Building a rig

Building a rig

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Jazcash
Posts: 5309
Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

So I'm building a computer for the first time, never had any insight into it before, it's all completely new to me. Been doing a fair bit of research and I've compared parts and prices and I think I've got a selection I'm happy with. Just wanted to create a thread to see if anybody else had any suggestions or improvements on my selection.

Also, I'm a little worried about compatibility. Like, I don't want to end up with all the parts after paying for everything and then finding out the PSU doesn't fit inside the case or the CPU isn't compatible with the mobo or w/e. Is there any easy way I can check if all the parts are compatible?

Anyway, here it is:

Code: Select all

CPU:                      Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU (£177)
CPU Cooler:               COOLER MASTER RR-212E-16PK-R1 Hyper 212 EVO (£29)
Motherboard:              Asus P8Z77-V LX Motherboard (£96)
Memory:                   Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance (£40)
Primary Hard Drive:       Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 RPM (£86)
Secondary Hard Drive:     Intel 520 Series Cherryville 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£140)
Video Card:               ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores Limited Edition (£206)
Case:                     Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid-Tower Gaming Case (£78)
PSU:                      Corsair CMPSU-650HXUK HX 650W Modular Power Supply (£94)
Optical Drive:            Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x Internal SATA DVD Multi Writer (£14)
Total Comes to £960.20 on Amazon. Comparing with 4 other sites Amazon had cheaper prices pretty much every time.
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43

Re: Building a rig

Post by Forboding Angel »

I don't understand why you would buy that processor for that price when you can buy an amd phenom 2 6 core 3.4ghz for 100 bucks.
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Jazcash
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Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

Forboding Angel wrote:I don't understand why you would buy that processor for that price when you can buy an amd phenom 2 6 core 3.4ghz for 100 bucks.
Been using this thread a lot.
4. Q: AMD or Intel?

A: We have zero brand loyalty here, we buy best bang for the buck. AMD has ceded the PC processor market, as even Intel's budget offerings equal or exceed any of AMD's currently available chips. Intel is the undisputed best choice unless you have a very niche need. Additionally, Intel is in the middle of launching their new lineup. The 2500K and 3570K are both very close in performance, so some general guidelines:

Go 2500K if:
- It's cheaper than the 3570K
- If you must absolutely overclock beyond 4.5Ghz

Go 3570K if:
- It's the same or close in price to the 2500K
- You don't plan on O/C'ing past 4.5Ghz
- You plan on using the integrated graphics on the CPU
- You want to utilize Quicksync for video encoding
Also found that while the Intel equivalent is pricier, it offers a lot more. Most the comparisons I've read between the two and customer reviews seem to say that AMD is cheaper for a reason. I'm actually using a Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz * 4) at the moment and my i7 laptop seems to crunch through everything a lot easier. Idk, if I was on a tight budget I think I would go for the AMD equivalent but I'm not so I think Intel is the best decision here.
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Beherith
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Joined: 26 Oct 2007, 16:21

Re: Building a rig

Post by Beherith »

I believe the amount of times you will need a 6 cores with relatively lower per core performance is less than the need for fast single core:

Sandy bridge performs 33% better clock for clock than the phenom.

Im also in the market for an nVidia gpu, but low availability and high prices means I probably cant get the 560ti 448 core and will have to go with an OC'd model of the 560 ti.

Shame the GTX 670 is above 400$ (cause of VAT here), as it falls above my limit for being able to deduce it from my pre-tax income. The gtx 660 wont be out till Q3 :(

Edit: SSD is a good idea, it gives you superb performance, really way more noticable than a cpu upgrade.
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Re: Building a rig

Post by AF »

£140 for a 120gb SSD is a bit much, looking at the ebuyer newsletters I get, SSD prices are in freefall

Here's an OCZ Agility at 240GB for £137.99

http://www.ebuyer.com/278645-ocz-240gb- ... 5sat3-240g

and here's the 120GB version for £73.99

http://www.ebuyer.com/268244-ocz-120gb- ... 5sat3-120g

As for Intel vs AMD, Intel hands down wins. Even AMDs marketing isn't upto scratch, they're still pretending APUs have just been released a year on
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Jazcash
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Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

AF wrote:£140 for a 120gb SSD is a bit much, looking at the ebuyer newsletters I get, SSD prices are in freefall

Here's an OCZ Agility at 240GB for £137.99

http://www.ebuyer.com/278645-ocz-240gb- ... 5sat3-240g

and here's the 120GB version for £73.99

http://www.ebuyer.com/268244-ocz-120gb- ... 5sat3-120g
Thought this was too good to be true, haven't seen SSDs that cheap anywhere, ever. Perhaps you're right and they are in freefall, would like to know what the differences are between this brand of SSDs and others though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCZ-AGT3-25SAT3 ... 281&sr=8-1

Some of the reviewers tend to rant about it a lot.

I generally was under the assumption that SSDs typically cost around £1 per GB and anything else is either cheap and nasty or expensive and stupid.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: Building a rig

Post by FLOZi »

OCZ is a fine make, I just got one of those 240gb as my primary drives. They were £1/GB until a month or so ago, the new OCZ 4 series are coming down the line.

I'm sort of wondering how mine came to ~£1k despite not getting a new GPU or case. Then again, I did buy two 3TB HDDs :lol:
Senna
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Joined: 17 Mar 2009, 00:20

Re: Building a rig

Post by Senna »

you are buying an OC processor, isnt 650W power a bit few? because that CPU goes up to 5ghz each core on OC and the cooling is also good.

Maybe make a better power output like 700W or 750W then u will not need buy another power output. and you will have PC for more years since The CPU OC i5 ivy bridge 22nm performance is awesome.

Also to get more CPU speed and less heating you can disable the Intels HD 4000 on Bios so less stuff using, less heating, and more speed allowed.

I heard that CPU can reach 6GHZ on water cooling for each Core just an awesome one
Senna
Posts: 315
Joined: 17 Mar 2009, 00:20

Re: Building a rig

Post by Senna »

Forboding Angel wrote:I don't understand why you would buy that processor for that price when you can buy an amd phenom 2 6 core 3.4ghz for 100 bucks.
Do not Compare, AMD is over against Intel, Ivy and Sandy Bridge beats em all
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Jazcash
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Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

Definitely think I'll buy a cheaper SSD drive, thanks AF/Flozi. Still trying to figure out why brands differ so much in prices and why there are so many different models for each though. I thought usually new technology like this doesn't differ in price much between brands but I'm not sure anymore.

And Senna, are you sure I need that much wattage? I thought 650W would be plenty for this setup tbh. I'll look into it more though.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 6240
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: Building a rig

Post by FLOZi »

OCZ has three lines, Vertex (top of the range), Agility (Enthusiast/Gamer) and Petrol (Value).

The new Vertex 4 and Agility 4 are out/coming out, which is why the Agility/Vertex3 are dropping in price so fast - previously they were on par with the kingston and corsair offerings.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/s ... a-iii.html

I would have stuck with my Antec 650W PSU but it only had 4 SATA power cables, and due to my small forest of S/HDD and my new SATA BD-RW I needed more so went for the OCZ 850W modular one.

Also, it is pretty:

Image
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Jazcash
Posts: 5309
Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

FLOZi wrote:OCZ has three lines, Vertex (top of the range), Agility (Enthusiast/Gamer) and Petrol (Value).

The new Vertex 4 and Agility 4 are out/coming out, which is why the Agility/Vertex3 are dropping in price so fast - previously they were on par with the kingston and corsair offerings.
Nice, guess I'll go for it then. This article was quite interesting.

Scratch that. Looked all over the place and a ton of people seem to say OCZ SSDs are unreliable.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3454120

It's also funny to check my Amazon basket every once in a while. The prices change all the time. Logged on this morning and saw this:
Please note that the price of Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x Internal SATA DVD Multi Writer Black Bare has decreased from £14.26 to £14.15 since you placed it in your Shopping Basket.

Please note that the price of Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid-Tower Gaming Case has increased from £77.60 to £78.89 since you placed it in your Shopping Basket.

Please note that the price of Asus P8Z77-V LX Motherboard (Socket 1155, 32GB DDR3 Support, ATX, Intel Z77 Express, USB 3.0, CrossFireX Support, Dual Intelligent Processors 3) has decreased from £95.98 to £84.09 since you placed it in your Shopping Basket.

Please note that the price of COOLER MASTER RR-212E-16PK-R1 Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler (EU Version) has increased from £29.12 to £32.46 since you placed it in your Shopping Basket.

We're sorry. The item ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores Limited Edition is no longer available from the seller you selected.
hexx
Posts: 1
Joined: 22 Mar 2012, 13:03

Re: Building a rig

Post by hexx »

OCZ ssd %^&#!! i had one myself, and i they are very unreliable.

I would suggest to take a
Crucial m4 CT128M4SSD2 128GB, cheap and works awesome!!
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Jazcash
Posts: 5309
Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: Building a rig

Post by Jazcash »

hexx wrote:OCZ ssd %^&#!! i had one myself, and i they are very unreliable.

I would suggest to take a
Crucial m4 CT128M4SSD2 128GB, cheap and works awesome!!
Yup, chose the 256GB version of that just now actually.

Think ima place the order now. Thanks everybody! :-)
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KaiserJ
Community Representative
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Joined: 08 Sep 2008, 22:59

Re: Building a rig

Post by KaiserJ »

not sure what case you're getting, but you may want to chuck some extra fans in there... those zotac cards run very hot!

personally i would have discarded the SSD and bought a 570, but otherwise, cool stuff

enjoy your new gear
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Carpenter
Posts: 216
Joined: 10 Jul 2009, 16:07

Re: Building a rig

Post by Carpenter »

Don't you have like a really good PC already Jaz? Or maybe I just have a really bad memory.

Anyway if you play games such as Battlefield 3 or something equal graphics wise, then you should get a better graphics card. I mean it will surely run BF3 like a charm on medium graphics, and MAYBE even on high but still, GTX570 or better is my recommendation unless your intention is not to play games of that graphics league.
Otherwise a good looking setup.

EDIT: And I've also heard people experiencing issues with Ti. If you'll stick with that card, then hopefully you'll get a good one. :)
Coresair
Posts: 279
Joined: 30 Dec 2009, 01:17

Re: Building a rig

Post by Coresair »

Don't listen to anyone who says you need a PSU the size of an XBOX. In all reality your system would run fine on a high-quality 500W psu reliably. The 650W range psu will be just fine, what you need to look for first is quality and second expandability in this power-range of rig.

I have been out of the PC hardware loop for a while (since I finished my build) so I can't reccomend the current top-notch PSUs, but if you read about a really nice 600W or something I would grab that over a lower quality 650-700W psu.

Here is a little story on why people who think you need huge PSUs amuse me. My old machine, was an old dell studio mini-tower PC. It had a single exaust fan but room for a smaller-sized PSU and GPUs. So one day I decided to I needed more gpu power than the 9500gt I stuck into it so I bought a corsair cx400 PSU and a gtx 460. People told me this wouldn't work, the GTX460 needed a 450W and to be safe 500W psu.

Well guess what, it worked fine for three months running at 100% gpu and cpu usage running folding at home untill I decided I want to run my old 9500gt as well. The 400w psu ran the two GPUs, old Core2Quad (draws more power than my i7 2600k at stock btw) fine for another couple of months. Then I acquired an evga Akimbo 9800gt. Did I mention I had atleast a 30% OC on all 3 gpus, a hdd, an ssd, and the core2quad all running on a 400w psu. Guess how long that lasted? untill I upgraded a year later.

That cx400 psu is still powering my secondary machine and running strong after a year of three gpu madness. Quality over wattage as long you are in the wattage range, that is the moral of the story.

Image

Sorry it just aggravates me when people say you need huge psus for running little systems, my old system used just as much power as yours will and ran on a high quality 400w psu for over a year. BLARGH.
Senna
Posts: 315
Joined: 17 Mar 2009, 00:20

Re: Building a rig

Post by Senna »

Coresair wrote:Don't listen to anyone who says you need a PSU the size of an XBOX. In all reality your system would run fine on a high-quality 500W psu reliably. The 650W range psu will be just fine, what you need to look for first is quality and second expandability in this power-range of rig.

I have been out of the PC hardware loop for a while (since I finished my build) so I can't reccomend the current top-notch PSUs, but if you read about a really nice 600W or something I would grab that over a lower quality 650-700W psu.

Here is a little story on why people who think you need huge PSUs amuse me. My old machine, was an old dell studio mini-tower PC. It had a single exaust fan but room for a smaller-sized PSU and GPUs. So one day I decided to I needed more gpu power than the 9500gt I stuck into it so I bought a corsair cx400 PSU and a gtx 460. People told me this wouldn't work, the GTX460 needed a 450W and to be safe 500W psu.

Well guess what, it worked fine for three months running at 100% gpu and cpu usage running folding at home untill I decided I want to run my old 9500gt as well. The 400w psu ran the two GPUs, old Core2Quad (draws more power than my i7 2600k at stock btw) fine for another couple of months. Then I acquired an evga Akimbo 9800gt. Did I mention I had atleast a 30% OC on all 3 gpus, a hdd, an ssd, and the core2quad all running on a 400w psu. Guess how long that lasted? untill I upgraded a year later.

That cx400 psu is still powering my secondary machine and running strong after a year of three gpu madness. Quality over wattage as long you are in the wattage range, that is the moral of the story.

Image

Sorry it just aggravates me when people say you need huge psus for running little systems, my old system used just as much power as yours will and ran on a high quality 400w psu for over a year. BLARGH.
I lost a 800 Euro PC thanks of Bad psu, its really an important piece, and its always better buy a good one about 750 800Watts, so if in future you want add stuff into the pc you can, also i5 3570k Its pure OC and on water cooling its OC to almost 6ghz each core, so yes needs power. Also for better speed, i7 3770k its even stronger also the i7 2700k is very good but i5 3570k and i5 2500k are the actual best cpu of the world by price and speed, also allowing OC to hight.

i5 3570k on stock cooling you can OC to 4,7ghz, i5 2500k on stock cooling you can oc to 4,4 ghz and all on air the main difference with i5 and i7 it has twice of threads 8 agaisnt 4 on i5 cpu's. i will wait till the i5 3570k get cheaper, in a year it will be 100 euro cheaper
Senna
Posts: 315
Joined: 17 Mar 2009, 00:20

Re: Building a rig

Post by Senna »

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LX Motherboard (£96)

i forgot to mention that, d u know if that motherboard allows good OC?
You cant go on cheap motherboard if you want to OC
Coresair
Posts: 279
Joined: 30 Dec 2009, 01:17

Re: Building a rig

Post by Coresair »

Senna wrote:
Coresair wrote:Don't listen to anyone who says you need a PSU the size of an XBOX. In all reality your system would run fine on a high-quality 500W psu reliably. The 650W range psu will be just fine, what you need to look for first is quality and second expandability in this power-range of rig.

I have been out of the PC hardware loop for a while (since I finished my build) so I can't reccomend the current top-notch PSUs, but if you read about a really nice 600W or something I would grab that over a lower quality 650-700W psu.

Here is a little story on why people who think you need huge PSUs amuse me. My old machine, was an old dell studio mini-tower PC. It had a single exaust fan but room for a smaller-sized PSU and GPUs. So one day I decided to I needed more gpu power than the 9500gt I stuck into it so I bought a corsair cx400 PSU and a gtx 460. People told me this wouldn't work, the GTX460 needed a 450W and to be safe 500W psu.

Well guess what, it worked fine for three months running at 100% gpu and cpu usage running folding at home untill I decided I want to run my old 9500gt as well. The 400w psu ran the two GPUs, old Core2Quad (draws more power than my i7 2600k at stock btw) fine for another couple of months. Then I acquired an evga Akimbo 9800gt. Did I mention I had atleast a 30% OC on all 3 gpus, a hdd, an ssd, and the core2quad all running on a 400w psu. Guess how long that lasted? untill I upgraded a year later.

That cx400 psu is still powering my secondary machine and running strong after a year of three gpu madness. Quality over wattage as long you are in the wattage range, that is the moral of the story.

Image

Sorry it just aggravates me when people say you need huge psus for running little systems, my old system used just as much power as yours will and ran on a high quality 400w psu for over a year. BLARGH.
I lost a 800 Euro PC thanks of Bad psu, its really an important piece, and its always better buy a good one about 750 800Watts, so if in future you want add stuff into the pc you can, also i5 3570k Its pure OC and on water cooling its OC to almost 6ghz each core, so yes needs power. Also for better speed, i7 3770k its even stronger also the i7 2700k is very good but i5 3570k and i5 2500k are the actual best cpu of the world by price and speed, also allowing OC to hight.

i5 3570k on stock cooling you can OC to 4,7ghz, i5 2500k on stock cooling you can oc to 4,4 ghz and all on air the main difference with i5 and i7 it has twice of threads 8 agaisnt 4 on i5 cpu's. i will wait till the i5 3570k get cheaper, in a year it will be 100 euro cheaper
You lost your PC to a shitty PSU, not an underpowered one. What people do not realize that wattage rating has nothing to do with quality. Other factors are FAR more important in a PSU than wattage. I have an i7 2600k at 5ghz, I know how much these processors draw.
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