Hey guys - im helping a mate build a PC with these specs. Intel Core i5-760 Akasa Venom Cooler Asus Maximus III Formula Intel P55 Samsunt Spinpoint F3 1.5TB XFX 650W XXX Edition Single Rail Modular Antec Dark Fleet DF30 Mid Tower Case XFX HD 5830/50/70 (money dependant) Question is what RAM should we use. Should i use 6GB Dominator 1600Mhz Ram or for the same money (£125-130) buy 4GB Dominator TwinX GT 2133Mhz Ram. Or any other suggestions ??
Just save money and get 4GB of the 1600Mhz and put that towards a better graphics card which will give you a much greater return for you (or your mates) money.
also drop the Akasa cooler and grab the fenrir or geil tranquillo drop the stupidly expensive mobo too and grab the X58-UD2/3 Grab the cheapest good brand DDR 1600. what voltage is the 2133mhz as it seems a bit too good price that for 1.65V or less modules. wouldnt be surpised if it was the old 1.9V ones.
S1156 (eg i5-760) only use dual channel memory, so you can't put 6gb in them. 4gb is more then enough. Don't bother with stupid speeds on them either tbh, 1600 will be plenty.
Paying £200 for the P55-motherboard and saving on a graphic card is just stupid. Sorry for being a bit harsh, but it just is. Also as they said, get 4 GB of the 1600 MHz stuff. 6 GB kits are meant for tri-channel X58-boards and expensive kits aren't really worth it.
Being an i5, 1156 system it will only handle 2 or 4 sticks int dual channel mode. With three you'll either get one pair in dual channel and and an odd one or all three in single channel mode (not sure which). Also filling more slots would probably limit any over clock. So 2 sticks is probably best. I would agree with xonar 1600mhz is plenty fast enough, you won't notice any real life difference between it and 2000mhz+. Nor will 1600mhz limits an over clock you should be able to achieve around 200mhz bclk and use the 8x memory multiplier option. Leaving you with a max processor speed of around 4.2Ghz. Getting something 1600mhz like the corasir dominator or xms3 is cheaper and allow you to go for a better graphics card. Which is more important for gaming than faster ram. Is the pc mainly for gaming?
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB(...2133)-CAS-9-10-9-27-DHX-Connector-DF-XMP-165V it is 1.65v stuff Also We are probably gonna go with the 5870 on top of all of that anyway, but if we end up not having the money we will downgrade parts. @bagpuss - Why grab the cheapest, atm the cost isnt a problem, is there really no difference between the cheapest and most expensive? The reason we are going for the ROG board is he is in love with it so he wont change his mind - also what makes it so bad for £200 - its got the best reviews of any board ive read about lol. I think tho we will just go with the 1600MHz stuff
I'd make a few changes to the build first before you buy anything. Ditch that motherboard. Completely pointless to spend that much on it. A Asus P7P55D or Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 are completely sufficient if your friend wants a full ATX board. A Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 would be a sufficient board for the system if he wants to save even more. G.Skill Ripjaw 1600MHz stuff is a great choice. 4GB kit. A Gelid Tranquillo would knock off another £15. eBuyer are doing the power supply for £70, just in case you weren't planning on buying there. What resolution is he playing at? I won't comment on the graphics card until we know that But overall, all that is a saving of £170, with no performance decrease whatsoever...
The thing is, for the same money you get this i5 CPU and a hugely expensive board, you (he) could get an all-round superior X58-setup.
Yea the PSU was from ebuyer His resolution is 1680 x 1050 We will go with 1600 Ram then and the tranquillo was 2nd on our list anyway for coolers lol Just gotta talk him into ditching the ROG board now lol.
If that's the resolution, depending on the money he wants to spend, a 5770 would be enough, though he could for a GTX460 if he wanted to; he appears to have the money to spend. All looks good now I'd say But if really isn't going to do anything extreme, and is going to stick with a single card setup (I'd say that's pretty likely), then a P55M-UD2 is plenty of board for him.
I meant the 2133mhz RAM what voltage is that ? The reason i said cheapest is because timings have very little effect on performance yet can command a considerable premium also fancy heatsinks which do nothing. As long as its from a good brand such as corsair, crucial, G.skill just grab DDR 1600 4GB kit and job done. The XMS3 from corsair is usually one of the cheapest. The RoG board is very good but its overkill and stupidly expensive you can grab the much cheaper gigabyte X58-UD2 and the only thing you lose is SLI/Xfire setup potential. Hell if you needed that (waste IMO though) you could get the UD3 instead which is still a lot cheaper than the RoG.
The UD3 doesn't support Xfire either, you'd need at least a P55A-UD4, which is around £150. Unless you're planning on massive overclocks the RoG board is overkill; UD2 + 5870 is about a million times better than RoG + 5770. But a 5870 is stupid for that resolution save more money and get a GTX460. If you're really determined to spend that saved money, how about things like an SSD, external/internal soundcard, new monitor, beer?
It does if you check. It provides x8 PCI-e 2.0 when in crossfire which is fine as PCI-e 2.0 has double the bandwidth of PCI-e 1.1 which for Xfire you did need 2x x16 lanes
totally agree with sam....try to get a cheaper mobo and get the gtx 460...the ROG board is meant for overclockers....u can try the P7P55D-E PRO which has USB3 and SATA6 which the maximus 3 formula doesn't have
If your going to get a LGA1156 system it is better to get 4GB since you will get dual channel if you go for the 4GB.
we were gonna overclock - but because my mate live in london (im in yorkshire) and he knows not a lot about it, thats why i recommended the Rog board , it offers loads of help and an easy BIOS to OC in if im mistaken. but i think i talked him out of it now for the other ASUS board - we are gonna stick with either the 5830 or the 5850 as he plans on getting a better screen and running dual monitors with the better screen as his main. and i dont think he plans on Xfire/SLi. For £900 what would you guys suggest for a build - he wants i7 but doesnt know if the extra money is worth it as he will have to sacrifice some stuff to get it. here is out i7 build he thought of, im yet to have a look over it and see what changes he can make. i7-950 Set-Up CPU Intel Core i-950 : 234£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...Hz-QPI-48GT-s-8MB-Cache-23x-Ratio-130W-Retail ___________________________________________________ Cooler Akasa Venom : 36£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AKAS...-performance-for-serious-overclocking-ALL-CPU ___________________________________________________ Motherboard Asus Rampage III Gene Intel X58 1366 : 188£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...(x16)-DDR3-2200(OC)-SATA-6Gb-s-SATA-RAID-mATX ___________________________________________________ RAM Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000 (2000): 140£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-...DR3-PC3-16000(2000)-Non-ECC-CAS-9-9-9-24-165V ___________________________________________________ HDD Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB : 46£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ss1T...3-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-32MB-Cache-89-ms-NCQ-OEM ___________________________________________________ PSU XFX 650W XXX Edition Single Rail Modular : 70£ http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191826 ___________________________________________________ Case Antec Dark Fleet DF30 Mid Tower Case : 87£ http://www.ebuyer.com/product/226653 ___________________________________________________ Graphics XFX HD 5830 : 123£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-...U-800MHz-1120-Cores-DisplayPort-DL-DVI-I-HDMI OR XFX HD 5850: 217£ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-...GDDR5-GPU-725MHz-DisplayPort-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDMI Rampage + 5830 = 924£ Rampage + 5850 = 1018£ He also mentioned a gigabyte board (id go with it) for less money but he is obsessed with ROG boards now lol Also, as a bit of an ATi fanboy, what makes the 460 so great?? it offers near the same performance as a 5830 doesnt it for near the same price? what you think?
Looks pretty good now, people tend to go with the gigabyte GA-x58a-ud3r or asus p6x58d-e depending on exactly what they want/prefer. As for the graphics the gtx 460 trades blows with the 5850 depending on the game and settings look here. The 1gb version is the one to get usually and is cheaper than the 5850 you listed around £175. They also over clock very well, I got my gigabyte460 recently and its over clocked highly very easily (increase of 125mhz on core and 250mhz on memory, stock voltages).
i5 is the best price/performance on Intel platforms, I think. Doesn't sound like he really needs 6gb vs 4gb too. Get him an i5/760 and overclock it for him maybe? That should rival any i7 CPU which would cost a lot more.
