First-time build: I've picked out the parts, but I'd really appreciate some input

[LMF5000]

I have had many Corsairs and never had one fail....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139020

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151094

Have you personally used the Corsair TX 650W V2 for over a year and not had it fail?

 

[Mars999]

yes I have had probably a dozen Corsair PS's over the years from 430 to 850 watt ones and never had any issues... now that isn't to say some are going to be bad of course there will always be that probability

I am just saying Corsair is a good reliable brand and Seasonic makes the for them. My next PS will probably be Seasonic as may as well buy straight from them vs. Corsair... unless the price is more than it's game on for which one is cheaper

 

[LMF5000]

yes I have had probably a dozen Corsair PS's over the years from 430 to 850 watt ones and never had any issues... now that isn't to say some are going to be bad of course there will always be that probability

I am just saying Corsair is a good reliable brand and Seasonic makes the for them. My next PS will probably be Seasonic as may as well buy straight from them vs. Corsair... unless the price is more than it's game on for which one is cheaper

OK, how about the XFX Pro 750W Core? It's the same price as the TX650W from corsair, but it's 750 instead of 650W and comes with four PCIe connectors compared to the TX650's two.

And it's a seasonic design, so theoretically it should be brilliant. So I've switched the PSU to the XFX Pro 750W Core Edition (£82). It has a 5-year warranty (once registered) like the Corsair as well. What do you think?

 

[Mars999]

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story9&reid=216

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817207015

Looks good, not sure on noise as I never used one, but should be fine. 5yr warranty is nice, and mono rail is a must.

BTW do not get the EVGA get either Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS you will be sorry with how dam noisy and HOT the EVGA runs vs. the other 3...

 

[LMF5000]

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story9&reid=216

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817207015

Looks good, not sure on noise as I never used one, but should be fine. 5yr warranty is nice, and mono rail is a must.

BTW do not get the EVGA get either Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS you will be sorry with how dam noisy and HOT the EVGA runs vs. the other 3...

Ah, sorry, forgot to tell you, I switched back to the gigabyte (I edited my other post where I announced the change to the EVGA - you must've missed the edit). I really like the look of the 3 fans. And as of 2 minutes ago it's back to £334. The prices are fluctuating on an hourly basis .

Well now that the entire system appears to meet everyone's approval, I'm going to "pull the trigger" and buy it. Thanks everyone for all your advice. I might post a build log once everything arrives.

 

[Mars999]

Cool glad to hear you are building a new rig!! Enjoy!

 

[mfenn]

Let us know how it goes! :thumbsup:

 

[LMF5000]

Let us know how it goes! :thumbsup:

Bah, just when everything is sorted, the Hyper 212 Evo is now "due soon" :'(. Who knows when that'll be... I can either:
a) wait
b) buy the Hyper 212 plus (not Evo) from Malta
c) buy the 212 evo from eBay and hope it arrives in time with everything else... or
d) go with a different cooler.

Anyone know how the Hyper 412S or the Hyper 612S fare? They're only £2 and £4 more expensive.

 

[krnmastersgt]

A) This choice is alright, maybe e-mail them and ask when they expect the next shipment?
B) The 212+ isn't bad by any means, and much more than enough if you're just pushing to 4 GHz as that requires no voltage change.
C) This works too
D) Not going to find anything close to or better than the 212s for their pricepoint, the better coolers all cost a decent amount more.

The 612 and 412 seem pretty similar in design concepts to the 212, more like they seem to be directly big brothers of the 212 (I guess it makes sense given the naming scheme). I don't really see how they could possibly be any worse than a 212 as they have more heatpipes/aluminum surface so I'd say go for it if the price difference is so small.

 

[Mars999]

I like my Coolermaster V8.. More money though

 

[LMF5000]

The coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo was back in stock as of this morning.

In the meantime, I was playing GTA san andreas on my laptop, and the GPU crashed again. System freeze, blank screen. Last week I fixed this same problem by putting the graphics card in the oven at 210*C for 10 minutes. Today I managed to revive it by changing the pressure of the heatsink screws slightly.

But that gave me the final push I needed to pull the trigger now (as opposed to, say, tomorrow). I spent €850 on this laptop 3 years ago, but with the hard disk developing bad sectors every other day and the dodgy graphics card, it's no longer a reliable daily PC. The new system cost me €1950 after credit card charges, and benchmark-wise should be about 10 times as powerful (CPU, GPU and SSD each) as my current laptop. Amazing how far technology has advanced in 3 short years.

I'd like to give a massive thanks to everyone who has helped me with this process, especially lehtv for looking up so many components on overclockers.co.uk, and also krnmastersgt, mfenn, and mars999. Finally, special thanks to Puppies04 for his input and the countless PMs we exchanged in the run-up to this build! :biggrin:
​

Here's the final list of components bought:


Order date and time: 5 Jul, 12, 2:22 pm.
Your order consisted of the following items:


Item Qty Price
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card 1 £283.29
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail 1 £214.99
Asus VG23AH 23" 3D IPS Widescreen LED Monitor - Black 1 £208.29
Asus P8Z77-V Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard 1 £119.99
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) 1 £71.66
Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) 1 £71.66
XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply 1 £69.16
Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black 1 £49.99
Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9B) 1 £37.49
Speedlink Gravity Wave 2.1 Subwoofer System SL-8220-SBK 1 £32.49
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel® Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2) 1 £22.49
OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard (5105GU) 1 £9.16
OcUK Value 1.8m Male - Male Gold Plated v1.4 Oxygen Free HDMI Cable - 3D READY 1 £4.99

Sub Total: £1195.65
DHL Worldwide Express (EU) Shipping: £111.68
Total Vat: £235.32
Total inc Vat: £1542.65

To check the status of this order login to your account using the link below:
www.overclockers.co.uk/account.php
You will receive another e-mail when your order has shipped.
Thank you for shopping with Overclockers UK.
Regards,
Overclockers UK
www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Venom20]

wow, shipping is expensive, that's like another mobo right there. Looks like a nice build, please report back!

 

[LMF5000]

wow, shipping is expensive, that's like another mobo right there. Looks like a nice build, please report back!

Heh. True, but still cheaper than catching a flight and picking them up in person . Or buying them from almost any shop in Malta (components generally €20 more expensive each). Malta's 1500 miles from heathrow airport, just to give an idea .

 

[Mars999]

Ah that is why I hate laptops they are junk PC's as they can't take the heat and if they don't have heat they are not good for much as they are to underpowered.... I wouldn't spend more than $400 on a laptop anymore after having so many cook or fail over the last few years... Desktop's are king IMO and only reason to own a laptop IMO is you HAVE to travel a lot. Then yes you have no option, but again unless I am on the go all the time, no I will always own a desktop!

 

[mfenn]

:thumbsup: Looks nice!

 

[LMF5000]

Ah that is why I hate laptops they are junk PC's as they can't take the heat and if they don't have heat they are not good for much as they are to underpowered.... I wouldn't spend more than $400 on a laptop anymore after having so many cook or fail over the last few years... Desktop's are king IMO and only reason to own a laptop IMO is you HAVE to travel a lot. Then yes you have no option, but again unless I am on the go all the time, no I will always own a desktop!

I know... My laptop just died AGAIN. While playing GTA San Andreas. And this time I don't have access to an oven to fix the graphics card like I did last week (because the only oven I have now is one that cooks food, and I don't want to contaminate it). Thankfully I'd already ordered the new system.

I've always had to use laptops because I needed to take the laptop to university with me, and I've just come from a month-long internship abroad and so on. Now that I've almost finished my masters I forsee getting a job where I'm not allowed to use my laptop at work (and all my free time would be spent at home) - so keeping a single powerful desktop at home would be ideal.

Incidentally, the new system has been shipped by DHL. Hopefully should be here in a couple of days?

 

[mfenn]

Incidentally, the new system has been shipped by DHL. Hopefully should be here in a couple of days?

Maybe. Most likely it will get kicked around at bit and lost for a few days first though. D:

 

[LMF5000]

Maybe. Most likely it will get kicked around at bit and lost for a few days first though. D:

Yeah, I heard the rumors :'(. Somebody posted on a review site that after DHL his PSU was so badly mangled he could see the bare PCB sticking out of what remained of the casing ...

Oh, and laptop is fixed again. This time I used our electric convection oven. I double wrapped the card in foil and stuck it in for 45 minutes at 250C. See:

(the yellow device is an infrared thermometer measuring the temperature of the outside of the oven's glass casing. The silver thing is of course the foil pouch with the laptop's graphics card inside...)


Needless to say I won't be gaming any more on this laptop. It'll only make the card warp again and break it again.

 

[mfenn]

(the yellow device is an infrared thermometer measuring the temperature of the outside of the oven's glass casing. The silver thing is of course the foil pouch with the laptop's graphics card inside...)

FYI, a transparent surface like glass will not give you an accurate reading with an infrared thermometer. This is because infrared thermometers do not directly measure temperature, instead they measure the infrared emissivity of an object. This is generally correlated with temperature of course, but there is at least one coefficient in the formula that depends on the material type. Infrared thermometers are typically calibrated for matte metal surfaces.

 

[LMF5000]

FYI, a transparent surface like glass will not give you an accurate reading with an infrared thermometer. This is because infrared thermometers do not directly measure temperature, instead they measure the infrared emissivity of an object. This is generally correlated with temperature of course, but there is at least one coefficient in the formula that depends on the material type. Infrared thermometers are typically calibrated for matte metal surfaces.

I've used infrared thermometers that had a button to adjust the emissivity of the surface (matte black = 0.99, shiny surface = 0.95), but you're right, the cheap one in my pic just assumes a non-settable value. I only wanted to show a rough idea of the temperature (since the oven's thermostat is what's actually taking care of things).

Still, at room temperature the IR thermometer is surprisingly accurate - I frequently shoot it at the bulb of a glass thermometer hung on my wall (I use it for room temperature measurement) and the reading matches to within 1 degree C of what the glass thermometer says. Though since everything is at room temp and it's a small bulb, the IR might be influenced by the matte painted wall behind and around the glass.

 

[mfenn]

Still, at room temperature the IR thermometer is surprisingly accurate - I frequently shoot it at the bulb of a glass thermometer hung on my wall (I use it for room temperature measurement) and the reading matches to within 1 degree C of what the glass thermometer says. Though since everything is at room temp and it's a small bulb, the IR might be influenced by the matte painted wall behind and around the glass.

Correct. Most IR thermometers have something like a 20* field of vision. You've basically getting the average temperature of everything inside that field.

 

[LMF5000]

Just wanted to update everyone. The components arrived on Monday and I spent the whole day putting things together. The 750W power supply was unexpectedly out of stock, so they put an 850W power supply in the box instead

I'll post a build log eventually. With all stock settings it idles at 8 degrees above ambient (that's 38*C in a 30*C room) and the cpu fan at about 800rpm. It's also very quiet at idle, considering it has a combined total of 8 fans (3 GPU, 1 CPU, 1 PSU, 2 intake, 1 exhaust).

Also tried with intel burn test. Noise level stays the same, peak temp 60*C and asus AI Suite II reports 1.044V at 3700MHz.

Now I'm going to reinstall windows because this intall got a little screwed up when I tried to move the "my documents" folders to the HDD and windows made extra copies of the folders within the folders themselves, and renamed my user folder from "luke" to "my music"...

 

[mfenn]

:thumbsup: Glad the build went well!

 

[LMF5000]

I've been putting the system through its paces for the past week, and here's what it looks like with BOINC stressing the CPU and GPU to 100% at the same time (screenshot taken after 4 hours of running - room temp. 30*C):

(full size image: http://postimage.org/image/xynxnx507/full/ )

Incidentally this is the load at which I keep it most of the time. The only time it gets a break is during gaming .

Dunno if the numbers are any good compared to similar rigs. I've settled on a 4.2GHz overclock, with -0.035V offset in the BIOS and everything else set to "auto". RAM is at 1600MHz with 9-9-9-24 timings and voltage manually set to 1.50V.

Core voltage is 1.04-1.048V at full load, 1.1V at idle, and 0.79V when speedstep kicks in at idle and takes the clockspeed down to 1.6GHz.

Incidentally, according to boincstats, it is now the most powerful BOINC computer in all of Malta, at least based on points per hour of runtime - though 95% of the points come from the GPU...

Regarding the individual components, everything seems to be fine (including the keyboard and the speakers), except for the wifi and the monitor. The wifi intermettently decides not to detect my router but not connect to it - even though the only thing separating them is two meters of space and a 1-foot thick stone wall. My laptop has no problems connecting in the same room, but kinda makes me mad for paying the extra £30 for the wifi feature. At this point I have the antenna blu-tacked to the underside of my desk because it seems to work more often than having it on the desk.

The monitor is another story. Its backlight is eye-searingly bright. If I try to reduce it to a more comfortable level, everything starts to look dull and grey. If I mess with the contrast a 1% difference in setting is enough to give a colour cast to all the greys that dissapears with the next 1% incirment. For example, with a setting of 85% the wall posts on facebook get a light green backgroud. If I change it to 84% or 86% they revert to the normal grey background. In short, I can't find a setting where everything looks "right".

The 3D isn't bad after enabling Nvidia 3D vision using the EDID override trick, but it loses the "wow" effect after the first 30 minutes - mainly because the glasses make everything look colourless. So most of the time I game in 2D. 3D is best when inside a car or aircraft cockpit (the slightly dirty windscreen in Test Drive Unlimited gives a really realistic effect in 3D). It's also noteciable in GTA IV, though I find it hard to align the crosshairs with targets at really close range.

Finally, the noise level is quite comfortable, but the heat output is quite strong - my chair actually feels warm first thing in the morning after a night tucked under the desk with the tower there .

 

[mfenn]

Incidentally, according to boincstats, it is now the most powerful BOINC computer in all of Malta, at least based on points per hour of runtime - though 95% of the points come from the GPU...

LOL, nice. Benefits of living on a small island I guess.