Ivy Bridge Set-up

brads2012

April 18, 2012 12:36:45 PM

Approximate Purchase Date: 1-14 Days

Budget Range: 2-3k (I can reach 3k if needed but obviously if there are cheaper parts which offer the same specs choose that)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Audio/Video rendering, HD (maybe 3D) movies, internet browsing

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: http://www.ebay.com.au, anything which ships to Perth, Western Australia.

Country: Australia

Parts Preferences: Intel Ivy Bridge CPU

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: SLI x2

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1200)

Additional Comments: Need to have a window and lots of bling, I would like a quiet PC

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Parts currently looking at (nothing is set in stone, up for any suggestions/changes):

Motherboard: Fatal1ty Z77 Professional
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.us.asp?Model=Fatal1ty...

CPU: Intel i7 3770K (possibly overclocked if I need it)

GPU: (EVGA?) GTX 680

Memory: 16/32gb 1600/1866mhz Corsair Vengeance/Dominator or G-skill

PSU: Aerocool Strike X Power 1100W (just incase I get a second GPU
http://www.aerocoolaustralia.com.au/psu/strikex/psu_st_...

SSD: Intel 520 Series Cherryville 240GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HDD: WD Caviar Green 2-3TB
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=120

Case: Thermaltake Armor Revo
http://www.thermaltake.com.au/products-model.aspx?id=C_...

More about : ivy bridge set

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samuelspark

April 18, 2012 1:28:05 PM

Since you have a large budget, I would get dual 680's http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... .

And two Velociraptors 1TB in RAID 0. Maybe another Intel 520 for RAID 0. It'll give you insane performance.

And like a 900w to 1000w PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... .

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brads2012

April 18, 2012 2:19:24 PM

samuelspark said:

Since you have a large budget, I would get dual 680's http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... .

And two Velociraptors 1TB in RAID 0. Maybe another Intel 520 for RAID 0. It'll give you insane performance.

And like a 900w to 1000w PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... .

Do you think I have enough money for that?
From just a glance at everything it's already looking to be around 2k and I haven't even got cooling yet =\

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mcopinger

April 18, 2012 2:52:02 PM

you could Liquid cool the CPU with a pretty basic XSPC kit for less then $200, It can't be to much more to include the GPU's but I don't have to much experience with that. I do like where Samuel is going with the graphics cards but the raid array may be a little overboard... maybe a raid 0,5 or 6 data drive and a SSD boot drive. the data drive array will help with your video rendering and the SSD boot drive (large enough for all your apps and OS) will really bring the system to life. idk about raiding SSDs. sounds to me like putting an aftermarket exhaust on a twin turbo porshe. there are gains yes, but worth it? mehh. JMHO.

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samuelspark

April 18, 2012 3:47:42 PM

brads2012 said:

Do you think I have enough money for that?
From just a glance at everything it's already looking to be around 2k and I haven't even got cooling yet =\

You can get the Noctua D14 for $80. Screw the WD Green and get Raid 1TB Velociraptors and you should still be in budget.

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rdzona

April 18, 2012 4:39:07 PM

samuelspark said:

You can get the Noctua D14 for $80. Screw the WD Green and get Raid 1TB Velociraptors and you should still be in budget.

Personnally I would get an Corsair H80 for that same price. And second the ssd boot and raid hdd's. Would be a nice setup indeed.

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Why_Me

April 18, 2012 5:29:07 PM

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mightymaxio

April 18, 2012 5:43:04 PM

Man those prices from pccasegear are outrageously expensive. At that point i would just recommend getting a computer from dell or hp over those high prices you listed lol.

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Why_Me

April 18, 2012 5:52:58 PM

mightymaxio said:

Man those prices from pccasegear are outrageously expensive. At that point i would just recommend getting a computer from dell or hp over those high prices you listed lol.

I take it your not from Australia.

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mightymaxio

April 18, 2012 6:11:43 PM

Why_Me said:

I take it your not from Australia.

No but man if prices are that high over there, i feel for ya. That would really suck.

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brads2012

April 19, 2012 12:28:11 AM

Quote:

you could Liquid cool the CPU with a pretty basic XSPC kit for less then $200, It can't be to much more to include the GPU's but I don't have to much experience with that. I do like where Samuel is going with the graphics cards but the raid array may be a little overboard... maybe a raid 0,5 or 6 data drive and a SSD boot drive. the data drive array will help with your video rendering and the SSD boot drive (large enough for all your apps and OS) will really bring the system to life. idk about raiding SSDs. sounds to me like putting an aftermarket exhaust on a twin turbo porshe. there are gains yes, but worth it? mehh. JMHO.

I was thinking about liquid cooling.. but I like to move my PC around a lot (via car) and I read horror stories about the water leaking out and frying parts.
I have absolutely no idea about raiding.. as in what it does and how to even implement it.

Quote:

No but man if prices are that high over there, i feel for ya. That would really suck.

Yes, yes they are.. hence why I said my priority buying site is ebay, since I can get stuff from American online stores for like half the price.

Why_Me said:

Cheers for the input, though I had a few queries for you.
- Are you sure I could handle an 850w PSU if I were to get 2x 680s?
- I read that the Intel controller kicked sandforces ass, is this wrong?
- What's the difference between the caviar green and the HDD you listed?

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Why_Me

April 19, 2012 1:28:34 AM

brads2012 said:

Yes, yes they are.. hence why I said my priority buying site is ebay, since I can get stuff from American online stores for like half the price.

Cheers for the input, though I had a few queries for you.
- Are you sure I could handle an 850w PSU if I were to get 2x 680s?
- I read that the Intel controller kicked sandforces ass, is this wrong?
- What's the difference between the caviar green and the HDD you listed?

That build gives you a layout of what you can get on ebay. 850w gives you plenty of headroom with dual 680's (you could get by with a 750w psu) and you won't find that psu for that price in the states after you figure in shipping charges. It's a decent deal for $150 AUD...same with that Seagate HD I posted. It's a lot faster than that WD Green HD.

As far as the Intel vs SD controllers...I haven't seen any reviews on it so you would have a better idea than I would, but I do know the SF controllers have gotten the kinks out with recent firmware updates.

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samuelspark

April 19, 2012 1:54:51 AM

brads2012 said:

Quote:

you could Liquid cool the CPU with a pretty basic XSPC kit for less then $200, It can't be to much more to include the GPU's but I don't have to much experience with that. I do like where Samuel is going with the graphics cards but the raid array may be a little overboard... maybe a raid 0,5 or 6 data drive and a SSD boot drive. the data drive array will help with your video rendering and the SSD boot drive (large enough for all your apps and OS) will really bring the system to life. idk about raiding SSDs. sounds to me like putting an aftermarket exhaust on a twin turbo porshe. there are gains yes, but worth it? mehh. JMHO.

I was thinking about liquid cooling.. but I like to move my PC around a lot (via car) and I read horror stories about the water leaking out and frying parts.
I have absolutely no idea about raiding.. as in what it does and how to even implement it.

Quote:

No but man if prices are that high over there, i feel for ya. That would really suck.

Yes, yes they are.. hence why I said my priority buying site is ebay, since I can get stuff from American online stores for like half the price.

Cheers for the input, though I had a few queries for you.
- Are you sure I could handle an 850w PSU if I were to get 2x 680s?
- I read that the Intel controller kicked sandforces ass, is this wrong?
- What's the difference between the caviar green and the HDD you listed?

Raid basically speeds up your storage devices and add's safety measures should your HDD ever die. http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/raid-levels-tutoria...

This is what happens if you raid SSD's. (Raid controllers come with most high end mobo's so it should come with that one). http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/kigsto...
Almost 1GB/s read. Freaking amazing. Try dual 120GB SSD's if you can't afford two 240GB's.

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brads2012

April 19, 2012 2:53:24 AM

samuelspark said:

Raid basically speeds up your storage devices and add's safety measures should your HDD ever die. http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/raid-levels-tutoria...

This is what happens if you raid SSD's. (Raid controllers come with most high end mobo's so it should come with that one). http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/kigsto...
Almost 1GB/s read. Freaking amazing. Try dual 120GB SSD's if you can't afford two 240GB's.

Is is possible to combine to two 120s to show as 1 240gb ssd? That'd be so much smarter to just do that instead of one 240 for the same price..

Quote:

That build gives you a layout of what you can get on ebay. 850w gives you plenty of headroom with dual 680's (you could get by with a 750w psu) and you won't find that psu for that price in the states after you figure in shipping charges. It's a decent deal for $150 AUD...same with that Seagate HD I posted. It's a lot faster than that WD Green HD.

I had a quick look at the connectors for the PSU you listed; the geforce requires 2x 6pin connectors each, so if I was to get 2 I wouldn't be able to power them both?

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samuelspark

April 19, 2012 10:19:45 AM

brads2012 said:

Is is possible to combine to two 120s to show as 1 240gb ssd? That'd be so much smarter to just do that instead of one 240 for the same price..

Quote:

That build gives you a layout of what you can get on ebay. 850w gives you plenty of headroom with dual 680's (you could get by with a 750w psu) and you won't find that psu for that price in the states after you figure in shipping charges. It's a decent deal for $150 AUD...same with that Seagate HD I posted. It's a lot faster than that WD Green HD.

I had a quick look at the connectors for the PSU you listed; the geforce requires 2x 6pin connectors each, so if I was to get 2 I wouldn't be able to power them both?

http://www.hdd-tool.com/partition-manager/how-to-solve-...
I believe you can combine 2x 120GB -> 240GB.

Also, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... . This is a Corsair Gaming Series 800w for $125 (don't know conversion rate). It has 4 6+2 pins so it should work.

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brads2012

April 20, 2012 12:23:41 PM

I was thinking about getting this to cool my CPU. Is this really effective? Also how does it work when you don't need to refill it? :S

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i...

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samuelspark

April 20, 2012 3:11:56 PM

brads2012 said:

I was thinking about getting this to cool my CPU. Is this really effective? Also how does it work when you don't need to refill it? :S

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i...

Are you going for a high overclock? Water Coolers are normally very good. Also, if you didn't know, watercooling can be just as loud/louder than air cooling.

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krugorz

April 20, 2012 3:20:33 PM

this is very good http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... but is aircooler

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brads2012

April 20, 2012 11:46:03 PM

samuelspark said:

Are you going for a high overclock? Water Coolers are normally very good. Also, if you didn't know, watercooling can be just as loud/louder than air cooling.

No point in getting the K series if you aren't going to OC right?

I was thinking of getting the Corsair Dominator cooling, was planning to OC my RAM. Will this help a LOT or is it more of a gimmick?
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i...

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Why_Me

April 21, 2012 12:12:17 AM

brads2012 said:

No point in getting the K series if you aren't going to OC right?

I was thinking of getting the Corsair Dominator cooling, was planning to OC my RAM. Will this help a LOT or is it more of a gimmick?
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i...

Gimmick. Not really much of a need to o/c your RAM these days with what's out on the market atm. Like this RAM down below.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i... $89.00
G.Skill Ares F3-2133C9D-8GAB 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3

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samuelspark

April 21, 2012 12:46:29 AM

brads2012 said:

No point in getting the K series if you aren't going to OC right?

I was thinking of getting the Corsair Dominator cooling, was planning to OC my RAM. Will this help a LOT or is it more of a gimmick?
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_i...

Gimmick. The sweet spot for RAM is 1600 MHz. Performance doesn't improve much after that.

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brads2012

April 21, 2012 1:18:40 AM

I was thinking of getting two of these giving me a total of 16GB
http://www.corsair.com/memory-by-product-family/vengean...
The timings are amazing, how would I go about lowering them even further? From what I've read, timings mean a lot more than frequency passed 1600Mhz. Correct?

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samuelspark

April 22, 2012 11:07:29 PM

Sure. Seems like you're going for the absolute best.

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brads2012

April 23, 2012 8:08:49 AM

samuelspark said:

Sure. Seems like you're going for the absolute best.

I'm trying to make it last for atleast 2 years. All my rebuilt computers since now have only lasted me a year max before I needed to upgrade. This is the first time I am building a full on gaming machine from scratch so I'm making sure I know everything before I go ahead with it. All your replies are really helping me

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