New cpu/mobo/cooler

[Steagan]

I'm looking to upgrade my cpu, motherboard, cpu cooler, and possibly ram. I currently have a first gen i7 w/cnps10x extreme cpu cooler by zalman, x58 sli le mobo, 12gb dominator (6x2) and a galaxy gtx 580.

Regardless of benchmarks, I think I have my mind set on the 3770k, a local microcenter has it for $229.99 so I cant go wrong there. My question is what is a decent motherboard for moderate oc'ing on the cpu and will it fit my cooler master stacker 830 case?

Any suggestions on a cpu cooler?

 

[djangoringo]

Asrock z77 extreme 4 is a good motherboard for the i7-3770k, you'll get a 50$ discount with any motherboard in microcenter, so the asrock z77 extreme 4 goes under 100$, and it will fit the case, any will do.
You can reuse the cpu cooler.

 

[Steagan]

Asrock z77 extreme 4 is a good motherboard for the i7-3770k, you'll get a 50$ discount with any motherboard in microcenter, so the asrock z77 extreme 4 goes under 100$, and it will fit the case, any will do.
You can reuse the cpu cooler.

Thanks for the quick reply. I was curious what you would recommend if I wanted to upgrade the cpu cooler? I have the CNPS10X Extreme like I mentioned before and its sitting in a cooler master stacker 830. I have top left fan removed on the side panel because this cpu cooler is so large. Any ideas on a great small cpu cooler? I don't have a problem having one fan removed and with the height of the cooler that I have right now, but if it was any bigger width or length I wouldn't be able to use it.

 

[Steagan]

Also to point out for the cpu cooler, that I'm not into high OC'ing or benchmarking, but looking to possibly OC the 3770 to 4.2.

 

[djangoringo]

There's the cm hyper 212 evo.

 

[Steagan]

There's the cm hyper 212 evo.

Would you suggest that over the zalman cooler? I wasnt too impressed with the zalman cooler on my 920.

 

[djangoringo]

The hyper 212 evo will not be better, it will offer about the same cooling temperatures, but it's small in comparison with the zalman.
There's also the new cpu cooler from a high end performance brand like the phanteks, which is the Phanteks PH-TC12DX.

 

[Steagan]

The hyper 212 evo will not be better, it will offer about the same cooling temperatures, but it's small in comparison with the zalman.
There's also the new cpu cooler from a high end performance brand like the phanteks, which is the Phanteks PH-TC12DX.

Looks like that cooler by phanteks is a bit smaller only just a titch wider. I'll probably end up going with that one.

 

[Steagan]

The hyper 212 evo will not be better, it will offer about the same cooling temperatures, but it's small in comparison with the zalman.
There's also the new cpu cooler from a high end performance brand like the phanteks, which is the Phanteks PH-TC12DX.

I ended up buying the z77 board. I was reading a review on that board and someone said specifically not to plug regular hard drives into the black or gray sata slots? And something about only plugging ssd hd's into the gray slots. Any feedback on that one?

 

[djangoringo]

The grey ports are sata III ports, connect the ssd to the intel sata ports, it's the second grey ports(SATA 3_0_1), the hdd you can put in any other port from 0~5.

 

[Steagan]

The grey ports are sata III ports, connect the ssd to the intel sata ports, it's the second grey ports(SATA 3_0_1), the hdd you can put in any other port from 0~5.

Thank you. I ended up buying the phanteks cpu cooler as well. Do you believe in the pea method when applying tim? I was just curious what you thought.

 

[djangoringo]

Yes, that's a good method and the cooler is a good one.

 

[Steagan]

Yes, that's a good method and the cooler is a good one.

I got everything setup, but I have one issue. My boot and some other programs seem to load much slower than my old build, I 'm kind of stumped on this. I already tried reformatting once and didn't help the issue. Do you think it has anything to do with my hard drive? I have a 1tb caviar green 7200rpm with 32mb cache.

 

[djangoringo]

Well that hdd is slow, in terms of boot timings, if you want to improve drastically, get a ssd.

 

[Steagan]

Well that hdd is slow, in terms of boot timings, if you want to improve drastically, get a ssd.

Unfortunately, a ssd is out of my budget. Honestly, about a $100.00 is in my budget and 1tb for size. I was thinking a WD Black. Is there anything comparable to a WD Black, I heard Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 was just as good.

 

[djangoringo]

You can have a good 128GB ssd for less than 100$ : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171740

 

[Steagan]

You can have a good 128GB ssd for less than 100$ : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171740

Thanks for link, but I just can't right now. I'm not looking to have a dramatic boot time, but just increased time from my current setup. I'd rather have everything on a ssd and not just the os so I'll have to wait for now. What are your opinions are the two drives I mentioned in my previous post?

Thanks

 

[djangoringo]

Those hdds are slightly faster than your current hdd, but if you want a real visible improvement, get a ssd, just for the os and games/apps, it will do, put the rest of the data on your current hdd.

 

[Steagan]

Those hdds are slightly faster than your current hdd, but if you want a real visible improvement, get a ssd, just for the os and games/apps, it will do, put the rest of the data on your current hdd.

That does sound like a good idea, but in all honestly 128GB is not near enough for even just my games. Even on top of the OS for example, just three of my games are about 45GB. Id end up running out of space in no time.

 

[Steagan]

Those hdds are slightly faster than your current hdd, but if you want a real visible improvement, get a ssd, just for the os and games/apps, it will do, put the rest of the data on your current hdd.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9088/prntscrnj.png

That's where I'm at right now for speeds.

 

[Steagan]

I have it down to these two options.

WD Black
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Internal-Desktop/dp/B0036Q7MV0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361950464&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+caviar+black

or Seagate Barracuda.
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM003/dp/B005T3GRNW

 

[djangoringo]

I still recommend going with the sandisk ultra plus 128GB in the same place, it's 90$, if you can afford the caviar black hdd, you can get the ssd.
It will have the space for the os, some games, and applications, it will be a huge difference even compared with the black hdd.
That hdd you have is decent, but not for booting the os, so get the ssd for the os and the current hdd for backup and data storage.

 

[Steagan]

I still recommend going with the sandisk ultra plus 128GB in the same place, it's 90$, if you can afford the caviar black hdd, you can get the ssd.
It will have the space for the os, some games, and applications, it will be a huge difference even compared with the black hdd.
That hdd you have is decent, but not for booting the os, so get the ssd for the os and the current hdd for backup and data storage.

I'll have to think about it. Thank you again for all your suggestions. What really puzzles me the most is why would the boot time decrease after upgrading the mobo/cpu? That issue alone is the only reason why I even considered buying a new drive in the first place.