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Have a few doubts about my future rig

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Hey there,

Four months ago, I got tired of MW3 and my PS3 and, when I saw a few videos of BF3 on ultra, I decided to go big and play on PC. Obviously, I would need a PC in order to do that (duh) and a good one to play the ones I wanted (e.g. BF3, Crysis 2, etc...) in all their PC goodness. First, I went for one that costed like 2000+ € but after looking at a lot of benchmarks and opinions, I decided I'd go for one with an i7 that costed 1800 €. These computers were still a bit far away from my budget, and then, I decided to go for another money saving measure: build it myself. And reading a bit more, I found a sweet spot between performance and price. Do you guys think this config is good or do I have to choose something else?

CPU: Intel i5 3570k
GPU: EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked
Mobo: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
RAM: Kingston HyperX 2x4 GB 1600 MHz
PSU: Corsair TX750M
Case: NZXT Phantom 410
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1 TB
Reader/writer DVDs: LG GH22NS90
CPU cooler: Cooler Master 212 EVO
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits

This comes at a total of 1543 €, dunno how many dollars that is. Another question, I'm planning to build it in October as a minimum. By then Windows 8 will come out, so should I buy W7 or W8?
I will use it 97% for gaming and 3% for other stuff like web browsing. And also overclocking to 4.2 GHz or so. Thanks in advance.

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That looks really good but switch out your primary SSD - the OCZ Vertex drives use an outdated Sandforce controller (save for the Vertex 4) that's known to have issues and errors. Go with a Crucial M4, Samsung 830, or Plextor PX-M3 instead. Those drives are based on the far more stable Marvell controller and use Toggle NAND.

As far as Windows 7 or Windows 8 - the majority opinion so far is that Windows 8 sucks - it's to Windows 7 what Vista was to XP.

dillondeysel23 said:
change your mobo asrock is horrible trust me. go with big names gigabyte or asus or so don't go with WD caviar change it to Seagate because they are the most reliable


Asrock is fantastic bang for the buck - they're what ASUS was 10 years ago, and FYI... Asrock started as a division of ASUS.

Seagate vs. WD vs. samsung vs. anyone else in reliability is crap. All drives of the same tier statistically have the same reliability and failure rates. Cav Black is the best consumer drive WD makes, and is just as reliable as anyone else's top tier consumer drive.

I'm not accusing you, but your comments go against the recommendations of so many experienced system builders and IT professionals as to seem trollish.

One more money-saving measure, I'd suggest grabbing a 670 and overclocking it instead of using a factory oc'd 680. There's ludicrously little performance difference between the 670 and the 680, and it'll save you $100 in the process.

have fun!
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ASRock is great and I certainly wouldn't trade mine.

At any rate, save some money by getting a Gigabyte (3 fan model) 670 GTX and overclocking it.

I'd agree you picked a winning system, maybe since it looks a lot like mine...

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll have them in account. I only find one problem in changing to Crucial, its write speed is 175 Mb/s, against the
500 Mb/s of the Vertex 3, will that affect games?
And about the graphics card, I should have said that I wanted a bit of future proof by grabbing that one and OCing it even more. If I get a Windforce 670,
can I put it to the same level?
About the RAM, I've found another kit of 2x4 GB from G.Skill that is a bit cheaper, should I grab that kit or not?

The advertised speeds of ssd's are for the most part, utter B.S. The crucial m4 and vertex 3 have comparable speeds in everything you'd care to do with either one. The vertex 3 has slightly better performance with compressed data, due to the sandforce controller, but slightly worse performance with uncompressed data. The M4 performs the same with any type of data.

hope this helps!

Rise and Shine said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll have them in account. I only find one problem in changing to Crucial, its write speed is 175 Mb/s, against the
500 Mb/s of the Vertex 3, will that affect games?
And about the graphics card, I should have said that I wanted a bit of future proof by grabbing that one and OCing it even more. If I get a Windforce 670,
can I put it to the same level?
About the RAM, I've found another kit of 2x4 GB from G.Skill that is a bit cheaper, should I grab that kit or not?


Not really - the Crucial is slower but it's far more stable than Sandforce drives. Just last night I had to run a system restore (again... argh) on my Sandforce drive, I'm replacing it with a Crucial M4 once I get the chance.

Okay, now I've narrowed it down to two components: the graphics card and the RAM.
I've found out that G.Skill's kits are cheaper than Kingston's, should I buy the G.Skill kit?
And I've found three graphics cards that could be worth it:

- Gigabyte Windforce 3x GTX 670
- Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
- Zotac GTX 670 ZT-60302-10P

Some of you have recommended me the Windforce 670, it has a mild OC and good cooling for more overclocking.
The GTX 680 from Asus, has a lot of OC and also some cooling.
And the Zotac is the one that has the most OC in the review of the seven 670.

Thing is, I want quite some performance for future proofing, since I want to keep it for at least two years and
still play games on 1920x1080 on high or ultra. It's quite an expensive inversion and I want to get all the juice I can from it until I need another one. Can I get the same OC in the Windforce as in the Zotac or Asus?

The only 670 I would buy, right now, is the Gigabyte. It's one of the cheapest you can get and comes with the best cooler. You can easily OC the card yourself. The only card I would consider buying over it would be and EVGA "AR" model, but those don't exist.

Rise and Shine said:
Okay, now I've narrowed it down to two components: the graphics card and the RAM.
I've found out that G.Skill's kits are cheaper than Kingston's, should I buy the G.Skill kit?
And I've found three graphics cards that could be worth it:

- Gigabyte Windforce 3x GTX 670
- Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
- Zotac GTX 670 ZT-60302-10P

Some of you have recommended me the Windforce 670, it has a mild OC and good cooling for more overclocking.
The GTX 680 from Asus, has a lot of OC and also some cooling.
And the Zotac is the one that has the most OC in the review of the seven 670.

Thing is, I want quite some performance for future proofing, since I want to keep it for at least two years and
still play games on 1920x1080 on high or ultra. It's quite an expensive inversion and I want to get all the juice I can from it until I need another one. Can I get the same OC in the Windforce as in the Zotac or Asus?


As far as RAM goes - G.Skill makes great RAM but be sure to get the Ares low profile RAM if you're using a cooler.

I would say of those - get the Gigabyte. If not then go for the EVGA 670 FTW version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Now, here's what I hope to be the definitive build. I chose a smaller drive because I don't use a lot of space, and the DirectCU II TOP version of the 670 because it also has some nice cooling and much OC done.


CPU: Intel i5 3570k

GPU: Asus GTX 670 DirectII CU TOP

Mobo: Asrock Z77 Extreme4

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4 GB 1600 MHz

PSU: Corsair TX750M

Case: NZXT Phantom 410

SSD: Crucial M4 128 GB

HDD: WD Caviar Black 500 GB

R/w DVDs: LG GH22NS90

CPU cooler: Cooler Master 212 EVO

OS: Windows 7 or 8, dunno still.

The final price for this rig is 1404'90 €, including the OS, which is W7.

Rise and Shine said:
Now, here's what I hope to be the definitive build. I chose a smaller drive because I don't use a lot of space, and the DirectCU II TOP version of the 670 because it also has some nice cooling and much OC done.


CPU: Intel i5 3570k

GPU: Asus GTX 670 DirectII CU TOP

Mobo: Asrock Z77 Extreme4

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4 GB 1600 MHz

PSU: Corsair TX750M

Case: NZXT Phantom 410

SSD: Crucial M4 128 GB

HDD: WD Caviar Black 500 GB

R/w DVDs: LG GH22NS90

CPU cooler: Cooler Master 212 EVO

OS: Windows 7 or 8, dunno still.

The final price for this rig is 1404'90 €, including the OS, which is W7.


The only thing I'd say is get a 1 - 2TB green drive - it can be done for the same price as that 500GB WD Black drive, but otherwise that all looks good to me. As for Windows 8, don't worry about it, the initial reports from testers say it's not that great.
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