Final check of system before ordering

[sybreed]

Hello Ladies

I need you guys out there to have a look at my system.

System specs:

ASUS P8P67 Deluxe, Socket-1155
2* MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB SLi @ Overclocking to +1000Mhz. Standard voltage
Intel Core™ i5 Quad i5-2500K @ Aiming for 4,5Ghz. 24/7 Stable clock. Minimum Voltage Increase. Max 60temp under stress.
Noctua NH-D14
Kingston HyperX Cooling fan - Blue Led
Kingston DDR3 HyperX GENESIS 2133Mhz 2x2 GB - Will reduce ratio to keep 2133mhz. No need for OC.
Corsair AX750 Power Supply - 750w should be sufficient for my system!
Antec Twelve Hundred - 7 Fans @ 120mm. blue Led - Optimal airflow case.
2* Cooler Master sickleflow blue Led 120mm - To fit into side panel, and add fan before CPU Cooler for additional flow towards the Noctua NH-D14

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This is pretty much my system. Everything should work. But just to be sure, I'd appreciate it, if you guys could have a look at it.

* The PSU calculators state I need 600w PSU. But Ive read that they aren't the most accurate calculators out there. Is my PSU good enough? I think it is. Just wanting to be sure. Don't wanna skimp on the PSU for this system.


Thanks!

 

[ScrewySqrl]

the 850 will handle 2 560s just fine

 

[sybreed]

A question I forgot to ask in the original post.

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For how many years do you guys reckon this system will be able to play games at High+ Settings in games? I'm aiming for 3+ years. Max 5. I suppose. Who knows, maybe only 2? with the speed of the industry evolving.

 

[Silvune]

You don't need that much wattage for a system with two 560 Tis, I'd do it on a 650W PSU, but if you want to overclock a lot, have loads of headroom, upgrading possibilities and/or runs intensive programs for hours on end, then more might be necessary and justified. That calculator got it right imo.
If you're using newegg, you can get Gold rated units for less than the Corsair HX850 with adequate wattage.

 

[sybreed]

I read the reviews on PSU's. And to me, the standard of PSU's now-a-days are very high. So most of the PSU's I've looked at have various recommendations.

Corsair seems to be leading the charge of PSU's.
I've had a look at this one:

Corsair AX 750W PSU vs the Corsair HX 850W Psu.
Seems like the AX 750w is.... better? and has enough Wattage for my system. Any comments?

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I will over clocking the CPU and GPU. For the CPU i am Aiming for 4,5Ghz. 24/7 Stable clock. Minimum Voltage Increase. Max 60temp under stress. For the GPU i am Overclocking to +1000Mhz on the core. And haven't decided on the memory or shader yet. Nothing drastic at all. I'll be using the System for gaming, and that is pretty much it. No folding, or video / picture editing of any sort... gaming and streaming porn!

for future updates. I haven't put to much thought into it, might add a 3rd 560 Ti. Would 750w be adequate?

 

[Silvune]

Yea the standard has been increasing over the past year, there are far more Gold rated units available, cheaper than they were and more and more OEMs building them.

The AX is better because it's more efficient, can still do Gold numbers at ~40C, the HX series (650W and up), some of them could only go Gold numbers at ~23C and they are fully modular. The AX is based on the Seasonic X-750, which is a bit cheaper, even after rebate at $160 with free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087

Some other good options:
Lepa G700MA 700W 80Plus Gold Modular $150 ($6 shipping)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194084
An Enermax by another name.

NZXT Hale90 750W 80Plus Gold Modular $140 ($6 shipping)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817116011

I think 750W will be plenty for your build and should be able to handle quite a few upgrades as well. It is ridiculous things like GTX 580 SLI that it can't handle or three video cards.

 

[sybreed]

.. Now you mention using 3 video cards.

Is it possible to use 560 Ti in a 3-way SLi? and if so. Is the Corsair AX750w adequate? Or, must I buy a PSU with more wattage.

 

[Silvune]

The P8P67 Deluxe does have three PCIe slots, but only two of them are at x8 bandwidth or above, so you wouldn't necessarily gain much performance from adding a third 560Ti. Another possibility is installing a physx card. It would depend on what card you had or chose in that situation if a 750W PSU would be enough. But considering that the AX-750 only has 4 PCIe connectors, you would have to use adapters if you chose a card that needed them. Some 850W PSUs don't even have more PCIe connectors than that.

I can't remember if it's possible to run 560 Tis in 3-way SLI, but the previous gen 460 could not. And it looks to me like it only has one SLI bridge connector, don't know if there is some way around that.

 

[sybreed]

Running the system in a 3-way SLi 560 TI was a little thought that had crossed my mind. But I didn't put any further thought into it. I was aware that the motherboard would be running x4 PCI-E lane if 3cards were used. What I didn't know, was what impact on performance it would have having the PCI-E Lanes running at x4. Compared to the x8.

 

[Silvune]

Probably.

 

[sybreed]

Probably.

Sorry. I edited my above post. And now I can't remember what I asked about.
Could be something to do with a 9800GT used as PhysX.

 

[Silvune]

Yea, I was saying that you could use the 9800GT as a Physx card.

I think it's generally accepted that x4 speed is fast enough for a PhysX card, but not fast enough to get any worthwhile performance gain from a fast graphics card.
Seeing as PhysX cards just do physics calculations (duh) means that they don't need as much bandwidth to produce 60 odd frames per second.
There are some tests around about the differing performance impacts of various PCIe slot speeds, which would tell you more about it than I could. The thing I've taken from them is that x8 is fast enough if not indistinguishable from x16 in most cases.

 

[sybreed]

Thank you for your help Silvune, much appreciated!

I was wondering one thing regarding my, motherboard, cpu cooler and ram.

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The Noctua NH-D14 is a beast of a cooler, and pretty big. Do you have any idea how many ram blocks it will block on a ASUS P8P67 Deluxe? I think I read somewhere that my Kingston HyperX Genesis 2x2Gb ram 2133 Mhz ram were supposed to fit in the 2 and 4th block. (away from the cpu socket). I don't know the dimensions. And googling it, has resulted in thousands of results that are clustered and I can't find any reviews, forums to help me out.

I'm fairly sure, it wont pose a problem at all. But if it's true the ram are to be put in the 2nd and 4th slot. And the Noctua NH-D14 Blocks the 2nd one. Then my Kingsotn HyperX cooling fan wont fit. But in that context, I was planning on adding an internal Fan in my antec twelve hundred case for the Ram > Cpu additional cooling.

(... hmmm. slight wall of text. my apologies - abit sidestep of the topic)

 

[Silvune]

I don't know if it will cause any problems or not.

Noctua have compatibility lists for the NH-D14:
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_ram_gen&products_id=34&lng=en
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_gen&products_id=34&lng=en

If that doesn't help then the way to find out would be to build up knowledge of what systems in fits in, by reading load of reviews. Altho those links seem to stress that RAM without tall heatspreaders, or under 44mm, will not have problems with the NH-D14. Which I don't think the HyperX Genesis series does. You might still have problems with the RAM cooler, which I wouldn't use because it is likely to be noisy. But RAM these days isn't known for getting too hot, and I would think the NH-D14 would create enough airflow to aid in RAM cooling.

You are correct that you install the RAM into the blue slots.

 

[sybreed]

Thank you for your help Silvune, much appreciated! The motherboard and ram are compatible.

I have dropped the idea of adding a Ram Cooling fan. Isn't nessecary.