First built (i7 3770k and GTX 680)

[ionjohn]

Hey

I've been buying computer parts for the past year and I'm slowly building my beast. Parts already bought are...

- EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked

- OCZ Vertex 3 120GB

- Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

- Samsung 120hz monitor (S23A700D)

- Razer keyboard, gaming mouse and headset

I've been replacing my older parts in my current computer so I'm already using all that stuff but my motherboard started having issues with the audio ports. I cleaned them but there seems to be nothing i can do so as soon as i sell my laptop I'll get RAM, a new motherboard and a new CPU.

So my current built is everything i named plus

- i5 750 2.9Ghz

- Asus P7P55D-LE

- No name power supply 600w

- RAM 4GB of ddr3 1333

I am 99.9% sure of getting a i7 3770k even though i know some people'll say I should get a i5 but i really want an i7. RAM? I'll get 8gb ddr3 but i don't know what speed i should take, 1600 seems to be good? Mobo? I don't really care i guess, as long as I have pcie 3.0 and SATA 3

So you can tell me what you think about all this and here comes my question, I want a real quiet computer when not gaming so what cpu cooler do you suggest guys?

Thank you all

 

[jay2tall]

So here is my question. Why upgrade your core system (Cpu, mobo, ram) at all? I'm running the original i7 920 Nehalem and have it OCed to 4.0GHz. There is nothing I can throw at it that it won't take. I have no reason to upgrade anything as I feel it would be a waste. I mean if you feel completely compelled to upgrade, have at it, but don't expect to see amazing results. I would seriously consider throwing a beastly cooler on it and OC the snot out of your current CPU. Get a better PSU and maybe upgrade to 8GB of faster RAM if you feel you need more then 4GB. That is all you really need.

Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103105&Tpk=Cooler%20Master%20X6%20Elite
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

these are just some suggestions. There are a lot of great alternatives for my selections. I based them on price and performance.

 

[bigcyco1]

Well if your getting i7- 3770k go for mobo:ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131819#top


http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/asus_p8-z77v_pro_sandy_bridge_review/1 <--- review w/benchmarks http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASUS-P8Z77-V-PRO- <--- review w/benchmarks http://www.techreaction.net/2012/06/28/review-asus-p8z77-v-pro/ <--- review w/benchmarks

 

[bigcyco1]

Ram is pretty much personal choice as long as it's reliable your golden!Here a few recommendations RAM:G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416#top

RAM:CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233186#top



RAM:G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-8GAB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546#top

 

[bigcyco1]

For cpu cooler go for Silver Arrow or NH-D14 or Tuniq Tower 120 or you could just whip up a kick ass one like CPU Cooler:COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

Switch fans to these:Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm x 25mm Fan - 1850 RPM (D1225C12B5AP-15
http://www.amazon.com/Scythe-Gentle-Typhoon-120mm-25mm/dp/B001Q6RUVO/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

 

[maxalge]

Hey

I've been buying computer parts for the past year and I'm slowly building my beast. Parts already bought are...

- EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked

- OCZ Vertex 3 120GB

- Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

- Samsung 120hz monitor (S23A700D)

- Razer keyboard, gaming mouse and headset

I've been replacing my older parts in my current computer so I'm already using all that stuff but my motherboard started having issues with the audio ports. I cleaned them but there seems to be nothing i can do so as soon as i sell my laptop I'll get RAM, a new motherboard and a new CPU.

So my current built is everything i named plus

- i5 750 2.9Ghz

- Asus P7P55D-LE

- No name power supply 600w

- RAM 4GB of ddr3 1333

I am 99.9% sure of getting a i7 3770k even though i know some people'll say I should get a i5 but i really want an i7. RAM? I'll get 8gb ddr3 but i don't know what speed i should take, 1600 seems to be good? Mobo? I don't really care i guess, as long as I have pcie 3.0 and SATA 3

So you can tell me what you think about all this and here comes my question, I want a real quiet computer when not gaming so what cpu cooler do you suggest guys?

Thank you all

Honestly going for a 3570k + gtx 670 combo will give you basically equal performance with significant savings.


The savings could go towards a 256 GB ssd. A much better use of that money imo.

Ram wise the sweet spot seems to be ddr3 1600.


The h100 would be the most quiet cpu cooler? ( Opinions? ) Depending on the fans you get for it.

 

[ionjohn]

So here is my question. Why upgrade your core system (Cpu, mobo, ram) at all? I'm running the original i7 920 Nehalem and have it OCed to 4.0GHz. There is nothing I can throw at it that it won't take. I have no reason to upgrade anything as I feel it would be a waste. I mean if you feel completely compelled to upgrade, have at it, but don't expect to see amazing results. I would seriously consider throwing a beastly cooler on it and OC the snot out of your current CPU. Get a better PSU and maybe upgrade to 8GB of faster RAM if you feel you need more then 4GB. That is all you really need.

Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103105&Tpk=Cooler%20Master%20X6%20Elite
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

these are just some suggestions. There are a lot of great alternatives for my selections. I based them on price and performance.

I feel like i could use the i7 3770k while playing battlefield 3 and the next one and i've seen that 8gb ccompared to 4gb really makes a big difference in Bf3. With a new mobo for the ivy bridge i could use sata 3 with my ssd...

 

[ionjohn]

Honestly going for a 3570k + gtx 670 combo will give you basically equal performance with significant savings.


The savings could go towards a 256 GB ssd. A much better use of that money imo.

Ram wise the sweet spot seems to be ddr3 1600.


The h100 would be the most quiet cpu cooler? ( Opinions? ) Depending on the fans you get for it.

Please read next time i already have purchased the GTX 680 and I'm not selling it

 

[ionjohn]

Ram is pretty much personal choice as long as it's reliable your golden!Here a few recommendations RAM:G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416#top

RAM:CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233186#top



RAM:G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-8GAB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546#top

Ok thanks for all them advices

 

[bigcyco1]

Your welcome bud

 

[jay2tall]

I feel like i could use the i7 3770k while playing battlefield 3 and the next one and i've seen that 8gb ccompared to 4gb really makes a big difference in Bf3. With a new mobo for the ivy bridge i could use sata 3 with my ssd...

1)BF3 is almost entirely GPU dependent. Here is part of an article, even though a little dated. A dual core Pentium with all other system resources being the same, would run BF3 the same as an i7.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

2)I am running an SSD on SATAII, the only thing SATAII buys you is faster sequential reads. Most of the time you are not reading sequential data and the transfers are under the 300MB/s speed of SATAII anyway. It looks good on benchmarks, but real world it isn't buying you much. In my book that isn't worth a total core system update. Just food for thought.

FYI, I am not trying to shoot holes in your plans, just being realistic. I hate to see someone upgrade their system to something new and not really get much of a performance boost.

 

[CaedenV]

my 2 cents:
1) Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals should be a little extra competitive this year, so keep your eyes open over the next week or so.

2) splurge on the ram! Go for 8GB (2x4GB) of 1600. It is cheap, and it is always better to have a little too much, than slightly not enough. 1333 and 1600 does not have a huge performance difference, but the price difference is typically $1... so spend a buck or two.

3) No added game performance with i7 CPU over the i5 right now as games do not support (and more importantly do not plan to support) Hyper-threading. More cores may be able to be taken advantage of next year when new consoles come out, but as of yet there is no word as to if those games will be able to take advantage of hyper-threading, or if you will need to buy an AMD or wait for a true 8 core intel CPU to be released (i9?). Stick with an i5. If the i7 can be taken advantage of next year then you will be able to upgrade cheaply, and if not then you are not out any money.

Honestly though, like Jay mentioned, there is nothing wrong with the CPU you currently have, even for high end gaming. Find a good replacement motherboard, OC the CPU to the moon, and keep your system until we know how game ports are going to look after the new console release next Christmas. If NextBox and PS4 move to x86 like they seem to be, then it may have some huge implications as to how games are ported. Meaning that they may port over nicer, causing them to take better advantage of current hardware, or hardware developers will be better able to design to the games and come out with something truly special shortly after the console release.

4) Invest in other hardware! Bigger coolers, quieter fans, card readers, SSDs, etc.

Again, as Jay2tall mentioned, SSDs make a HUGE difference in how you experience your PC. Simply put, you cannot properly utilize your CPU and GPU until you have an SSD in the first place. They are just spinning their wheels waiting for data to be served up to them. For random loads you can only expect a SSD to hit somewhere near 200MB/s, and as a system drive you never need to do sequential loads, and when you do (like movie or MP3 playback) you simply do not need anything faster than a low RPM HDD anyways. Point being that while you will cap performance a little bit on SATA2, you are not going to notice a difference in moving up to SATA3 for things like program load times. It does feel good to hit those higher benchmarks, but you will never be the fastest, and benchmarks will never match your real world experience. There are some workloads that benefit from SATA3... but gaming is not one of them.

6) Invest in a quality power supply. It does not need to be huge (in fact, it should not be huge), but you do want to make it big enough so that if you ever want to SLi a 2nd 680 in there down the road (or a pair of 790s or something), then you will be able to. But the bigger issue than overall wattage is the quality. When a cheap PS goes, then it is more likely to take out other hardware with it. But if you get a good quality PSU then it is less likely to die in the first place, and when it does die it will be less dramatic. The life of everything from your ram to your GPU all depend on having enough power, and accurate power to do what they do properly, so having a good PSU behind them really cannot be taken seriously enough. Something in the 750-800W range should do the trick for both your current and future SLi needs. If SLi is out of the question then something in the 600-650W range should be good.



I hope all that helps. You have a good current system, it will be cheap to repair, and upgrading will not yield a large improvement as the GPU (as glorious as it is) is the bottleneck of the system. SSD will provide a more noticeable improvement than anything else (2 sec area loads in Skyrim are wonderful!). When, or shortly after, the consoles are released, there is a chance for CPUs with more logical cores, DDR4, and you will be better able to build to the games available at the time. Currently you are fine with your core build, so save it for later, or blow it on something where you will see a difference rather than on something that will feel oddly the same as what you already had.

 

[maxalge]

Please read next time i already have purchased the GTX 680 and I'm not selling it

Honestly going for a 3570k will give you equal performance in games with a significant savings.


Ram wise the sweet spot seems to be 8gb ddr3 1600.


The h100 would be the most quiet cpu cooler? ( Opinions? ) Depending on the fans you get for it.



There fixed.


BF3 online is cpu dependant, most benches are for single player only as far as I have seen.

 

[ionjohn]

1)BF3 is almost entirely GPU dependent. Here is part of an article, even though a little dated. A dual core Pentium with all other system resources being the same, would run BF3 the same as an i7.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

2)I am running an SSD on SATAII, the only thing SATAII buys you is faster sequential reads. Most of the time you are not reading sequential data and the transfers are under the 300MB/s speed of SATAII anyway. It looks good on benchmarks, but real world it isn't buying you much. In my book that isn't worth a total core system update. Just food for thought.

FYI, I am not trying to shoot holes in your plans, just being realistic. I hate to see someone upgrade their system to something new and not really get much of a performance boost.

ok thanks I'll consider that but as max said these benchmarks are in single player mode

 

[ionjohn]

my 2 cents:
1) Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals should be a little extra competitive this year, so keep your eyes open over the next week or so.

2) splurge on the ram! Go for 8GB (2x4GB) of 1600. It is cheap, and it is always better to have a little too much, than slightly not enough. 1333 and 1600 does not have a huge performance difference, but the price difference is typically $1... so spend a buck or two.

3) No added game performance with i7 CPU over the i5 right now as games do not support (and more importantly do not plan to support) Hyper-threading. More cores may be able to be taken advantage of next year when new consoles come out, but as of yet there is no word as to if those games will be able to take advantage of hyper-threading, or if you will need to buy an AMD or wait for a true 8 core intel CPU to be released (i9?). Stick with an i5. If the i7 can be taken advantage of next year then you will be able to upgrade cheaply, and if not then you are not out any money.

Honestly though, like Jay mentioned, there is nothing wrong with the CPU you currently have, even for high end gaming. Find a good replacement motherboard, OC the CPU to the moon, and keep your system until we know how game ports are going to look after the new console release next Christmas. If NextBox and PS4 move to x86 like they seem to be, then it may have some huge implications as to how games are ported. Meaning that they may port over nicer, causing them to take better advantage of current hardware, or hardware developers will be better able to design to the games and come out with something truly special shortly after the console release.

4) Invest in other hardware! Bigger coolers, quieter fans, card readers, SSDs, etc.

Again, as Jay2tall mentioned, SSDs make a HUGE difference in how you experience your PC. Simply put, you cannot properly utilize your CPU and GPU until you have an SSD in the first place. They are just spinning their wheels waiting for data to be served up to them. For random loads you can only expect a SSD to hit somewhere near 200MB/s, and as a system drive you never need to do sequential loads, and when you do (like movie or MP3 playback) you simply do not need anything faster than a low RPM HDD anyways. Point being that while you will cap performance a little bit on SATA2, you are not going to notice a difference in moving up to SATA3 for things like program load times. It does feel good to hit those higher benchmarks, but you will never be the fastest, and benchmarks will never match your real world experience. There are some workloads that benefit from SATA3... but gaming is not one of them.

6) Invest in a quality power supply. It does not need to be huge (in fact, it should not be huge), but you do want to make it big enough so that if you ever want to SLi a 2nd 680 in there down the road (or a pair of 790s or something), then you will be able to. But the bigger issue than overall wattage is the quality. When a cheap PS goes, then it is more likely to take out other hardware with it. But if you get a good quality PSU then it is less likely to die in the first place, and when it does die it will be less dramatic. The life of everything from your ram to your GPU all depend on having enough power, and accurate power to do what they do properly, so having a good PSU behind them really cannot be taken seriously enough. Something in the 750-800W range should do the trick for both your current and future SLi needs. If SLi is out of the question then something in the 600-650W range should be good.



I hope all that helps. You have a good current system, it will be cheap to repair, and upgrading will not yield a large improvement as the GPU (as glorious as it is) is the bottleneck of the system. SSD will provide a more noticeable improvement than anything else (2 sec area loads in Skyrim are wonderful!). When, or shortly after, the consoles are released, there is a chance for CPUs with more logical cores, DDR4, and you will be better able to build to the games available at the time. Currently you are fine with your core build, so save it for later, or blow it on something where you will see a difference rather than on something that will feel oddly the same as what you already had.

Okay thank you for your nice explanation bud, I'll consider that, I might not change my cpu afterall..

 

[ionjohn]

Honestly going for a 3570k will give you equal performance in games with a significant savings.


Ram wise the sweet spot seems to be 8gb ddr3 1600.


The h100 would be the most quiet cpu cooler? ( Opinions? ) Depending on the fans you get for it.



There fixed.


BF3 online is cpu dependant, most benches are for single player only as far as I have seen.

is the i7 3770k faster for booting, opening programs and stuff or it's all the same?

 

[jay2tall]

Either way you dice it, an i5 to i7 series only gets you hyperthreading. Which really doesn't buy you much in gaming. Also, stepping up from a 1st gen i series to a 3rd gen i series is going to get you a little more performance per clock, but realistically it will not show in game. You still have a quad core i5. If you OC to the speed of the i7 proposed, 3.4GHz, you will see lower performance in synthetic benchmarks, but in game not so much. I still stick with OCing the i5.

Boot times will heavily rely on your drive speed. That SSD will cut boot times most so than a CPU upgrade ever would.

 

[ionjohn]

Either way you dice it, an i5 to i7 series only gets you hyperthreading. Which really doesn't buy you much in gaming. Also, stepping up from a 1st gen i series to a 3rd gen i series is going to get you a little more performance per clock, but realistically it will not show in game. You still have a quad core i5. If you OC to the speed of the i7 proposed, 3.4GHz, you will see lower performance in synthetic benchmarks, but in game not so much. I still stick with OCing the i5.

Boot times will heavily rely on your drive speed. That SSD will cut boot times most so than a CPU upgrade ever would.

okay thanks jay!

 

[jay2tall]

-keep the CPU
-OC it
-wait for the Haswell core
-reassess system

 

[ionjohn]

-keep the CPU
-OC it
-wait for the Haswell core
-reassess system

yeah i might wait for Haswell as well

 

[CaedenV]

the difference between an i5 and i7 is the HT, which is a synthetic way to trick some software to think there are more cores than there really are. The problem with it (compared to the AMD Bulldozer architecture which does something similar) is that software must be written specifically to take advantage of hyperthreading to get any bonus at all. Also, these HT cores are not as fast as a physical CPU core, so for software that does take advantage of it you are looking at a 25-33% increase in performance, not a doubling of performance.

But simply put; Games do not take advantage of HT technology, so there is no difference between an i5 and i7 for gaming. Big difference for video editing, and other heavy workloads, but for gaming it is as if it simply is not there. You will get a slight (and I do mean slight) increase in performance because windows itself, and it's host of background processes will run on these HT cores when a game has the physical cores busy... but we are talking about 1-2fps max for most games. Not something you would ever notice in the real world.

As I said before, you have a decent system so fix it, and if you have some cash burning a hole in your pocket then invest in the little extras that make your computer feel special or premium. Then, in another gen or two, go absolutely nuts and get a high end core system.