New Build

[Haider]

Hi Lads,

Looking to put together a new rig. I'm based in the UK, will be using it to play Football Manager, Supremacy Commander, Dirt 3, Call of Duty 2 and a few more newer games - Bioshock, COD MW, Carrier Command. I'll be playing on my LCD monitor @ 1280x1024 or my plasma TV @ 1080P. I'll be re-using my ATX case and 500GB Seagate SATA drive. I'm looking at this bundle: -

CPU: Intel Core i7 2700K 3.50GHz @ 4.60GHz Sandybridge CPU
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V (default choice)
RAM: Kingston HyperX Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel
Cooler: Corsair A50 CPU Cooler & Artic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
£541 incl. tax


The CPU has been tested and guaranteed to overclockable to the degree above as long as I use a good PSU like the Corsair TX or HX range. I've always used Enermax previously but they don't stock them.

PSU: Corsair Enthusiast Series TX550M High Performance 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020001-UK) £89.99 incl. tax.

Now the tricky bit, the graphic cards
XFX AMD Radeon 6970 2GB GDDR5 Core Clock 880 MHz £249 incl tax
Or
Gainward GeForce GTX 570 Golden Sample 1280MB GDDR5 Core Clock: 750MHz £239 incl tax.

In the future I would look to SLI or Crossfire to provide a mid-life update. What do you think overall and in particular which way should I head on the GPU?

Thanks
Haider

 

[ElFenix]

In the future I would look to SLI or Crossfire to provide a mid-life update.

a lot of people think this but i bet less than 5% actually do it. once you're there it's usually more effective just to get a whole new graphics card than to add the second.


buying a guaranteed overclock for an already expensive processor seems like a waste of money to me. the 2700k isn't going to overclock significantly more than a 2500k and won't be any faster at games.

that ram is 1.65v. while it may work, that's actually out of spec for a sandybridge memory controller. if that's a package deal from that shop, i think i'd choose a different place to buy from. places should not be recommending 1.65 ram with a sandybridge. sandybridge ram should be 1.5v or less.

the 550M is a 550 watt supply. it'll run that setup just fine, though it's probably a bit on the low side for crossfire or SLi. if the place is advertising it at 650, again, choose somewhere else to buy.

 

[General Kenobi]

Could you answer the standard questions first?

 

[Haider]

Could you answer the standard questions first?

I thought I had for the ones that I have an answer.

1.) Playing the above games 1080p or 1280x1024, MS Word, web browsing, Adobe Photoshop CS2 & Phase One Capture One and Sony Vegas Studio for editing 1080i footage.

2.) Budget, not good with budgets. I'm looking to meet the objectives at the common-sense price. How can I put that for example the 550 PSU costs about £9 less than the 650 PSU. So I would spend the extra £9 on the 650 PSU as hopefully it will be able to handle crossfire and SLI. Looking at ELFenix's reply he reckon that 2700K is not going to afford any further overclockability over the 2500K so I would drop down to the 2500K.

3.) UK.

4.) Best bang for buck fanboy.

5.) Case, DVD burner, DVD Drive, Floppy, Seagate 500 GB SATA HDD, Mouse & Keyboard.

6.) Yes I have looked at other topics.

7.) Overclock but with stability in mind.

8.) 1080P or 1280x1024.

9.) Deadline by the end of the month.

 

[Haider]

a lot of people think this but i bet less than 5% actually do it. once you're there it's usually more effective just to get a whole new graphics card than to add the second.


buying a guaranteed overclock for an already expensive processor seems like a waste of money to me. the 2700k isn't going to overclock significantly more than a 2500k and won't be any faster at games.

that ram is 1.65v. while it may work, that's actually out of spec for a sandybridge memory controller. if that's a package deal from that shop, i think i'd choose a different place to buy from. places should not be recommending 1.65 ram with a sandybridge. sandybridge ram should be 1.5v or less.

the 550M is a 550 watt supply. it'll run that setup just fine, though it's probably a bit on the low side for crossfire or SLi. if the place is advertising it at 650, again, choose somewhere else to buy.

Thanks for the advice I'll drop it down to Sandy Bridge Core i5-2500K and get the Crucial in spec ram which will also have a positive effect in reducing the price and spend it a bit more on the PSU.

Edited
Added Sandy Bridge Core i5- infront of 2500K.

 

[Zap]

The Arctic Silver is not really needed, since while it is good stuff, just using properly applied thermal compound of any kind will be 95% of the performance of Arctic Silver.

The fan included with the Corsair A50 is really noisy, and is not PWM so most motherboards are unable to control it. It runs 2000RPM, and comes with a resistor that drops it to 1600RPM. That goes from "OMG noisy" to "wow I can still hear it."

 

[mfenn]

I agree wholeheartedly with ElFenix's recommendations. Don't spend a bunch of money hoping for future upgrades to SLI/CFX, odds are you ain't gonna do it.

Nobody's really mentioned the GPUs yet, so here's my 2p. Both of those choices are (a) overpriced given their performance and (b) way overkill for the types of games that you're interested it. Dirt3 is easily the most intensive of the games that you've listed and not terribly intensive at all (that is at all max with tons of AA), so I would say to save some money and get a 6950 2GB or GTX 560 Ti.