Questions regarding the building of a new rig

[Drzeto]

Hi! I’m building a new rig.

My priorities are:

- It must be future proof as I upgrade infrequently.
- I prefer the most bang for the buck.
- Good quality of the components.
- It must be quiet (no water cooling).
- Applications are primarily gaming (the latest games).

These are the components I’ve looked at so far:

CPU - Intel Core i5 3570K 3,4Ghz (Ivy Bridge)
Motherboard - Asus P8Z77-V
Graphics - ASUS GeForce GTX 670 2048MB DirectCUII TOP
RAM - Corsair 16GB (4x4096MB) CL9 1600Mhz VENGEANCE (low profile)
PSU - Corsair AX 750W 80+ Gold
Case - Fractal Design Define R4
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-D14

Now for some questions, thoughts and ideas.

1. Regarding the processor, I’ve understood that you get more bang for your buck with the Core i5 3570K instead of a Core i7 3770K. As we know, 3770K Hyper not affect gaming that much, if anything at all. But how will the situation be in 3-5 years? Maybe it's worth it to spend a little extra on a processor with HT?

I will also in the near future (1-2 years) run SLI, and then maybe HT is not a bad idea. I read somewhere that a 4-core processor with HT can better "manage" an SLI configuration?

2. The motherboard is a big question mark. I chose Asus P8Z77-V because I read that it’s a great choice. But perhaps there is better and cheaper out there? I do not really need lot of features and functions such as WiFi Go! Bluetooth, eSATA or Thunderbolt. The most important thing is that it should be intuitive and easy when it comes to overclocking features, easy to control the fans, be of good quality, work well with SLI and not have any bottlenecks in my configuration.

The specifications for the Asus P8Z77-V that I have chosen is that it has 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) slots. Here, I wonder if there are motherboards that can run x16 on both cards in SLI, or does SLI works so that the speed is always divided into two? Feel free to suggest other motherboard if there are ones with more bang for the buck.

3. When it comes to graphics card I’ve looked at ASUS GeForce GTX 670 2048MB DirectCUII TOP. I have heard that it is quiet (which is important to me) and very good. In the future I will run SLI, but I’m wondering what happens with the fans and the heat? Since the cards blowing heat inside the box instead of out the back. I have also checked out EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2048MB that have the exhaust at the back, but I have read that they are making a lot of noise, which is not ok. What do you think about having two ASUS GeForce GTX 670 2048MB DirectCUII TOP in SLI configuration with respect to the heat? Are there better alternatives?

4. In the case of the CPU cooler, I chose the Noctua NH-D14 because in the future I’m going to overclock the processor. Have also read that Ivy Bridge have some heat problems. Is this cooler overkill? Perhaps there are other, cheaper that works well with my configuration, and will also work when I overclock?

Grateful for all answers, thanks in advance

 

[Spartin503]

First, HT will only help you in gaming if your doing something at the same time as gaming(i.e. listening to HD music). Second, the motherboard is a great choice and with SLI/crossfire PCI 3.0 x8 is the best you can get and if the go with 3 cards you can get x4. Next, with your case with the ASUS 670's in SLI you'll be fine without the blower design. Finally, as long as the CPU fan fits in the case and doesn't obstruct the RAM you are doing great with it.

 

[jrunv]

for gaming i can't see any reason to have more than 8 gigs of ram and may i suggest the asrock z77 extreme 4 mother board

 

[wr6133]

Nice build I run one nearly the same

With the cooler I would say ask yourself how far you want to OC that Noctua is a beast but unless you want beastly high OC's you could settle for a Coolermaster 212 EVO and save a few pennies there.

I wouldn't change anything else.

 

[Drzeto]

Nice build I run one nearly the same

With the cooler I would say ask yourself how far you want to OC that Noctua is a beast but unless you want beastly high OC's you could settle for a Coolermaster 212 EVO and save a few pennies there.

I wouldn't change anything else.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I'm primarily looking for good cooling that can handle OC but also be quiet. From reading reviews the Noctua seems to be the best buy.

Thermal tests and actual noise tests (with a sound level meter) shows that setting the fan to "low" will generate a noise level of only 30.8dB, with temperatures of 10.3⁰C (85W) and 17⁰C (150W OC)

While the Coolermaster 212 EVO will generate a noise level of 45.9dB, with temperatures of 11.8⁰C (85W) and 19⁰C (150W OC).

It's a great cooler, but a little to noisy for me

 

[Horney]

Looks good, the ram's a little overkill though, on the SLI front microstutter is a risk and you may or may not be affected by it you never know, but the next gen of AMD GPUs will be a large leap so I'm assuming Nvidia will have an equalish jump, so you should just get a new card.

 

[Drzeto]

for gaming i can't see any reason to have more than 8 gigs of ram and may i suggest the asrock z77 extreme 4 mother board

Hi, thanks for your reply I've narrowed it down to these candidates:

ASUS P8Z77-V
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
MSI Z77A-GD55
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H

Reading up on them they all seem more or less the same. None of the boards stands out as the ultimate choice. If you want control, go for ASUS; if you want mSATA, go for Gigabyte; if you want a full Z77 on a budget, go for ASRock; and if you want a very easy to use board, go with MSI. I guess I have to compare features, which I want and which I don't really need and consider my choice from this point. I'm leaning quite a lot towards the ASUS or MSI board due to Intel LAN. I read somewhere that Intel LAN is known to have a better throughput, lower CPU utilization as well as better stability.

 

[Drzeto]

Looks good, the ram's a little overkill though, on the SLI front microstutter is a risk and you may or may not be affected by it you never know, but the next gen of AMD GPUs will be a large leap so I'm assuming Nvidia will have an equalish jump, so you should just get a new card.

Do you know when the new GPUs will be out? Personally I think microstutter is a highly subjective thing. I know microstutter is always present (more or less), but I've never noticed it, and probably never will. Many people confuse it with low fps. I've read that SLI is not as affected as Crossfire by microstutter.

 

[wr6133]

Hi, thanks for your reply I've narrowed it down to these candidates:

ASUS P8Z77-V
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
MSI Z77A-GD55
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H

Reading up on them they all seem more or less the same. None of the boards stands out as the ultimate choice. If you want control, go for ASUS; if you want mSATA, go for Gigabyte; if you want a full Z77 on a budget, go for ASRock; and if you want a very easy to use board, go with MSI. I guess I have to compare features, which I want and which I don't really need and consider my choice from this point. I'm leaning quite a lot towards the ASUS or MSI board due to Intel LAN. I read somewhere that Intel LAN is known to have a better throughput, lower CPU utilization as well as better stability.

I'd take the ASUS or the Gigabyte (but the z77x-UD3H not the d3h). I have never built much with MSI and that ASRock (just that model) has some quality Control question marks relating to it's VRM's overheating under OC's

 

[Spartin503]

I would go with the Gigabyte mobo because the ASRock mobos say that they are ATX but they aren't the correct dimentions so they can move if there is a heavy-ish CPU cooler on it. ASUS has good mobos but they are a bit more expensive and MSI's mobos are ok, but Gigabyte's are better.