New Build - Six years since my last

[Senzaijin]

Okay, so, down to business, if you will. I'm about ready to purchase the parts to a new build, and I was wondering if people might comment on said build. It's been six and a half years since my last, so I figured it was time for a machine that could actually play something made in the last three... Downloaded Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and my laptop (I will never buy another laptop again, especially not a "gaming" laptop) couldn't really handle it. Upgrade time!

I'd like to keep this build between $1500 and $2000 at the highest, and hope that I can make it last for at least three years of playing games on high settings. Ultra settings would be even nicer, but ultimately, that's a luxury and not necessary. My current monitor is 1920 x 1200, and it's what I'd prefer my game to be played at. As an aside, I already have speakers, a headset, keyboard / mouse, Windows 7, etc. This is basically the machine itself I'm asking about.



If there is anything wrong with the build or comments you have on parts, etc etc, please feel free to post them. My biggest questions about the build are the following:

1. ASRock: I'm a little removed from the custom PC scene. I had never heard of them until I started looking into building a new machine recently. I haven't come across any terribly negative things about them other than people who give one egg because boo hoo, they got a DOA board and forgot to tell us about the replacement they received. So, are they worthwhile?

2. A lot of what I've read on SSD's is a 50 / 50 split. Some are saying it's all kinds of wonderful because HDD's are the real bottleneck in systems today. The other half are saying that even now, they're so unstable and don't last nearly long enough for the price. I'm not against taking that out of the build, or even keeping it. I would just like to get some more opinions.

3. 2600K or keep the Sandy Bridge 3820? Both perform almost identically, with the 3820 pulling ahead in a few places. I've read that it's a good choice because it is -slightly- better, and it's good for future proofing when newer cards come out. I'm not an expert, so I can't claim to understand everything I was reading. Something about having multiple cards and all the channels open or some such. I'd like a bit of future proofing, but I was wondering what people thought of the 3820 in general.

4. Quad-channel memory support. Should I keep the 3820, I'm assuming this means it would be preferable to get 4 sticks of RAM and fill four DIMM slots? Or am I just too out of it?

5. The 850W PSU. I might get a second card in the future, so I figured having a little headroom would be nice for that. I'm still not sure, however, if that's too much and should drop to a 750. I'm debating between the GTX 670 and 680 at the moment, as there's no way in hell I'm paying the price for a 690.



Here's a list of the parts I've selected from Newegg:

Case: COOLERMASTER HAF 932

Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme4 LGA 2011

Vidya Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW or a GTX 680

PSU: Corsair HX Series 850W

CPU: Intel i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E

Heatsink: Thermaltake Frio OC-Ready

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series (2 x 4GB)

HDD: WD Caviar Black 2TB

DVD: ASUS 24x DVD Burner



I apologize for not having any direct links... Apparently I can't make a post with any in them til I've fulfilled the requirement of "a few" posts here on the forums. *sighs* No idea how many that is, so I just posted what I have. Every item listed here is on Newegg.

[Kyuuseishu]

1. ASRock boards are generally good boards, the Extreme4 will serve you well

2. An SSD is only really used to decrease the loading times since the fetch time is basically nothing compared to traditional HDD's. You won't see an FPS increase but you will see a considerable decrease in loading times. Its a luxury not a necessity

3. I don't have much experience with 2011 slot CPU's.

4. Quad channel memory comes in sets of 4 anyway, just like Dual channel come in sets of two.

5. 850W seems a bit overkill, a 750W should easily be able to run the system and the cards even if you go SLI. Hell even a 650W (don't quote me on that). In terms of the GFX card, stick to a 670, something like the Asus DirectCU II top can be OC'd to out perform a stock 680, so in my opinion not worth the money.

[demonskies]

I5 3570k w/Asrock Z77 extreme 4 would suit you better, waste of money going for X79/2011 platform I7 if your into heavy video rendering and what not but still dont get X79/2011
Id get a Gigabyte Windforcex3 670 and OC it
No reason for an 850 watt psu you could get a corsair 650tx or even lower and be fine (750 would even be fine for dual cards)
Get a crucial m4 or samsung 830 SSD
You should get 8Gb 1600mhz low profile ram like Gskill ares or something similar

[Senzaijin]

[/COLOR]

1. ASRock boards are generally good boards, the Extreme4 will serve you well

2. An SSD is only really used to decrease the loading times since the fetch time is basically nothing compared to traditional HDD's. You won't see an FPS increase but you will see a considerable decrease in loading times. Its a luxury not a necessity

3. I don't have much experience with 2011 slot CPU's.

4. Quad channel memory comes in sets of 4 anyway, just like Dual channel come in sets of two.

5. 850W seems a bit overkill, a 750W should easily be able to run the system and the cards even if you go SLI. Hell even a 650W (don't quote me on that). In terms of the GFX card, stick to a 670, something like the Asus DirectCU II top can be OC'd to out perform a stock 680, so in my opinion not worth the money.

That's a lot of what I've heard with SSDs. I don't mind loading times that are a few seconds longer. That being the case, however, would you recommend maybe swapping out the HDD I have listed and picking up a WD Raptor? Those 10000 RPM ones?

And yeah, I think I'll pick up a 750. I was thinking 850 was a bit overkill, but I wasn't 100% sure, what with the new cards being absolute BEHEMOTHS compared to the 9600 I have installed in my old desktop.

Edit:

Sorry, still getting used to the way the forums work. *nods* I haven't used one since...well...2004? <_<

---------- Post added 2012-08-24 at 07:04 PM ----------

I5 3570k w/Asrock Z77 extreme 4 would suit you better, waste of money going for X79/2011 platform I7 if your into heavy video rendering and what not but still dont get X79/2011
Id get a Gigabyte Windforcex3 670 and OC it
No reason for an 850 watt psu you could get a corsair 650tx or even lower and be fine (750 would even be fine for dual cards)
Get a crucial m4 or samsung 830 SSD
You should get 8Gb 1600mhz low profile ram like Gskill ares or something similar

Oh good, deleted the response I had to this post...

Okay, so, any reasons in particular you dislike the 2011 platform? I also don't do any rendering, and this system is purely for gaming, so if that's a reason to "downgrade" it won't affect me.

As for the SSDs, any reasons for those over what I have listed? If you could give specifics and details, I would greatly appreciate it, thanks.

---------- Post added 2012-08-24 at 07:12 PM ----------

I'm giving up trying to fix those responses. >< Just...ignore the double post.

[Kyuuseishu]

Its not just the load times its also the boot time, your system will boot in roughly 15-20 seconds with an SSD. After doing some research between an SSD, WD CB and WD Raptor. I believe you are better off using an SSD for your OS and frequently played games 128GB should do (256GB if you have many games you play often), and stick to the 2TB WD Caviar Black for general storage and lesser used games and programmes. If you want to spend more money to have a faster storage drive then by all means go ahead, but you get half the storage and probably a barely noticeable performance increase.

To answer the second question, from what I read OCZ tend to be less reliable than the suggested two.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

1. ASRock: I'm a little removed from the custom PC scene. I had never heard of them until I started looking into building a new machine recently. I haven't come across any terribly negative things about them other than people who give one egg because boo hoo, they got a DOA board and forgot to tell us about the replacement they received. So, are they worthwhile?

AsRock used to be shit, but since the LGA 1155 boards came out they have really got their act together. Their Z77 Extreme4 is basically the best priceerformance motherboard on the market.

2. A lot of what I've read on SSD's is a 50 / 50 split. Some are saying it's all kinds of wonderful because HDD's are the real bottleneck in systems today. The other half are saying that even now, they're so unstable and don't last nearly long enough for the price. I'm not against taking that out of the build, or even keeping it. I would just like to get some more opinions.

Vertex 3 uses the Sandforce 2281 controller, which had...issues. Go for the Crucial M4, the Samsung 830 or the OCZ Vertex4.
SSDs are pretty solid nowadays, and their technical lifetime will outlast the useful lifetime of the drive.

3. 2600K or keep the Sandy Bridge 3820? Both perform almost identically, with the 3820 pulling ahead in a few places. I've read that it's a good choice because it is -slightly- better, and it's good for future proofing when newer cards come out. I'm not an expert, so I can't claim to understand everything I was reading. Something about having multiple cards and all the channels open or some such. I'd like a bit of future proofing, but I was wondering what people thought of the 3820 in general.

Unless you go for the i7 3930K, which costs 550 bucks, there is no point going for SB-E. The i5 2500K performed about on par with the i7 3820, and the i5 3570K is faster than the 2500K. The 2600K and 3770K have no real world advantage in games over the i5 counterparts, but cost 120 dollars more.

4. Quad-channel memory support. Should I keep the 3820, I'm assuming this means it would be preferable to get 4 sticks of RAM and fill four DIMM slots? Or am I just too out of it?

Quad channel means you have four RAM channels which can each use up to two sticks, giving a total of 8 sticks of RAM. Dual channel can support up to 4 DIMMs. You can only use quad channel on X79 boards, but that is no reason to buy X79.

5. The 850W PSU. I might get a second card in the future, so I figured having a little headroom would be nice for that. I'm still not sure, however, if that's too much and should drop to a 750. I'm debating between the GTX 670 and 680 at the moment, as there's no way in hell I'm paying the price for a 690.

You can run two 7970s or 680s on a good 650W PSU. The 680 is not worth the money they want for it. An HD 7970 is around the same price as a GTX 670 and performs the same as the 680.

Other comments:
Get a different case. Something like a Fractal Design R4 or Arc Midi will be easier to work in, manage cables and will have an overall more quality look (they have less plastic in them)
You can post links with a post count of 10.

[Senzaijin]

I'm not 100% sure how to quote in fragments like that, so my apologies Butler Log.

Good to know on the ASRock. I figured there had to be a reason people weren't giving them negative reviews, just wanted to be sure. And I'll definitely be looking into the other SSDs now.

Thanks for the heads up on the PSU as well. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not really looking to overclock anything too significantly. One, I'm not terribly confident in my abilities to do so, and two, I don't want to add to the wear and tear of the parts more than necessary. Would I have to overclock the i5's much to be on par with other CPUs?

On the subject of graphics cards, it might be unfounded, but I refuse to buy any of the ATI cards... I can't STAND the Catalyst drivers and crap that goes with them. They've been nothing but a huge headache for me in the past.

Lastly, the Fractal Design R4 is...just too minimalist for me I think. It also doesn't appear to offer the same kind of airflow and cooling the COOLERMASTER has. The Arc Midi looked a bit nicer though... How exactly does the cable management in that case work?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Would I have to overclock the i5's much to be on par with other CPUs?

No.

On the subject of graphics cards, it might be unfounded, but I refuse to buy any of the ATI cards... I can't STAND the Catalyst drivers and crap that goes with them. They've been nothing but a huge headache for me in the past.

It's your money, your choice. I am simply advising you that, as of right now, you can get a card that performs the same as the GTX 670 for nearly 100 dollars less (see here ($329.99-$20.00 MiR) compared to here ($399.99 no MiR available)) And with any of the high-end cards (7950, 7970 and 670, 680) you really don't need more than one of them unless you are driving three 2560*1440 or 2560*1600 monitors.

Lastly, the Fractal Design R4 is...just too minimalist for me I think. It also doesn't appear to offer the same kind of airflow and cooling the COOLERMASTER has. The Arc Midi looked a bit nicer though... How exactly does the cable management in that case work?

You poke the cables through the bottom right grommet, route them around the back of the motherboard tray and poke them out through the closest grommet to where they need to be plugged in The Arc Midi has about an inch of space between the back of the motherboard tray and the side panel which is a lot of space, even for the thick 24pin motherboard power

[Senzaijin]

Well, this has been incredibly helpful. Thanks so far to everyone that has replied to my thread. I'm hoping to get this build ordered here in the next few days, so it's always nice to get some helpful feedback.

[Senzaijin]

One last question, as I'm about to place the orders for the parts I've decided to get:

Should I get a thermal compound for my CPU even with the heatsink? Lastly, it's as easy as just spreading a small bit atop the CPU, yes?

[demonskies]

Sorry didnt respond to your questions earlier it was the weekend but Butler pointed you in the right direction after I was absent for my weekend trying to enjoy the last of the summer sun lol. For the CPU paste question I normally put a sandwich bag over my finger and create a nice even coat over the top to where it wont spill over the sides and onto the board.