P67 Build, My First, Advice Welcome!

[McBane505]

Thanks for the help and advice in advanced. I have replaced numerous components, yet have never built from the ground up. After reading numerous other build forums and Tom’s advice, this is the component list I have come up with. Any advice is most welcome!

Usage: Gaming, Photoshop CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Music, Video, Web, Word Processing

Not Needed:
Monitor: Samsung P2770FH
Keyboard: Logitech Illuminated Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech MX518

Parts List:

Case: Cooler-Master Haf X, HAF – 942

Case Fan: COOLER MASTER Megaflow 200 R4-LUS-07AR-GP 200mm

Motherboard: ASUS LGA 1155 P67 SATA 6 GBps and USB 3.0-Supported ATX Motherboard P8P67 Deluxe

Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K Processor with 8 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz for Socket LGA1155

Heat Sink: Cooler Master RR-B10-212P-G1 Hyper 212 Plus

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Hard Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"

Power Supply: Corsair Professional Series Gold High Performance 850-Watt Power Supply CMPSU-850AX

Disc Drive: LG WH10LS30 10X Blu-ray Burner

Graphics Card: SAPPHIRE 100311SR Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP

SSD: Crucial Technology 128 GB Crucial RealSSD C300 Series Solid State Drive CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1

 

[foscooter]

Mobo: Unless you need dual LAN, go for the Asus P8P67 Pro. Compare with Deluxe in specs. $50.00 cheaper.

CPU: cheaper, THG recommended Intel Core i5 2500K, overclockable to over 4GHz on those Asus boards. $70.00 cheaper.

RAM: Spot on. Which CAS? Go for CL7, $5 more than CL9.

HDD: Think about adding another large HDD for backups, as you opt for a SSD (great!). SSD=OS and Programs, HDD=data/media, HDD=backups. I'd go with 500GB for data, 1TB for backups.

GFX: Much cheaper; Radeon 6850. Go crossfire for "same price" as 6970.

 

[McBane505]

Great suggestions. Thanks for the advice!

 

[McBane505]

Quick question about the RAM suggestion, what does “CAS” mean? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Also, is 8GB enough or should I get 2 kits and go to 16GB?

 

[jprahman]

The Core i7-2600K will run CS 5 better than the Core i5-2500K, although once overclocked you probably won't notice the difference. I would highly advise going with a Nvidia video card. CS 5 introduced a lot of hardware acceleration features that only run on Nvidia cards.

Check out this article for the details on CS 5 and hardware acceleration. I would specifically recommend a GTX 560-GTX 570. Both are about in the same range as the Radeon.

RAM has to perform operations in multiple steps, Column Access Strobe refers to the delay between a certain key step that has to be performed as part of memory accesses. If you want to pick up 16GB of RAM that probably wouldn't be a bad idea. RAM is so dirt cheap and it won't hurt anything to add extra, besides, photoshop loves RAM.

 

[aznshinobi]

OK So here is some of my suggestions off foscooter's.

1) Don't get the Asus Pro board, not even worth it at its price when it has the same things that the Asrock Extreme4 offers. IMO Go with the Asrock Extreme4 P67. With the BIOS update that Asrock just came out with, the 2500K OCs to 5.1ghz on air cooling.
2) Don't get the 6850 in Crossfire, the room for expandability that your left with is kind of minimal because I doubt you will even go Tri-fire. So I suggest getting either 2 6950 1GB and run those in crossfire (they out perform a single 5970 and a single 580) or you could go with a single 6950 2GB which will run you 300$ but in the end you can unlock it to a 6970 2GB.
6950 CF performance: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeon_HD_6950_CrossFire/4.html
3) Instead of that PSU go for the XFX 850, it's cheaper and for practically the same performance (wattage/efficiency) HardOCP did a review on the XFX 850 and it was very close to 80+ Gold failing in only one test.
4) Crucial SSDs are hardly worth there price mainly because of their controllers. One thing is the fact that Crucial SATA III SSDs perform at Sandforce SATA II SSDs level. So for instance the Vertex 2 is pretty close to crucial SATA III ssds. If you want a good SATA 3 SSD for its price, wait for OCZ to release the Vertex 3 or wait for Sandforce to release the SF-2000 Controller. 480 mb/s reads boasts OCZ.
5) Get the Hyper 212+ off Amazon, cheaper, extra fan, and free shipping. You can find it off the site in my siggy or just go to amazon.

 

[McBane505]

Thanks for the great suggestions. I think I will get 2 kits of the RAM and go ahead and bump it up to 16GB. I am still not sure on the Motherboard, deciding between the Asus P8P67 Pro and the Asrock Extreme4 P67. I have read reviews on each and both seem comparable. I will be getting the Hyper 212+ off Amazon. And it looks like I will switch over to an Nvidia card. I have always used Radeon, but the Nvidia cards have always been strong.

 

[McBane505]

Thanks for all of the help and advice!

 

[Zenthar]

Because of CS 5 NVidia acceleration, I think it could be nice to go that way. For this reason alone I would consider the new GTX 560 Ti; not that it's not good, I just think it falls in some kind of no-market zone between the HD6870 and the HD6950.

You won't need that extra 200mm fan.

The Hyper 212 Plus can also be obtained in a combo with both sandy bridge CPUs: i5-2500K combo or i7-2600K combo.

Unless you work with really big project, I don't think getting 16GB of RAM would really be useful. Anyway nothing prevents you from getting 8GB later.

 

[McBane505]

I will take a look at the GTX 560 Ti, I just read a review this week.