Last Check Before I Buy - Compatibility - $1500 Gaming Rig

[Doggman9]

I've pretty much decided on everything I want for my first build. Wanted to run it buy everyone here to make sure that I won't run into any compatibility issues after all the parts start showing up at my house. So here we go.

Case: Corsair Carbide 300r
PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W 80 Plus Bronze Certified Modular
Motherboard: Asrock H77 Pro4/MVP
CPU: i5 3450
GPU: GTX 670 or GTX 570
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (the black ones)
SSD: Crucial M4 128GB
OS: Windows 7
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder
Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow Mechanical
Screen: Asus VS228H-P 21.5" 5ms LED 1920x1080

Total w/ 670: $1400
Total w/ 570: $1300

What does everyone think? Am I missing anything?

Thanks for the help

 

[boulbox]

switch h77 to a z77

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.920669

great mobo by msi nice color and look to it also. and this combo comes with a 128GB SSD

change RAM to these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233196

these will go with my board up there more and the ones that you are getting has very high heatsinks

try to get a 670 it is a newer product

get an HDD maybe a month or 2 after your SSD is full because HDD price is going way down

try to get a Heatsink fan like a hyper 212 evo $30 it will be a bit more quiet with more cooling performance

if you have a microcenter in driving distance you can get an i5 3570k for $190

other than that i would say the compatibility is all good if you want to use stock heatsink the Corsair veng will fit but i would rather have an aftermarket one because the stock can get a bit loud

 

[Doggman9]

switch h77 to a z77

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.920669

great mobo by msi nice color and look to it also. and this combo comes with a 128GB SSD

change RAM to these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233196

these will go with my board up there more and the ones that you are getting has very high heatsinks

try to get a 670 it is a newer product

get an HDD maybe a month or 2 after your SSD is full because HDD price is going way down

try to get a Heatsink fan like a hyper 212 evo $30 it will be a bit more quiet with more cooling performance

if you have a microcenter in driving distance you can get an i5 3570k for $190

other than that i would say the compatibility is all good if you want to use stock heatsink the Corsair veng will fit but i would rather have an aftermarket one because the stock can get a bit loud

What if I am not going to overclock? Basically everything you mentioned is to set me up to overclock from what I'm seeing.

No microcenter close to me and plus $190+tax is $209 which is more than my i5 3450 anyhow.
I chose to avoid the CPU overclocking route because it's money I'd rather invest in my GPU. Is this crazy talk or reasonable?

I've done ALOT of reading over the past months and it sounds like CPUs are getting ridiculous overpowered and not to mention games are getting coded better which allows the CPU to dump work loads onto the GPU (or something to that effect). I feel like my computer will last longer with a stronger GPU than a stronger CPU at this point (and besides the i5 3450 is a beast with or without a "K" on the end...). Someone PLEASE correct me if I am way off on this.

Bonus Question: At first I thought dual GPU's on the H77 was not possible but upon further inspection of the details list, it says it supports AMD QUAD CrossfireX... does that mean I could throw down dual GTX 670s in SLI on this bad boy? I know it only has 1 PCI 3.0 but could I have 1 670 running 3.0 and the other just hooked up in a PCI 2.0 slot?
Don't think I would ever do this but I was just curious haha

 

[kelthic]

Right off the details page on that processor it has 1 pcie 3.0 x16 and 1 pcie 2.0 x4. this will SLI/crossfire with the older generation of cards (albeit slowly on the x4 slot), but this x4 slot will severly limit a GTX 670. You would likely need a pcie at at least x8 on the second slot to get a good benefit from the SLI.

That cpu is fine if you do not plan to overclock, but the 2500k and 3570k do show benefits overclocked up to 4.5-4.6GHz in gaming, so while they are fast, there is still a reason to be faster.

It is reasonable to want a balanced system. a 3450 with a 670 seems pretty balanced in my mind., but i've not run the numbers on this.

 

[Why_Me]

I've pretty much decided on everything I want for my first build. Wanted to run it buy everyone here to make sure that I won't run into any compatibility issues after all the parts start showing up at my house. So here we go.

Case: Corsair Carbide 300r
PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W 80 Plus Bronze Certified Modular
Motherboard: Asrock H77 Pro4/MVP
CPU: i5 3450
GPU: GTX 670 or GTX 570
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (the black ones)
SSD: Crucial M4 128GB
OS: Windows 7
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder
Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow Mechanical
Screen: Asus VS228H-P 21.5" 5ms LED 1920x1080

Total w/ 670: $1400
Total w/ 570: $1300

What does everyone think? Am I missing anything?

Thanks for the help

Nice build.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.910224 <----- combo that board with cpu to $10

Take a look at the 670 benchmarks and you won't have any reason to stick that 570 on there.

 

[Doggman9]

@kelthic

Thanks for answering my bonus question! I'm new to all of this so I didn't know about the differences between x4 and x8. So, is this correct basically, PCI 3.0 = x8 and PCI 2.0 = x4? or is there more to it than that? So if thats the case then PCI 3.0 GPU's require x8 slots and PCI 2.0 (gtx 500s and hd 6000s and below) only require x4? None of this really matters for my build but I'm curious.

@Why_Me

Thanks!

Already had that combo in my newegg cart thanks though!

And yeah the gtx 670 is beastly... I will get one if possible

 

[Why_Me]

@kelthic

Thanks for answering my bonus question! I'm new to all of this so I didn't know about the differences between x4 and x8. So, is this correct basically, PCI 3.0 = x8 and PCI 2.0 = x4? or is there more to it than that? So if thats the case then PCI 3.0 GPU's require x8 slots and PCI 2.0 (gtx 500s and hd 6000s and below) only require x4? None of this really matters for my build but I'm curious.

@Why_Me

Thanks!

Already had that combo in my newegg cart thanks though!

And yeah the gtx 670 is beastly... I will get one if possible

Ya that 670 is the best card out there for the $$$

 

[kelthic]

Well that's a bit complicated.

PCIe 3.0 is twice as fast as pcie 2.0. Without getting too technical, you can think of it like this (basic comparison here):

PCIe 3.0 x16 would equal pcie 2.0 x32
PCIe 2.0 x4 would equal pcie 2.0 x4

Meaning your second card would be 8 times slower than your first card, which would slow your first card down while it is waiting on the second.

With the other board:
PCIe 3.0 x8 would equal pcie 2.0 x16
PCIe 3.0 x8 woiuld equal pcie 2.0 x16

In which case, the cards are performing at the same speed and one is not slowing the other down. This is more ideal.

 

[kelthic]

EDIT: i agree with the 670 though, if you can swing it. even if it means foregoing a future SLI.

 

[epsilon97]

Why does choosing a 670 mean foregoing SLI? Can't you put in two 670 cards?

 

[Doggman9]

Okay I think I understand. I dont think I'll ever go with a dual GPU setup so it doesnt really matter.

Still might bump up to this for another $65 just so I can see what all this overclocking business is about later down the road... I will surely OC my 670 so I might want to OC my CPU in the future to be honest
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.910387
i5 3570k + Asrock Z77 Pro4 -- $349 combo deal -- only $285 for i5 3450 + AR H77

Worth $65 to be able to OC later down the road?

Haha I'm so going in circles but oh well. I'll figure it out eventually. Still waiting for DIABLO 3 TO COME OUT!! WOOOOO its gonna be badass

EDIT: @epsilon
the motherboard I currently have selected does not support SLI because it only has 1 PCI 3.0 slot. That's okay with me though. I'd much rather have 1 super awesome card than 2 decent cards

 

[kelthic]

Why does choosing a 670 mean foregoing SLI? Can't you put in two 670 cards?

i was trying to say if it wasn't in the budget for both the 670 and the sli-capable motherboard that i would stick with the single 670. Can't tell you how many times i've seen people say they were going to sli/crossfire later and it never happens.

 

[Doggman9]

i was trying to say if it wasn't in the budget for both the 670 and the sli-capable motherboard that i would stick with the single 670. Can't tell you how many times i've seen people say they were going to sli/crossfire later and it never happens.

yeah I feel like this would be me haha.

you think its worth $65 to have 3570k and overclockability?

what do you think Why_Me?

EDIT: Make that $65 - $20 Newegg Giftcard so $45 difference I guess.. Starting to think it might be worth it in all honesty

 

[kelthic]

Assuming you buy the 3570k and get it to 4.5Ghz, which is pretty common from what i gather, that's a 1.1Ghz boost on a 3570k for 32%. Actually since you are coming from an i5-3450 you would be getting about 1.4GHZ more per core for $65 more. which would be a 45% gain over the 3.1 of the 3450 for $65, or 32.5% more cost.

That was all hypothetical of course, since there is no guarantee your particular chip will overclock to 4.5GHz. I guess i just got a little wrapped up

 

[Doggman9]

Assuming you buy the 3570k and get it to 4.5Ghz, which is pretty common from what i gather, that's a 1.1Ghz boost on a 3570k for 32%. Actually since you are coming from an i5-3450 you would be getting about 1.4GHZ more per core for $65 more. which would be a 45% gain over the 3.1 of the 3450 for $65, or 32.5% more cost.

That was all hypothetical of course, since there is no guarantee your particular chip will overclock to 4.5GHz. I guess i just got a little wrapped up

Hmm well I thought CPU's weren't ALL about the Clock speed. It may be a 45% gain in clock speed but what about percentage gain in performance overall in gaming? I know this is probably impossible to calculate so I guess my question is how critical is clock speed in the grand scheme of things?

 

[kelthic]

people do mention benefits on the i5 2500k all the way up to 4.5GHz. You can however, get a glimpse of posibility on the last page of the review at http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/8

In Shogun it showed 28.5% better fps than stock with a 47% better clock. That's the better of the two examples, and i'm really not sure that's going to satisfy your question very well. I wish they'd done about 10 other games in addition to those 2 lol.

 

[Doggman9]

people do mention benefits on the i5 2500k all the way up to 4.5GHz. You can however, get a glimpse of posibility on the last page of the review at http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/8

In Shogun it showed 28.5% better fps than stock with a 47% better clock. That's the better of the two examples, and i'm really not sure that's going to satisfy your question very well. I wish they'd done about 10 other games in addition to those 2 lol.

Hmmmm. I think I'm leaning towards the i5 3570k because its barely more expensive and overclocking would probably be fun to mess around with later down the road. Who knows maybe I'll get into it sooner rather than later. The way I look at it, I pay $45 now to set myself up for a cheap upgrade later ($30 cpu cooler + overclock + entertainment haha).

 

[kelthic]

nice

 

[bigcyco1]

Hmmmm. I think I'm leaning towards the i5 3570k because its barely more expensive and overclocking would probably be fun to mess around with later down the road. Who knows maybe I'll get into it sooner rather than later. The way I look at it, I pay $45 now to set myself up for a cheap upgrade later ($30 cpu cooler + overclock + entertainment haha).

+1 wise choice go with the i5-2500k or the i5 3570k forget about the i3 or the amd junk that others had been recommended you get in your other thread waste of money imo! Like i said before i see things differently then most and imho .


Building a gaming PC is all about balance. If your graphics card is faster than what your CPU can handle then the CPU will max out at 100% and the graphics card(s) will not be fully used.