- Jul 15, 2012
- 12
- 0
- 18,510
Approximate Purchase Date: Near Future within Month
Budget Range: Trying to stay under 1300 USD
System Usage from Most to Least Important: mix of: gaming (light to moderate), Internet, movies, music
Are you buying a monitor: Yes / No – already did, found a Dell U2312HM from Dell.com for $239
Do you need to buy OS: No / maybe: I have an ISO for Win7 Pro SP1 64 bit, just found my product key, was a academic acquisition while taking some IT courses. Assuming that will work, if not, any opinions on Windows 8?
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com -- essentially would prefer single vendor. I no longer live near enough to a Microcenter or I would consider grabbing some parts there.
Location: US – East Coast
Parts Preferences:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair Graphite Series 600T CC600TM Mid-Tower Gaming Case
Power Supply: Corsair 600W ATX12V Power Supply
Optical Drive: LITE-ON Black Internal 12x BD Combo SATA Model iHES212-08 LightScribe Support
Monitor: Dell U2312HM – already purchased / also have an NEC LCD 1860NX Xtra View – 18 inch monitor
Overclocking: Maybe, not really sure on doing this. Are there issues / situations to avoid manual or auto (board set buttons or bios autoset)?
SLI or Crossfire: No / not at this time
Additional Comments:
I am not looking for a lot of bells and whistles, would prefer reliability.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading:
Replacing a 9 almost 10 year old Alienware desktop.
Some pre-built systems at least used to be much better. Then again my pc is prior to Dell’s “wallmartization” of Alienware. Essentially I am still running a 3 GHz system with only the following issues: bus-side bandwidth and AGP bandwidth issues. Still have original power supply and only the CPU heatsink fan, a CoolerMaster, makes noise due to the bearings reaching end of life. The system was spec’d high end at the time along with the NEC Monitor above. For what it was going to cost to build I paid $100 over that figure to include pre-building and a 3 year warranty. The only part that “failed” was the HDD, but I think that had to do with the NTFS structure failing as the drive worked fine within my Knoppix environment.
With that said I put the parts list together above and decided to compromise on the board to Asrock. Having worked for companies that are involved in the production of the boards and CPUs, I would be more comfortable with an Intel “K” board and cpu, but most seem to recommend the Asrock.
With the parts chosen, are there any known compatibility issues?
The extent of games I might load are something along the lines of Fallout 3, is the GTX 670 overkill and are the 500 series TI Fermis still viable? Just looking at tweaking the price, I understand fully load up on video in the beginning. Movies, music and video will probably constitute majority of use.
For cooling fans, I believe this case has 3, is that adequate? CPU cooling – is the stock cooler OK on this K cpu if not overclocking?
I saw that there are some deals that run through first of August, so I was checking now as timing might be good for the back to school season.
Thanks
**********************************************************************************
I found these links useful for installing the CPU Cooler:
From CoolerMaster youtube:
Hyper 212 Plus Installation Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSq_xbxsm7Q
User generated product video:
Installing an After Market CPU Cooler Fan - Cooler Master Hyper 212
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWG73Mom4cY
Budget Range: Trying to stay under 1300 USD
System Usage from Most to Least Important: mix of: gaming (light to moderate), Internet, movies, music
Are you buying a monitor: Yes / No – already did, found a Dell U2312HM from Dell.com for $239
Do you need to buy OS: No / maybe: I have an ISO for Win7 Pro SP1 64 bit, just found my product key, was a academic acquisition while taking some IT courses. Assuming that will work, if not, any opinions on Windows 8?
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com -- essentially would prefer single vendor. I no longer live near enough to a Microcenter or I would consider grabbing some parts there.
Location: US – East Coast
Parts Preferences:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair Graphite Series 600T CC600TM Mid-Tower Gaming Case
Power Supply: Corsair 600W ATX12V Power Supply
Optical Drive: LITE-ON Black Internal 12x BD Combo SATA Model iHES212-08 LightScribe Support
Monitor: Dell U2312HM – already purchased / also have an NEC LCD 1860NX Xtra View – 18 inch monitor
Overclocking: Maybe, not really sure on doing this. Are there issues / situations to avoid manual or auto (board set buttons or bios autoset)?
SLI or Crossfire: No / not at this time
Additional Comments:
I am not looking for a lot of bells and whistles, would prefer reliability.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading:
Replacing a 9 almost 10 year old Alienware desktop.
Some pre-built systems at least used to be much better. Then again my pc is prior to Dell’s “wallmartization” of Alienware. Essentially I am still running a 3 GHz system with only the following issues: bus-side bandwidth and AGP bandwidth issues. Still have original power supply and only the CPU heatsink fan, a CoolerMaster, makes noise due to the bearings reaching end of life. The system was spec’d high end at the time along with the NEC Monitor above. For what it was going to cost to build I paid $100 over that figure to include pre-building and a 3 year warranty. The only part that “failed” was the HDD, but I think that had to do with the NTFS structure failing as the drive worked fine within my Knoppix environment.
With that said I put the parts list together above and decided to compromise on the board to Asrock. Having worked for companies that are involved in the production of the boards and CPUs, I would be more comfortable with an Intel “K” board and cpu, but most seem to recommend the Asrock.
With the parts chosen, are there any known compatibility issues?
The extent of games I might load are something along the lines of Fallout 3, is the GTX 670 overkill and are the 500 series TI Fermis still viable? Just looking at tweaking the price, I understand fully load up on video in the beginning. Movies, music and video will probably constitute majority of use.
For cooling fans, I believe this case has 3, is that adequate? CPU cooling – is the stock cooler OK on this K cpu if not overclocking?
I saw that there are some deals that run through first of August, so I was checking now as timing might be good for the back to school season.
Thanks
**********************************************************************************
I found these links useful for installing the CPU Cooler:
From CoolerMaster youtube:
Hyper 212 Plus Installation Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSq_xbxsm7Q
User generated product video:
Installing an After Market CPU Cooler Fan - Cooler Master Hyper 212
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWG73Mom4cY
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