[TrewXedea]

Hi all,

I am creating a custom PC for the first time and I was hoping to get some opinions on if the build is good, bad, terrible, whatever. Also I'm pretty sure everything I have is compatible, but if there are any glaring failures or incompatibilities it would be awesome to know so I don't buy everything before discovering it won't work.

Thanks in advance!

Edited 7/11/2012

CPU: Intel Core i5 or i7 TBD

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8
COOLER MASTER Intel LGA 2011 Retention Bracket for Hyper 212 Plus

Motherboard: TBD

Memory: TBD

Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 180GB 2.5" SSD

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB

Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: Kingwin 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer

[Minal-D]

Hey, i would recommend getting rid of your cpu, motherboard and cpu cooler for a

-Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge LGA1155
-A Moboany of the following)


ASRock P67 Extreme4
P67 Extreme4 UEFI
Asus P8P67 Pro
P8P67 Pro UEFI
Biostar TP67XE
TP67XE UEFI
ECS P67H2-A2
P67H2-A2 UEFI
Foxconn P67A-S
P67A-S UEFI
Gigabyte P67A-UD4
P67A-UD4 BIOS
Intel DP67BG
DP67BG UEFI
Jetway HI08
HI08 UEFI
MSI P67A-GD65
P67A-GD65 UEFI



-CPU cooler:

Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler


-GPU
Nvidia GTX 680


All the other specs seem to be good
Hope this helps
And when you find a buyer for your kidney please send him this way, i have a spare i want to get rid of.

[Tanis]

Hi and welcome to TSG.

My thoughts:

- Firstly, what is the PC going to be used for? I can make a very educated guess based on your listed parts, but just checking.

- Personally, I am not familiar with Kingwin as a PSU manufacturer so can not really comment on their quality. The website doesn't read up too bad and they aren't a cheap unit. However, I think 1000w is quite significant overkill for your listed specs.

- Biostar aren't really the best make of motherboard out there. If you want a decent rig overall don't cut costs, quality does cost and does pay in the long run. A weak component can often bottleneck the entire system. My personal preferences are Gigabyte or Asus.

- Are you putting a standard SATA hard drive in it also? A 180gb SSD is a good, quick, Windows / programs drive but it will fill up very quickly.

- Is the RAM you have selected on the motherboard Qualified Vendor List? I would suggest getting RAM that is on that list as it provides an extra layer of compatibility assurance.

[TrewXedea]

First off thanks for your responses and thanks for the welcome!

My intention was to make a high end gaming pc that would last for a really long time providing high to ultra level graphics for at least 5 years but preferably more. I figured that upgrading once the 670 is older would be easiest if I could just use SLI and get another 670. For the mobo to support that though I wasn't quite sure if the x79 and the bandwidth support for PCI 3.0s was necessary. Judging by your responses though I would think that the x79 has a generally different use?

I am putting a standard hdd in at some point, but not right now. Currently I have an external HD that I use for music, video, backups, etc that I will use to try and keep the ssd clear for now. Also I enjoy the idea of raiding some hard drives together later on so that combined with possible overclocking eventually, and probably having 2 gpus later on is why I have the 1000w psu.

As for the RAM I have no clue if it is on the qualified vendor list. How would I go about finding that out?

Thanks for the responses, a friend of mine recommended these forums as soon as I asked about where to get advice on my build, definitely a good choice

[crjdriver]

Some thoughts;
1 If you intend to overclock, then do not go with a biostar board. Biostar is fine for basic office apps, email, web, etc. It is not for overclocking. Go with a high end asus or gigabyte board if you intend to overclock.
2 IMO sli is nothing more than a gimmick to sell more video cards. You will get better performance out of a single high end card than two low end cards in sli. The technology is not new; in fact it dates from the late 90s.
3 I would really think long and hard about going with the 2011 socket/board over an 1155 socket/board. IMO you would get better performance out a board like this Asus 1155 and 3570k or even an older 2500k.

Put the money saved into a corsair or seasonic pw supply.

FWIW I have the board linked to above with a 2500k overclocked to 4.2gig and it is absolutely flawless; incredible performance.

As for the RAM I have no clue if it is on the qualified vendor list. How would I go about finding that out?

Both asus and gigabyte have "approved" lists of ram that has been tested and found to work. On thing to remember; a board maker really cannot test ALL ram. Just because the ram is not on the list does not mean it will not work. It means it was not tested and found to work. For a new builder, stick with ram on the qvl or approved list. It will cut down on problems for you.

[crjdriver]

BTW I doubt you are going to get 5yrs out of a gaming system without upgrading said system. New games are released that have more requirements, etc. Expect to upgrade at least the video card after 2~3 rears if you intend to play the latest games.

[AJScott]

You're buying a small hard drive, it's the type you get in laptops. Get a 3.5" one. It's also very small anyway, I have 2tb and I use it for gaming. I hav less than 1 left. Considering modern games coming out like Max Payne are going to take up about 30GB and you only have 180, you need a bigger hard drive. Maybe go HDD not SSD?

[Tanis]

Didn't even notice the physical drive size, so yes, got with a 3.5" drive rather than a 2.5".

SSD is perfectly fine as a drive and they do provide a significant performance increase (greatly reduced load times primarily) over a standard drive. The standard fit would be an SSD with an additional standard SATA drive for storage.

Personally, I would install Windows etc on the SATA and reserve the SSD for game / program installs that you want the best performance from. I'm not that bothered about a slightly longer startup time, game / program performance would be more important.

[crjdriver]

Originally Posted by AJScott

You're buying a small hard drive, it's the type you get in laptops. Get a 3.5" one. It's also very small anyway, I have 2tb and I use it for gaming. I hav less than 1 left. Considering modern games coming out like Max Payne are going to take up about 30GB and you only have 180, you need a bigger hard drive. Maybe go HDD not SSD?

Most [however not all] ssd drives come as 2.5" You use an adapter plate to install into a desktop. Many drives come with the adapter plate OR new modern cases often support 2.5" drives.

[TrewXedea]

Two people for gigabyte/asus. I'll use one of those. Also I am not going to immediately OC this. When I do it will be after I've had it for a while and more along the lines of tinkering and "practice" for when I do it in a later build. For the SSD the case supports 2.5 SSDs, and I'll see if I can squeez some more GB in depending on price etc. I am going to add a regular HDD later, just not immediately.

Now the mobo/CPU/SLI which is what I mainly wanted advice on:

Originally Posted by crjdriver

BTW I doubt you are going to get 5yrs out of a gaming system without upgrading said system. New games are released that have more requirements, etc. Expect to upgrade at least the video card after 2~3 rears if you intend to play the latest games.

I completely agree and how I was planning to upgrade is also related to the 2011 decision (which may have been ill advised):

The idea was, after 2-3 years, upgrade by getting another 670 and linking with SLI. The issue with that is only the x79 chip mobos can even have 2xPCI 3.0 (x16/X16). I was under the immpression that I needed the 16 bandwidth to be able to run a gpu (especially the newer ones) to its full potential. So I went with the 2011 because of that, for how long the mobo would still be upgradable, and also because i7s are fun.

However two things were mentioned about that:

Originally Posted by crjdriver

2 IMO sli is nothing more than a gimmick to sell more video cards. You will get better performance out of a single high end card than two low end cards in sli. The technology is not new; in fact it dates from the late 90s.
3 I would really think long and hard about going with the 2011 socket/board over an 1155 socket/board. IMO you would get better performance out a board like this Asus 1155 and 3570k or even an older 2500k.

I was hoping you could offer some insight related to the SLI being a gimick, and choosing 2011 or 1155 based on the plan I put forward; particularly if I was wrong about the the PCI slots.

Also if I were to go with a 1155 socket do you think that, after 5 years, I could still get ultra graphics out of it with the right gpu? As far as I know, apart from the bandwidth, I could. In fact that was my first plan, but I may as well ask the question with the obvious answer anyway.

Thanks again for all of the replies, been really useful.

[crjdriver]

In 5 years current mb and cpu will be long obsolete. They would be fine for office apps, etc however for gaming you would want a new board/cpu combo long before 5yrs. Remember Moore's law of cpu speed doubling every 2yrs.

As I said sli is not new. There were video cards built in the late 90s that used 4 gpus on a card. By the time you get around to buying a second video card to match the one you now have, nvidia or amd/ati will have much more capable cards available. Why be stuck with 2 or 3 yr old tech?

Here is a pic of an old voodoo card with multiple gpus. This dates from around 1998~9 or so.

[crjdriver]

BTW that thing even came with its own pw supply since pw supplies of that era were not capable of providing the necessary wattage.

[TrewXedea]

Regardless of how long different setups will last does the bandwidth of the PCI 3.0 card matter? I was under the impression it is important and I'd like to confirm that if possible.

[crjdriver]

For the benchmarks I have seen no.
Take a look at this article for an in depth explanation. I think they achieved a 1% increase in performance using 3.0 over 2.0.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/I...caling/24.html

[TrewXedea]

Seeing how that x79 was completely unnecessary I changed the build. I also added a few GB to the SSD and changed the brand to a recommended one. I am considering lowering the wattage of the PSU and upgrading it later, but I don't know how much wattage I would need and online has given me a very wide range so any help on that would be great. Anyway, new build:

I was going to edit the op but couldn't figure it out again so instead I am posting my revisions here until I can figure it out. The changes are bolded.


CPU: Intel Core i5-3550 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z77 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (On the QVL)

Hard Drive: Crucial M4 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card

Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: Kingwin 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer