Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Closed

First build need help

Tags:
Last response: in Systems
Share

Hey guys, I'm new to this site and I'm attempting to do my first build. I would like help to know if the parts I have selected are compatible and whether there is a better choice to go with. It will be much appreciated if you also state what makes your suggestion better than what I have selected so that I may stay in a certain budget.

I am mainly doing this build to do gaming, watch movies, and surf the web. The budget that I plan to stick to is 1.5k-2k. At the moment with everything from newegg im looking at roughly 1.8k (2 monitors but thinking of just getting one). Im curious about everyone's views on the hd though. I have heard of people having many problems with ssd and they revert back to just having an hd. Is this a big problem? Or should I look into getting an ssd along with one hd?

LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM $18.99 should I get one or two?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Unbeatable Gaming Case $159.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $79.99 also should I get 1 or 2 of these? potential raid 0?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASUS VS Series VS247H-P Black 23.6" 2ms LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 50000000:1 (ASCR) $189.99 have 2 selected, thinking of just getting 1 though

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

EVGA 02G-P3-1559-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $169.99 I planned on getting 2 and putting them in sli, should I get a different card or stick with these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 (CMPSU-850HX) 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply $163.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B $58.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASRock Z68 PROFESSIONAL GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $269.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K $219.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

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 $26.99 is there another fan I can buy to add to the other side of this that anyone would recommend? or should the one fan be enough?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...


Any help is much appreciated and I look forward to everyone's opinions. Also, is there anything new coming soon that would I should wait for to come out? Ex. is there a new proc. coming out that would make the i5 or i7 cheaper? The build will be happening near the end of Nov or end of Dec/new year. So if something "bigger and better" will be coming out that will drive the price down a little I am willing to wait. If I have left anything out please make me aware of it. I know I havent selected an OS but i may be able to get one for free or for really cheap, as I am a student yet.

More about : build

Register or log in to remove

From what I can see you've gone over-kill on some components (motherboard and case) and you've skimped out on the Graphics card. If this build is primarily for gaming, there's some big changes id make in order to maximise performance.

Lets call it a $1.5k budget without monitors and your looking at minimum a GTX 570 or 6970.

As for optical drives, unless you have a "need" for 2, then no there's simply no point, just get one.

Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4 Gen3 $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
CPU: i5-2500k $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
GPU: Sapphire 6970 $300 (after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
RAM: G.Skill 1600MHz 8GB RAM $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
PSU: XFX XXX 850w $125 (after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
CPU Cooler: Hyper 212 EVO $35
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F3 $60 ($10 off w/ promo code EMCKAGK22, ends 10/6)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
SSD: 128GB Crucial M4 $197
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Case: Antec 1200 $160 (Left this in for you since it fits budget :)  )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

TOTAL $1346 (excluding monitors)

Room left on a 2k Budget for a nice x3 Multi Monitor set up:

x3 ($189 each) $567 ASUS VS Series VS247H-P Black 23.6"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

TOTAL $1913

You might be able to find some nice 22" monitors cheaper, which would also make a nice multi monitor set up (depends on the space you have available).

Thanks for the reply AdrianPerry. Your post has helped me spend a bit less and get a few better parts, but I have a few questions. The biggest questions I have would be about the hdd, I noticed the Samsung one you picked out has a 32 MB cache and connects with SATA 3.0Gb/s. The WD Black Caviar that I had selected has a 64 MB cache and connects with SATA 6.0Gb/s. Would the difference in these 2 products amount to a big performance difference? Or would it be minimal? Also, how stable is the ssd that you picked? I have heard a lot of horror stories about ssd not being reliable at all, and the fact that the price is still over $1/Gb is a bit of a downer.

I have already switched the mobo, psu, and the cpu cooler. And the reason I had the Antec 1200 selected was one because of the cpu cooler. Its fairly large and I wasnt sure which case I should go with, plus it looks fairly nice and around the same price as a lot of mid towers I was looking at and cheaper then a lot of full towers that I saw. The ram that you picked out was also deactivated.

Could someone tell me the advantage of OC ram?

Ok, so i was looking at more graphics cards and came upon these 3:

ASUS ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $499.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $349.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASUS MATRIX GTX580 P/2DIS/1536MD5 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $529.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With the GTX 570 having a rebate price of $319.99 I would be willing to go a little over budget and get 2 of em if the performance would be a lot better. What does everyone think?

Also I was looking at a few ssd and came across this one:

Kingston HyperX SH100S3B/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (HyperX Upgrade Kit) $244.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The only thing I am leery of with getting an ssd would be the issues I have heard of with them. If someone can tell me its reliable and worth the extra money i have no problem getting one. Would this be a good one to buy as well? It has a little less memory then the one posted above but it comes with a 2.5-3.5 tray, and the reviews are all good so far. If I wind up getting an ssd should I still get 2 hdd? or would you recommend just getting one?
Related ressources
Ask the community

Best solution

Ok back-tracking slightly:

HDD - The cache will make very little noticeable difference, especially since you will be running all Applications from your SSD, you HDD will only really be for large media storage. The SpinPoint F3/SeaGate Barracuda is just a cheaper, and still reliable option that undercuts the WD Caviar Blacks price. As for SATA II or SATA III - no difference at all will occur with HDD's.

SSD Issues - As far as i know, the only SSD issues that have occured are due to the SANDFORCE controller. Detail's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SandForce#SSDs

GPU - GTX 570 in SLI is going to perform very very well, however this allows no room for further expansion, graphically, without replacing both cards. Having a single GTX 580 now, leaves you the option to then add another when more performance is required. Just allows more "headroom" or "expansion". Obviously cost and performance desired is something only you can decide.

1/2 HDDs - Well this really just depends on your needs. You can add another HDD at any time, just connect it up to a SATA port. Unless you have some serious file/media storage needs, 1TB will suit most users then if a time ever comes where you fill that space, grab another 1TB drive then. Chances are you'll get it for a much cheaper price than what you will pay initially anyway.

OC'd RAM - Basically OC'd RAM is the same as an OC'd CPU, it just performs slightly quicker. However unlike CPU's, RAM over-clocking has much less noticeable performance gains. The only differences you'll possibly ever notice is on synthetic benchmarks, not real world application. Generally for SandyBridge, 1600MHz, CL9, 1.5v is considered the best value for money vs. performance. Paying extra for 1866MHz or higher, just doesn't show enough benefit to warrant the extra cost, and certainly in gaming, wont show any affect at all on frame rates.

Here's an article that might be worth flicking through if you wish to better understand RAM, this article shows a comparison of various RAM kits for SandyBridge CPU's (it says P67 but this applies to Z68 motherboards too): http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/corsair-vengeance-crucial...

Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Systems categories
!