New Build for a friend

[hirschbergt]

A friend of mine asked me to build a gaming system for him, and I have come up with a preliminary build at this point and was hoping I could get some feedback. Does anyone have any suggestions on this build? The SSD would be a caching drive for the main HDD, and I'm not sure if the WD Velociraptor is overkill. Any suggestions are appreciated. Many thanks!

The build is as follows:

CPU Intel i7-3770k
Heatsink Noctua NH-D12
MOBO Asus P8Z77-V Pro
RAM G-Skill F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM
GPU Asus GTX670
HDD western digital velociraptor 250gb
SSD Crucial Adrenaline (caching drive)
Optical Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE
PSU Corsair TX650
CASE Antec Eleven Hundred
Fan Antec 761345-75024-0 (4x)
TC Arctic Silver 5

 

[FinneousPJ]

i7 and the cooler are overkill. Yes the Velo is overkill and SSD caching is a useless gimmick. You don't need the AS5 either. Otherwise it's fine

 

[obsama1]

Get the i5-3570K.
Don't get the Pro. Get the ASRock Extreme4 Z77.
Just get a 1TB WD drive, and get a bigger SSD.
The Velociraptors are expensive, and offer no benefits compared to similarly priced SSD's.

 

[viktorbkk]

If 250GB is enough for you, then just get a 240-256GB SSD and nothing else.

 

[geofelt]

My thoughts:

1) A 3770K is a fine cpu, 4 cores plus hyperthreading.
But, games rarely use more than 2-3 cores, so the extra $spent for hyperthreading is mostly wasted.
A 3570K is the best gamer available today. Use the $100 saved elsewhere. Splurge on a GTX680 instead?

2) Is there some feature of the Pro he needs? Most any Z77 based motherboard will perform just as well.
$<$150 should do it.

3) The Noctua NH-D14 is as good as it gets, but is expensive. A $30 cm hyper212 will do the job just as well if you only use a moderate OC,say to 4.0-4.3.

4) The heat spreaders on the ram may interfere with some coolers. Get the low profile ares series ram instead.

5) The velociraptor was the best in it's day, but today a SSD is 50x faster.
I suggest a 180gb or 240gb SSD instead. It is not much more expensive, and much faster. If you ever run out of room, you can add a storage drive later. Today, Intel and Samsung seem to have the fewest issues.
At 180gb, look at the Intel 330 @$155.. At 240gb, either intel 330 or samsung 830 @$200.

 

[obsama1]

I would not go from 670 to 680. Big mistake.

But +1 to geofelt.

 

[hirschbergt]

My thoughts:

1) A 3770K is a fine cpu, 4 cores plus hyperthreading.
But, games rarely use more than 2-3 cores, so the extra $spent for hyperthreading is mostly wasted.
A 3570K is the best gamer available today. Use the $100 saved elsewhere. Splurge on a GTX680 instead?

2) Is there some feature of the Pro he needs? Most any Z77 based motherboard will perform just as well.
$<$150 should do it.

3) The Noctua NH-D14 is as good as it gets, but is expensive. A $30 cm hyper212 will do the job just as well if you only use a moderate OC,say to 4.0-4.3.

4) The heat spreaders on the ram may interfere with some coolers. Get the low profile ares series ram instead.

5) The velociraptor was the best in it's day, but today a SSD is 50x faster.
I suggest a 180gb or 240gb SSD instead. It is not much more expensive, and much faster. If you ever run out of room, you can add a storage drive later. Today, Intel and Samsung seem to have the fewest issues.
At 180gb, look at the Intel 330 @$155.. At 240gb, either intel 330 or samsung 830 @$200.

Thanks for the feedback. I do have a few questions though:

1) How well does the 3570k overclock? In the past, at least with the i7 920's I think, disabling hyperthreading helped achieve higher clocks. I do plan to overclock the chip to probably 4GHz or higher if possible.

2) I am not dead set on the mobo at this point. I read that the Asus had good overclocking capabilities. I am a fan of Gigabyte--have one in my rig--and have been looking at the GA-Z77X-UD5H and D3H. All I really am looking for in the mobo are good overclocking capabilities, two PCI 3.0 slots, and built in sound card, NIC, and maybe wireless adapter.

3) The only concern I had about the SSD is the occasional maintenance (i.e. TRIM) that has to be performed. My friend is not particularly tech-savvy, and I am trying to make the system relatively idiot-proof.

4) How are SSD's doing in terms of reliability? At one point I was considering an SSD for my system but was scared away by reports of failing drives.

 

[FinneousPJ]

The i5 does not have hyperthreading. It will easily OC to 4 GHz. TRIM is not something you have to do.

 

[hirschbergt]

I've made some adjustments based off the feedback I've received. Here is the new setup.
CPU Intel i7 3570k
Heatsink Cooler Master Hyper 212
MOBO AsRock Z77 Extreme4
RAM G-Skill F3-1600C8D-8GAB
GPU Asus GTX670
HDD Western Digital 500GB WD5003AZEX
SSD Samsung 830, 256GB
Optical Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE
PSU Corsair TX650
CASE Antec Eleven Hundred
Fan Antec 761345-75024-0 (4x)
TC Arctic Silver 5


If the Samsung 840 is available in the near future, I may consider having it replace the 830 based off some of the reviews I've seen so far. Any other thoughts or suggestions on any of the components?

 

[FinneousPJ]

Seems good. I wouldn't wait for the 840 if you're otherwise all set for purchase.