friend is building a new PC, thought i should run it by you guys first

[asharia]

hi guys. my friend i wanting to build a new pc. he asked me about the list he put together, but its been a while since i've built mine and i'm a bit out of the loop. i know the basics, but i'm not really aware of what good prices are or what is good value atm.

hes looking for a good midrange build, capable of playing most anything decently. doesnt have to be all ultra settings.

anyway, this is the list he put together and showed me

i5 2500k 3.3ghz
asrock z68-extreme3-gen3
kingston kvr 8gb ddr3 1333
seagate 1tb 7200rpm
antec one hundred case
corsair tx650 psu
powercolor 6870 1gb (x2) -- $330 for both
plus mouse, keyboard, speakers etc not really important

all up hes looking at aus$1100 atm

mostly, i'm not sure about the GPUs. never heard of 'powercolor'. and i dont know anything about using 2 cards.

is there anything glaringly wrong with this? anywhere where he could make some changes for the better?

i dont think he wants an SSD, though i might ask next time i see him.

edit: no monitor included in price

[OnyxRayzor]

Everything looks good though I'd probably go for a slightly better case personally.

Maybe the three hundred or an NZXT 210.

[Bluedragonwolf]

I don't know much about Powercolor... a quick google search and I do see a list of complaints that, if regarded percentage wise with the positives, comes out to about a 50/50 rate. BUT, having no experience with them myself, I can't say yay or nay. I will say however, that if he has a few extra bucks, to go for Sapphire or Asus (again, my personal opinion as these are the two of which I have had the most experience with and never had a problem). As for 2 cards, that's fine, running 2 cards in crossfire works fine. Although I would look into perhaps getting a single GPU instead, leaves room for upgrades later down the line, especially as this isn't an upgrade itself; perhaps a 6970? As it stands the fact that he's looking for a good midrange, even just a single 6870 would work fine and he could put the savings into an SSD. Most of my friends didn't care about SSD's until they tried one. But to each their own.

[Sayier]

I don't know a whole lot about AMD cards (I'm a Nvidia child) but I'm pretty sure 6870's are pretty high up there in performance. I would look into getting a higher watt PSU if you plan on running two graphics cards. Again I'm not great with AMD cards and how efficiently they run but I wouldn't run two high end graphics card on just a 650W. As others have said probably it would be best to just cut back to a single 6870. I have a single 460 and from my 30 second look up the 6870s appear to be on par maybe slightly worse then them and I can run newer games on medium-high to high with no problem. You could also step it up 1600 MHz RAM sticks for not to much more. Probably won't see a whole lot of improvement but the cost difference should be pretty minimal, I was able to find two 4GB 1600 sticks from G. Skill for $45 USD.

[Deleted]

Don't go SLI in your initial build, bump to a better single card in my opinion.

EVGA SuperClocked 560ti $230(MIR)
MSI 560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II $240(MIR)
ASUS GTX560-TI DCII $230(MIR)

If you want to make sure you can SLI them later on pick up the 750W TX v2 instead.

[Deleted]

Avoid crossfiring 6870's, they tend to suffer more than most radeon cards from .. err. the term.. well lets just call it 'frame delivery sync speed'.. basically it renders 1 frame fast, the other slow, then fast then slow.. this in more 'fps demanding' situations causes slowdowns, alternatively stutter. This problem exists in both nvidia and amd cards, so its not exclusive to either. It might vary a bit between brand, but since the gpu's are the same i highly doubt it will make much difference, since its a sync issue. Note that not everyone experience this, or even if they do, spot it. It is very dependant on what you play and such aswell

Better off getting a single card with more power as stated above.

[Eroginous]

hi guys. my friend i wanting to build a new pc. he asked me about the list he put together, but its been a while since i've built mine and i'm a bit out of the loop. i know the basics, but i'm not really aware of what good prices are or what is good value atm.

hes looking for a good midrange build, capable of playing most anything decently. doesnt have to be all ultra settings.

anyway, this is the list he put together and showed me

i5 2500k 3.3ghz
asrock z68-extreme3-gen3
kingston kvr 8gb ddr3 1333
seagate 1tb 7200rpm
antec one hundred case
corsair tx650 psu
powercolor 6870 1gb (x2) -- $330 for both
plus mouse, keyboard, speakers etc not really important

all up hes looking at aus$1100 atm

mostly, i'm not sure about the GPUs. never heard of 'powercolor'. and i dont know anything about using 2 cards.

is there anything glaringly wrong with this? anywhere where he could make some changes for the better?

i dont think he wants an SSD, though i might ask next time i see him.

edit: no monitor included in price

I have no experience with Power Color, but reviews suggest that they are good cards for the price, though not very good for the OCing crowd. If you're just going to Xfire them and run, seems like a good choice.

The ram you listed seems very expensive comparative to other ram. I'd make sure I didn't pay more than $50 for it.

Other than that, seems about right for the price.

[Deleted]

Powercolor in general is alright. They've been working with ati/amd for quite some time, so should know what they are doing. (had 2x Hd3870x2 from them, and they ran stable and powered through everything)

[Deleted]

- Not a huge fan of Powercolor. They are mediocre but offer great value (considering performance). I believe you get more reliability from MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte or EVGA (for example), but as long as there is a decent warranty and costumer support it should work alright. I'd never personally get a GPU from them.
- An i5 2500k overclocks easier with 1600MHz RAM modules. Also consider a nice aftermarket heatsink (e.g. the NZXT Havik).
- Considering your components, that case is terrible as it is a budget oriented case not meant for high-end builds. Spend some more and get a proper case, like the Corsair 400R or the Fractal Design Arc Midi.

[Deleted]

Don't go SLI in your initial build, bump to a better single card in my opinion.

If you want to make sure you can SLI them later on pick up the 750W TX v2 instead.

^ This. I don't think SLI is good price per performance in the medium+ range.

[Deleted]

^ This. I don't think SLI is good price per performance in the medium+ range.

I'll jump on this as well. I wouldn't recommend going Crossfire initially unless you are running the highest performing card (i.e. 7970s or 6970s). However, there are new GPUs on the horizon with the new 7970 already being released by AMD. It might be wise to wait for the 7870 and 7850 to be released before you make your purchase (or your friend does), especially if he can use a spare GPU in the meantime.