New i7-2600k gaming/home office build

[WowFanatic]

This will be my first build and am looking for someone to just let me know if this is a workable design, any tweaks I could do to improve the design, as well as any problems I may run into during the build.

I'm also interested in whether I can get a cheaper mobo that will still work well with this system.

It is primarily designed to be a gaming system and will also be used in my home office, hence the wifi and card reader. Windows 7 Professional 32-bit OS

Looks to generate a lot of heat, so I've added fans to max out the case and included a fan controller.

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AZZA Orion 202 EVO Black / Red SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ASRock Z68 PROFESSIONAL GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

OCZ OCZ750FTY 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Power Supply

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL

OCZ Onyx OCZSSD2-1ONX32G 2.5" 32GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (My boot drive)

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LG DVD±RW SuperMulti Drive 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS50 Bulk - OEM

Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna

Vantec NexStar SE Dual 2.5" SATA Hard Drive/SSD Rack w/Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Ports - Model MRK-525CRU2

NZXT Sentry-2 5.25" Touch Screen fan controller

(2) Antec 761345-75026-4 120mm Red LED Case Fan

 

[Exquisitee]

Buy a Core i5 2500k instead of the i7, much cheaper and better for gaming. 16 GB of ram is overkill get 2x 4gb.

You seem to be skimping on the case. I would just buy a case like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160

With the money you saved from getting the core i5 and 8gb of ram. Then you wouldnt need a fan controller and probaly those extra fans...

But you should answer those questions so people can help you with your build, im to lazy to get the link so maybe someone else will.

 

[WowFanatic]

Sorry...lil pressed as well...but here are links to the mobo, ram, and video card


Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157263

RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231468

Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341041

SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227510

HDD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

 

[WowFanatic]

Buy a Core i5 2500k instead of the i7, much cheaper and better for gaming. 16 GB of ram is overkill get 2x 4gb.

You seem to be skimping on the case. I would just buy a case like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160

With the money you saved from getting the core i5 and 8gb of ram. Then you wouldnt need a fan controller and probaly those extra fans...

But you should answer those questions so people can help you with your build, im to lazy to get the link so maybe someone else will.

Yes, you caught me...I was skimping on the case, but after looking at your suggestion, I could drop the CPU to a i5, half my RAM, cut the fans and controller and get the better case, and still save about $100 or so. Great!

Care to look at my mobo and see if I can go cheaper on that as well? I'd like to find one for less than $235, if that's at all reasonable, and still have a quality mobo.

 

[neograndizer]

You have a 32bit OS. Do you plan on upgrading to 64bit? If not, then don't go over 4GB of RAM and save some money. 32bit Windows will recognize the full 8GB but won't use it. At most maybe 3.5GB with 0.5GB reserved. From my understanding, that is a restriction when using 32bit OSes.

If you're getting a 2500k, then you might as well drop in an aftermarket cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ and get a decent OC.

 

[Exquisitee]

You could get this mobo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131705



Save $80 and buy a cpu cooler, if you plan on OCing or anything, i dont OC sooo i wouldnt know a good cpu cooler to buy.

 

[WowFanatic]

You have a 32bit OS. Do you plan on upgrading to 64bit? If not, then don't go over 4GB of RAM and save some money. 32bit Windows will recognize the full 8GB but won't use it. At most maybe 3.5GB with 0.5GB reserved. From my understanding, that is a restriction when using 32bit OSes.

If you're getting a 2500k, then you might as well drop in an aftermarket cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ and get a decent OC.

Thanks for pointing out the problem I'd run into with my OS...I'll go ahead and get the 64-bit version. These are the kind of pointers I was hoping for.

 

[CopaMundial]

It is primarily designed to be a gaming system and will also be used in my home office, hence the wifi and card reader. Windows 7 Professional 32-bit OS

What type of work do you do? Are we talking home office, as in email / powerpoint / web browsing, or are we talking home office as in graphic design / video editing / hurricane data modelling?

 

[WowFanatic]

What type of work do you do? Are we talking home office, as in email / powerpoint / web browsing, or are we talking home office as in graphic design / video editing / hurricane data modelling?

My home office demands are basic. Letters, email, web browsing, skype, all at once...not really a factor in the design, since the gaming aspect will be the primary design parameter.

 

[neograndizer]

My home office demands are basic. Letters, email, web browsing, skype, all at once...not really a factor in the design, since the gaming aspect will be the primary design parameter.

If you want to save some dollars, you can probably go with a Samsung Spinpoint F3 (I don't own one, but there seems to be quite a few who would recommend it). You won't really notice a difference in performance. From what I've heard the Caviar Blacks are noisy drives. I actually have a Caviar Blue as my gaming HDD.

If you don't plan on using the integrated gfx for video encoding and SSD caching, then maybe look into a P67 board. For Asus, don't go below a P8P67 Pro if you plan on doing SLI in the future. Or there's the newer Asrock P67 Extreme 4 Gen3 that has PCIE 3.0 (but still runs SLI at 8x/8x). In all honesty I really don't know the real benefits of a Z68 mobo over the P67 besides utilizing the integrated gfx and SSD caching. Even then, I really don't know what exactly it's supposed to do.

 

[bcblair]

This will be my first build and am looking for someone to just let me know if this is a workable design, any tweaks I could do to improve the design, as well as any problems I may run into during the build.

I'm also interested in whether I can get a cheaper mobo that will still work well with this system.

It is primarily designed to be a gaming system and will also be used in my home office, hence the wifi and card reader. Windows 7 Professional 32-bit OS

Looks to generate a lot of heat, so I've added fans to max out the case and included a fan controller.

----------------------


AZZA Orion 202 EVO Black / Red SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ASRock Z68 PROFESSIONAL GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

OCZ OCZ750FTY 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Power Supply

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL

OCZ Onyx OCZSSD2-1ONX32G 2.5" 32GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (My boot drive)

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LG DVD±RW SuperMulti Drive 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH22NS50 Bulk - OEM

Rosewill RNX-G300LX Wireless Adapter Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128bit WEP WPA WPA2 802.1x, 802.11i, AES, TKIP with 2 dBi Antenna

Vantec NexStar SE Dual 2.5" SATA Hard Drive/SSD Rack w/Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Ports - Model MRK-525CRU2

NZXT Sentry-2 5.25" Touch Screen fan controller

(2) Antec 761345-75026-4 120mm Red LED Case Fan

My buikl is a lot like yours. You might do a search on my username and read through them.

I went with the IBM 20GB Larsen Creek SSD. I am usung it as a cache and taking advantage of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology. It uses a small SSD as cache and speeds up the storage on the normal HDD. Newgg has several videos showing the benchmark results. It is my understanding The Larsen Creek is very fast and very reliable.

Below is a link someone sent me that was very helpful.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/1

Here is a link to my last post.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/320833-31-build-complete-smart-response-technology#t2389422

 

[WowFanatic]

Some of the reviews that I've been reading are stating that a Seagate Momentus XT can actually perform almost a quickly on bootup as a SSD.

Seagate Momentus XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591

I've never seen one in action. But reviews are saying that once it's booted a few times and learned from it, then the speed is comparable. And you get the added 500GB of storage, without having to address the adjustments to your OS that a SSD requires as your boot drive.

The only reason that I would even want an SSD is for fast booting and quick loading of programs I use regularly. Has anyone heard something about this Momentus drive or seen one in action? Are there some angles to this that I'm not considering that would still incline me to prefer an SSD to this other HDD/SSD Hybrid drive?