My Idea for a z77 Sabertooth with Dual GTX 680

[GamerGirlAlice]

my monolith p55 build is ver much on life support at the moment. i was curious of everyone's opinion on a gaming/digital media creation computer i am considering building. i have heat issues where i live so want good cooling on a system running stock. my computer room as been known to get to 98f. anyways her is the list parts i am looking at.

• Ivy Bridge i7 3770K CPU
  
• ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
  
• ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
  
• Corsair Link Cooling and Lighting Kit
  
• Corsair Force Series™ 3 240GB SATA 3 6Gb/s Solid-State Hard Drive
  
• Corsair Gaming Audio Series™ SP2500 High-power 2.1 PC Speaker System
  
• Corsair Hydro Series™ H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
  
• Corsair Professional Series™ Gold AX1200 — 80 PLUS® Gold Certified Fully-Modular Power Supply
  
• Corsair Professional Series™ Gold AX1200 Individually Sleeved Modular Cables — Black
  
• Corsair Vengeance® — 16GB Quad Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9G)
  
• Corsair Vengeance® 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset
  
• Corsair Vengeance® C70 Mid-Tower Gaming Case — Military Green
  
• Corsair Vengeance® K90 Performance MMO Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
  
• Corsair Vengeance® M90 Performance MMO and RTS Laser Gaming Mouse
  
• LG Black 12X Super Multi Blue with 3D Playback & M-DISC Support SATA WH12LS39 LightScribe Support - OEM
  

 

[xdaax]

two things

1. think about geting two 120 GB SSDs running in raid 0, they would cost about the same while performing faster.

2.1200 Watt PSU is overkill when you aren't going to overclock.

 

[AciD_RaiN]

Is the Z77 a quad channel board?

I would personally go for custom water cooling with that rig and a full tower case (preferably Corsair 800D like I have

)

The PSU is overkill but it looks awesome

I would just go for it

 

[DanielSK]

I liked the case, it goes really well with the sabertooth board, but isn`t the power supply too overkill? go with a 850 you can power up and overclock that system and have plenty of extra power

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

i chose psu for connector options and abilty to power 8 sata devices. in past i seen gpu cards that take dual 8pin and a 6pin on single gpu (just want to have option if i ever need it). i have a 800d but has few annoyances and to fix them cost more then a new case. i never done raid before, is it hard to setup for a boot drive???

 

[S_I_N]

I think it looks spot on. Yeah some parts may be overkill but hey aint that what we are all about

I say "Build it and you shall Game ON!"

 

[xdaax]

Tom did a How to "raid" about 1,5 years ago. The basics are the same but your bios will look extremly different because of the change to Uefi.

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

oh i for got to mention why i was looking at quad ram. esently asus one the few that works right with all dims poulated. u think id be beter off with a dual kit???

 

[AciD_RaiN]

I personally think a 2x4gb is plenty but like S_I_N said ain't we all about the overkill

 

[PetrolHead247]

Looks awesome. As said above 2x120GB SSD's in Raid 0 would be more beneficial than 1 240GB drive. Also, yeah 1200W is huge overkill but if you ever choose to add 1 or even 2 more 680's you'll still have plenty of power, and that unit should last ages seeing as it's a Corsair AX unit so i say go for it!

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

yeah it comes down to im building a gaming and digital media creation macine with longgevity of future proof items. im chnging the build slitl 2 dual corsair force series 120gb ssd boot, 4 hitach 4tb storage drives, 8gb dual kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9G)

 

[Jadarite]

I think your going to have an awesome rig there, the only thing i'm not keen on is the case but thats just me i'd go for the 600T instead

 

[S_I_N]

you may need to 16Gb for your digital media I'd got 2x8gb if ya think you'll use it all. with current overclocking limits (multi only) issues of the past with all dimms populated I dont see any hinderance with 4x4gb either. But I havent tried it so i cant comment fully.

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

working on a updated complete list

 

[xdaax]

4 hitach 4tb storage drives

If you raid them, too. I would recommend either raid 10,6 or 5. 10 would give you 8TB of usable disk space and about double read and write rates(one drive can fail with out loosing data). 6 would give you 8 TB as well, the read rates are better too but on write rates there isn't that much performance increase(6 allows 2 drive failures without loosing data). 5 would give you similar to 6 not that much performance increase in write rates and a decent raise in read rates, but would give you 12TB accesable space(5 drive can fail with out loosing data ) The performance increase in write rates is heavyly effected by the controller.

Conclusion :

raid 10: high write rates

raid 6: data safety

raid 5: much usable Space

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

the reason i chose the case is i am a corsair fan girl, all steel including front panel, internal usb 3.0 header, green goes well with sabertooth, and handles if i deiced to go to a lan party from a group i belong too.

updated complete build list ready:

• Ivy Bridge i7 3770K CPU
  
• ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
  
• ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
  
• Corsair Link Cooling and Lighting Kit
  
• Corsair Force Series™ 3 120GB SATA 3 6Gb/s Solid-State Hard Drive
  
• Corsair Force Series™ 3 120GB SATA 3 6Gb/s Solid-State Hard Drive
  
• Corsair Gaming Audio Series™ SP2500 High-power 2.1 PC Speaker System
  
• Corsair Hydro Series™ H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
  
• Corsair Professional Series™ Gold AX1200 — 80 PLUS® Gold Certified Fully-Modular Power Supply
  
• Corsair Professional Series™ Gold AX1200 Individually Sleeved Modular Cables — Black
  
• Corsair Vengeance® — 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9G)
  
• Corsair Vengeance® 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset
  
• Corsair Vengeance® C70 Mid-Tower Gaming Case — Military Green
  
• Corsair Vengeance® K90 Performance MMO Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
  
• Corsair Vengeance® M90 Performance MMO and RTS Laser Gaming Mouse
  
• LG Black 12X Super Multi Blue with 3D Playback & M-DISC Support SATA WH12LS39 LightScribe Support - OEM
  
• HITACHI H3IK40003254SW 4TB 5400 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
  
• NVIDIA NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Wireless Glasses Kit
  
• Hauppauge HD PVR Gaming Edition
  
• BYTECC Bracket-35225 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Mounting Kit For 3.5" Drive Bay or Enclosure
  

 

[Ibanez81]

The Sabertooth is only Dual channel RAM i think?

The AX series all come with enough cables to power 2 GPU's

Personally for a build like that id get a full tower for room.

EDIT: was typing this before you posted that lol

 

[PetrolHead247]

Looks awesome. Defo consider 16GB of RAM seeing as you've said you're going to be doing media stuff, but you may get away with 8GB, it just all depends on what exactly the rig is going to be used for. As for the case, defo buy it, the military green C70 will look absolutely insane with the Sabertooth board!

 

[GamerGirlAlice]

the z77 is a dual channel. but asus has been verified ocing all dims populated. the quad channel kit was a attempt to match all the ram but being dual channel i could probably just use dual 8gb kits

 

[Zaim]

I'd change the SSD to a ForceGT, only cost a little more but they are faster and well worth the extra. Other than that you have a very nice build there.