First build - 2600k i7

[dontpanic]

Hey all,

New to the forums and seeking advice! I built my last pc about 3 years ago now, Q6600, 8800gt (yes I am still using it that), 4gb DDR2 ram.

I had some help at the time putting it all together, ordering the parts as well as constructing it, but this time I have just relied on my common sense and basic knowledge.

So here is my first build, what do you think? I am in two minds really. I could just get a 560ti and stretch the life on my current pc until Ivy Bridge based processors come out next year, or go for a budget upgrade of say around £600 to something that should just about be able to run BF3 on high settings.

At the moment the build below comes to just over £1000 (including VAT tax). I am willing to spend that much, but no more, and preferably a lot less if i can get away with it.

I said to my self about a year ago that I would upgrade before BF3 hits, and whilst I would like to lower the cost, I definitely want to be able to run this game on max with a good fps.

Any changes? Recommendations? Flaws? (As I said I am not the most technical of people).

750W Corsair HX Series, Modular, 80 PLUS Silver, 90% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, 7 Year Warranty £92.75 £111.30

LN34936
Coolermaster Elite 430, Black, Mid Tower Case with Side Window 120mm Front LED Blue Fan, w/o PSU £29.49 £35.39

LN35563
Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM & DVDRW Combo Player Retail box £41.32 £49.58

LN36731
Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4GHz GPU 850Mhz 8MB Cache 95W Retail £199.17 £239.00

LN37173
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-14900 (1866), Non-ECC, CAS 9-10-9-27, XMP, 1.50V £57.80 £69.36

LN38687
60GB Corsair Force Series F60A, 2.5" SandForce, Read 280MB/s, Write 270MB/s, 50K IOPS £69.98 £83.98

LN39507
Asus P8Z68-V, Intel Z68, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, RAID, ATX, HDMI £107.68 £129.22

LN39546
2GB EVGA GTX 560 Ti, 40nm, 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 822MHz, Shader 1645MHz, 384 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ mHDMI £196.56 £235.87

LN40300
EVGA Superclock Heatpipe CPU Cooler with 120mm Red LED PWM Silent Fan All Intel/AMD CPU

 

[AdrianPerry]

Ok lets see, first of all, if the PC is mainly going to be used for gaming you can downgrade that i7-2600k to an i5-2500k.

With the money saved there (i5-2500k is about £160) you could upgrade that 560Ti to either a GTX 570, or ATI 6970.

The i7 wont give you any more gaming performance than the i5-2500k (maybe like 1fps) but the GTX 570 or ATI 6970 will give a very nice FPS boost over the 560Ti.
TOMS HARDWARE Gaming Heirarchy chart here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-llano-processor,review-32239-5.html

GTX 570 (around £270): http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=popularity&q=gtx%2B570&limit=10&page=1
ATI 6970 (around £260): http://www.ebuyer.com/253396-sapphire-hd-6970-2gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-dual-dp-out-pci-e-11187-00-40r

560 vs 570: http://www.hwcompare.com/8999/geforce-gtx-560-ti-vs-geforce-gtx-570/
570 vs 6970: http://www.hwcompare.com/9020/geforce-gtx-570-vs-radeon-hd-6970/

You could also opt for a cheaper, but extremely good CPU cooler (Hyper 212+) for £26 http://www.ebuyer.com/245376-cooler-master-hyper-212-plus-socket-775-1156-1155-am2-1366-am3-processor-rr-b10-212p-gp

Other than that, it looks a solid build.

EDIT: Just noticed the only storage you have listed is a SSD (which im guessing you'll use as a boot drive)
1TB Samsung F3 (£41) http://www.ebuyer.com/173804-samsung-hd103sj-spinpoint-f3-1tb-hard-drive-sataii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-hd103sj

 

[Why_Me]

Ok lets see, first of all, if the PC is mainly going to be used for gaming you can downgrade that i7-2600k to an i5-2500k.

With the money saved there (i5-2500k is about £160) you could upgrade that 560Ti to either a GTX 570, or ATI 6970.

The i7 wont give you any more gaming performance than the i5-2500k (maybe like 1fps) but the GTX 570 or ATI 6970 will give a very nice FPS boost over the 560Ti.
TOMS HARDWARE Gaming Heirarchy chart here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-llano-processor,review-32239-5.html

GTX 570 (around £270): http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=popularity&q=gtx%2B570&limit=10&page=1
ATI 6970 (around £260): http://www.ebuyer.com/253396-sapphire-hd-6970-2gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-dual-dp-out-pci-e-11187-00-40r

560 vs 570: http://www.hwcompare.com/8999/geforce-gtx-560-ti-vs-geforce-gtx-570/
570 vs 6970: http://www.hwcompare.com/9020/geforce-gtx-570-vs-radeon-hd-6970/

You could also opt for a cheaper, but extremely good CPU cooler (Hyper 212+) for £26 http://www.ebuyer.com/245376-cooler-master-hyper-212-plus-socket-775-1156-1155-am2-1366-am3-processor-rr-b10-212p-gp

Other than that, it looks a solid build.

EDIT: Just noticed the only storage you have listed is a SSD (which im guessing you'll use as a boot drive)
1TB Samsung F3 (£41) http://www.ebuyer.com/173804-samsung-hd103sj-spinpoint-f3-1tb-hard-drive-sataii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-hd103sj

+1

 

[rvilkman]

You might want to go for the Pro model of the motherboard to enable SLI/Crossfire.

 

[dontpanic]

Posting on my mobile now so i apologise for typos and poor punctuation. Thanks for the advice, and yes i was planning on using the ssd as a boot drive, I will be transferring my current pcs hdds in as well. in regards to the motherboard i just picked one that looked compatible and wasnt too cheap... is there anything i should be looking out for?

With cooling and case size / form, what are some things to take note of, again i just sort of threw that on.

 

[AdrianPerry]

That model supports SLI aswell..?

2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 ( CrossFireX: x8, x8 mode; SLI: x8, x8 mode; single card: x16 mode )

EDIT: CPU Cooler - yes size can be an issue. Firstly when selecting a cooler make sure its compatible with your motherboard (Socket 1155). Then secondly, make sure your case is wide enough to fit the height of the CPU cooler. Thirdly, depending on how many RAM sticks your using, make sure the CPU cooler wont block the RAM slots (since your using 2 sticks of RAM you can use slots 2 and 4 anyway so this shouldnt cause any issues - it may slightly overhang the first slot).

 

[rvilkman]

Ah so it does, it was the P67 one that didn't. So then yes the Mobo works fine.

 

[dontpanic]

Great, and again bringing up the case. Is a £30-50 case really going do the job, is the one fan going to bring enough air flow through or should I look at getting one with 2+...

Second, would all the cables I need come with the parts or do they need to be purchased separately?

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[rvilkman]

Well if you want a case with nice airflow. Antec 300 is like £50 and then add one or two 120mm antec fans to it for about £8 each and you have a nicely ventilated case.
It comes with 2 fans one up top and one in the back and there are 2 slots for fans up front.