New $1300 Core i5 750 Gaming PC

pdubz

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Hi, I'm about to embark on building my next system, so I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations. My budget is around £700-800 (around $1300). I will mainly be using it for gaming.

So far, I am considering a Core i5 750 and an Asus P7P55D-E Pro mobo, along with 4GB G.skill Ripjaw memory, but I'm not sure which type to select. Having a look at the Asus Memory QVL for the board didn't really help, as the only G.skill modules listed were a triple channel kit, and I was under the impression that the mobo is dual channel.

If someone could help me make a specification on the basis of the above, or give me any reasons why I should go with different hardware, it would be much appreciated.
 

p55ibexpeak

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Your core part ideas are great. Don't worry about memory compatibility. Mine isn't even listed on QVL, but my P7P55D recognized it in a minute.

Look for a Samsung F3 500GB/1TB, Samsung/LG/LITEON DVD burner, a mid tower atx case of your liking, HD 5770 and a 500W PSU. You can also pick up an Antec Sonata III with a 500W Earthwatts PSU.

Where do you shop for parts?
 

pdubz

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I have seen the Ripjaw memory listed in 3 versions; CL7, 8 and 9. How important is this, and is it worth the bit extra to get the CL7 version? I don't want to spend extra money on anything if there is a bottleneck elsewhere.

I was also considering getting an HD 5850, but again, only if it is worth it in performance terms. How big a PSU should I go for in order to be able to add a second graphics card in the future? Also, what can I do to keep this build quiet? My last PC sounded like a Boeing 747.

As for shopping for parts, I'm actually planning on buying from a few places. I will be finishing the build in Denmark so I was going to buy most parts from www.dustinhome.dk (only in Danish), but Britain is generally cheaper, so I'm going to buy the CPU and the memory here and take it over with me.
 

blackhawk1928

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Okay to answer your questions, the CL=Cas Latency, its basically the latency or time it takes for the memory to perform. I'd say that frequency now-a-days are more important then the latency. Depending on what kind of tasks you do, you may find it a waste of money to spend extra for lower latency or you may find it beneficial. If you do regular tasks like browse the web, email...etc. You wont find a benefit, if you do really intensive tasks like file conversions, encoding, rendering, decryptions, calculations, you may find that ram with lower timings can be better for those tasks. In gaming, I would get 1333mhz or 1600mhz ram with timings of CL-9. This is becuase the money you save for a little slower ram, can be added for a better video card which is 10000x more important for gaming. If you want Ripjaw, get the CL9 and spend the money saved on a better GPU.

Whether a 5850 is worth it or not depends entirley on the resolution you game at, your expectations for settings in the games, and the types of games you play. Give me info on this and i'll tell if it is or isn't.

A 700-850watt is generally enough for SLI/Crossfire 2-card however it depends which cards you want SLI/Crossfire. For example an ATI 5970 has a 300Watt max powerdraw, in SLI thats 600Watts of requirement for your video cards alone. Plus another several hundred watts for other components. A lower end card like a GTX260 consumes a max of 182 watts. Thats a huge difference.

^If you go with an ATI 5850 which has a 158Watt max power draw. A 750-900watt PSU should be able to easily handle two of them depending on your other components.

-About having a queit computer. 99% of noise from computers are produced from the moving parts which is the Fans, and hard drive. To keep your build queit and yet cooled well, you want the biggest fans you can get in the case. This is because a big fan can move the same amount of air as a small fan can while spinning much slower and therefore making much less noise. Here is the equation
Big Fan+Slow Spin+Less Noise=Small Fan+Fast Spin+More Noise

Now about the HDD, if you will have an HDD, higher RPM's usually result in more noise. Some hard drives are quieter then others depending on manufacture...etc. Google the decible level of different HDD's and pick the one you like. However the fans is what you should be concerned about. A regular 7200rpm HDD should be fairly quiet.

Hope that helps a bit ;)
 

pdubz

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Thanks for the thorough reply; it was very helpful indeed.

Will the motherboard be able to support RAM at 2000 MHz? There is only £10 difference between it and the 1600 MHz RAM, so I am considering that. Both are CL9.

Ideally, I want to be able to play demanding 3D games at 1900 x 1200 on fairly high settings.

Also, would it be better to buy the retail version of the CPU with fan, or should I go for the OEM version and buy my own fan?
 

blackhawk1928

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A 5850 will do excellent at 1920x1200 and will be doing very well on most games now on high settings.

Depending on the motherboard if it will support 2000mhz, you can always overclock but most motherboards support up to 1333-1600mhz on stock. However the ram isn't really that important for you. Any average ram will be fine, the difference will be almost unoticeable, the GPU/cpu...etc is whats important.

Well if you will run the CPU on stock, the stock cooler will be fine, if you want to overclock to 3.3-3.4Ghz sweet spot, then i'd say get a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ or V8 cooler to keep the CPU cooled well under intensive games/overclocks.

If there is a small difference between the 1600mhz and 2000mhz ram then get it as if you overclock the CPU, mobo and ram, it will be able to do better.
 

pdubz

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I think I will try to overclock at some point, so I will go for the OEM processor.

I'm not sure whether the motherboard will support 2000mhz. On Asus' website it says: " 4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 2200(O.C.)*/1600/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory". Since the RAM is still less than 2200mhz, am I as well just going for the 1600mhz?
 
You'll want a 2 x 2GB set of RAM, 1600 is fine for just about any OC on air, get 200 if you going to be trying for 5 Ghz territory. Basically buy the lowest CAS timing that you can afford....6 is lowest, 8 is about the worst that makes sense to buy as little price difference between 8 and 9.....7 is the sweet spot.

Cases are a personal choice but most favor the Antec 1200 / 900 / 600 / 300 and the HAF 922 / 932

PSU's start with the Antec SG / CP series at the top, followed by Corsair HX, and certain lines from Seasonic and Enermax at the top end. Use the Editor's Choice and recommended Lists at the link below as a guideline, read the reviews linked on that page and follow up with a 2nd opinion on jonnyguru.com ....I go with 650 watters for single GFX cards w/ OC and 850 with twin GFX cards and OC....if not OC'ing drop 100 watts. Heavy OC'ing will require a top notch PSU if you want to avoid voltages wiggling around and ruining your OC stability.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs

HD - Any "500 GB per platter" drives including the ED Black 2 TB model as well as the 500 GB / 1 TB / 1.5 TB Spinpoint F3 or Seagate 7200.12 models. Check the comparison charts here to compare what your usage is as the Seagate excels in some areas (gaming, multimedia) whereas the F3 excels in others (raw read)

=on&prod[2770]=on]http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/compare,1016.html?prod[2369]=on&prod[2770]=on

For the combination of ease of installation and performance, it's real hard to beat the prolimatech megahalems as a heat sink .

As for graphics, plug ya budget into the list below and then read the article w/ ya choice and see how it does:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491.html

Here's the "winners" from THG's latest (December) GFX Roundup
Best Graphics Cards For The Money: December '09

$50 - HD 4650
$65 - HD 4670 / 9600 GSO
$85 - 9600 GT
$95 - 9600 GT / HD 4830
$110 - GTS 250 512 MB
$120 - GTS 250 1 GB
$155 - HD 5770 / GTX 260
$200 - HD 4890
$240 - 2 x GTS 250
$310 - No winner (HD 5850 Honorable Mention)
$330 - 2 x GTX 260 / 2 x HD 5770
$400 - 2 x HD 4890
$410 - No winner (HD 5870 Honorable Mention)
$465 - No winner (GTX 295 Honorable Mention)
$625 - No winner (HD 5970 Honorable Mention)
 

pdubz

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Jan 4, 2010
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Thanks for all the advice so far. I think I have a finalised spec, but if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know:

CPU: Intel Core i5 750
Heatsink: Akasa AK-CC017 Freedom Tower (LambdaTek - £25.64)
Mobo: Asus P7P55D-E Pro
RAM: 4GB G.Skill Ripjaw 1600MHz CL7
GFX: Sapphire HD 5850
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB
Case: Fractal Design Define D2
PSU: Corsair TX650W

The only thing I am still wondering about is whether I should go with the P7P55D-E Pro motherboard or the 'non -E' version. As far as I can see, the only difference is the addition of SATA 3 and USB 3.0. Since the hard disk isn't SATA 3 anyway, is there any point in going for the -E version?
 

banthracis

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If you're concerned about future proofing go with the E. The major reason for SATA 6.0 is if you plan on getting a SSD as those have hit the SATA 3.0 limit for read for a while now, and just hit the limit for writing as well.
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702

For USB 3.0, it's mostly useful as an alternative to ESATA, so if you want to use external backup solutions it's a help.

So yea, decide based on this whether you want to future proof it now. Either way in a year everything will be on USB3/SATA 6 standard.

HSF go with a CM Hyper 212 Plus. It should be as cheap or cheaper than the one you linked and is currently the best performing HSF for an i5. $28 on newegg in the states, dunno how much it is for you guys across the pond.
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

The Xigmatech Dark Knight theoretically has similar/slightly better performance, but is more expensive and seems to have mounting issues with the P55 platform which drastically affect performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-new-pc,2497-7.html

dark knight is a Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE Cooler Plus just painted black.
 

blackhawk1928

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Banthracis, show me one SSD that can read/write for more then 750GB/s, scratch that, show me an SSD that reads/writes faster then SATA 2, not even talking about sata 3.

And his seagate can't even surpass SATA 1.
 

banthracis

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I'll just quote myself from the other thread you made the same comment in.
The SATA 3.0 interface is maxed out and has been by SSD's read speeds since last year when the Intel X25M g1 came out. The new Vertex 2 will also max out SATA 3.0 in write speeds.
Read http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702&p=9

SATA 3.0 runs at 3 gigabits per seconds. That equates to about 320 Megabytes per seconds. Add in network overhead, etc and that equates to 270-280 megabytes usable bandwidth. SSD's hit that barrier a while ago.

Think you're confusing byte and bit.
 

blackhawk1928

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Lol, i think you are confusing byte and bit, and names of SATA....lets review
SATA 1=1.5GIGABITS
SATA 2=3.0GIGABITS
SATA 3=6.0GIGABITS

1Byte=8Bits <Thats the equation

This means

SATA 1=187MEGABYTES
SATA 2=375MEGABYTES
SATA 3=750MEGABYTES

Name One SSD that can break the SATA 2 barrier? (I am assuming your sata names, bits, bytes, and bandwidthes are cleared up now).

You are confusing yourself, are you talking about SATA 2 or SATA 3?...

Now if you are talking about SATA 3 which you clearly showed you are then name an SSD that can break that barrier.
 

banthracis

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SATA 3.0 refers to SATA 3.0 gbps or SATA 2. If I meant SATA 3 aka SATA 6.0 Gbps I'd have said that. I put the .0 as per the common shorthand to refer to speed as opposed to generation.

Read the article I linked.... It shows the multiple drives hitting the SATA 2 aka SATA 3.0 gbps barrier. The actual bandwidth may be 370 megabytes per second, but factor in network overhead and you are at 270-280 megabytes of usable bandwidth.

From anand's article.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702&p=9

Sequential Performance - Virtually Bound by 3Gbps SATA
Most high end SSDs have sequential read speeds that are pretty much bound by existing 3Gbps SATA interfaces

OCZ’s Vertex 2 Pro is no different. At around 265MB/s, we’d need to have a redesigned version of the controller with 6Gbps SATA support to go any faster.


Are you seriously gonna argue that Anand Lai Shimpi is wrong in his hardware testing? Rofl...
 

blackhawk1928

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well sorry, that was confusion then, becuase i thought you were refering to SATA 3 6.0GB/s thats why I was astonished. In that case, yes I agree, some SSD's can max it out but barely. Most will stay within the SATA 2 3.0GB/s range though. My apoligies, i am just very used to being reffered to or reffering to SATA as the name, no the bandwidth just like when you talk about USB.
 

banthracis

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Lol, sorry about the confusion black.

Yea naming conventions in the industry sucks.

USB is always version number ie 1.0, 2.0, 3.0

but SATA is referred to by speed 1.5, 3.0, 6.0 or generation 1,2,3.


Then you get into GPU and CPU model names.... haha