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New Year, New Build - Critique?

General Kenobi

General Kenobi

Senior member
To start off I'm going to note that I've already ordered the components from two retailers (saved around 50€ by cross-checking component prices). The two orders will be shipped to me once all the components are present, so there's about a week or two left to wait for some of the non-stock items. In the meantime, I thought that I'd ask for some critique on this build, as there's still time to make adjustments if necessary.

I'm not getting a solid-state drive yet, because I'm not yet happy with the €/GB ratio. I don't want to battle possible firmware issues either, so I'll just leave that until later. I don't have any interest in using a small SSD for caching at this point either.

Note that I already have the monitor (you might have seen the thread over at the Peripherals subforum). The sound card, headphones and PSU are from my current (slowly failing) build, so I've already got all of those as well. The components are listed at their factory speeds.

General Kenobi in New Year said:

OS - MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 MS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 (MSDNAA License)
MOBO - Asus P8Z68-V LE
GPU - Asus Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 2GB @ 810/5000 MHz
CPU - Intel Core i5 2500K Sandy Bridge @ 3.3 GHz
CPU COOLER - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
RAM - Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1600 MHz @ 9-9-9-24
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6GB/s
SOUND CARD - Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1
DVD-RW - Asus DRW-24B3ST SATA

MONITOR - Dell 24" UltraSharp U2412M e-IPS, 5ms G2G @ 1920x1200
HEADPHONES - Sennheiser HD 555
KEYBOARD - Logitech G110
MOUSE - Logitech G400

PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX600 V2
CASE - Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus
FAN1 - Cooler Master MegaFlow 200mm (Case Stock)
FAN2 - Cooler Master 120mm (Case Stock)
Click to expand...
 
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You didn't answer [thread=80121]the questions we need you to answer[/thread]!

Overall, looks mostly good for a gaming build. How come you got nVIDIA instead of an AMD 6950?
 
Ken g6 said:
You didn't answer [thread=80121]the questions we need you to answer[/thread]!

Overall, looks mostly good for a gaming build. How come you got nVIDIA instead of an AMD 6950?
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Forgot that one, questions answered below. As for the GPU, I like to have PhysX when it is supported.


1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Gaming and Photoshop. Non-professional.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

No set budget.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

Finland.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

Other than NVIDIA for PhysX, no.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Yes, the following:

SOUND CARD - Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1
MONITOR - Dell 24" UltraSharp U2412M e-IPS, 5ms G2G @ 1920x1200
HEADPHONES - Sennheiser HD 555
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX600 V2

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

No overclocking for now, apart from the factory overclocked MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II 1GB @ 880/1760/4200 MHz.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

1920x1200.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

January 2012.

10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.

Not a problem.
 
What do you use that actually takes advantage of PhysX?

Anyway, your build looks fine except for all those extra fans, they're just added expense and noise in this build. That is assuming that you're not paying a ridiculous premium for any of the components that you've listed of course.
 
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Would've gone with 6950 2GB for the extra VRAM. I've used a 560 Ti for about 9 months now, and I don't think I've ever actually benefited from PhysX, it's just used in so few titles. And the extra fans were unneeded. Plus if I wanted great cooling I'd buy a case that has great cooling by default (not what I did with my R3 but I wanted a silent case.)

Other than that, looks good. You won't need to upgrade the PSU for CPU overclocking.
 
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mfenn said:
What do you use that actually takes advantage of PhysX?

Anyway, your build looks fine except for all those extra fans, they're just added expensive and noise in this build. That is assuming that you're not paying a ridiculous premium for any of the components that you've listed of course.
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A bunch of games. You can check the Wikipedia article for PhysX for a list, but it's not all inclusive.

The CM HAF 912 Plus case comes with a 200mm front fan, and a 120mm rear fan. I'm adding a 200mm top fan, and a 120mm side fan. Which ones would you drop without losing cooling efficiency?

And I can assure you that the parts are as cheap as they can be here in Finland. I'm not made of money you know. 😛
 
lehtv said:
Would've gone with 6950 2GB for the extra VRAM. I've used a 560 Ti for about 9 months now, and I don't think I've ever actually benefited from PhysX, it's just used in so few titles. And the extra fans were unneeded. Plus if I wanted great cooling I'd buy a case that has great cooling by default (not what I did with my R3 but I wanted a silent case.)

Other than that, looks good. You won't need to upgrade the PSU for CPU overclocking.
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The 6950 2GB costs 50-100€ more here (depending on the brand) than the GTX 560 Ti 1GB. See my previous post's question about the fans... as for the case, I just happen to like it. I need to like the visual appearance or otherwise I'll get fed up with it.
 
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The CM HAF 912 Plus case comes with a 200mm front fan, and a 120mm rear fan. I'm adding a 200mm top fan, and a 120mm side fan. Which ones would you drop without losing cooling efficiency?
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A 120mm exhaust and a 200mm intake already cool a moderately OC'd single-GPU setup quite well.

The 6950 2GB costs 50-100€ more here (depending on the brand) than GTX 560 Ti 1GB.
Click to expand...

It costs about $50 more in the U.S. as well. But 1GB can be a limitation on 1080p (in my experience), and 6950 2GB is also faster, so that's why I'd pay some extra.
 
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lehtv said:
A 120mm exhaust and a 200mm intake already cool a moderately OC'd single-GPU setup quite well.
Click to expand...
lehtv said:
It costs about $50 more in the U.S. as well. But 1GB can be a limitation on 1080p (in my experience), and 6950 2GB is also faster, so that's why I'd pay some extra.
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Hm... thanks for the tips. If I drop the 2 extra fans and budget in some more euros I could possibly get the 6950 2GB. While I think that PhysX can be nice, I wouldn't want to compromise my gaming performance at 1920x1200. I'll give it some thought.
 
Just to clarify, in general I don't have problems with 1GB. But on a few occasions, I have missed out on an opportunity to enable more demanding settings that would eat up over 1GB VRAM. Examples: CIV 5 in DX11. Skyrim with custom 2K textures. Rage with 16K textures. I think it's probable that newer games will have on average higher VRAM requirements, so maxing out 1GB should become more frequent. Hence having 2GB means a sort of security in your investment.

1920x1200 is also 11% more pixels than 1080p, so the extra performance will come in handy for sure.

With regard to the fans, just drop the extra fans from your order for now, and later add fans if you really think you have a temperature problem, or if you want the case to be quieter without compromising on airflow (i.e. slower RPM fans but more of them, you could downvolt with cables or use a controller).
 
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lehtv said:
Just to clarify, in general I don't have problems with 1GB. But on a few occasions, I have missed out on an opportunity to enable more demanding settings that would eat up over 1GB VRAM. Examples: CIV 5 in DX11. Skyrim with custom 2K textures. Rage with 16K textures. I think it's probable that newer games will have on average higher VRAM requirements, so maxing out 1GB should become more frequent. Hence having 2GB means a sort of security in your investment.

1920x1200 is also 11% more pixels than 1080p, so the extra performance will come in handy for sure.

With regard to the fans, just drop the extra fans from your order for now, and later add fans if you really think you have a temperature problem, or if you want the case to be quieter without compromising on airflow (i.e. slower RPM fans but more of them, you could downvolt with cables or use a controller).
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Yeah, I can see your point there. Plus I was thinking about Skyrim texture mods earlier as well (got the game itself on the shelf), those definitely tax any card, and more so on high resolutions.

Just looking at the prices here right now... I could get a 2GB version of GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II for 10€ less than a 6950 2GB. Any thoughts? I don't think that there would be a big difference in gaming performance between the two 2GB cards.

I think that I'll drop the extra fans in either case.
 
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lehtv said:
6950 2GB is a better deal than 560 Ti 2GB. It has a higher memory bandwidth (5GHz vs 4GHz stock memory clock) so it's better suited for high VRAM use. And 10 eur more is like what, less than 5% more? Even so, 6950 2GB is better performance for the price.

560 Ti 1GB vs 6950 2GB: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330?vs=293
560 Ti 1GB vs 6950 1GB: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330?vs=331
6950 2GB vs 6950 1GB: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=331
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Good point there. Talking about the 6950 2GB, I spotted an XFX model for only 40 more euros than GTX 560 Ti 1GB. Does XFX still have good cards?
 
Yeah, backed up by lifetime warranty 🙂. EDIT: This doesn't seem to apply to Europe unfortunately.

Whatever the 6950 though I'd make sure it has two fans. Single-fan cards tend to make more noise and run a bit hotter.
 
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lehtv said:
Yeah, backed up by lifetime warranty 🙂. EDIT: This doesn't seem to apply to Europe unfortunately.

Whatever the 6950 though I'd make sure it has two fans. Single-fan cards tend to make more noise and run a bit hotter.
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The model that I'm looking at is HD-695X-CDFC with Dual Fan cooling. It comes with a two year warranty here (retailer side).

My other choice would be the Asus DirectCU II model (same price). Basically it comes down to which brand has a better cooler.

Edit: I'm leaning towards the Asus DirectCU II model. Three slots for a stock cooler is overkill, but apparently it's pretty darn good.
 
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The Asus DirectCU II HD 6950 2GB review that I read over at Tweak Town was actually for an OCed card under max load, so I don't think that my current PSU would fry unless I ran FurMark for hours at some ridiculous clock speeds.

No PhysX with this card, but like lehtv pointed out, this GPU seems to have a good price/performance ratio for gaming at full HD (or in my case WUXGA) thanks to the higher memory bandwidth and 2GBs of VRAM. Considering the fact that the 2GB version of GTX 560 Ti is only at 4.2 GHz factory OCed, the HD 6950 2GB still beats it handily with 5 GHz.

I dropped the two extra fans and the MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II 1GB for the Asus Radeon HD 6950 2GB DirectCU II (810/5000 MHz) with the ridiculous triple slot cooler. It cost me 258.85€, which I think is a pretty good deal for it.
 
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The Asus direct-cu II triple-slot cooler is indeed awesome. You'll probably be able to adjust the fan profile in MSI afterburner to inaudible idle levels and very comfortable load noise levels.
 
Yeah, I'll have to run some tests on the fan settings once I get this build together. It should be good for quiet cooling performance though. I still don't know what compelled Asus to go this far with the cooler, but it should outperform your average aftermarket coolers. Good thing too, saves me some money that way.
 
As far as your ram goes OP I would switch it to gskill's rip jaw x's. I have used both and I prefer the gskills over the corsairs by a fair amount.
 
Do you have any other data on that apart from your personal preference? I can't see any practical difference. I generally don't OC my RAM.
 
Well the corsair ram that I purchased was "xmp ram" that was ddr3 1333mhz but "overclocks" to 1600mhz. After 1600mhz they fell flat on there face and at times XMP ram can be annoying with certain motherboards and bios settings etc.

As far as the gskills I haven't had any trouble with my board and they overclock decently too.

It's mainly personal preference but I don't care for XMP ram personally. The gskills ended up overclocking much much better 🙂
 
lehtv said:
I bet there are an equal amount of Corsair RAM users with a similarly biased view.
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Probably.

Personally I just got the Vengeance because it was cheaper. I don't really care about brands if they don't offer some measurable benefit over the other.
 
It's not about being bias'd its about using both products and giving an opinion on which was better due to facts. I don't care for 1333mhz ram that overclocks to 1600mhz and then nothing higher. I would rather have true 1600mhz ram, that has the potential to go above and beyond that. Also XMP settings don't always read timings right and voltages correctly in some motherboards.
 
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