Feedback on a i-5 build please

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one swell foop

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 16, 2004
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I've been out of the hardware loop for some time since I'm paying for school out of pocket, and am building a trading computer for my dad. He'll be beginning with three monitors, with the idea of being able to upgrade to six if he wants to later, and possibly adding another graphics card. This will be a trading machine only, no games, and likely no media playback. He won't need a lot of media storage space, so large HD's are not necessary, but Future proofing to some extent is desirable. RAID a must. If one drive goes down, the system needs to be able to be back up and running quickly.

Open to any opinions or advice.

Intel Core i5-2500K Processor 3.3GHz 6 MB Cache Socket LGA1155
ASUS P8P67 PRO LGA 1155 SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 Supported Intel P67 DDR3 2400 ATX Motherboard
2 X Sapphire Radeon HD5670 512MB DDR5
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
2 X Samsung Desktop Class Spinpoint F3 1 TB SATA 3.0 in a RAID configuration
Corsair CMPSU-850TX Power Supply
Silverstone Raven RV02-EW

Any reccommendations on a good but inexpensive heatsink and fan combo to go with this? Thanks in advance!
 
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What video cards were you planning on using?
Are you planning on overclocking this PC?

Right off the bat, that mobo and PSU are overkill for your dad's needs from what you've written so far.
 
Ooooops! Knew I forgot something! He's starting with two of these:
Sapphire Radeon HD5670 512MB DDR5 DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card - 100287L

With the idea of possibly adding another in the future. That's why I went with the 850, and HardOCP's sterling review of the 850W corsair unit. As long and the voltages are steady on the 750W, there'd be no problem dropping down to that one. No, he won't be overclocking, and I realize I can save $10 and the the i5-2500, so that might happen. He's also looking at just biting the bullet and getting an i7 processor.

What motherboard would you recommend that has 3 PCI-x slots, is crossfire capable and has RAID capability? I've always aimed for the $125-$150 range for my personal machines, but my dad has more resources than I do, and this board seems to have an enthusiastic group of admirers. Main focus on this is the three things I listed above being within the board's functionality, compatibility and stability.
 
one swell foop said:
Ooooops! Knew I forgot something! He's starting with two of these:
Sapphire Radeon HD5670 512MB DDR5 DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card - 100287L

With the idea of possibly adding another in the future.
Click to expand...
Do note that you can attach three monitors to that video card from the get-go as it has a DVI, HDMI, and display port. All you need is to make sure that the 3rd monitor is connected to the display port on the video card. Which means that you only need those two cards unless the monitors you're planning on getting do not have a display port at all.
one swell foop said:
That's why I went with the 850, and HardOCP's sterling review of the 850W corsair unit. As long and the voltages are steady on the 750W, there'd be no problem dropping down to that one.
Click to expand...
Considering the low power of those video cards, you could easily get away with a 650W PSU like this:
$90 - Corsair 650TX V2 650W PSU

one swell foop said:
No, he won't be overclocking, and I realize I can save $10 and the the i5-2500, so that might happen. He's also looking at just biting the bullet and getting an i7 processor.
Click to expand...
For his usage, he'll be fine with the i5 2400.
one swell foop said:
What motherboard would you recommend that has 3 PCI-x slots, is crossfire capable and has RAID capability? I've always aimed for the $125-$150 range for my personal machines, but my dad has more resources than I do, and this board seems to have an enthusiastic group of admirers. Main focus on this is the three things I listed above being within the board's functionality, compatibility and stability.
Click to expand...

Not that Asus mobo, that's for sure: That particular Asus P67 mobo is one of the more troublesome P67 mobos out there. As such, if you don't want to deal with troubleshooting on day one, don't get that specific Asus mobo. For your father's usage, he'll be fine with this Gigabyte Z68 mobo which has the three PCI-E x16 slots:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502

Note that you can actually use both of the onboard video ports in conjunction with the dedicated video card's ports. So that's a total of 11 monitors right there!
 
Slight update on the video card. Switching to a version of the 5670 with 1 gig of memory and the ability to output to three DVI monitors without and active display port to DVI adaptor. This gives him even more room for expansion while still giving him triple monitor support.

Hardware manifest is now as follows:

Silverstone Raven RV02-EW
Corsair Enthusiast TX650 Power Supply
2X Samsung Spinpoint 1TB HDs
Intel-i5-2500 (I'm assuming this is still Sandy Bridge)
Gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
SAPPHIRE FleX 100289FLEX Radeon HD 5670 1GB

With only a crappy dvd burner and heatsink/fan combo to be decided upon.
Sound good? Got a fav heatsink/fan combo that'll be quiet and keep the i5 nice and cool?
Thanks for the help BTW.
 
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As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I agree with the I5 for CPU

not a bad set up so far, hopefully your dad enjoys his new pc once you built it
 
ban916 said:
overclock the hell out of it.
Click to expand...

Not with the i5-2400. That CPU is only limited overclocking-capable: Overclocking is limited to 400MHz above the nominal Turbo frequencies. This means that the maximum overclock that can be attained out of the i5-2400 without changing the BCLK is 3.8GHz with only one core loaded, 3.7GHz with two or three cores under load or 3.6GHz with all four cores under load. And the Sandy Bridge platforms do not run stably when the BCLK is raised by more than 5MHz, making the maximum stable BCLK on such systems around 105MHz (stock is 100MHz).
 
Went for the i5 2400. It won't be overclocked at any point, and saving the extra $20 always helps. Thanks so much for all the advice and input! Have a happy 4th!
 
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