Major upgrade - criticism and suggestions please

[hexagonalbolts]

Hi everyone, I'm doing a major overhaul of my gaming PC for a bit over £400, I want this to be a solid build that lasts me a long time so I'd appreciate all suggestions and improvements no matter how minor. I will be overclocking. I'm re-using the previous PSU, disk drives, hard drive and graphics card. (Edit: I'm using windows 7 x64, the resolution will be 1920x1080, I'll be buying in the next week or so)

Here are my planned new components:
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W)
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
G.Skill 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory
Noctua NH-C14
Fractal Design Define R4 Midi Tower Case

Old components:
Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU (From previous build, around 5 years old)
MSI 6950 HD OC (From previous build, around 1 year old)
1TB HDD F3
disk drive

 

[dmoney1980]

your parts look good, though you may be overspending on the CPU cooler. what website are you buying from? Do they have a coolermaster hyper 212 cooler?

 

[hexagonalbolts]

your parts look good, though you may be overspending on the CPU cooler. what website are you buying from? Do they have a coolermaster hyper 212 cooler?

Probably ebuyer or wherever is cheapest. It's £55 on ebuyer. I know it's pricey but apparently it's absurdly quiet. I want to overclock, but my current case sounds like a helicopter, so I'd like to spend more and get some peace and quiet. I'll try and look for a noise comparison of 212 and this.

 

[PreachTru]

For the best advice you would need to answer the questions in this sticky thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121. Just copy/paste that first post into your original post here with the answers.

 

[hexagonalbolts]

For the best advice you would need to answer the questions in this sticky thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121. Just copy/paste that first post into your original post here with the answers.

The only thing that isn't apparent from my first post are the resolution and operating system, but I already have the graphics card and hard drive so I thought they'd be unnecessary (1920x1080 and windows 7 x64). I'll be buying it this week.

 

[mfenn]

The overall list looks good, but I agree that the C14 is probably overkill. I would normally suggest the Scythe Mugen 3, but I don't see that for sale anywhere in the UK. I'll have to defer to lehtv, since he is the master of crazy European heatsinks.

 

[hexagonalbolts]

The overall list looks good, but I agree that the C14 is probably overkill. I would normally suggest the Scythe Mugen 3, but I don't see that for sale anywhere in the UK. I'll have to defer to lehtv, since he is the master of crazy European heatsinks.

As long as it's extremely quiet and I can comfortably overclock to 4ghz or so then that's cool. The case also comes sound-proofed so it will be slightly less effective at cooling than normal so I wanted a more powerful CPU cooler. I'm desperate to achieve silence with my new build.

 

[mfenn]

Well, I can tell you right off the bat that your machine won't be silent. It'll be fairly quiet (but still audible) until you go into a game, at which point the 6950 will make its presence known.

 

[hexagonalbolts]

Well, I can tell you right off the bat that your machine won't be silent. It'll be fairly quiet (but still audible) until you go into a game, at which point the 6950 will make its presence known.

I have it installed in my current build, it's a part i'm using, if it is noisy then the rest of my computer is so loud that it's not even audible! Not totaly silence, just comparative silence by comparison to my grinding whirring PC at the moment.