good. Still more to look through from your help, I take ages, and am in no real rush as this laptop "thing" I am on now still half goes.

With the cpu, Corsair does seem so solid in quality and I did have it chosen for a long time, but saw some tests they did on smaller PSU's here at OC3D and the Coolermaster came up as good, so that's sort of wavering back and forwards. I will look again as where I live we get a few power spikes to the house. I'll get a power plug to help with that, but I spose at the end of the complete build costs I can see where I can spend up on quality.. ultimatly I would like the Corsair.

I'll look at that case too. Some of my attraction to the Xigmatek case was masses of space for better air? Also to be able to re-use as long as possible. But case cooling I have bearly started to learn yet, even figuring I may need the build physically here with me to work that out. Am off to have a good look at this D 14 cooler and memory.

Thanks again!

 

[Excalabur50]

Yep Merry Christmas to you too, with the Psu the Corsair AX series are made by Seasonic except for the 1200 which is made by Flextronic and if you saw the review on it it was just a whisker shy of being a platinum rated Psu so for quality and future proofing the AX1200 is hard to beat. Also you won't be sorry with the D-14, and as to the case space doesn't always equate to better cooling it's the way the case is designed that's important as to how the air flows within the case, probably one of the best airflow cases would have to be the Raven RV02 check out Tom's review of it. And if you are worried about power spikes buy a really good quality surge protector that also covers you for brown outs as well.

 

[fanniseed]

Hello again B'Guy and Excalabur,

Thanks very much for the explanation on the Corsair PSU makers, was helpful. I now have an AX1200 watt in my wish list, hopefully only dropping lower if my budget blows out. With the D-14 cooler, it does have some great reveiws and I'll probably get it depending on this next question I have for you guys, if you don't mind again..

I would just like to check thoughts on the water cooling kits for the processor, are they better/cooler? I was mentioning before my summers can hit 45 Celcius (with high dust) sometimes I think even up to 50

and I have no air con. So what do you think?

*edit* Also do sound proofing foam layers hold heat in at all?

I have dropped the Xig case, I see great and bad reviews on it.. value, size and versatile against bad quality parts.. I've looked at the cases you both mentioned and also Fractal. Still undecided.. but I know I'll find something with proper air flow and good size for around $200 AU.

Hope Santa drops some nice bits & bobs in your stockings, ;D

 

[Excalabur50]

Water cooling will keep your system cooler than air but the things you need to consider are that water cooling is going to be more expensive to set up and is a bit more labor intensive and needs a bit more maintenance than air. Sound proofing will hold in heat. Here is TTL's video on the raven watch it cause he was in a high dust area http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGMb...xt=C3f59142UDOEgsToPDskIvgjCALq-olE0F_-cSAAff Are you in Perth or the Northern Territory for temps like that?

 

[fanniseed]

Water cooling will keep your system cooler than air but the things you need to consider are that water cooling is going to be more expensive to set up and is a bit more labor intensive and needs a bit more maintenance than air. Sound proofing will hold in heat. Here is TTL's video on the raven watch it cause he was in a high dust area http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGMb...xt=C3f59142UDOEgsToPDskIvgjCALq-olE0F_-cSAAff Are you in Perth or the Northern Territory for temps like that?

Hi Excalabur,

Yeh, I've really re looked at case reveiws, the raven does look really supurb re cooling. The water cooling I meant wasn't the big home built set ups but the small pre made ones for the cpu, Corsair and Antec do some that need no tending to.. They seem about the same as the best heat sinks @ about 40 dollars more. I'm just sorting it all out now what to spend on what.

If I get the silverstone I'll get the TJ07 and also am looking at Corsair's large one.

Thanks so much again for the help it's really made a good diff to my choices and I appreciate it.

I live south, my house, it's just so built wrong for heat & geared to veiws .. basically a big glass box (1970s)on top of a hill, no insulation or even ceiling to roof space.. dirt roads around etc, oddly though as it is built in 3 levels the dungeon is cold, even in the hottest summer, lol, just to full of junk. Tho' we have had cool summers the past 2 years here.. the ones before, for years, where off the show hot, so I am determined on a pretty cool build.

 

[Excalabur50]

The TJ7 is a good pick it was Silverstone's flagship before the TJ11 and have heard nothing but good reports about them. The self contained water cooling units from my understanding aren't that great as to justify the extra price about the only one from memory that is much chop was the H100, and you could get some good temps with a push pull configuration. I live on the NSW Central Coast and my house is a hot box too upto 45 Deg, one of the good things is that the new Sandybridge chips don't run as hot. My current rig is an Intel 1156 I5 750 on a stock cooler so if you were to team an I7 2700k with a D-14 you should be ok as the case you picked has good airflow. If you are thinking about the 800D from Corsair give it a miss as TTL has said it's a bit of a hot box the last thing you need, the lower end cases are cooler eg 500R or 600T. Hope this helps.

 

[fanniseed]

The TJ7 is a good pick it was Silverstone's flagship before the TJ11 and have heard nothing but good reports about them. The self contained water cooling units from my understanding aren't that great as to justify the extra price about the only one from memory that is much chop was the H100, and you could get some good temps with a push pull configuration. I live on the NSW Central Coast and my house is a hot box too upto 45 Deg, one of the good things is that the new Sandybridge chips don't run as hot. My current rig is an Intel 1156 I5 750 on a stock cooler so if you were to team an I7 2700k with a D-14 you should be ok as the case you picked has good airflow. If you are thinking about the 800D from Corsair give it a miss as TTL has said it's a bit of a hot box the last thing you need, the lower end cases are cooler eg 500R or 600T. Hope this helps.

Okies, yeh, I'll go with the silvertone... so here is my revised list. There is no ssd I have a 2 200 gig hds rpms from my brother.. Dad gave me $300 for Chrissy.. so I still have a little more, which I'll buy a wacom tablet with, am just slightly over my 2500$ budget, windows 7 ultimate I get free. Got some ok speakers for now from my old dell but later would love to get a sound card and hook up my NAD amp..

Silverstone TJ07 Black-----------------------------------------------------$339

For cooling size and re use in future builds

Corsair AX1200 Gold Power Supply-------------------------------------------$359

For quality, keeping components safe and re use in future builds

Samsung SH-222AB SATA DVDRW Drive-------------------------------------------$22

cheapie

Intel Core i7 2600K--------------------------------------------------------$339

hyper threading for photoshop and (k) incase I get on to re clock instead of by upgrades later.

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard---------------------------------------$179

Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler----------------------------------------------------$95

Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3----------------------$109

low profile - 26.25 mm

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock-----------------------------------$579

good for cooling

LG E2341V-BN 23inch LED Widescreen Monitor---------------------------------$149

LG E2750V-PN 27in LED Widescreen Monitor-----------------------------------$309

plus another Dell 22 inch screen I already own

HauppaugeTV MiniStick-HD Digital TV Tuner-----------------------------------$59

So if your rig is going ok up there in 45 Celcius I should be ok here I'd say.. One time it got so hot here in the top room I fainted, lol.. it's bizzare, anyway last 2 years has been a lot cooler, so here is hoping that will stay. I used to live in Sydney and go snorkeling a bit further up past the Central Coast at Seal Rocks a fair bit.. do you know it, near Forster?

*edit* PS

I just read somewhere a 3 gig vid card is heaps better for 3 screens, which I will have...also maybe my mo board is wrong too for 3 screens.. do you know the type of specs I have to look up to make sure it is geared for 3 screens, or is it ok to just piggy back them off each other? Do you have any thoughts on this stuff?

 

[Excalabur50]

Okies, yeh, I'll go with the silvertone... so here is my revised list. There is no ssd I have a 2 200 gig hds rpms from my brother.. Dad gave me $300 for Chrissy.. so I still have a little more, which I'll buy a wacom tablet with, am just slightly over my 2500$ budget, windows 7 ultimate I get free. Got some ok speakers for now from my old dell but later would love to get a sound card and hook up my NAD amp..

Silverstone TJ07 Black-----------------------------------------------------$339

For cooling size and re use in future builds

Corsair AX1200 Gold Power Supply-------------------------------------------$359

For quality, keeping components safe and re use in future builds

Samsung SH-222AB SATA DVDRW Drive-------------------------------------------$22

cheapie

Intel Core i7 2600K--------------------------------------------------------$339

hyper threading for photoshop and (k) incase I get on to re clock instead of by upgrades later.

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard---------------------------------------$179

Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler----------------------------------------------------$95

Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3----------------------$109

low profile - 26.25 mm

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock-----------------------------------$579

good for cooling

LG E2341V-BN 23inch LED Widescreen Monitor---------------------------------$149

LG E2750V-PN 27in LED Widescreen Monitor-----------------------------------$309

plus another Dell 22 inch screen I already own

HauppaugeTV MiniStick-HD Digital TV Tuner-----------------------------------$59

So if your rig is going ok up there in 45 Celcius I should be ok here I'd say.. One time it got so hot here in the top room I fainted, lol.. it's bizzare, anyway last 2 years has been a lot cooler, so here is hoping that will stay. I used to live in Sydney and go snorkeling a bit further up past the Central Coast at Seal Rocks a fair bit.. do you know it, near Forster?

*edit* PS

I just read somewhere a 3 gig vid card is heaps better for 3 screens, which I will have...also maybe my mo board is wrong too for 3 screens.. do you know the type of specs I have to look up to make sure it is geared for 3 screens, or is it ok to just piggy back them off each other? Do you have any thoughts on this stuff?

I do know of Seal Rocks although I haven't been there myself. As to what you have picked it's looking great your mo board is ok it's the graphics that you need to worry about, from memory nvidia don't naturally support three screens off one card you generally need to sli them. In order to run three screens you will need a second 580 or you can run an MSI GeForce GTX 580 3GB Lightning Extreme Edition OC which will run three screens, or if this is too pricey you may need to step down in cards to run two of them. Also I noticed your screens are all different sizes as far as I know they need to be the same size for triple screens if I'm wrong about this someone else here will correct me. I had a look at your mainboard and it has two 16x sli so you will be ok with it.

 

[fanniseed]

I do know of Seal Rocks although I haven't been there myself. As to what you have picked it's looking great your mo board is ok it's the graphics that you need to worry about, from memory nvidia don't naturally support three screens off one card you generally need to sli them. In order to run three screens you will need a second 580 or you can run an MSI GeForce GTX 580 3GB Lightning Extreme Edition OC which will run three screens, or if this is too pricey you may need to step down in cards to run two of them. Also I noticed your screens are all different sizes as far as I know they need to be the same size for triple screens if I'm wrong about this someone else here will correct me. I had a look at your mainboard and it has two 16x sli so you will be ok with it.

Thank you Excalabar,

Yeh, the msi, it's 120 or so more $ .. With the sizes of the screens, I don't mean running the three as one massive wide screen, it is for work space so the 3 will all have diff applications open on them.

 

[Excalabur50]

Thank you Excalabar,

Yeh, the msi, it's 120 or so more $ .. With the sizes of the screens, I don't mean running the three as one massive wide screen, it is for work space so the 3 will all have diff applications open on them.

You're Welcome and when you do decide to get a sound card take a good look at the Asus range of cards as they are quite good.

 

[fanniseed]

I will, I think I'll just drop the 3rd moniter... loool, maybe look a little more at vid cards @ 3 gigs like the gainward, it has big looking heat pipes at the same price. There are other moniters here at my place on other peoples computers, I can research & test all that later... next upgrade in a few years maybe... there must be little adaptors and so on... It's been a good learning curve - 3 or more weeks of reading, uTubing, talking to you and this forum in general.

I didn't even know what the cpu was when I started lol.. I'll subscribe here to the newsletter & take some pics and post later!!!