Final Thoughts: Gaming Rig Build

[Board86]

Hey guys,

I've been spending a lot of time looking over components and trying to get the best parts for the money for my new system, and I've received a great deal of help and advise from the community. I was just looking for some final thoughts on my build before I push the purchase button lol.

Before I get to my build I should note that I don't know anything about overclocking, and probably won't attempt to even learn until further down the road when my computer isn't performing as well as I'd like it to but don't want to spend any more money.

So here is my build (At the bottom I've listed my final concerns over choices):


NZXT Hades ATX Mid Tower Case = $74.99 (after MIR)

G.SKILL F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ PC3-10666 4GB = $65.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA2 = $37.99

ASUS Sabertooth I55 LGA1156 P55 = $166.44

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64BIT = $93.79

ASUS VH236H 23 Widescreen LCD Monitor = $192.44

Corsair TX750W 750W ATX 12V 60A 24PIN = $104.99

ASUS Radeon HD 6870 913MHZ 1GB 4.2GHZ x 2 = $485.98

ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24X SATA DVD Writer OEM = $22.95

Intel Core i5 760 Quad Core Processor = $199.99

OCZ Alchemy Series Elixer USB2.0 Gaming Keyboard = $22.99

Gigabyte GM-M6800 5 Button Dual Lens Optical Mouse = $11.22

Logitech X-140 2.0 5W RMS Black Analog Speakers = $24.45

Scythe Shuriken 3 Heatpipe Low Profile CPU Heatsink = $29.99
________________________________________________________
Total: $1629.20


I'm still trying to decide between some components, but as of now this is what I intend to order.

Case: NZXT Hades vs. Cooler Master HAF 912 (Plus a 200MM top fan and a 120MM side fan)

Hard Drive: Contemplating getting two Seagates for RAID 0 or a Western Digital 1TB (FAEX series)

Motherboard: Sabertooth i55 vs. P7P55D Deluxe vs. P7P55D-E Pro vs. MSI P55A-GD65 vs. Gigabyte P55A-UD4P

I chose the Sabertooth because of the 10-channel audio, the durable components and cyramic coating.
They all seem fairly equal to me. The rest came with auto-OC features which I would feel tempted to use despite being told not to lol (mostly because I don't have a clue about OC myself and this gets someone else to do it for me for free - I see it as a free performance boost but it seems unsafe). I don't foresee any need for USB 3.0 atm, but I could be wrong.

Heatsink: I picked up the extra heatsink just in case I decided to make an attempt at overclocking later. I've heard horror stories about removing stock heatsinks and having left over thermal compound causing issues. I figured if my computer came with a decent heatsink to start with I wouldn't have to worry about that. If I decided to go with the Cooler Master HAF 912 case I would replace the Scythe Shuriken 3 with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus.

So with that said: Any suggestions or general criticism?

Thank you all for helping me with this build!

 

[E4g1e]

First, the Seagate 7200.12 is slower (sequential-speed wise) than other 7200 RPM hard drives with 500GB platters. Plus, it is priced too high for its performance right now, especially since faster-performing 7200 RPM hard drives of the same capacity can be bought for the same price.

Second, that 750W Corsair TX series PSU is good, but not great. There are better quality 750W PSUs for only a few dollars more, such as the Antec TruePower New TP-750.

Third, unless you really need 10 simultaneous audio channels from the onboard audio chip, don't bother with the Sabertooth 55i: It is too expensive for an LGA 1156 motherboard that lacks both USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps controllers onboard. And even if you do really need 10 audio channels, an add-in PCIe sound card will usually be of significantly better quality than an onboard 10-channel solution, especially if you have really good speakers or headphones.

Finally, that particular HSF is not a good value: Its fan is barely any larger than the one on the stock Intel boxed CPU HSF. As such, it does not perform sufficiently better than the stock HSF to justify its $30 price. Also, there is one HSF that costs the same as that Scythe that's definitely worth the price: the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (Hyper 212+).

 

[Board86]

Is the Seagate really that much slower? From reviews I looked at it seemed to be just below the other brands in the same category, though actually was faster than them all as far as game load times was concerned (my biggest concern). If so... my only other options are the Western Digital FAEX (1TB) for $85 or the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB for $60. ++++ doesn't offer the Samsung F3 Spinpoint.

If I had two of the Seagates in raid would that put it over the others in terms of performance? Because two Seagates are still cheaper than one Western Digital. And from what I've seen the Hitachi isn't any better than the Seagate.

Everyone had been telling me to go for XFX, Seasonic, or Corsair for my PSU and that was the cheapest 750W 80 Plus I could find. Didn't notice the special ++++ had for the Antec though. Pardon my ignorance... but what makes the Antec better than the Corsair? I don't know a lot about power supplies to be honest. Probably a good many more power supplies on ++++ that are better for the same price and I just don't realize it.

Is USB 3.0 and Sata III really important? I'm not even sure what I'd use them for as my hard drive is sata II and I don't think I'd be using anything that requires USB 3.0. Would you choose one of the other motherboards I listed below? Or is there another motherboard I overlooked that you would recommend?

And yeah that heatsink is definitely better... that I know. But it doesn't fit the NZXT Hades.

So basically I should ditch the Scythe and just save the money... or swap out the case for the HAF 912 plus heatsink?

Thanks a lot for all of your help... you mentioned a bunch of things I'd have never realized on my own. Especially for the power supply... I've been lost there from the start.

 

[E4g1e]

Is the Seagate really that much slower? From reviews I looked at it seemed to be just below the other brands in the same category, though actually was faster than them all as far as game load times was concerned (my biggest concern). If so... my only other options are the Western Digital FAEX (1TB) for $85 or the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB for $60. ++++ doesn't offer the Samsung F3 Spinpoint.

If I had two of the Seagates in raid would that put it over the others in terms of performance? Because two Seagates are still cheaper than one Western Digital. And from what I've seen the Hitachi isn't any better than the Seagate.

Everyone had been telling me to go for XFX, Seasonic, or Corsair for my PSU and that was the cheapest 750W 80 Plus I could find. Didn't notice the special ++++ had for the Antec though. Pardon my ignorance... but what makes the Antec better than the Corsair? I don't know a lot about power supplies to be honest. Probably a good many more power supplies on ++++ that are better for the same price and I just don't realize it.

Is USB 3.0 and Sata III really important? I'm not even sure what I'd use them for as my hard drive is sata II and I don't think I'd be using anything that requires USB 3.0. Would you choose one of the other motherboards I listed below? Or is there another motherboard I overlooked that you would recommend?

And yeah that heatsink is definitely better... that I know. But it doesn't fit the NZXT Hades.

So basically I should ditch the Scythe and just save the money... or swap out the case for the HAF 912 plus heatsink?

Thanks a lot for all of your help... you mentioned a bunch of things I'd have never realized on my own. Especially for the power supply... I've been lost there from the start.

I am not faulting the Sabertooth 55i for the quality or features; I'm only faulting it for being priced too high given its lack of certain features that are commonplace on newer-design (and often less expensive) motherboards.

As for the HSF, if you're going to use the NZXT Hades you should seriously consider a self-contained liquid cooling system such as a Corsair H50. The Scythe does not perform sufficiently better than a stock Intel HSF to justify its price - and both of those HSFs actually keep the CPU noticeably hotter than it should because neither HSF would have brought the CPU temps as low as if the CPU were in a much roomier case. However, if you cannot afford the H50, save your money if you have to use the Hades case.

As for the Seagate hard drives, the performance that I've been achieving has been very inconsistent from firmware version to firmware version (and Seagate does not provide firmware updates except for critical bugs). Neither of my 1TB Seagates could touch 130 MB/s in my systems (compared to the 140+ MB/s for my Samsung F3 and my 2TB WD Black) - and one of my Seagate 7200.12 drives had an access time of nearly 16 ms while the other 7200.12 had only 13.6 ms. That made a RAID 0 array with those two drives significantly slower than expected.

And I cannot recommend a RAID 0 array as your only hard drive volume: Due to the overhead of the RAID drivers and the one-way nature of the data transfers through the SATA interface, using a single RAID 0 array for absolutely everything will be slower in most cases than even a single drive because such arrays perform poorly in simultaneous reads and writes.

 

[Board86]

Oh I know what you mean... I'm just wondering now what would be a better option instead of the Sabertooth. At the moment I don't know when I would need those new features.. but I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense to pay for something that lacks them ha. Would one of the P7P55D motherboards be worth it? Or do you have something else in mind? The Deluxe would only set me back $131. Though I hear it's one of the first models that came out for P55 so I was a bit apprehensive about that.

Liquid cooling is currently not an option for me sadly... maybe the Hades is a poor choice for a case? I wasn't sure what to get for a case that wouldn't cost me too much (about $80 seemed reasonable to me). The HAF 912 with an extra 200MM top fan and 120 side seemed like another decent choice... I just thought the Hades looked better with its black interior. I'll for sure drop the Scythe though regardless of what I do with a case. I intended to get a Cooler Master 212 + if I get a different case which allows for it.

Hmmm I guess I should drop my Seagate idea afterall and just bite the bullet and pay the extra $45 for the 1TB WD. Certainly don't want to be stuck with a crap hard drive.

Thank you very much for the info!

 

[Dangman]

My general recommendations:
$140 - Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 ATX Motherboard
$180 - Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard

The only major difference between the Pro and regular version is SLI support: The Pro has it, the regular doesn't.

 

[Nightbird]

Do you live in America? If so, if you wait until Black Tuesday, you can knock 30% off your total price. Worth the wait I'd say.

If the 30$ version of windows 7 is still available with student email account, get that also by mail now.

 

[Board86]

I get a load of people recommending the P7P55D-E Pro. Maybe I should be getting that instead haha. Though I plan to Xfire two 6870s so maybe it'd make more sense to get the regular P7P55D-E.

Don't live in America so no special deals for me.

 

[Dangman]

I get a load of people recommending the P7P55D-E Pro. Maybe I should be getting that instead haha. Though I plan to Xfire two 6870s so maybe it'd make more sense to get the regular P7P55D-E.

Don't live in America so no special deals for me.

Yah the -E version should be just fine for you.

 

[Board86]

Oh I just noticed however that the -E only has 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16) and 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (@x4 mode, 2.5GT/s, black slot). Most cards I've looked at were single at x16 or dual at x8/x8. Would that make a difference for me since I plan to use two video cards?

 

[Dangman]

Oh I just noticed however that the -E only has 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16) and 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (@x4 mode, 2.5GT/s, black slot). Most cards I've looked at were single at x16 or dual at x8/x8. Would that make a difference for me since I plan to use two video cards?

Nope. It's been shown that PCI-E x4 speeds is actually still more than enough for GTX 480 SLI at 2560x1600.

Unless you're using a GPU that's more powerful that GTX 480 SLI combined and playing at higher than 2560x1600, you'll be fine with PCI-E x4.

 

[Board86]

Update:

Trying to figure out which case would be best for me now. I've built up quite a list since I've been looking around last night. The HAF 912 seems to be a nice, cheap choice. I've also been looking at the HAF922. I'll just list my now gigantic list of choices below as I've gotten myself more confused than ever over which case to choose:

1. NZXT Hades
2. Coolermaster Haf 912
3. Coolermaster Haf 922
4. NZXT Tempest Evo
5. Azza Fantom 900
6. Azza Solano 1000
7. Lancool PC-K62
8. Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition
9. Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced

I believe the Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced is too short to fit the 69xx series however. I'm not so sure about the rest. I also had the Antec Nine Hundred Two on my original list but that was also too short and had no ventilation on the bottom for the PSU.

I'm undecided on if I'll ever want/need a 69xx card.. or if maybe I should even wait and get that over Xfire 6870s. I've had a few people suggest I just hold tight for a while.

I'm guessing for the most part the cases are pretty equal and a lot of it comes down to personal preference.. but if I could knock a few off the list that would help a lot.

So close to having this built... yet so far away lol.

 

[Tuf]

Nope. It's been shown that PCI-E x4 speeds is actually still more than enough for GTX 480 SLI at 2560x1600.

Unless you're using a GPU that's more powerful that GTX 480 SLI combined and playing at higher than 2560x1600, you'll be fine with PCI-E x4.

This might be irrelevant from what you're saying but when you have two GPUs not in SLI does this bandwidth issue still exist? If I'm using a GTX470 w/ a 980GTX still in the case as an independent card does it still divide the bandwidth? (I hope that Q made sense)

 

[Dangman]

I believe the Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced is too short to fit the 69xx series

Did you actually get information on how long those 69xx cards will be?

Drop the Azza Fantom 900, NZXT Hades, Lancool PC-K62, Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition, and the Azza Solano: Those cases will still be just as cramped as the Antec 902 case. If the HD69xx cards are as long as the current HD 5870, then the Coolermaster HAF 912 case is also out as that too will be cramped.

This might be irrelevant from what you're saying but when you have two GPUs not in SLI does this bandwidth issue still exist? If I'm using a GTX470 w/ a 980GTX still in the case as an independent card does it still divide the bandwidth? (I hope that Q made sense)

Basically, yes it still divides the bandwidth regardless if the cards are in SLI, Crossfire, or just two independent cards.

 

[Board86]

Did you actually get information on how long those 69xx cards will be?

Drop the Azza Fantom 900, NZXT Hades, Lancool PC-K62, Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition, and the Azza Solano: Those cases will still be just as cramped as the Antec 902 case. If the HD69xx cards are as long as the current HD 5870, then the Coolermaster HAF 912 case is also out as that too will be cramped.



Basically, yes it still divides the bandwidth regardless if the cards are in SLI, Crossfire, or just two independent cards.

Haven't had any information regarding its length but most people seem to compare it to the 5970. My guess is it will be about 30cm (12 inches) long based on what I have been told.

That certainly cuts down on my list of potential cases lol. Are you certain about the HAF 912 with its removable HDD cage? I mean if the cage were removed that is. I only intend to use the one HDD now.

 

[Dangman]

Haven't had any information regarding its length but most people seem to compare it to the 5970. My guess is it will be about 30cm (12 inches) long based on what I have been told.

That certainly cuts down on my list of potential cases lol. Are you certain about the HAF 912 with its removable HDD cage? I mean if the cage were removed that is. I only intend to use the one HDD now.

Oh with the HDD cage removed it should be fine. I was talking about it if the cage was still there.

 

[Board86]

Okay great. That keeps a cheap case open as an option still haha. All of the others are about $80-$90 give or take a few. The HAF912 is only $50 though. I was thinking I could just add a top 200MM fan and a side 120MM fan, giving it a total of 4 fans for a total cost of $66 (Coolermaster Megaflow 200MM & Coolermaster R4-L2R-20AC 120MM).