Build Final Check/Suggestions Please

[Arith]

Thanks everyone!

[ayako]

Are you a student?

[Arith]

No Im not. If youre thinking of the discount for W7, I tried and they told me no since Ive been done for 3 years already lol.

[Chronius]

Hmm, 365 dollars seems a lot for a 570. Personally i never buy OC'ed versions unless they come with a substantially better cooler than the reference design.
440$ Could get you 2x 6950.

Also www.jonnyguru.com has a lot of info/reviews on PSU's. It's worth a read.
And for SSD's www.anandtech.com

[ayako]

No Im not. If youre thinking of the discount for W7, I tried and they told me no since Ive been done for 3 years already lol.

Discount or Free yes.

[Arith]

Yeah I have to buy a retail version unfortunately.

As for the 570, thats from Newegg, and I hadnt been able to find it anywhere else cheaper. The non OC version was only $10 less, and tbh, Ive never bought an OCed card either, so Im not sure if the extra performance is really worth it. Hence why I wanted to get opinions on everything first (its been quite awhile since Ive built a rig :P). I did want to get a card with a better cooler, and was told the Twin Frozr was one of the best. It certainly looks better than the stock single fan cooler on say.. the EVGA, but that could be just show for all I know. /shrug

---------- Post added 2011-03-30 at 06:20 AM ----------

From the above links, about PSUs, I think a 650 would be enough no? Im seeing some people suggest humongous watt psus, and others, especially on this board say you can run most every system on under 500w. Looked around and found something that looked pretty good, if anyone has any input on it, its the Antec TruePower TP-650? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371021

Even after reading some reviews and articles on Anand, Im still lost about SSDs. Id like to get one just for quick Windows boots and loads in WoW, but say a few years down the road I move away from WoW, would it be viable to uninstall/delete WoW from the SSD and install another game on there, or does that kill the drive? I dont want to put anything other than the OS + 1 game on it, so probably even 90gb would be fine? Is Sandforce necessary or is it overkill for my situation?

[Deleted]

Price difference is indeed rather low and I hear lots of good things about the Twin Frozr cooler

[vesseblah]

GPU - $365 - MSI GeForce GTX 570 Twin Frozr II OC (Ive heard this is a good card from others, but dont know anyone who has it personally)
SSD - [i](Ive heard not to get something that isnt Sandforce, but the smaller drives Ive seen have no Sandforce labels on them at all. HDD - (Just a storage drive hopefully)
PSU - (Ive no idea what a good brand of psu is these days, though from what Ive read I wont need anything over a 750?)
Monitor - (Ive always hated buying tvs and monitors. Like I said, mostly for gaming and some moving watching and web. Might do two of these as well, so curious if the rig can handle it fine?)

- MSI Twin Frozr is definitely the card I'd pick for GTX 560/570, seen only good things mentioned about it, being the most effective and quietest third party cooler in current graphics cards.

- For SSD either OCZ Vertex 2 or Corsair Force series are popular choices, both of those come with Sandforce controller chips. Discs that are bigger than 60GB (90-120GB) are usually slightly faster but difference is not that big.

- Samsung Spinpoint F3 is good for storage as well as boot, WD Caviar Blue might be bit cheaper and for storage use not much slower.

- Currently I'd pick either the 650W or 750W Antec Truepower New from Newegg. Antec TP is slightly more expensive than the usual suggestion of Corsair TX650, but also slightly higher quality and semi-modular for easier and neater installation. Definitely 750W if you're planning or even considering adding second graphics card for SLI, and on the other hand if you're sure you wont get second card, you can get cheaper motherboard without SLI support and 650W will be plentiful.

- Two monitors is totally awesome for just about everything, would be hard to imagine not having it. I'm usually playing WoW on one screen and second monitor has teamspeak/firefox/irc/msn/etc open. If you're running game on one screen only and have windows desktop on second monitor, the load on graphics card is practically the same as using one monitor only, and even $100 graphics card can handle it just fine so you'll have no problems with it.

[Deafyx]

Where would that discount come from Ayako!?

---------- Post added 2011-03-30 at 02:34 AM ----------

- MSI Twin Frozr is definitely the card I'd pick for GTX 560/570, seen only good things mentioned about it, being the most effective and quietest third party cooler in current graphics cards.

- For SSD either OCZ Vertex 2 or Corsair Force series are popular choices, both of those come with Sandforce controller chips. Discs that are bigger than 60GB (90-120GB) are usually slightly faster but difference is not that big.

- Samsung Spinpoint F3 is good for storage as well as boot, WD Caviar Blue might be bit cheaper and for storage use not much slower.

- Currently I'd pick either the 650W or 750W Antec Truepower New from Newegg. Antec TP is slightly more expensive than the usual suggestion of Corsair TX650, but also slightly higher quality and semi-modular for easier and neater installation. Definitely 750W if you're planning or even considering adding second graphics card for SLI, and on the other hand if you're sure you wont get second card, you can get cheaper motherboard without SLI support and 650W will be plentiful.

- Two monitors is totally awesome for just about everything, would be hard to imagine not having it. I'm usually playing WoW on one screen and second monitor has teamspeak/firefox/irc/msn/etc open. If you're running game on one screen only and have windows desktop on second monitor, the load on graphics card is practically the same as using one monitor only, and even $100 graphics card can handle it just fine so you'll have no problems with it.

I use to enjoy doing that, but didnt like seeing my idle temps on my 470 go up. Maybe its my card choice, Idk.

[vesseblah]

Where would that discount come from Ayako!?

Students can buy Win7 Pro for $30 in most countries, not all though. Some schools have MSDNAA deal that allows downloading of all* Microsoft programs for free for students.

* All except Word, Excel and PowerPoint. And only Professional version of Win7, not the other editions.

[Arith]

Thanks very much!

Im looking at a Corsair Force 90gb since I saw someone mention on Anand that some vendors are still carrying "bad OCZ Vertex V2s".. not sure what was bad with them, or if thats true or someone just messing around, as I could find no other info on that? The OCZ Vertex was also around $15 more for the same read/write speeds.

Also going to pick up the Antec 750 I think, as it leaves me open to SLI in the near future. Though Im curious at what point is it better to just upgrade to a new single card, than to try to to SLI 2 older ones? Say, a year down the road, would SLI 570s still be good, or would a 6xx be better at that point? (Ive never done SLI, so Im not sure of the lifetime etc)


Edited OP as well

---------- Post added 2011-03-30 at 10:05 AM ----------

Where would that discount come from Ayako!?

Like Vesseblah said, being a student allows a huge discount on operating systems, and a few other programs. I know here (Im in the US), I could go to the computer store that was on my campus, and all I had to do was show my student ID and I got a discount back in the day. Doesnt seem to apply to alumni unfortunately :P

[vesseblah]

Im looking at a Corsair Force 90gb since I saw someone mention on Anand that some vendors are still carrying "bad OCZ Vertex V2s".. not sure what was bad with them, or if thats true or someone just messing around, as I could find no other info on that? The OCZ Vertex was also around $15 more for the same read/write speeds.

Original OCZ Vertex (not 2) is as far as I know the source of the bad rep SSDs got early on. Those were cheap so bought by many, and had high-ish failure rate. High failure rate being in 5-10% neighborhood for few first months after purchase. Current SSDs are in the same 2-3% fail rate as regular mechanical discs, and the problem was never in other brands of SSDs, only on the first OCZ discs.

---------- Post added 2011-03-30 at 01:17 PM ----------

I use to enjoy doing that, but didnt like seeing my idle temps on my 470 go up. Maybe its my card choice, Idk.

Original GTX 470/480 are notorious for running at ridiculously high temps, using 2 monitors is not the reason.

[Arith]

Awesome, thank you for clearing that up! Considering the same controller and read/write speeds, is it justified to spend the extra money for an OCZ? I realize its just $15, but here and there, it starts to add up :P lol. Ive had OCZ products in the past and its been great along with many, many others, but Im more about getting my moneys worth for performance and reliability than brand bias.

[vesseblah]

If Corsair Force is cheaper than OCZ Vertex 2, then pick the Corsair (just not Corsair Nova, those are slow). Don't remember there being any real-world difference between the two in performance or reliability.

[Arith]

Thats what I figured as well Much appreciated