Gaming PC

[infernos]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
around 1000-1500

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

canada

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, motherboard, cpu, video card, SSD hard drive

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
case antec p180, like to resuse powersupply corsair hz620w, 2 sata storage hard drives, dvd burner.

6) Will you be overclocking?
no

7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
24, 1920x1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
within next week preferably

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? etc.
onboard sound,sata 3 6gb/s(for SSD)

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
no probably get windows 7


Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[R3load]

Good budget! you can do a lot with it... just add another ssd if needed... this gets you the balls of the market, Brand name top of the line / OS included with $85 worth of mail in rebates. All parts will work together and kickass! NEWEGG



HIS H697F2G2M Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity Item #: N82E16814161356Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy

Protect Your Investment (expand for options)

$20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$344.99





Patriot Gamer 2 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PGD38G1600ELK Item #: N82E16820220558Return Policy: Iron Egg Standard Return Policy
$15.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$47.99





Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM Item #: N82E16832116986Return Policy: Software Standard Return Policy

$99.99




OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Item #: N82E16820227706Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy

Protect Your Investment (expand for options

-$20.00 Instant
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$209.99$189.99




• Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 ... Item #: N82E16819115070 Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy

Protect Your Investment (expand for options)



• GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Item #: N82E16813128478 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

Protect Your Investment (expand for options)

-$20.00 Instant
-$20.00 Combo
$30.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$509.98 $469.98



Subtotal:

$1,152.94

 

[Dangman]

There are quite a few issues with R3load's build list:
- The 2600K is not needed for a gaming PC when it performs virtually the same as the 2500K in games
- That RAM may end up killing the CPU on account of it being rated at 1.65V. It's recommended to use RAM rated at 1.5V
- Motherboard is a bit on the pricey side for what it is even after the combo discount.
- That SSD has a history of random BSOD issues. Not to mention OCZ's relatively poor customer support.
- It's American pricing.

I recommend this setup instead:
$439 - Intel Core i5 2500K + Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$42 - Patriot Signature PSD38G1600KH 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$352 - XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB PCI-E Video Card
$212 - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SSD
---
Total: $1045 CAD plus tax.

Notes:
- Longer warrantied and better supported card with XFX
- RAM less likely to kill the CPU
- More reliable and stable SSD.

Let me know if you want to spend more money and I'll come up upgrades to the above setup.

 

[R3load]

2600 vs 2500, While settle for a i5 when you can afford and i7? I started with a i5 on the build then went with a i7 once i saw it was within budget. Not that much more for the i7.

Ram picks are almost the same, my pick was based on chipset approved, I've used the combo on a few builds... can't say enough good things...

XFX of a HIS... Never! to be honest, both fan designs on both cards suck... high rate of fan failure with that enclosed designed. I've seen 5870 fans die along with my own 5970 fan... better to have a msi fan style. however my HIS cards never had a problem

OCZ is the best support on the market, I've used in builds and have for myself over a dozen ssd's combined. I've worked with ssd's when only ocz and intel were doing them...they helped develop what others have followed. find me a better source of knowledge on ssd's other then the ocz forums... that intel is junk, i can raid raptors to write faster then that. I've also had alot of success with muskins ssd's.

You can't put a price on badass! I built a rig that filled his budget, with my mail in rebates for a few bucks "$20'ish" more then your build he'll have a i7

you can post your own builds without attacking mine, I've been building for almost 2 decades starting with the pentium and pentiumII's... I've used so much gear it isn't even funny... My build is off of direct experience.

 

[E4g1e]

2600 vs 2500, While settle for a i5 when you can afford and i7? I started with a i5 on the build then went with a i7 once i saw it was within budget. Not that much more for the i7.

Ram picks are almost the same, my pick was based on chipset approved, I've used the combo on a few builds... can't say enough good things...

XFX of a HIS... Never! to be honest, both fan designs on both cards suck... high rate of fan failure with that enclosed designed. I've seen 5870 fans die along with my own 5970 fan... better to have a msi fan style. however my HIS cards never had a problem

OCZ is the best support on the market, I've used in builds and have for myself over a dozen ssd's combined. I've worked with ssd's when only ocz and intel were doing them...they helped develop what others have followed. find me a better source of knowledge on ssd's other then the ocz forums... that intel is junk, i can raid raptors to write faster then that. I've also had alot of success with muskins ssd's.

You can't put a price on badass! I built a rig that filled his budget, with my mail in rebates for a few bucks "$20'ish" more then your build he'll have a i7

you can post your own builds without attacking mine, I've been building for almost 2 decades starting with the pentium and pentiumII's... I've used so much gear it isn't even funny... My build is off of direct experience.

Here is the problem with your choices:

1) I completely disagree with your opinion of OCZ. Here in the U.S., OCZ is far more likely than most to screw you over or give you the runaround (bouncing from one department to another and back without giving you a definitive cause) as far as technical support is concerned. Plus, the Vertex 3 shares the very same common problem as all other recent Sandforce-based SSDs: They suffer from the random BSOD in Windows issue (in which the system throws up a BSOD for no apparent reason). A firmware update solves the problem for some, but I have not seen any evidence that it works for everybody.

2) The RAM needs all of 1.65V just to even run at its advertised speed and timings. (Besides, the advertised speed and timings are exactly the same as other DDR3-1600 RAM that runs at only 1.5V.) This can increase the potential for serious and permanent damage to the LGA 1155 CPU. In fact, Intel recommends against DIMM voltages above 1.575V with these CPUs.

3) Unless one is frequently running any productivity programs that take advantage of more than four threads (such as the higher-end video editing programs like Premiere Pro), he does not need an i7. However, it is still a good choice as a CYA measure if one is not currently running such higher-end productivity content creation apps but might want to run one in the near future (in which case the user might be seriously hobbled by the i5's lack of HyperThreading).

 

[Dangman]

2
you can post your own builds without attacking mine, I've been building for almost 2 decades starting with the pentium and pentiumII's... I've used so much gear it isn't even funny... My build is off of direct experience.

I wasn't "attacking" your build. I was critiquing it as there were several sub-optimal choices/recommendations with it.

Regardless of your experience, a sub-optimal choice/recommendation is still a sub-optimal choice/recommendation.

2600 vs 2500, While settle for a i5 when you can afford and i7? I started with a i5 on the build then went with a i7 once i saw it was within budget. Not that much more for the i7.

It's $100 more for the i7. With that said, I agree that if the OP wants to spend the extra cash for the i7, he can go for the i7 just for the hell of it. However I was pointing out that the gaming performance between the two CPUs is zilch so if the OP wanted to save money, that's where he can do it.

Ram picks are almost the same, my pick was based on chipset approved, I've used the combo on a few builds... can't say enough good things...

As E4g1e pointed out, RAM rated at 1.65V is not good at all for a LGA 1155 CPU. Straight from an Intel rep here on the forums:

Ok this is an issue that I have spent a lot of time on. I have even sent this up to an engineer to find out on this. The issue with this is the 1.65v memory is pushing the tolerances on the processor too much. Over on Tom's they did some testing on the memory to see where the point is and they found that anything above 1.575v can damage the processor. In most cases if you have 1.65v memory before you do anything else go into the Bios and set the memory at 1.5v to avoid this issue.

So thats why your Patriot RAM recommendation wasn't a good one considering that it's rated at 1.65V.

OCZ is the best support on the market, I've used in builds and have for myself over a dozen ssd's combined. I've worked with ssd's when only ocz and intel were doing them...they helped develop what others have followed. find me a better source of knowledge on ssd's other then the ocz forums... that intel is junk, i can raid raptors to write faster then that. I've also had alot of success with muskins ssd's.

Well good for you. But I've seen far too many people here on the forums complaining about how their OCZ SSDs died and how their OCZ SSDs were slower than an Intel SSD in actual use.

Also, remember that read/write speeds aren't the whole story. The key advantage of a SSD is random read/write speeds. So while you can RAID 0 raptors for better write speeds, it still wouldn't perform/feel fast as an actual Intel SSD.

You can't put a price on badass! I built a rig that filled his budget, with my mail in rebates for a few bucks "$20'ish" more then your build he'll have a i7

Again, you're using US pricing whereas I'm using the Canadian pricing. The OP's budget is in Canadian dollars. In addition, the Canadians are charged a lot more money for hardware than Americans are. So your pricing comparison does not work here unless you're using Candian pricing.

 

[infernos]

There are quite a few issues with R3load's build list:
- The 2600K is not needed for a gaming PC when it performs virtually the same as the 2500K in games
- That RAM may end up killing the CPU on account of it being rated at 1.65V. It's recommended to use RAM rated at 1.5V
- Motherboard is a bit on the pricey side for what it is even after the combo discount.
- That SSD has a history of random BSOD issues. Not to mention OCZ's relatively poor customer support.
- It's American pricing.

I recommend this setup instead:
$439 - Intel Core i5 2500K + Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$42 - Patriot Signature PSD38G1600KH 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$352 - XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB PCI-E Video Card
$212 - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SSD
---
Total: $1045 CAD plus tax.

Notes:
- Longer warrantied and better supported card with XFX
- RAM less likely to kill the CPU
- More reliable and stable SSD.

Let me know if you want to spend more money and I'll come up upgrades to the above setup.

I could spend a little more.

For the SSD do they come with brackets to mount in a standard hard drive spot or do you need to buy some kind of adapter?

 

[R3load]

get them retail and not oem..and they should have the brackets...

to spend more, stay with the i7 and stick two ssd's in... consider crossfiring (running two amd videocards)

8 cores are better then 4 anyday... I've got a i7 930 and a i7 960 here... more then 4 cores can get busy at a time...

The ram voltage the other guy is correct on, go with 1.5v ram

 

[BigJayDogg3]

8 cores are better then 4 anyday... I've got a i7 930 and a i7 960 here... more then 4 cores can get busy at a time...

Really now?

In single threaded benchmarks, the 2600K is barely going to outperform the 2500K. In multi threaded benchmarks, the difference is larger, but worth $100?

Well, I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money.

If your main use is gaming, buying a 2600K will only net you a bigger e-peen. On a 1K budget, I seriously doubt you're going to be buying enough GPU power to move the bottleneck to the CPU.

 

[Dangman]

I could spend a little more.

In that case, go for another 8GB of RAM. Yes you probably won't notice any performance difference from 4GB to 16GB of RAM but RAM is stupid cheap at this point in time.

SSD wise, go for a larger and faster SSD:
$380 - Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SSD

GPU wise, go for two of these GTX 560 TI 448 Core for SLI:
$295 - eVGA 012-P3-2066-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores FTW 1280MB PCI-E Video Card

For the SSD do they come with brackets to mount in a standard hard drive spot or do you need to buy some kind of adapter?

Not all of them. You will probably have to buy a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter if you get the above SSD.

 

[Cobalt35]

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I'd stick with Danny Bui and E4g1e's recommendations. Been reading this forum for a long time and they're always spot on. BigJay makes some very good points too. I'm struggling to think of any game that uses more than four cores. Heck, most of them don't even use four.

 

[infernos]

Is there any difference between the Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
and the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Z68 LGA1155 ATX motherboard?

I found the pro one for the same price.

Also do I need to buy some thermal paste for the CPU or is the stuff that comes on it good enough?

 

[BigJayDogg3]

Also do I need to buy some thermal paste for the CPU or is the stuff that comes on it good enough?

Last time I did reading on the matter, I think the difference between the best thermal paste and the worst was like less than 10 degrees?

I think the general consensus of the article was any thermal paste is better than none, and unless you're chasing that big OC, just about anything is going to be good enough. Applying it correctly is more important than what you use.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, because its been a few months since I've looked into this, and even then it was in passing.

My opinion is that with AS5 being so cheap as compared to all the other parts of my PC, I may as well just pick some up.


EDIT: Research is good for my health

 

[Forceman]

Is there any difference between the Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
and the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Z68 LGA1155 ATX motherboard?

I found the pro one for the same price.

Also do I need to buy some thermal paste for the CPU or is the stuff that comes on it good enough?

The Pro adds 2 extra SATA 6GB ports on a Marvell controller, and onboard Firewire support. Otherwise they are the same.

Most aftermarket coolers come with thermal paste, and it is fine to just use that.

My opinion is that with AS5 being so cheap as compared to all the other parts of my PC, I may as well just pick some up.

I'd stay away from Arctic Silver, as it is capacitive and can cause problems if you get some on other components on the motherboard. Something like MX-4 is better.

 

[Tsuyoi]

For the SSDs, doesn't the P180 come with direct mounting points for 2.5'' drives? I know the P183 does for its upper drive bay, not too sure about the older P180.

Also, good deal on RAM today if you plan on buying immediately:

G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB 1600 : $35 with promo code EMCJHHC23
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...C-122711-Index-_-DesktopMemory-_-20231314-L0E

 

[infernos]

Ordered all my parts thanks for all the help.

 

[Cobalt35]

Let us know how it goes