Looking at putting together a new pc..

[Deleted]

Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster...

I've been looking at the builds posted on the main page and I'm looking at replacing my current setup.

Budget

I'm looking around £1,000-£1,200

Resolution

I use 2 monitors

Main = 1920 x 1080 Secondary = 1400 x 900

Games / Settings Desired

At the moment I only really play League of Legends, will probably play Mists of Pandera and some more modern games like BF3 / Skyrim

Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc)

I'll be using Adobe AfterEffects, aswell as Sony Vegas, Photoshop, Maya/3DSMax etc. I will also be doing lots in Cubase which I will get to later..

Country

United Kingdom

Parts that can be reused

Currently my system consists of...

CPU: Core Duo E6850 3.0ghrz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Ram: 3gb

I also use 2 sound cards and on board occasionally..

One card is a very old SB Audigy II? comes with a big mixer type ASIO which I can plug my xbox 360 into and have the sound output through my pc

I also have another cheap soundcard plugged in (ASUS Xonar DS)

The mixture of these cards and on-board have caused lotssss of problems in cubase and crazy latency for recording guitars etc..

I also have 2 500gb HD's which I can re-use



I was thinking perhaps a mix between the 2 builds, narwhale and unicorn, posted by 'chaud' a while back (Cant post links yet but it's on page 4 currently)



Things I would like

Ideally I would like an SSD as the main drive for those insane speeds, was also thinking 8gb+ ram.

I've read in this situation that the i7 2600k would be best oc'd for the rendering etc as well as games (will also need a decent cooler to OC that bad boy )


I have no idea what to do with the sound, being able to record guitar as latency free as possible would be great, as well as a way to plug the xbox into the PC. (That part doesn't have to be straight away as I have headphones I can use to plug in the back of the xbox for now )

Anyway I hope that's enough information,

Many Thanks!

[Deleted]

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£233.00 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: NZXT HAVIK-140 90.3 CFM CPU Cooler (£53.86 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£143.25 @ Maplin Electronics)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£38.00 @ Maplin Electronics)
Hard Drive: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£122.48 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£383.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi Tower ATX Mid Tower Case (£65.91 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£66.62 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer (£13.18 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1120.28
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-03-15 05:28 GMT+0000)

If you don't need USB 3.0 support for the font panel and is okay with a few less SATA III connectors you can choose the Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 £113 motherboard instead. The GPU is more or less the most expensive of the 7950's but is also the best cooling solution, you can save a little there if you really need to. This assumes you already have Windows 7 and re-use the HDD(s).

[Deleted]

Looks pretty awesome!

Thanks alot!

---------- Post added 2012-03-15 at 02:44 PM ----------

After looking into the parts more it looks like the CPU Cooler: NZXT HAVIK-140 90.3 CFM CPU Cooler (£53.86 - Ebuyer) isn't particularly great?

Would I be better off with the Noctua NH-D14 ? (If it fits haha..)

[Deleted]

NZXT HAVIK is actually really good and is fairly close to the performance of Noctua NH-D14. Taking the price difference into account it's definitely a good purchase. Noctua NH-D14 is better but you'll only really see the performance gain when pushing your CPU really hard. If price isn't too much of a concern then go for it.

[Deleted]

I can also recommend the Havik 140, bought one myself about a month ago and its simply amazing. The difference between the D-14 and the Havik is really only a few degrees and you notice that when you push your CPU. Also remember that the Havik is only a single tower cooler whereas the D-14 is aa double tower.

Can't guarantee anything since it will depend on the motherboard and you RAM, but you could fit RAM with tall heatsinks on them with the Havik. My Havik covers one om my RAM sticks, but i use low profile memory anyways so it is not a big deal.

[Deleted]

Hey guys been looking at the hardrive mentioned and apparently there are a few issues with it, one being the firmware is a bit 'naff until it's been updated.

One I've been looking at is the 'OCZ 120GB Agility 3 SSD - AGT3' which apparently offers better performance for a similar amount of money.

Should I take the agility instead? and if so would it fit right in?

Many thanks!

[Deleted]

There are no issues with Crucial m4's. Agility 3 replacement would be an awful choice, the return rates and reliability leaves something to desire.

Updating the firmware on the Crucial is quite easy, download the file and burn to a disc or a boot-able USB flash-drive, reboot and follow onscreen direction and you're done. Even without the newest firmware it'll run fine for like 5000 hours+

Firmware download location

Looks like they even have a Windows tool do it now

Update Firmware through Windows Tool (Windows® 7 only)

[Deleted]

Ahh awesome! Thanks for the swift reply

[Deleted]

Ok so I've got it all put together! it's all working except im missing the SSD at the moment so im running it off the old HDD's I have. The performance however seems really poor and everything takes an aaaaaage to load, is this just compatibility issues with me running on my original version of windows 7 32 bit?

[Deleted]

You wanna get your hands on a Windows 7 64bit version, otherwise you'll only be able to utilize about ~4GB RAM. Also I suspect your HDD's might just be some slow (5400/5900) RPM ones? Make sure you install the motherboard drivers, latest BIOS update etc. Report back ones you get your SSD, you should be seeing a big decrease in loading times and make everything feel smoother and snappier.