Hello there,
Recently the motherboard in my good old pc fried, and I'm going to build my first pc quite soon. Fortunately, all the components apart from the motherboard are apparently fine, so at first I'm going to buy a new motherboard, a CPU and RAM, just to get it working. Then, when I gather more money, I'm going to take care of the rest.
I've done lots of reading related to components and their pairing, but since this is my first experience of this kind, I want to make sure that I didn't overlook anything.
This is what I've chosen for now:
Motherboard - Asus B85-Plus
CPU - Intel i5-4670k
Ram - GEIL 8GB 1600MHz (single channel for now)
I've spent hours reading and comparing specs of motherboards with different chipsets, but apparently the only differences are various features (e.g. the number of 6Gb/s SATA slots) that I don't need. That's why I decided to go with the lowest and cheapest chipset, which is the B85. However, I'm not at all sure about this, so here goes my first real question:
What are the differences between the B85 and higher chipsets that cannot be seen from the specifications?
Also, as I plan to play with overclocking, I decided to chose Asus (B85 has unlocked multipliers in the last BIOS versions). B85-Plus, because it's the cheapest motherboard with an 8-pin 12 Volt line, which as I understand is necessary to satisfy the overclocked quads' power consumption. There goes the second question:
Is an 8-pin 12 Volt power connection really necessary to overclock a quad i5? (I'm not talking about pushing it to absolute limits).
I have an OCZ StealthXStream 500W left over from my old pc, which has a 4-pin connection, but as I understand I can plug it to an 8-pin socket for now, and then buy a new PSU when the second phase comes. Is it indeed possible, and would for example an OCZ ZT 550W be appropriate in the second phase?
Initially I decided to go into Haswell because of the new chipset - I want to be able to upgrade in the future. I rejected i7's, simply because they are too expensive, so then the i5-4670k. Do you think this is the right decision?
As for the RAM, I don't suppose it makes that much of a difference, but would GEIL be appropriate, or would you suggest something else?
In the second phase I plan to extend the RAM to either 16GB or 32GB, buy a BitFenix Shinobi case, and add a Zotac GTX 660 (Ti?) AMP! on top. Plus some reasonable air cooling for the CPU, but for now only the issues outlined above are important.
I'll be greatful for any answers, feedback or additional information.
Thanks in advance!
Recently the motherboard in my good old pc fried, and I'm going to build my first pc quite soon. Fortunately, all the components apart from the motherboard are apparently fine, so at first I'm going to buy a new motherboard, a CPU and RAM, just to get it working. Then, when I gather more money, I'm going to take care of the rest.
I've done lots of reading related to components and their pairing, but since this is my first experience of this kind, I want to make sure that I didn't overlook anything.
This is what I've chosen for now:
Motherboard - Asus B85-Plus
CPU - Intel i5-4670k
Ram - GEIL 8GB 1600MHz (single channel for now)
I've spent hours reading and comparing specs of motherboards with different chipsets, but apparently the only differences are various features (e.g. the number of 6Gb/s SATA slots) that I don't need. That's why I decided to go with the lowest and cheapest chipset, which is the B85. However, I'm not at all sure about this, so here goes my first real question:
What are the differences between the B85 and higher chipsets that cannot be seen from the specifications?
Also, as I plan to play with overclocking, I decided to chose Asus (B85 has unlocked multipliers in the last BIOS versions). B85-Plus, because it's the cheapest motherboard with an 8-pin 12 Volt line, which as I understand is necessary to satisfy the overclocked quads' power consumption. There goes the second question:
Is an 8-pin 12 Volt power connection really necessary to overclock a quad i5? (I'm not talking about pushing it to absolute limits).
I have an OCZ StealthXStream 500W left over from my old pc, which has a 4-pin connection, but as I understand I can plug it to an 8-pin socket for now, and then buy a new PSU when the second phase comes. Is it indeed possible, and would for example an OCZ ZT 550W be appropriate in the second phase?
Initially I decided to go into Haswell because of the new chipset - I want to be able to upgrade in the future. I rejected i7's, simply because they are too expensive, so then the i5-4670k. Do you think this is the right decision?
As for the RAM, I don't suppose it makes that much of a difference, but would GEIL be appropriate, or would you suggest something else?
In the second phase I plan to extend the RAM to either 16GB or 32GB, buy a BitFenix Shinobi case, and add a Zotac GTX 660 (Ti?) AMP! on top. Plus some reasonable air cooling for the CPU, but for now only the issues outlined above are important.
I'll be greatful for any answers, feedback or additional information.
Thanks in advance!