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Gaming PC build help

Dan_D said:
Your build is a damned good setup I can't find any major flaws in today. However, tomorrow that might change. There is a lot of stuff coming out in the very near future so if you can hold off your build for a few weeks or so, you'll have some better choices out there.
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I was planning on building soon but I'm willing to wait a few weeks if it helps quite a bit. My wife may kill me though if I drag my feet too much. I think we're going to be building sometime in early or mid August. What is on the horizon, out of curiosity?
 
I'm starting to lean towards a GPU cooler, just to reduce stock fan noise issues and keep the card cool. Also, i've not had the best of luck with video cards not burning up, so I'd want to rectify this sooner then later. With that in mind, does this Arctic Cooling set with the VR001 kit and Thermal Paste look like a good idea, or am I being paranoid? I already did the math, not using any combos on either Newegg or Amazon, and the total with the cooler is 50 over budget, which I can make room for.I did check AC's website, this cooler is compatible with the 6970.
 
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CapnBiggles said:
I was planning on building soon but I'm willing to wait a few weeks if it helps quite a bit. My wife may kill me though if I drag my feet too much. I think we're going to be building sometime in early or mid August. What is on the horizon, out of curiosity?
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Precise release dates are unknown to me. But we know that Bulldozer / Zambezi, Sandy Bridge E, and Ivy Bridge are all coming relatively shortly. Also, we will likely see AMD's next generation GPUs very soon.

Lale777 said:
I'm starting to lean towards a GPU cooler, just to reduce stock fan noise issues and keep the card cool. Also, i've not had the best of luck with video cards not burning up, so I'd want to rectify this sooner then later. With that in mind, does this Arctic Cooling set with the VR001 kit and Thermal Paste look like a good idea, or am I being paranoid? I already did the math, not using any combos on either Newegg or Amazon, and the total with the cooler is 50 over budget, which I can make room for.I did check AC's website, this cooler is compatible with the 6970.
Click to expand...

If you are going to go that route, simply buy a card which already comes with a better cooler. Or do something with your ambient room temperatures.
 
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Lale777 said:
Ok, that makes much more sense :) I'll look into it.
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I think Sandy Bridge E and Ivy Bridge are a bit further off than those other two things, but Bulldozer / Zambezi may force Intel to re-evaluate their pricing structure a bit, or they might even surprise us with slightly beefed up CPU models instead.
 
Dan_D said:
I think Sandy Bridge E and Ivy Bridge are a bit further off than those other two things, but Bulldozer / Zambezi may force Intel to re-evaluate their pricing structure a bit, or they might even surprise us with slightly beefed up CPU models instead.
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Do you have any confirmation or any inkling of whether or not Ivy Bridge CPUs for the consumer market are coming out in 2011 or early 2012?
 
Danny Bui said:
Do you have any confirmation or any inkling of whether or not Ivy Bridge CPUs for the consumer market are coming out in 2011 or early 2012?
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I have no official information. The rumors I've heard push it to very late in 2011 or very early 2012. Intel loves January releases for their high end stuff, so it wouldn't at all surprise me if we didn't see Ivy Bridge until then. With Intel you never know. Sometimes we do not have very much advanced warning prior to the actual release or at least the lifting of the information embargo.
 
Dan_D said:
I have no official information. The rumors I've heard push it to very late in 2011 or very early 2012. Intel loves January releases for their high end stuff, so it wouldn't at all surprise me if we didn't see Ivy Bridge until then. With Intel you never know. Sometimes we do not have very much advanced warning prior to the actual release or at least the lifting of the information embargo.
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Damn.

Thanks for the info!
 
At my price point and needs, I do not think any of those advancements will be part of my build planning (aside from Bulldozer, perhaps), but I will stagger my build out into August for sure. Thanks for the 411.
 
CapnBiggles said:
At my price point and needs, I do not think any of those advancements will be part of my build planning (aside from Bulldozer, perhaps), but I will stagger my build out into August for sure. Thanks for the 411.
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That's a fair point. Really you'll be considering Sandy Bridge and Zambezi options at that price point.
 
And here I thought AMD had pushed back their release into Q4. Dan_D, nice Christmas in July post for all the people who have been chomping at the bit for Zambezi :)
 
tonytnnt said:
And here I thought AMD had pushed back their release into Q4. Dan_D, nice Christmas in July post for all the people who have been chomping at the bit for Zambezi :)
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Too bad it seems like a September release. My computer is crashing games as I load them now, so I'd really rather not wait that long, which is another factor to why I will have to unfortunately start buying the week of August 1st.
 
Lale777 said:
Too bad it seems like a September release. My computer is crashing games as I load them now, so I'd really rather not wait that long, which is another factor to why I will have to unfortunately start buying the week of August 1st.
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Sandy Bridge will be a huge upgrade to your system no matter how Zambezi performs. And you can get it right now, so don't feel too bad about having a time crunch. If you have to order now you have to look at what's currently available and not consider what's around the corner.
 
Lale777 said:
Too bad it seems like a September release. My computer is crashing games as I load them now, so I'd really rather not wait that long, which is another factor to why I will have to unfortunately start buying the week of August 1st.
Click to expand...

+1 to tonytnnt on this. Plus it looks like the upcoming immediate releases are for CPU and Mobos which are only two components in a build. RAM, PSU, GPUs and HDDs aren't really seeing any major growth right now (just regular good growth :p). So I wouldn't worry about buying a bunch of stuff now, and just upgrading your CPU and Mobo later if you really want to.

Although I doubt that with Sandy Bridge, an upgrade to Ivy Bridge would really be all that necessary :p
 
I actually more meant the deals on Newegg not being as good as they are now, otherwise I'm very happy/excited about this entire build :D
 
Ok, I've gotten an early go ahead for buying the computer within the next 24 hours. The combos I'm currently using are:
CPU and Motherboard at 367.98
Video card and PSU at 509.98

I'm going with everything in the OP at the moment and then a GPU cooler from Arctic Cooling, as it fits in my budget after rebates that end July 31st, so I can qualify for them, and a 200 dollar add-on from family for the monitor.
Anything I'm missing? Total cost is about 1750 with shipping before rebates and such.
 
OK, order placed. Amazon pieces say they'll be here August 1st, Newegg is processing paperwork.
Heres a rundown of what i ended up with:
NZXT Phantom White case
MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard
XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2 GB video card
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850 PSU
i5 2500K CPU
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8 GB (2x4 GB) 1600 MHz RAM
Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
Saitek Cyborg V5 Keyboard
Samsung T23A350 ToC Rose Black 23" with TV Tuner monitor (changed from LG due to parents (are financing 2/3s of the monitor) wanting Samsung brand, same cost as LG and same size)
LITE-ON DVD Burner OEM (changed as the LG was bumped in price and added 7.98 shipping, this was cheaper)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooling
(Free from Newegg) 4 GB Flashdrive from Kingston
Thermaltake TeSports 6500 DPI mouse
Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus and VR001 heatsink kit and MX4 Thermal Paste* GPU cooling (decided a colder GPU while still grabbing Newegg deal with a bad cooler on the card was worth it)

Total was 1751, less 200 from family for monitor is 1551, less 60 in mail in rebates I now qualify for is 1491, 10 under the budget of 1500. :D Thanks for the help choosing all the parts, I'll be building this next week hopefully and showing pictures of the build from box to case.
 
Wow, that's an intense PSU you're getting there. Definitely top notch quality. It's overkill, but I have no problems recommending it besides its high price (which is because it is such a high quality and high performance part.)

GPU is solid. XFX is the way to go for Radeons, and the 6970 has a lot of power under the hood.

I like that motherboard/CPU combo choice a lot. Great performance, good bang for the buck considering the specs you want. If you wanted to save some money but give up eSATA you could look at the MSI P67A-G43 or G45, but considering your budget the GD65 is a great choice.

I'm a Logitech guy when it comes to mice. Other people's preferences vary, but it might be worth trying a few out if you can get to a store that has a good selection of gaming mice. I didn't know Thermaltake had mice, but they might be alright -- I really wouldn't know. But I am very happy with my G500.

I'm skeptical of the I-ROCKS keyboard but maybe others have had good experiences. Keyboards are something that people usually either tolerate or they hate. (Liking your keyboard usually comes from hating a previous one.) As you mentioned gaming is a concern, look into a Logitech G110. An issue that often comes up with keyboards is how many keys can be pressed simultaneously. I can't speak for the I-ROCKS one, but the G series from Logitech is great for FPS, RTS, and RPGs/MMORPGs.
 
tonytnnt said:
Wow, that's an intense PSU you're getting there. Definitely top notch quality. It's overkill, but I have no problems recommending it besides its high price (which is because it is such a high quality and high performance part.)

GPU is solid. XFX is the way to go for Radeons, and the 6970 has a lot of power under the hood.

I like that motherboard/CPU combo choice a lot. Great performance, good bang for the buck considering the specs you want. If you wanted to save some money but give up eSATA you could look at the MSI P67A-G43 or G45, but considering your budget the GD65 is a great choice.

I'm a Logitech guy when it comes to mice. Other people's preferences vary, but it might be worth trying a few out if you can get to a store that has a good selection of gaming mice. I didn't know Thermaltake had mice, but they might be alright -- I really wouldn't know. But I am very happy with my G500.

I'm skeptical of the I-ROCKS keyboard but maybe others have had good experiences. Keyboards are something that people usually either tolerate or they hate. (Liking your keyboard usually comes from hating a previous one.) As you mentioned gaming is a concern, look into a Logitech G110. An issue that often comes up with keyboards is how many keys can be pressed simultaneously. I can't speak for the I-ROCKS one, but the G series from Logitech is great for FPS, RTS, and RPGs/MMORPGs.
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I actually dropped the i rocks and went with a saitek cyborg V5 for the keyboard
 
Picked up my university discounted OS and Office disks today :D
since the price was the same, 16.99 for either windows 7 ultimate/professional/home, I just grabbed the Ultimate. Figure an additional virus protection piece won't be terrible.
I also picked up Office Professional.
Pieces should be arriving Friday and Monday, pictures to come soon :D
 
Yeah, different universities have different prices. Where I went I got free copies of Office, SPSS, a few others, and then cheap copies of Windows (but not $17 cheap.) I think they must just have some sort of academic site license.
 
I think it is a promotion that Microsoft and Apple (?) do to help cement repeat customers early so as to have that stable revenue when they upgrade OS after college. I don't know, seems to make sense :)

The 17 dollars price comes with a signed agreement that I won't buy any other copies of windows 7 from the university at that price. I can get them at a slightly reduced price still, not so heavily reduced. I think it is to stop me from theoretically outfitting my family with very cheap copies ;).
 
yay and hooray :D everything came and worked, the new computer is great. Thanks again for all the help, I'll take some pictures and get them up later.

Final question: would increasing the turbo ratios all to 42 be good, or should I try to mess with voltages to overclock? 42 to 45 is my goal, but I've never really done this kind of thing before. If I need to post in another part of the forum, I will :D thanks again!!
 
good luck with the build!
this is making me want to build a PC again it's so cool to see everyone's so helpful
 
I followed a guide for overclocking with the P67A-GD55 and got it to 45, which is all I want. now to figure out how to use Intel burn Test :) hopefully I can put some very successful screenshots in with the computer pictures.
 
OK. Got CPU to 4.5 GHz stable after 20 passes of Intel Burn test Version 2.51 on Very High

If my phone would stop acting up I'd have computer pics too, but here is my CPU-Z, Core temp, and Intel Burn test in some screenies :D

Photos

Vcore was set to 1.305, VCI/O was set to 1.09V, SA and PLL were left on default.
RAM was manually set to 1600 MHz and left on auto voltage. XMP was turned on.

Thanks again for the help in building, I'll try and get some good computer pics up tomorrow.
 
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