Yet another critique my PC build Thread!

[oleander007]

I'm new to building my own pc and I need any feedback I can get. It's not a cheap build but I want a monster gaming pc and something that will last a bit and has plenty of upgrade room. Any advice, compatibility issues, etc. would be greatly appreciated!



    Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000
   
    G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL (Ram)

    CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Cooler)

    Thermaltake Level 10 GT (VN10001W2N) Black SECC / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case with Four Fans-1x 200mm Colorshift  (Case)   

    ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
   
    EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support  (2 of those)   

    ABS Majesty series MJ1100-M Continuous 1100W@50°C ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified, Single 12V Rail, Modular Flat Cable

    OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Boot Drive)   

    Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive   

    Creative 70SB088000004 7.1 Channels PCI Express 1x Interface PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
   
    Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM

    Logitech Z506 75 watts RMS 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers

    OPTI-UPS ES1500C 1400 VA 980 W UPS

    Asus VG236H 23" Full HD 120Hz 3D multimedia Height & Swivel Adjustable WideScreen LCD Monitor w/nVidia 3D Vision Kit

    LITE-ON Black 12X Blu-ray Burner with Blu-ray 3D feature SATA IHBS112-29 - OEM   

    Logitech G500 10 Buttons Dual-mode Scroll Wheel USB Wired Laser Gaming Mouse

    Logitech MK120 Black USB Wired Slim Desktop (Keyboard)

[El Barto]

I'm not a fan of buying the newest, bestest, most expensivest stuff,  generally.  In this case,  if you're mainly interested in gaming,  the i5-2500 is very nearly as good,  and a ton cheaper.  The i7 mainly excels in 3d editing and such.  I paid $85 for my i5 (after bundle and black Friday discounts) and I'm quite happy with it. 

Since you're getting a liquid cooler,  I guess you'll be overclocking it,  and the i7 does have more overhead for that sort of thing.  Still,  people are easily getting their i5's up to 4700ghz or so just with air cooling.

And out of curiosity,  what makes that $315 mobo any better than all the other z68 chipset boards? 

[Millais]

looks really nice. not completely sure about the screen though if I'm honest. sure, 3D gaming is good, but it's not that great and personally i'm not sure i could justify spending another £150+ on a screen supporting it. just my preference though!
If I were to suggest a new screen it'd be the 24" BenQ G2420HDBL... don't be put off by how cheap it is (£120 in the UK), it really is an incredible deal for an LED monitor. could not recommend it highly enough.

[oleander007]

@El Barto I'm not dead set on any particular board, I guess I just didn't want to skimp on one of the most important components for future proofing my rig. If some of the other boards are essentially identical for the task I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for the insight on the cpu as well  

@ Millais I'll check into that monitor also, I was on the fence about the 3D thing too.

[Bacong]

Looks like you got money to burn. Your damn mobo is like 70% of the cost of my entire setup:

3.3 AMD Athlon II X4
Radeon HD 5770
8 GB DDR3 1600
640 + 1 TB drives

Ivy bridge is coming out soon. You could wait for that. If you're buying now, whatever.

You're spending entirely too much on this build. Since you're a NOOB and didn't include prices I have no number but I'd bet you're looking at close to 2k on this which is extreme overkill. You don't have to worry about future proofing with a mobo, the only things that affect that are CPU and GPU, and both of those are better than what 99% of computer users have.

Scale it down to an i5, spend half that much on the mobo. Look at cheaper alternatives elsewhere, and spend the savings in Steam. You'll be happier for it with no noticeable performance drop.

[Bacong]

I didn't even see how much the GPU was and the SSD? Jesus this is probably closer to 3k.

[Bacong]

For that price get a 6990. Single card setups have less performance issues than an SLI setup, and you save 300 bucks. It's the best card out right now and will be playing shit on high for at least 3-4 years.

[Bacong]

this is more sensible imo, but it doesn't include all that other shit you wanted/need (stereo, OS, k/m) and you won't see a drop in performance. Considering that it's still 2k, god..

[El Barto]

And hold off on the data drive for a few months.  My 2TB drive ran me $80 six months ago.  Flooding in Thailand has hammered the HDD industry,  but it's a temporary thing.  Once production gets ramped back up,  they'll be giving those things away.  Also,  since it's going to be for storage and not programs (that's what the SSD is for),  you can save quite a bit by getting a 5200rpm drive.  Your pr0n collection won't know the difference.

Also,  don't know where you are,  but if there's a Microcenter near by,  they generally beat the hell out of Newegg nowadays.  I tend not to buy from people who don't pony up bundle discounts. 

[antigoon]

Also,  don't know where you are,  but if there's a Microcenter near by,  they generally beat the hell out of Newegg nowadays.  I tend not to buy from people who don't pony up bundle discounts. 

Whoa, really? I never would have guessed.

[El Barto]

Also,  don't know where you are,  but if there's a Microcenter near by,  they generally beat the hell out of Newegg nowadays.  I tend not to buy from people who don't pony up bundle discounts. 

Whoa, really? I never would have guessed.

They also match their prices.  The downside is that they try pretty hard not to carry the same stuff, for that reason.  Still they have a good selection to choose from.  I was out of their for $220 with an i5-2500,  Z-68 mobo,  and 4gb of ram. 

[antigoon]

I lived like two miles away from a Microcenter for the first 21 years of my life and set foot in it maybe once or twice that whole time. It was always a messy, dim store -- not very inviting. I guess I just figured it wasn't of much worth because of those things.

[cramx3]

Dont scale down, I have the same CPU and its the best price per performance for PCs. It is the best CPU thats not ridiculously expensive. Your PC sounds awesome to me, I have a similar build and you will be very happy. I will say I hardly use my nvidia 3d, but it certainly is cool. If you were to scale back, id drop the 3d.

[Scrub206]

I'm new to building my own pc and I need any feedback I can get. It's not a cheap build but I want a monster gaming pc and something that will last a bit and has plenty of upgrade room. Any advice, compatibility issues, etc. would be greatly appreciated!



    Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000
   
    G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL (Ram)

    CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Cooler)

    Thermaltake Level 10 GT (VN10001W2N) Black SECC / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case with Four Fans-1x 200mm Colorshift  (Case)   

    ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
   
    EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support  (2 of those)   

    ABS Majesty series MJ1100-M Continuous 1100W@50°C ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified, Single 12V Rail, Modular Flat Cable

    OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Boot Drive)   

    Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive   

    Creative 70SB088000004 7.1 Channels PCI Express 1x Interface PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
   
    Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM

    Logitech Z506 75 watts RMS 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers

    OPTI-UPS ES1500C 1400 VA 980 W UPS

    Asus VG236H 23" Full HD 120Hz 3D multimedia Height & Swivel Adjustable WideScreen LCD Monitor w/nVidia 3D Vision Kit

    LITE-ON Black 12X Blu-ray Burner with Blu-ray 3D feature SATA IHBS112-29 - OEM   

    Logitech G500 10 Buttons Dual-mode Scroll Wheel USB Wired Laser Gaming Mouse

    Logitech MK120 Black USB Wired Slim Desktop (Keyboard)

well by this im assuming you have no budget...

imo Crossfire 2 7970's they are phenomenal cards. not to mention outperform 580. I konw a lot of people who are overclocking the 7970's and grabbing over 2x the performance of the 6970s. (which is hot imo)

also go with Corsair's AX1100w PSU. corsair is just a more reliable brand imo.

Change that case to the Corsair Obsidian 800D aswell. better airflow.

also if you have the money to do all this you should consider putting it all under water. and ditch the H100

honestly tho what are you even truely using this for?

[FiberglassMoon]

I think AMD just fired a bunch of the driver programmers in ATi....Bulldozer was such a failure that they had to let people go, so they decided to get rid of their video card division driver developers (makes sense, right?). 

Anyway, reason I'm saying this is because my 4870 just roasted and I needed a new card.  Decided to pick up a GTX 560 instead of another ATi card because I don't want to risk having to deal with issues if ATi's driver quality starts to suffer because they fired a lot of their staff.

Also, doesn't Ivy Bridge come out soon?  Maybe just wait till then to spend this much money

[El Barto]

Bulldozer was destined to fail,  and the only reason Sandy Bridge didn't is because it's plenty robust for the price.  People who want good CPU's don't want discrete graphics.

As for ATI's graphics,  I swore them off a while ago.  Many years of struggling with an AIW 9800 pro really soured me on those nimrods.  Great hardware, but appallingly bad software support. 

[cramx3]

Third gen core i cpus are due out very soon, but id stick with the 2nd gen. The third has better on board graphics (who cares with a gpu), better power consumption, and only small performance gains. I really think the i7-2600k is the best for the price and there is very little need for more than 4 cores. And one more thought, the gtx 580 is a beast. I wouldnt take any other video card right now. I dont own one (i have gtx 460) but from reviews to my one friend who has one, it will not dissapoint.

[HarlequinForest]

IMO, since you're going the 3D route, you should get more than a 580, since 3D literally halves the FPS potential of GPUs.  Either 6990, 7970, or SLI 580s.