Project overkill

[8bitbreed]

The last 3 weeks have been very painful for me, having always been an AMD fan boy, but as most of you will already no, BD has failed, or the software governing it has, and I’m not spending this amount on a rig for the cpu to bottle neck the gpu's, and im using 3x 32" high res monitors. So i5 2500k it is...

Shopping list is as follows

60 cans of value baked beans in tomato sauce

15 packs of part baked bread rolls

Thrustmaster--RGT FFB Clutch £72.52

XFX 850W Black Edition Modular PSU - 13.5cm Fan 80plus Silver Certified £100.77

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - £70.74

Samsung SH-D163C 16x DVD-ROM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black £11.86

Coolermaster Elite 430 All Black Interior Mid Tower Case with Side Window £40.10

Corsair Hydro Series H100 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £92.08

Belkin Home Series 1 connection Surge Cube (£35,000 Warranty) £4.42

Fingers crossed they both unlock to 6970s 2x Asus HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Quad Display Port PCI-E Graphics Card £219.47

G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V £38.16

Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD 2.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Read = 550MB/s, Write = 510MB/s £130.00

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5-B3 P67 Socket 1155 GB LAN 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £205.55

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £166.00

prices are from ebuyer.

How’s this look? It would be nice if I could drop £100 of so I can get some new games, but I can’t see where.

 

[SieB]

Looks good, I would change the H100 for a D14 it also saves you £20.

I don't think you can unlock the Asus 6950s, AMD revised the 6950s and made is so you can't do it anymore and you can only do it on the early models with the BIOS switch, unfortunately they aren't sold anymore, well apart from Ebay 2nd hand.

With the AMD 7xxx series about to come out next month you might want to hold off because there should be price drops from Nvidia and AMD. That's not guaranteed though but very likely, even if there are no price cuts i'd wait and see how the new cards perform.

Also, I have heard bad things about the XFX PSUs apparently they are prone to exploding, i'd go for a Corsair AX PSU myself.

Can't see any where else you can shave some money of though unless anyone else can

EDIT: Forgot to say as well go for a GEN 3 P67/Z68 motherboard if you can, that way you have upgrade choices for Ivy Bridge later on.

 

[8bitbreed]

Looks good, I would change the H100 for a D14 it also saves you £20.

I don't think you can unlock the Asus 6950s, AMD revised the 6950s and made is so you can't do it anymore and you can only do it on the early models with the BIOS switch, unfortunately they aren't sold anymore, well apart from Ebay 2nd hand.

With the AMD 7xxx series about to come out next month you might want to hold off because there should be price drops from Nvidia and AMD. That's not guaranteed though but very likely, even if there are no price cuts i'd wait and see how the new cards perform.

Also, I have heard bad things about the XFX PSUs apparently they are prone to exploding, i'd go for a Corsair AX PSU myself.

Can't see any where else you can shave some money of though unless anyone else can

what a shame, do you think the 150 or so shader units less will make that much of a differnce on my config, maybee i should sell something and get 6970?

Thanks for that, corsair it is. all my other rigs used corsair's but i read some cracking reveiws on the xfx psu's...

Im not getting this rig for another 3 weeks so ill hold out for 7xxx cards.

 

[SieB]

what a shame, do you think the 150 or so shader units less will make that much of a differnce on my config, maybee i should sell something and get 6970?

No idea but I wouldn't have thought you would have any problems with 2 6950s especially with the 2gb of Vram which will help for running more than one screen.

Thanks for that, corsair it is. all my other rigs used corsair's but i read some cracking reveiws on the xfx psu's...

There was a couple of people on here a while ago who had bought them (I think it was here but may have been another forum) and had them blow up on them. Corsair are best PSU makers IMO never hear many bad thigs about them.

Im not getting this rig for another 3 weeks so ill hold out for 7xxx cards.

It's worth a wait just incase you can save some money on price drops or grab a new 7xxx series if you can

 

[8bitbreed]

Top advice, Thanks

What mobo's would you recomend, i would like one that has dual pci-e and space for wifi and sound card, also ill be looking to oc to 4.4- 4.8, 24/7 and maybee 5 for the odd power crazed moments so power phase has to be good, i guess.

 

[SieB]

Top advice, Thanks

What mobo's whould you recomend, i would like one that has dual pci-e and space for wifi and sound card, also ill be looking to oc to 4.4- 4.8, 24/7 and maybee 5 for the odd power crazed moments so power phase has to be good, i guess.

The best bang for your buck IMO is

Asus Z68 V-PRO GEN 3

It's also GEN3 so you can upgrade to a Ivy Bridge CPU in the future and it's compatible with the next gen PCI-E 3 cards the AMD 7xxx and Nvidia 6xx series cards.

There are GEN3 motherboards from Gigabyte, MSI, and Asrock as well personally I would stick with either Gigabyte or Asus but the Asrok Z68 Gen3 is supposed to be a pretty good board.

 

[8bitbreed]

looks like great bang for buck indeed, the only thing that bothers me is the 8+4 power phase, is that enoughf for 5ghz.

sorry i realy no nothing about intel, parts

I think i want the Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Intel Z68 so so sexy.

Has asrock got better these days.

just read some reviews on this http://www.ebuyer.com/288926-asrock...-hdmi-displayport-8-channel-z68-extreme4-gen3

looks pritty good, and it shaves 50 nuggets off.

 

[SieB]

You should be able to get 5ghz with the Asus it will depend more on how good your CPU is more than anything, not all of them will do 5ghz and some will do it on less volts than others. Even if you can get 5ghz I wouldn't recomend running at 5ghz 24/7, a few hrs here and there no probs but not 24/7

From what I have read about the Asrock board it is a good board and in my opinion Asrock have gotten better lately but I would still go for an Asus or Gigabyte board over an Asrock one. If you do want to go for the Asrock though I don't blame you, it is a sexy board

 

[8bitbreed]

Right then, build update.

I’ve changed a few things around. I’m no longer going to get the 6950's this month, I will be patient and wait for the 7xxx series cards. I’ll get a 6870, just until I get paid next month, then bench the hell out of it and give it to my little bro for crimbo, bless him he's still running an xfx 4890 xxx, witch squeals on full load.

I’ve taken you advice on the cooling sulution,SieB, not because of price but because I used to own one and loved the way it looked.

This is my complete gaming setup, witch thanks to my boss I’ll be ordering in the next couple of days.. whoop whoop

Noctua NH-D14 £64.04 £64.04

Corsair 60GB Force 3A SSD - 2.5"" SATA-III 6Gb/s £80.02

XFX HD 6870 DD 1GB £152.46

Corsair TX 750W V2 PSU £84.76

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 £146.46

Thrustmaster--RGT FFB Clutch £72.52

Windows 7 Home £70.74

Samsung SH-D163C 16x DVD-ROM SATA £11.86

Belkin SurgeCube (£35,000 Warranty) £4.42

G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX(9-9-9-24)1.5V £38.16

Intel Core i5 2500K £165.68

3x to add to case Coolermaster 120x120x25mm SickleFlow Red £18.15

Trust GXT Gaming Mouse Pad £9.09

Gigabyte M6900 7 button gaming mouse £15.35

Trust GXT 18 Gaming Keyboard £17.72

Logitech LS21 2.1 £20.61

Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset £25.16

Coolermaster HAF 922 Mid Tower Case £85.10

2x to replace on the noctua Coolermaster Excalibur £29.55 total

Logitech Dual Stick Gamepad £13.70

Edimax 300n 2t2r Wi-fi Pci Adapter

Total build cost £1280, witch leave's me £120 for games

Can anyone see anything that don't work together,or might give me problems.

Should be a pretty good gaming setup, just hope I don't have to rma anything.

I shouldn’t have to buy half of this stuff but, just before I moved to this job, (I live in) 5 months ago, I got a speeding fine, and stupid me forgot to change my details with the DVLA. 4 months later I get pulled over because my licence plate has alerted an AMPR police camera, I get arrested because of a warrant in my name for none payment of fine. little did I no, I had an instant £60 fine, witch I did not no about, then it went up and up till none payment, then it went to court, and they charged not present at the courts, witch again I had no idea about. I got a £550 fine for not paying the instant fine and a £800 fine for not send my licence off to be endorsed for the 3 points. After I didn’t pay that they issued a warrant for my arrest, lucky me. I was in jail for 48 hrs., went to court explained to them I moved, they let me off with none payment but I still had to clear £1350 in 28 days, for a 38 in a 30... What a joke.

edit: forgot to add the £120 for releasing my car from the inpound after i got a arrested at the side of the road.

So there was me selling my 2 5870s, my golden 955, Sempron, gt dommies

My old 1100t gaming rig and 90% of my benching kit... all in all a good year tbh.

Woops

big wall should have been a brick layer.

 

[SieB]

That looks fine to me, the only thing I would change is the Corsair TX to a Corsair AX which is 80+ gold and modular. The TX is good but the AX is quite a bit better and worth the extra

 

[8bitbreed]

done, Corsair 850W AX850 Modular PSU. added to basket.

can anyone tell me what is the cheapest pci-e sound card that will be better than the on board, witch is the HD 8-channel Realtek ALC892 THX TruStudio PC, High Definition Audio.

 

[SieB]

I have no idea about soundcards but I hear people mention the Asus Xonar a lot.

 

[8bitbreed]

I think I’ll leave that for now. Budget is maxed out.

Would anyone like me to review, any of the parts I’ve chosen? I guess the budget gaming peripherals would be good.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Everything looks good

.

 

[jimmyakakev]

Looks good dude, the AX is worth the extra few quid