Critique my sub $1500 build

[a bag of it]

hey guys, second time building a pc after having a macbook for a while. I already have a full size atx case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor from my last build, so I'll only need internals.

Here's the parts list:
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/8558/screenshot20120903at124.png

 

[blazorthon]

What is the purpose of this machine? Strictly gaming, gaming and productivity, or w/e else?

If it's strictly for gaming, then I recommend getting an i5 instead of an i7. The i7's advantage over i5s is mostly just Hyper-Threading and modern games don't use that many threads, so i7s and i7s perform almost identically.

If it's for productivity, then the i7's Hyper-Threading Technology might matter more.

Either way, I recommend spending another $20 on your hard drive for a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue. That's more reliable than current Samsung drives which are just re-branded Seagate drives. Seagate has kinda sucked in reliability for consumers since they nabbed Maxtor.

I also recommend a DDR-1600 memory kit with heat spreaders. This isn't a $500 build, so there's no good reason to go with dirt cheap memory.

The motherboard should come with plenty of SATA cables, so you shouldn't need to buy a new one.

I also don't like the Adata SSDs, but that's a good price for that drive. I prefer going with either Samsung 830s or SSDs with a Marvell controller for supreme reliability and performance, but that costs more money.

 

[a bag of it]

Strictly for gaming, so should I just go for the best i5? 3570k?

any reason not to go with wd black over blue if they're the same price?

 

[blazorthon]

Blacks are as good as or better than the Blues of the same generation in pretty much every way. If a Black is at the same price and capacity as a same gen Blue, then it's probably the better buy.

Yes, you should go with an i5. The 3570K is easily recommended.

 

[bctande1]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($32.30 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($199.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($109.99 @ Best Buy)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card ($419.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT Phantom (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $1422.19
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-09-03 18:28 EDT-0400)

This build would run you much better

 

[blazorthon]

*Much* better is subjective to your definition of much. The 7950 and the 670 have fairly similar overclocking performance, but 7950 can usually come out a little ahead. You're back to using an unreliable hard drive, although your SSD recommendation is undeniably better. Sticking with the 7950 means another $100 to do whatever with while having slightly better overall performance where overclocking is considered.

 

[bctande1]

*Much* better is subjective to your definition of much. The 7950 and the 670 have fairly similar overclocking performance, but 7950 can usually come out a little ahead. You're back to using an unreliable hard drive, although your SSD recommendation is undeniably better. Sticking with the 7950 means another $100 to do whatever with while having slightly better overall performance where overclocking is considered.

Your not gonna see one 7950 on the market that is gonna OC like the ASUS 670.

 

[blazorthon]

I disagree. The good 7950s can go as far as the good 7970s and they can usually go at least slightly farther than the best 670s, especially where tessellation, AA, and such are used extensively. The Sapphire or HIS 7950s can go farther than I think that you give them credit for and they aren't even necessarily the best 7950s.

 

[bctande1]

READ LONG AND HARD

Yes, you've seen correctly, the ASUS GeForce GTX 670 Direct CU II TOP is the first graphics card ever that I gave a perfect ten score. The stock GeForce GTX 670 provides already great performance, but ASUS has topped that by boosting it with a large overclock out of the box which catapults it beyond GTX 680 performance levels. Averaged over all our testing we see the card 1% faster than GTX 680 and 8% faster than GTX 670. The card does so without massive power consumption increase thanks to an efficient VRM design and low temperatures. ASUS has done away with NVIDIA's cheap voltage regulation circuitry and put a much better CHiL controller on the card, which also supports voltage control and monitoring.
The ASUS DC II cooler is a revelation on the GTX 670, it provides incredibly low noise levels. In both idle and load the card emits almost no noise, it is actually quieter under full load than most other cards on the market are at idle. Not only noise is low but temperatures are great, too. With only 74°C under load the card is cooler than most other GTX 670 cards tested today.
Manual overclocking works well too, especially memory, which is not overclocked out of the box, performs exceedingly well. We see well over 100 MHz extra memory overclocking potential compared to the NVIDIA reference design, thanks to the revamped PCB design. In the end the card reaches 1890 MHz memory, which is just 5 MHz shy of the highest memory clock ever recorded in a TPU review.
Overall the ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU II is the best card I ever tested. I simply can't find anything wrong with it. ASUS has sucessfully addressed all the shortcomings of NVIDIA's reference design, yet asks only a moderate $20 price premium for their card. This means that you can get faster than GTX 680 performance at $420. And the card manages all that with a dual slot cooler, that just screams "put me in SLI". -- Tweaktown

ONLY CARD TO EVER SCORE A PERFECT 10 ON TWEAKTOWN

 

[a bag of it]

Here's my updated build. Only thing i'm not set on is the PSU, how important is the platinum rating? Based off some calculators 750w is pretty conservative...what do you think?

 

[blazorthon]

Nothing in that says that it is better than an overclocked 7950 with current drivers. I'm not saying that it's not a great card (It is a great card), just that it's not going to kill a good 7950 like you seem to think that it will.

 

[bctande1]

Nothing in that says that it is better than an overclocked 7950 with current drivers. I'm not saying that it's not a great card (It is a great card), just that it's not going to kill a good 7950 like you seem to think that it will.

What are you even saying?

Show me a 7950 that can OC to 680 speeds..

 

[blazorthon]

For overclocking, 7950 ~= 7970 in performance with the same cooler. The difference between the 7950 and the 7970 in performance is almost purely caused by the difference in GPU clock frequency and memory clock frequency. The 7950 can overclock to similar frequencies to a 7970 with the same cooler. The two have near identical performance when at the same frequency.

 

[bctande1]

For overclocking, 7950 ~= 7970 in performance with the same cooler. The difference between the 7950 and the 7970 in performance is almost purely caused by the difference in GPU clock frequency and memory clock frequency. The 7950 can overclock to similar frequencies to a 7970 with the same cooler. The two have near identical performance when at the same frequency.

Very nice. Now show me some numbers, or a review.

 

[azeem40]

I doubt he'd be saying that if he didn't know what he was saying.

 

[a bag of it]

can you guys answer my noob psu questions

 

[blazorthon]

Very nice. Now show me some numbers, or a review.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/34761-amd-hd-7950-vs-hd-7970-clocks/?page=10

Our look at the reference Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 cards shows there to be a 15 per cent gap in performance in favour of the range-topping GPU. But raise the HD 7950's clocks to the higher speeds of the 7970 and the gap melts away to around five percent, often a little less, depending upon gaming title.

5% or less... That's as small as or even smaller than the average difference between a 680 and a 670. The 7950 also manages this at a much lower power consumption than the 7970. However, this is undoubtedly due to the difference in voltage being used (the 7950 is still at stock voltage and so is the 7970, so the 7950's lower stock voltage means lower power consumption. Given the same voltage, the 7950 can clearly overclock as well as the 7970. Given the same cooler, it can handle the same heat for that performance.

 

[azeem40]

750W is enough and then some.

 

[bctande1]

I doubt he'd be saying that if he didn't know what he was saying.

I doubt TweakTown would be saying that if they didn't know what they were doing

 

[blazorthon]

I doubt TweakTown would be saying that if they didn't know what they were doing

What Tweaktown said doesn't contradict what I'm saying, so that doesn't matter.

 

[a bag of it]

750W is enough and then some.

I was asking if I could get away with a smaller/cheaper one

 

[blazorthon]

I was asking if I could get away with a smaller/cheaper one

Platinum just means that it is an extremely power efficient PSU. You could go for a cheaper PSU with a lower wattage if you don't want to do SLI/CF. A 550W-600W would be plenty for a single card, some overclocking, and overclocking the CPU while having some room for some upgrades.

 

[bctande1]

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/34761-amd-hd-7950-vs-hd-7970-clocks/?page=10

Our look at the reference Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 cards shows there to be a 15 per cent gap in performance in favour of the range-topping GPU. But raise the HD 7950's clocks to the higher speeds of the 7970 and the gap melts away to around five percent, often a little less, depending upon gaming title.

5% or less... That's as small as or even smaller than the average difference between a 680 and a 670. The 7950 also manages this at a much lower power consumption than the 7970. However, this is undoubtedly due to the difference in voltage being used (the 7950 is still at stock voltage and so is the 7970, so the 7950's lower stock voltage means lower power consumption. Given the same voltage, the 7950 can clearly overclock as well as the 7970. Given the same cooler, it can handle the same heat for that performance.

You seem to be beating around the bush. I asked you SHOW ME A 7950 THAT CAN OC TO 680 SPEEDS The ASUS 670 can do that undoubtedly. I don't see a 7950 on the market that can do the same.
I don't know why you keep talking about the 7970 in comparison to the 7950. I am talking about the 670/7950/680. Right now, the only card better than a 680 overall at stock is a 7970Ghz Edition. Refer to any benchmark scores to validate that. In fact I have some Anandtech scores here to validate that -- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/555?vs=508 -- 7970 vs 680.
I am arguing that the ASUS 670 is the best single-card solution for this specific user because it can easily go ahead of 680 speeds according to many reviewers. You are saying that the 7950 is better it can OC to the same speeds as a 680(if you are not then there is absolutely no reason to get a 7950 at this price). I am saying show me proof of that, because there is none.

 

[a bag of it]

If I did want to do sli in the future, would 750 be enough?

 

[azeem40]

Yes.