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First time builder

D

D-versus-A

n00b
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
9
Brand new to these forums...Its my first time building a rig and I have just been researching non-stop (its how I came across these forums) and now my head is starting to spin. I think I am doing a good job so far but I am worried my untrained eyes may miss something critical..So here I am!

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming mostly.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I am trying to keep it under 1200 so far. (including tax and shipping)
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible

Providence, RI
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
RAM, Case, Mobo, PSU, GPU, Optical Drives,
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None
6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes
7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
It says recommened is the 1920 x 1080 not sure if that is its max. Its 23in
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Soon as possible
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Crossfire, USB 3.0 SATA 6GBps eSata
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Win7 64


Just some addtional notes, This is what I have worked out so far. So please correct if nesscary and offer your ideas and opnions. This is all a learning process for me.

Case:Rosewill RANGER Gaming ATX Mid Tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147061

GPUs:MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 (2x for crossfire)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127588

CPU: I5 2500k

PSU:Antec EarthWatts Series EA-750 Green 750W ATX12V v2.3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311

I plan to add in extra fans as well to keep it all cool, I think I should be able to do this with air cooling. I am mainly worried about My mobo choice as well as my PSU being able to handle the load. I have been hearing good things about using SSD for the os/main programs So i figured I would go that route and pick up a SSD and a 1tb drive.

Again thanks so much for whatever help I receive.
 
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I don't have enough time to offer my usual range of suggestions, but I do have a few questions:

Which games are you planning to play? At what level of visual quality?

Can you give us the brand/manufacturer and model number of the monitor you have?

Which retailers are you ordering parts from? (Only NewEgg? Amazon as well?)

Besides gaming, what will you use this system for?

Do you have (or are you planning to buy) any external or network-attached storage?

Do you have any peripherals (e.g., keyboard/mouse, speakers, USB hub, external HDD/NAS)? Are you planning to buy some? (If so, what?)
 
My Apologies for not listing everything I should have in my first post

I plan on playing games such as BF3. Skyrim. WItcher 2. I am hoping to be able to run them at max/near max settings and keep a solid 60fps. I have been reading and it seems that the 6950 gets huge gains in Crossfire which is why I went with that choice.

My monitor is the Acer S230HLAbii Black 23
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009315

I was only focusing on Newegg since alot of the items I noticed gave free shipping. I also checked around on Tiger Direct and Amazon as well.

Besides gaming I will be using it for encoding video etc. I heard the z68 can take advantage of the Quick Sync on the sandy bridge which is why i was going with that chipset.

Not playing to buy any external storage and also I am all set on my peripherals.

Thanks Again
 
If going 6950, get the 2gb version. BF3 breaks 1gb easily, skyrim vanilla doesn't, but add a texture pack and it will. It's more money, but worth it.
 
Stupid_Newbie said:
If going 6950, get the 2gb version. BF3 breaks 1gb easily, skyrim vanilla doesn't, but add a texture pack and it will. It's more money, but worth it.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I will be running them in crossfire, so will that still be an issuse?
 
Crossfire just like sli, you only have as much VRAM as the smallest card. So 2x1gb 6950s means you only have 1gb of VRAM. So get 2 GB versions.
 
Are you sure that you want to use CrossFire? Some games, most notably BF3, perform better with an SLI setup.
 
I would say they perform better, most games get pretty equal scaling, so If one brand was ahead on single card performance, their multi card is usually better.


But crossfire you get kicked with late driver support. The only downside to sli (IMO) is low VRAM, or high cost. It won't be hard to limit VRAM on 570s in sli. I think 570s in sli have the hp to push the textures.

That's the only reason I didnt go nvidia. The price/unlock of my 6950/70 was too good, but in looking forward to crossfire its looks painful. But I'm a casual gamer. So I can wait for support. I have had skyrim since release, I think I have 2 hours or so in? Just finished the first dungeon with the gold claw. That's it. But I work a lot, so once it's all patched up I'll revisit cf.
 
tiraides said:
Are you sure that you want to use CrossFire? Some games, most notably BF3, perform better with an SLI setup.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was reading up and it was showing that in multi gpus setups, Crossfire and the 6950 scales better than SLI does.
 
The biggest flaw in CrossFire, as Newbie pointed out, is AMD's rather lackluster driver/application profile support for new games. Performance-wise the AMD cards do just fine in CrossFire, as long as the drivers are there to support it.
 
I thInk each game has a winner and loser. And most games that's nvidia, but the 580 isin a class of its own. And for it's $150 price premium it should be. Generally if the single gpu leads that same gpu in multicard will lead. Though the gaps can shrInk, It's pretty rare to see a card leading in single card then lose in multi, unless there is a clear scaling issue, which driver updates generally fix after.

If you go amd be ready to wait for drivers at every launch. I think team green is a performance leader but lack VRAM for Multi gpu. And it's a good premium for 570s with 2.5gb vs 6950 (possible unlock to 6970) with 2gb.

It comes down to if you are going multi gpu for sure, and if you are a release date gamer.
 
Stupid_Newbie said:
I thInk each game has a winner and loser. And most games that's nvidia, but the 580 isin a class of its own. And for it's $150 price premium it should be. Generally if the single gpu leads that same gpu in multicard will lead. Though the gaps can shrInk, It's pretty rare to see a card leading in single card then lose in multi, unless there is a clear scaling issue, which driver updates generally fix after.

If you go amd be ready to wait for drivers at every launch. I think team green is a performance leader but lack VRAM for Multi gpu. And it's a good premium for 570s with 2.5gb vs 6950 (possible unlock to 6970) with 2gb.

It comes down to if you are going multi gpu for sure, and if you are a release date gamer.
Click to expand...

Its very rare for me to get a game on release date so I am alright with that. I enjoy gaming alot but I never really head out and grab a game day 1 as I already have a pretty big collection i need to work through
 
Should work well just try and unlock one at a time as there is no bios switches.
Rebate at TD for 20 off to boot

Mine ran skyrim last night at 65 to 127ish fps (70-99% gpu) without breaking 61c at 1168mV and 880/1325 (6970 speeds)
 
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OK I am going to pull the trigger on these cards. I waited yesterday and some things prices went up. How is the rest of my choices? The one I am most worried about is my Mobo and my psu.
 
For MoBo, for your purposes any Z68 will do, personally I'd get the Asus P8Z68-V Gen 3. You might want to up your PSU to at least an 850 if not a 1000w if you plan on running two Twin Frozr II 6950s overclocked to 6970s plus an overclocked CPU. I'd suggest either Seasonic platinum series or Corsair Professional Series.
 
Decided to go with the Corsair TX850 V2 @ 134 with a $10 MIR.
My build is just about done and I am feeling alot more confident now thanks to the advice you guys have given me.

I am just stuck now as I am looking at Two 1tb Seagate HDDs that are the same in all aspects (price, size, latency/ rpm) except that one has a 64mb cache compared to the 32.

Am I missing something? Also..is double the cache worth 7 bucks in shipping?

Here they are:
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840

Also I am going to search around the forum to read up on using an SSD for the OS as it is supposed to be a huge increase in performance, but I personally don't know anyone who has it.
 
The cache size itself doesn't make all that much difference, but the 64mb drive is a newer (just released yesterday apparently) version that uses larger platters - and that does make a difference. I'd pay the $7 for that drive.
 
7 bucks for a 64 cache? Grab it. Having bigger cache is always better, and $7 is a negligible difference. Typically the price difference is like $30-40 for the cache difference.

As for SSDs, if you have the money definitely grab at least a 60GB one, personally I recommend the Crucial M4. Lots of people have been using SSDs for caching/OS, it's just recently they've become more affordable and public accessible. But you'll definitely notice a huge boost in terms of boot times and load times. Watch your Windows load up in 10 seconds.
 
D-versus-A said:
I am just stuck now as I am looking at Two 1tb Seagate HDDs that are the same in all aspects (price, size, latency/ rpm) except that one has a 64mb cache compared to the 32.

Am I missing something? Also..is double the cache worth 7 bucks in shipping?

Here they are:
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840

Also I am going to search around the forum to read up on using an SSD for the OS as it is supposed to be a huge increase in performance, but I personally don't know anyone who has it.
Click to expand...

Go for the Hitachi 1TB HDD, which is considerably faster:

$150 - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB HDD

The above drive is built upon a single 1TB HDD platter, which makes it considerably faster than those Seagate drives.

Tsuyoi said:
As for SSDs, if you have the money definitely grab at least a 60GB one, personally I recommend the Crucial M4. Lots of people have been using SSDs for caching/OS, it's just recently they've become more affordable and public accessible. But you'll definitely notice a huge boost in terms of boot times and load times. Watch your Windows load up in 10 seconds.
Click to expand...

If you're grabbing a good SSD model (like the aforementioned Crucial M4) with at least 64GB storage capacity, then it would perform much better as your primary/OS drive than as a swap disk for your HDD. Good SSD have much faster read and access times than even the fastest SATA HDD, which doesn't fully utilize the bandwidth available from the SATA 3Gb/s bus.
 
tiraides said:
Go for the Hitachi 1TB HDD, which is considerably faster:

$150 - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB HDD

The above drive is built upon a single 1TB HDD platter, which makes it considerably faster than those Seagate drives.
Click to expand...

It appears that the second Seagate drive listed is also based on a 1TB platter. At least according to the press release and the chatter over at StorageReview. Haven't seen any benchmarks yet though.

Edit: Interesting. I just googled for ST1000dm003 benchmarks, and this post showed up on the first page of the google results with a post time of <1 minute ago. How is google indexing the web that fast?

Edit 2: Found this review from a month ago (of the 3TB version):
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_barracuda_3tb_review_1tb_platters_st3000dm001
 
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Forceman said:
It appears that the second Seagate drive listed is also based on a 1TB platter. At least according to the press release and the chatter over at StorageReview. Haven't seen any benchmarks yet though.

Edit: Interesting. I just googled for ST1000dm003 benchmarks, and this post showed up on the first page of the google results with a post time of <1 minute ago. How is google indexing the web that fast?

Edit 2: Found this review from a month ago (of the 3TB version):
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_barracuda_3tb_review_1tb_platters_st3000dm001
Click to expand...
\

Google is skynet in its infancy.

That review provided all the information I need to make me feel confident in that choice, thanks so much for your insight.

I swapped out my RAM now with two sets of the G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460

I feel really solid in this build now after coming here. For some reason I cant shake this unease I feel about my motherboard. Maybe its becasue I am new and it seems the most complicated to me.

Also was looking at this PSU since it went on sale, even though its a drop by 50w it looks solid. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171057

Cant thank you guys enough.
 
As I'm sure Danny and Force will chime in in a sec, why 1866 RAM? With Sandy Bridge you're not gonna see any real performance boost, might as well get 2 sets of 1600 or 1333 and save yourself $30-40
 
D-versus-A said:
I swapped out my RAM now with two sets of the G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460
Click to expand...

Two problems with that choice. One, as Tsuyoi mentioned earlier:

Tsuyoi said:
As I'm sure Danny and Force will chime in in a sec, why 1866 RAM? With Sandy Bridge you're not gonna see any real performance boost, might as well get 2 sets of 1600 or 1333 and save yourself $30-40
Click to expand...

With the Sandy Bridge K processors' unlocked CPU multipliers, DDR3 1333 is really all that you need for excellent overclocking performance.

Two, if you buy a third-party CPU cooler, the tall heatspreaders on the G.Skill Sniper RAM may interfere with the placement of the cooling fan, if not the heatsink itself. I recommend buying RAM with shorter heatspreaders (like the Corsair Vengeance LP) or no heatspreaders at all (like the G.Skill Value Series). Yeah, I'm serious. If you get a good cooling setup, both with the case and the CPU cooler, then you don't really need heatspreaders on your RAM.

D-versus-A said:
Also was looking at this PSU since it went on sale, even though its a drop by 50w it looks solid. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171057
Click to expand...

I have problems recommending Cooler Master power supplies as I can't easily tell the good models from the crappy ones. Unless Danny vouches for the CM PSU, go with one of the Corsair models. The majority of the Corsair power supplies are actually made by Seasonic, which is one of the better PSU manufacturers around.
 
tiraides said:
I have problems recommending Cooler Master power supplies as I can't easily tell the good models from the crappy ones. Unless Danny vouches for the CM PSU, go with one of the Corsair models. The majority of the Corsair power supplies are actually made by Seasonic, which is one of the better PSU manufacturers around.
Click to expand...

It's an ok-ish PSU. Its quality and performance is definitely lower than many of the Corsair PSUs mentioned in this thread so far. Certainly not on my avoid list but definitely near the bottom of list of PSUs I'd actually recommend to people.
 
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