New System Builder. Needing help

csilva

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Dec 8, 2011
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Hi everyone,

First off, I am new here, so please forgive me if these questions have been asked 100000 times before.

Okay, so I am building a new gaming rig this holiday season and I am kind of confused about some of the parts. Keep in mind, I have put computers together and am no stranger to hardware installation. What I am confused about is the under-the-hood stuff, particularly overclocking. These are the components that I plan to get.

- Intel i7 2700k LG1155(3.5Ghz, 3.9Ghz TurboBoost)
- ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
- Corsair Vengeance® — 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9) or Vengeance® — 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B)
- Nvidia 560Ti
- 750 Watt PSU and Mid-Tower case
- COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7
- 1 TB Mechanical HDD(7200RPM)

Anyway, the parts I am concerned about is the MoBo and the RAM. The MoBo specs state DDR3 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066.

That is why I can't decide on the RAM. The first listing is an 1866 set. The second is a 1600 set.

I just dont understand exactly what that means. If I want to overclock, do I have to use the OC memory? What would need to be done for the 1866 RAM to work in the machine? Is there really a benefit from this? Which is going to be the better RAM option in the long run? Is overclocking necessary in this build at all?

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris
 
Solution
I don't think you will need to overclock anything for quite a long time even if you just get regular 1600 RAM. You can get better system performance, but it can also cause you to waste tons of man hours and give you ungodly numbers of headaches as well.

Get the parts and see if you are fine with how they work without OC, and then think about OC later if you find it to be too slow in the future.

That all being said, I am most concerned about the two things you glossed over completely.

What maker and model PSU do you intend to get? Many brands straight up lie about their capabilities on the box. You can almost guarantee that if it costs half of other PSUs with the same wattage then what is said on the box is a lie.

Also, the mid...
I don't think you will need to overclock anything for quite a long time even if you just get regular 1600 RAM. You can get better system performance, but it can also cause you to waste tons of man hours and give you ungodly numbers of headaches as well.

Get the parts and see if you are fine with how they work without OC, and then think about OC later if you find it to be too slow in the future.

That all being said, I am most concerned about the two things you glossed over completely.

What maker and model PSU do you intend to get? Many brands straight up lie about their capabilities on the box. You can almost guarantee that if it costs half of other PSUs with the same wattage then what is said on the box is a lie.

Also, the mid tower case, which maker and model do you intend to get? A proper cooling solution can make just as much difference or more in the operations as spending more money on various parts does. The cooling solution is your first line of defense against thermal problems for your processor and graphics. Failures in cooling can cause serious levels of instability.

I know you said you intend to use the Hyper 212 and that is very good, but that is only a small part of the entire cooling package.

You also want to try to verify if others were able to use the Hyper 212 in the same case. The Hyper 212 is pretty large and may not fit in all cases.
 
Solution
Overclocking memory that wasn't designed for it and rated isn't as easy or rewarding as overclocking a CPU or GPU. Memory doesn't need to be rated for overclocking to be overclocked, but memory doesn't take voltages above stock as well as a CPU, the voltage can't vary as much, and you won't get much more RAM performance out of it.

On top of that very few applications take advantage of faster RAM. Gaming will see absolutely no benefit from faster RAM. Compression is the only thing I know that is sped up a little by it and I have been told that rendering also does.

The motherboard undoubtedly supports 1866 and 1600 RAM speeds if it supports higher and lower speeds.

In order to get RAM speeds significantly higher than stock stably you would need a low voltage kit such as a1.35v kit or even better, 1.25v RAM kit. Even then, remember that most applications don't really care much about RAM performance.

That CPU cooler is good for stock speeds on the CPU or even a moderate overclock but anything above 4.4 GHz or so may be too much for it. If gaming is on your mind then I warn you that the i5-2500k (which is also considered overkill by many) will have near identical performance, if not identical to any of the i7s out right now and is considerably cheaper than your choice. The money saved by switching to the i5 could buy you a better graphics card, which will increase performance because the CPU is much less important than the graphics.
 

csilva

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The case I am using will be the Corsair 650D and the 750 Pro Modular PSU from Corsair as well. It is 80plus Gold certified and a pretty expensive PSU so I'd imagine it should give the proper wattage.

I chose these parts because I work in retail and as a retail employee, I can get a decent discount on certain products, these being the CPU and the Corsair parts. As far as the Hyper 212 fitting, I actually got the idea to use the case and hyper 212 from a video on newegg where they build a system using that case and cpu heatsink so I'm sure it will fit. I also chose the midtower case because it has enough cooling for the things I want to do and I figure with minimal overclocking should I decide to do it, my case should have enough fans and cooling to allow for minimal tweaking.

As I said, I am new to overclocking and have never attempted it. I dont intend to try to overclock it to the max. Maybe just a little to give me a little bit more performance and based on what I have now, this rig will be lightyears better and faster even without overclocking.
 
The PSU and case from corsair are probably good enough. If you have seen an instance of the same case and cpu cooler working together that is probably fine too.

Also, if I were you I would just get regular 1600 RAM and think about CPU overclocking later. The graphics cards are much easier to overclock, I would cut your teeth on those.
 

csilva

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Dec 8, 2011
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Thanks for the advice. The 1600 comes out cheaper anyway and like I said, it's gonna be much faster than what I have now anyway, regardless of overclocking.

Thanks again for the advice.