New Gaming Rig - Questions!!!

[Omario]

Hi all,

I've been planning to build a gaming PC for myself for a few week nows and plan on ordering the parts on the 20th and hopefuly will get them for the 22nd to build over the weekend. I plan on buying from scan so i' not paying for multiple deliveries, and cause i've found their delivery dates to be reliable.

What i currently have in mind:

Case: HAF X

Case Fan(s): Coolermaster Mega-Flow 200mm 700rpm fan (Blue LED).

CPU: i5 2500k

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Mobo: MSI Z68A-GD80 G3

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengence (Low Profile) DDR3 1600MHz

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATAIII (Haven't really decided yet, just has to be 1TB+).

Graphics Card: MSI GTX580 Lightning 1.5GB

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar Essence STX

PSU: Enermax MaxRevo 1350W

Other: Akasa FC Trio fan controller, some blue lights, thermal paste, and a keyboard.

I've wanted to build a gaming rig for ages now but have only built budget PC's so far. Don't like playing new(ish) games on 800x600 lol! I got off an AGP in 2010 >.<. My current pc goes to sleep when i put AA on. Got a 27.5" 16:10 screen at 1920x1200 native. And already got the sound card, got it months ago and love it. I'm unsure about a few of the parts in the above rig, mainly the motherboard.

What I want to do is build this rig and be able to put in a kepler card in 2012 and maybe an ivy bridge. My concern is that kepler cards might support PCIe3.0, and i think Ivy Bridge will support it but i'm not sure. The MSI mobo in my rig is pcie3.0 compliant. Within the next few years I wantt to be able to upgrade the above build rather than having to build a whole new rig.. Also i will likely be adding an SSD and another 1TB HDD in the coming months after oct.

I want to keep the costs around £1600, the rig above will cost me £1591 not including delivery.

My questions:

Should I get a PCIe2 mobo rather than a PCIe3, knowing PCIe3 will inevitably be the future?

Is the MSI mobo in the above rig worth getting as a Pcie3 moobo - i remember reading Ivy Bridge doesnt like UEFI..?

The Akasa FC Trio can controll 3 fans, will i be able to use splitters to control up to 6?

Is the 16GB RAM a waste compared to 8GB, won't Win use it as a cache at all? I rarely (never) turn my PC off and having things cache in mem over time will help a lot right?

Is an SSD really worth the price atm - is the noticeable benefit just not having to wait a minute here andh there + sturdier compared to a decent HDD/RAID0?

Also if i do build new gaming rigs after this one, i planned on carrying over the PSU and the case (among other things). Its why the single GTX580 rig will have a 1350W PSU lol - i wanted to do 580 SLi but it was too dear.

Thanks for reading! EDIT: Oh and if you have any realistic improvements for the rig, please say!

 

[yassarikhan786]

I'd say just go with PCIe3. If you don't want to build a completely new rig in a while, then the bandwidth may help in the future, but currently the extra bandwidth will not be fully utilized.

IvyBridge not liking UEFI has not been confirmed. We need to wait for the processors to be released before there is any certainty on that matter.

As far as I know you can't use splitter's to control more than one fan. There might be someone who can provide more information on this matter, but from what I've read and heard, only one connection to one fan is possible.

16GB is a waste, unless you are working with large picture/video files on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure that the RAM is not used as a cache and it is just the hard-drives that do the caching.

SSD's would be a big improvement compared to a regular hard-drive and would improve installation times and the time it takes to open programs. You will be happy with the performance, but if you have a high performing hard-drive and a mid-range SSD, then you might not see a big difference.

The hardware choices you have made look good to me, so you should be good to go

.

 

[S_I_N]

The Akasa FC Trio can controll 3 fans, will i be able to use splitters to control up to 6?

to answer this question yes and no it all depends on the rating per channel and the rating of the fans. Fan controllers have a amp per channel ratings say 1amp per channel for example. If you use a fan that has a MAX at 12v of 1amp then yes only one fan per channel. Say the fans are MAX .5amp then you could run 2 per channel. its Best not to run the channels at full rating 24/7.

Hope this helped you I looked up the controller in question and it has a 2.5AMP per channel rating

 

[yassarikhan786]

to answer this question yes and no it all depends on the rating per channel and the rating of the fans. Fan controllers have a amp per channel ratings say 1amp per channel for example. If you use a fan that has a MAX at 12v of 1amp then yes only one fan per channel. Say the fans are MAX .5amp then you could run 2 per channel. its Best not to run the channels at full rating 24/7.

Hope this helped you I looked up the controller in question and it has a 2.5AMP per channel rating

Nice information there S_I_N +rep

 

[Omario]

Thanks for the replies! I think i'll settle with 8GB RAM then, and will stick with the MSI mobo listed. I don't know much about fan controllers, never set one up before. The megaflow 200mm fan i'm getting is rated at 12v with and 0.16amps with 0.28amps max

! But i have no idea about the specs of the fans included with the Haf X. I think the top 200mm fan in the HAF X is a megaflow like the one i'm getting, but without a LED, i could always just replace it to make sure the amps are the same..

So i could safely hook up 3 or maybe 4 CM megaflow 700rpm fans to each channel on the FC... I could get another FC from the money saved from the 8GB RAM. Maybe the best thing is to put the top 200mms on 1 channel and the side panel and front 230mm fans on their own channels on the controller. Then i could just use software to control the Noctua D-14 fans

Which of the following RAM would be the best poerforming, if any?: (All are CL9, 1600MHz, DDR3, 2x4GB)

Kingston HyperX Genesis - Blue, would look better under blue light, cheaper than Vengence.

Corsair Vengence LP - In terms of spec its not superior but costs £10 more than other 2.

Corsair EMS3 - this one is 1.65V, the other 2 are 1.5V. Same price as HyperX