Marest's Sample Builds

[Warcav]

About when will the sample builds be updated?

[Xuvial]

What's out of date? You can see Ivy Bridge/Bulldozer and 28nm GPU's in a few builds. If you mean prices, those are hard to keep updated all the time.

[Odouls]

what settings would the 550 build be able to handle, and will it hold up in mop?

[DeltrusDisc]

The $550 build should be able to handle high/ultra fairly well, but in high-pop/25 man areas, it will struggle, especially since you can't OC the CPU to get some more strength out of it towards that, as compared to an i5-2500K/3570K.

It will probably hold its own in MoP but I would not try playing WoW at any resolution over 1920x1080 with this build.

[Deleted]

Sample builds updated.

Not much have changed regarding the budget builds, but I did some minor changes in the higher end builds. This was essentially a price update so nothing major has changed.

Awaiting the GTX 660 and the new AMD HSA (Trinity), which will hopefully take place in the 800/900/1000 area and the 350/400/450 respectively. We'll see.

Also, if anyone have stumbled upon reliable benchmarks of the new lower-end nVidia GPUs (GT 640, GTS 650) I'd be very interested in those. (I did see the review of the Zotac GT 640 that Anandtech did - fairly underwhelming.)

[Dababa]

Hey Marest first I would like to say thanks for putting the time and effort into making and maintaining this useful thread. I have a question that I was hoping you or someone else could help me with though. I noticed that for the $1200 build you recommended the 2500k above the 3570k, I understand that the 2500k is a better overclocker but will it really outperform the 3570k if I go with the thermaltake frio? I would also be using the 650d case from corsair, but the temperature in my room can get to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer so would I be able to get better performance going with the 2500k and overclocking it?
Also I was wondering if it is much of a pain switching from the heatsink provided by intel with the processor to an aftermarket one because I may need to wait until my next paycheck for the heatsink. Thanks for the help

[BicycleMafioso]

I wouldn't go with the thermaltake frio either way.
But either the 3570K or the 2500K is fine for an i5.
I'd go with the 3570K if you go with a z77-motherboard, otherwise a 2500k

[Deleted]

The 3570k and Z77 motherboards still have a slight price premium attached to them. The gap compared to a Z68 and a 2500k used to be bigger, but since the 2500k doesn't have a heat-roof to the same extent as the 3570k and the performance gain is less than 7% I decided to stick with the former in the lower section of the builds. That money is better spend on the GPU in terms of gaming performance.

I'm not actually a huge fan of the Frio myself, but I know a lot of people who actually prefer it over the NH-D14. It's a bit noisy, but cools very well and I guess it's so popular because of the colour scheme. I leave it in there to show that there's options really, and for the ~$50 it's usually at it's a decent choice. This being sample builds though, the cooler, case, motherboard and brand of GPU, RAM and so on should all be researched and eventually exchanged based on the user.

Review of the Frio: http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...anced_extreme/

[Dantos]

I have a question. In this build "Budget Gaming 650" the details of the video card say it need atleast 500w power, you recommend a 450w supply. Why is that, or i get it wrong?

[Xuvial]

@ Marest, I recommend changing the $2500 build to a $2350 build - with dual GTX670's. The fact is that 670 SLI is within 5% (or sometimes even tied) with 680 SLI, which has come as nothing short of a big shock to both reviewers and consumers. It is THE card to SLI right now for the price in a high-end gaming build. An overclocked 670 DCII will almost certainly rival two reference 680's while being far quieter and cooler.

Review: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...-sli-review/15

Consider it :P

I have a question. In this build "Budget Gaming 650" the details of the video card say it need atleast 500w power, you recommend a 450w supply. Why is that, or i get it wrong?

The "minimum required" wattage specified by the manufacturer is set extremely high to accomodate all the poor-quality PSU's out there that can't run what they're rated at. That value should never be taken as a realistic measure of how much power the card actually consumes - that's where you look up reviews which will specifically tell you how much wattage the card (or system) uses in total under idle and stressful times.

For example, see the 6870's actual power consumption in this review: http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...6870-review/10
That's right, a tiny ~140w taken by the card itself and <300w from the total system. So in theory a good-quality 350w PSU is easily enough for an HD6870 even though the manufacturer has stated a 500w minimum. This is the same story for pretty much all cards and manufacturers.

You can be rest assured that all PSU's listed in the sample builds are there because of their quality (in varying grades of course), reliability, good reviews, etc and offer PLENTY of expansion/overclocking headroom for all the builds.

[Livermunch]

This may sound silly but will I also have to buy like a wireless card or whatever they are called to get internet access?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

This may sound silly but will I also have to buy like a wireless card or whatever they are called to get internet access?

If you want to use a wireless network, then yes.

[Livermunch]

If you want to use a wireless network, then yes.

I do, would you happen to have any suggestions or are they all really the same?

[Ron Burgundy]

marest, replace the asus 7970 dcii with asus gtx 670 dcii top. it's cheaper and a much better card.

(1550 gaming setup)

[Deleted]

marest, replace the asus 7970 dcii with asus gtx 670 dcii top. it's cheaper and a much better card.

(1550 gaming setup)

I think saying it's "much better" is stretching it a little bit, don't you?

[Ron Burgundy]

I think saying it's "much better" is stretching it a little bit, don't you?

you compared both REFERENCE cards which doesn't give an accurate comparison, the graphics card i mentioned above even beats the stock 680 gtx.

[Dababa]

Quick question for you guys, is it simple to replace the stock cpu cooler with an aftermarket one or not? And I know most of them come with thermal paste, is it fine to use that paste or should I buy some off of newegg for better performance?

[Xuvial]

Quick question for you guys, is it simple to replace the stock cpu cooler with an aftermarket one or not? And I know most of them come with thermal paste, is it fine to use that paste or should I buy some off of newegg for better performance?

Depends on your case and whether it has a large-enough CPU cutout hole (if it even has one) in the motherboard tray for you to install the backplate without having to remove the motherboard. For me this is a no, so if I wanted to change my cooler I would have to unplug everything, unscrew everything, take out the mobo, install backplate, then put everything back in and attach the cooler. Not a biggie if you built your rig in the first place

Also regarding paste, it's more about the application and seating rather than the paste itself. I would buy some expensive paste if I was installing a sexy waterblock on the CPU, but for $25-70 air coolers the paste supplied with them is totally fine.

[DeltrusDisc]

Also regarding paste, it's more about the application and seating rather than the paste itself. I would buy some expensive paste if I was installing a sexy waterblock on the CPU, but for $25-70 air coolers the paste supplied with them is totally fine.

If it's a Cooler Master heatsink, I would get aftermarket paste. The paste that came with my Hyper 212+ was some of the shoddiest-quality paste out there. Now on the other hand, the paste that came with my Zalman CNPS 9900ALED? Mind-blowingly good.

[Xuvial]

If the Hyper212 paste had really been that shit it wouldn't have been the most popular cooler since silced bread and reviews/feedback would've all said "excellent cooler, but get aftermarket paste".

You're probably right but just sayin : /