First Build Help

[thunterman]

Hey guys, im building my first ever computer, and before I start I wanted to check a few things with people that know what they're on about

• Budget - I have already bought some of the components. My remaining budget for whats needed would be within the region of £200 - 300.
• Resolution - I currently play at 1920x1080 - But the higher the better I guess?
• Games / Settings Desired - I only play wow . Playing wow on Ultra would be nice, but not required. Playing on Medium would suit me, the main thing im after is future proofing. I want to play wow on med-high settings in a few years without having to upgrade.
• Country - UK
• OS - Windows7 Ultimate (64-bit)

What I have so far :

Case
MoBo
CPU
RAM

I am going to use my current Hard drive, im not too bothered about speed e.t.c but I am going to get a SSD to go along side it and I was wondering ;
Should I get the SSD and install windows and wow to it? or do this "Intel smart storage thingywhatsit" (use the SSD as a 64GB Cache) Whats the better option?
Secondly, GPU's...
Im planning to spend £100-£150 - Is it better to get one 7770 or two 6770's and crossfire them? one 7770 is roughly the same price as two 6770's and I simply cannot find any information about this anywhere. My Budget wont really allow me to go into the 6/78**+ range.
And on the subject of GPU's my MoBo is Gigabyte , is there any benefit at all in buying a Gigabyte GPU? or does it make no difference? If so, what brand of GPU is the best?
If I do the crossfire option then I will be buying a PSU also, I'm breaking the build down over paydays so it doesn't sting me so badly. I will buy a 750w Gold rated PSU before adding in the second GPU.
I also intend to upgrade my processor in a few months whether its sandy/ivy bridge doesn't make a difference to me really. The i3 ive got is kinda a placeholder if you will. Just to get the pc working for now and I will get better at a later date. I'm really not bothered at all about having the best and most recent of everything. I just want something that will keep me going for another few years on wow, as my current machine has.

EDIT :
1 more thing, will getting a fan controller increase the ammount of fans I can use? My case has 4 spots for fans, but my MoBo only has 3 connectors.

OC'ing isnt on the agenda I want my my pc to last as long as possible, I will be leaving it stock - just before anyone mentions this and that will OC better e.t.c
Any help appreciated

[glo]

1. If you're not overclocking, you wasted a bunch of money on that z68 board (which are made for overclocking). Return it and get a h61/h67 board.

2. Stop considering 6770s in CF. For the same price as two of those, you can easily get a 7850 for DRASTICALLY better performance. If you -really- need to spend less than the cost of that, you can buy a 6850.

3. A 750w gold PSU is another big waste of money. Even if you did crossfire those 2 6770s, all you would need to do so is a 550w~ bronze PSU.

4. You can fit as many fans as you like in a case. All you need to do is connect them to their respective molex power plug from your PSU if you run out of motherboard headers.

[thunterman]

1. When I say not overclocking I mean not to the extreme. I will do a tiny bit of tweaking here and there. I liked the functions of that MoBo, such as the USB's having power while the pcs off to charge a phone or something. and it wasn't all that expensive so I'm happy with it anyway.

2. The 7850 on a quick google comes up at ~£200 That really is too much for me to spend in one go. There are 6850's for £80-£100 Which is perfect for me really. Are 6850's worth CrossFiring? As I can buy 1 now, and 1 in a month or two. Also, Dont *8** require a different connecter? can I convert a 6pin pci-e into the (8pin is it?) required?
EDIT : Looking into it, I think I got that ass backwards didn't I? The 7850 required 1x 6Pin, do the lesser cards require 4 pin, and the *8**+ require 6pin? If thats so, then im fine, ive deffenetly read somewhere that after a certain 2nd digit the power connecter changes.

3. The PSU in the case is 500W, but is unbranded. Would that cope with 1x 6850 and my i3 e.t.c? Or should I follow the advice I've seen numerous times and go for quality?

4. Slightly confused :P there's 4 fan slots, 3 fan headers. so I can get a 4th fan and use 1x Molex? isn't there a limit to how many Molex you can use on PSU? don't HDD's SSD's and CD drives use molex? I don't really understand what molex is.. It baffles me. My GF got the case for my birthday (2 days ago) I just have to go collect it, I guess I can see exactly how many leads e.t.c it has then.

And what's your opinion on the SSD choices? This is the thing I spoke of here Should I do that or just install my OS + WoW to the SSD?
I looked into it a little, and the reviews are positive Its noob friendly because it sets up "RAID" for you - and I've been told "RAID" = Good. And looking in my MoBo Manual, looks complicated to set up, so I was kinda liking that.

[glo]

1. OK. :P

2. A 6850 should net you close to a 70%~ performance gain over a 6770. It really is that huge in some situations. Crossfiring them in the future should future proof you for the upcoming generation and then some at least. As far as their connectors are concerned, it is up to the manufacturer. Some 6850s will use 4 pins, some will use 6. It all depends whether or not it's a stock card, has more than 1 fan, or factory overclocked. REGARDLESS, any decent PSU will come with all the appropriate connectors.

3. Yes, I would strongly suggest a well known PSU maker such as Corsair, XFX, Cooler Master, Seasonic, or Antec. You'll get by just fine crossfiring 2 6850s with a 650w+ bronze+ rated PSU. The only reason I suggested lower initially was because a 6770 uses under 100w at full load. Basically, just make sure the PSU is rated, over 650 watts, and has at least 50-60 amps on the rails.

4. Typically fans will either come with a motherboard header connection (which also double as fan controller connections) -and- a molex connection, or just a molex connection.

This is a molex connector:



Your DVD burner and HDD will use a SATA power connector which look like this:



5. If you're getting a 60GB SSD, that's not going to really be enough for Windows + WoW. It would fit, but leave you almost no room whatsoever to patch, have a pagefile, etc. The better option is to use that SRT function on the z68 board that you mentioned earlier and use it as cache. It is still VERY MUCH SO worth it, and will speed up your load times, boot times, and file access dramatically.

[thunterman]

ok brilliant. Thanks but..

3. Whats a rail? :S sorry Ive noticed some psu have 1, 2 or 4 e.t.c? is 4 good or bad? none of them say how many amps they can handle on the web e.t.c :S the rails are all spoke of in volts and theres no mention of amps. Any chance of a link to a 650w psu I could use? Knowing my luck I'll hit the power button and it will explode.

Also, Do you recommend any particular brand of the 6850? Should i just match it with my MoBo and get a gigabyte one?

[glo]

What site are you planning on ordering from? I'll have a look.

Basically, the 12v rails are going to power your GPU. All PSUs will put 12v through to the video card, but the amount of amps going through said rail is what matters. Pretty much how much juice is able to be pumped through it. The better the video card, the more amperage required. As far as how many rails there are, it doesn't matter. You want to look at how much they all add up to. Some PSUs have one high powered one, some have 2 moderately powered ones, etc.

[thunterman]

http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-650...m_content=Q200
I would be willing to spend the £60 if that's 100% safe to use for my build.

But, what about GPU though? should i get a gigabyte one? or just get what's cheapest? the gigabyte 6850 is £120=140 the sapphire can be had at £90

[glo]

http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-650...m_content=Q200
I would be willing to spend the £60 if that's 100% safe to use for my build.

But, what about GPU though? should i get a gigabyte one? or just get what's cheapest? the gigabyte 6850 is £120=140 the sapphire can be had at £90

http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair...modular&src=16

That's a better PSU, and it's modular which means you only need to plug in the cables which you need to use instead of having unused stuff just dangling in your case.

If you want slightly more power for the future at a lesser price, I'd suggest:

http://www.dabs.com/products/ocz-tec...?refs=12&src=3

I personally use the same model line, and have had zero issue.

As far as the brand of the GPU goes, it wont matter either way. Using a Gigabyte GPU in a Gigabyte motherboard wont net any reliability benefits. The pricier ones you're looking at most likely come with slightly better cooling, or a factory overclock. Otherwise, they're all the same cards.

Sapphire though is a terrific brand, one of the most highly regarded ATI/AMD card makers.

EDIT: Linked the wrong PSU.

[thunterman]

yea the gigabyte one is OC'd but when I search for the non-oced one there's only 2 shops online that sell it, and its in the region of £200 - why I do not know :P the gigabyte ones are also dual fan, where as the sapphire one is single fan but i dont have the balls to OC my GPU too much so a single fan would be fine right?

Last question though, Would you say its worth upgrading to a i5 2500k? Or possibly a better ivybridge one when they are about? Or will my i3 2130 cope with wow for the long run? WoW is really the only game I play and i doubt that will change, I'm a console lover

[glo]

yea the gigabyte one is OC'd but when I search for the non-oced one there's only 2 shops online that sell it, and its in the region of £200 - why I do not know :P the gigabyte ones are also dual fan, where as the sapphire one is single fan but i dont have the balls to OC my GPU too much so a single fan would be fine right?

Last question though, Would you say its worth upgrading to a i5 2500k? Or possibly a better ivybridge one when they are about? Or will my i3 2130 cope with wow for the long run? WoW is really the only game I play and i doubt that will change, I'm a console lover

Single fan solutions are more than enough for stock clocked cards. No worries there.

The 2130 will surely run WoW very well -right now-. However, the 2500k coupled with the fact that WoW is almost completely CPU bound will net you a much longer lasting system. Plus the 2500k will keep higher frame rates during stuff like 25 man raid combat, AV, middle of SW/Org, etc. And then on top of that, if you ever have the inclination to overclock, you'll have a CPU ready to do so.

[thunterman]

ok, my shopping list is complete then thank you very much for your time. I shall probably grab a 2500K once the Ivybridge is released, surly the prices will drop on the sandys then? I dont know how it works, one would asusme as they upgrade thier stuff, the old stuff gets cheap.