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Need advice/appraisal on first build.

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  • Gaming
  • Build
  • Components
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March 26, 2013 5:30:57 PM

I'm looking to build a gaming PC with a budget of around £1000. I prefer intel parts and would like to overclock things eventually, but not right out of the box.

After doing a solid 6 hours research, which this site was really helpful with, I have came up with the following build:

Case : NZXT Phantom 410 Enthusiast

CPU : Intel i5 3570K

GPU : Nvidia GTX 680

Motherboard : ASRock Z77 Extreme4

RAM : 2 x 4GB Corsair Vengance

SSD : Crucial Real M4 64GB

PSU : XFX 750W 12V

I am going to buy the HDD locally to give me an excuse to go into a computer shop and ask questions if I get stuck.


I have missed out the manufacturer on some of the items because I'm not sure who to go with yet, any advice on this would be fantastic.

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Burning questions below:

Do I need to buy a sound card?

What cabling won't be included with the case?

Will the stock cooling be adequate? I'm not planning on overclocking anything in the near future and I don't care about noise.

Are there any glaring incompatibilities/omissions with the above setup that betray my lack of knowledge and won't work when I put them together?

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Appreciate any time spent reading and replying, I should find some way to pay you guys :) 

More about : advice appraisal build

a b 4 Gaming
March 26, 2013 5:38:23 PM

I'd recommend a decent GTX 670 over a GTX 680. The performance is pretty much identical, but the 670 is cheaper and has somewhat lower power consumption.

The necessary cables should all come with the components. For example, the PSU has power cables (may or may not be removable) and the motherboard should have enough SATA cables.

You don't need a sound card. The motherboard has integrated audio capability.

The stock cooling is adequate for no overclocking and usually also for minor overclocking, but not always.

I don't see any glaring omissions or compatibility problems except for the lack of a god aftermarket CPU cooler should you choose to overclock. If you intend to overclock, then even a cheap cooler such as the $20-30 Cooler Master Hyper 212 or Hyper 212 EVO will be plenty for a decent overclock.

PSU choice will depend on whether or not you truly will overclock and whether or not you'll upgrade to SLI. If you opt for SLI and overclocking, then a decent 750W or 850W that can output near rated aggregate power in the +12V rails (pretty much any decent PSU can these days) should be great. If you will not use SLI, whether or not you overclock, then a more affordable decent 550W suc has an XFX ProSeries 550W will be more than adequate.

Your case should be large enough.
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a b 4 Gaming
March 26, 2013 5:58:49 PM

What resolution do you plan on playing at? Anything above a HD 7870 or GTX 660 is pretty much overkill on any 1080P 60Hz monitor.
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a b 4 Gaming
March 26, 2013 6:01:09 PM

slomo4sho said:
What resolution do you plan on playing at? Anything above a HD 7870 or GTX 660 is pretty much overkill on any 1080P 60Hz monitor.


All it takes is increased MSAA and such for games where maxing out texture quality isn't enough to punish say a Radeon 7970. There really isn't overkill like you say because there are always ways to make use of more performance.
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March 26, 2013 6:03:29 PM

slomo4sho said:
What resolution do you plan on playing at? Anything above a HD 7870 or GTX 660 is pretty much overkill on any 1080P 60Hz monitor.


That's true for a lot of games but 7870 is certainly not overkill at 1080p for games such as Crysis 3 and it hits the sweet spot for Battlefield 3 I believe
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March 26, 2013 6:08:01 PM

Alot of people share your opinion on the negligible difference between 670s and 80s.
Would it be a good idea to lean towards the idea of eventually having two 670s?
Should I get an overclocked 670 like http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_670_Power_Ed...

I was toying with the idea of water cooling when I overclock the CPU after I move out of student digs in a year, when I'm in my own place and I can start making things look neat.

Thanks for the bit on PSUs I'm going to look for a quality one in the 7-800W range...
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a b 4 Gaming
March 26, 2013 6:15:31 PM

FoxBox said:
Alot of people share your opinion on the negligible difference between 670s and 80s.
Would it be a good idea to lean towards the idea of eventually having two 670s?
Should I get an overclocked 670 like http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_670_Power_Ed...

I was toying with the idea of water cooling when I overclock the CPU after I move out of student digs in a year, when I'm in my own place and I can start making things look neat.

Thanks for the bit on PSUs I'm going to look for a quality one in the 7-800W range...


Factory overclocked cards don't make a big difference for the Kepler series, at least in most cases. Their GPUs aren't the main bottle-neck for them, so overclocking them slightly doesn't matter much on its own. That's not to say that getting a factory overclock card is bad, just that I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of extra money to get a small factory overclock. Spending more on a card with a good cooler (granted that usually comes with a small factory overclock too) is not a bad idea.

Water cooling won't make a big difference for an Ivy Bridge CPU such as the i5-3570K. It maxes out generally around 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz and you can get almost all of that even on cheap air coolers. You could still do water cooling if you want to, just know that it won't help in overclocking and temps too much, at least not unless you make a custom loop and that's usually fairly expensive.

670 SLI is a very high-performance graphics solution. I recommend first trying a single 670 and only going to two if you want more than the experience of a single 670 can give.

My recommendation for PSUs would mostly be from XFX/Seasonic PSU, Corsair, Antec, or a few others, but they're not the only good options available. If you give me a specific budget for PSU to look for, I could make some recommendations if you like.
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March 26, 2013 6:29:12 PM


Ideally I would pay £70-80 for the power supply, but I would happily buy something around the £100 mark if it is justified with a longer lifespan/better performance.
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a b 4 Gaming
March 27, 2013 1:20:59 AM

blazorthon said:

All it takes is increased MSAA and such for games where maxing out texture quality isn't enough to punish say a Radeon 7970. There really isn't overkill like you say because there are always ways to make use of more performance.

It honestly depends on the title you play. A majority of the games play fine with setting cranked up with a few exceptions like Crysis 3 and even then the game is perfectly playable. I personally prefer to obtain the most bang for the buck and upgrading the GPU later down the line with the $ saved would provide greater playability in the future.






DelightfulDucklings said:

That's true for a lot of games but 7870 is certainly not overkill at 1080p for games such as Crysis 3 and it hits the sweet spot for Battlefield 3 I believe

I said above 7870.

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