Hey, I'm planning on building a new pc and would just like some advice, tips or suggestions for change on the specs decided thus far. CPU - intel core i7 2600K Motherboard - ASUS Sabertooth P67 CPU cooler - Corsair H70 RAM - 16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Corsair Vengeance I was wondering if anyone knows of any compatibility issues or anything like that, i've been researching the new sandy Bridge chip sets for quite a while now and have decided to make a good pc on a decent budget, so any suggestions are welcome! Also, on the subject of gfx cards, i was planning on buying a nvidia gtx 560, with plans to sli in the future. are there any compatibility issues between suppliers such as msi/asus/gainward. Just wondering as if not i'll buy on aesthetics. I know to upgrade to sli with 2 560's I'll need a high power psu, but without the sli, would my current (bouth 2 months ago) Corsair GS700 cope easily with everything? Thanks
That build looks ok. The H70 is really overboard on the cooler as SB runs pretty cool (unless you're gonna be attempting huge overclocks or you live in the middle of the Sahara). The H70 will help though since the Vengence series memory is kinda tall and a large air cooler might obstruct some of the memory slots (you need all of them clear for 4x4GB). Maybe the H50 with an extra fan would be better? There's nothing stopping you from mixing brands of graphics card as long as they're all the same GPU however if one model has a higher clock rate than the other the cards in SLI will default to the lower of the two clock rates. Your current PSU should be just fine for 1 card however the GTX 560 takes 2 6-pin PCI-E power connectors to run so you'll have to get a PSU with 4 total 6-pin power connectors in order to SLI in the future (Corsair HX850 might be a good choice for that).
A few questions first.. What is your budget? What the main uses of the PC will be? Are there any other parts you already have? (eg hard drive, optical drive, case) What is the native resolution of your monitor? Will you be overclocking? Otherwise what you have already looks fine. Although I would definately reccomend an SSD and maybe swapping the i7 2600k for a i5 2500k as it gives hardly any benifit. Also: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2011/03/10/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-march-2011/4
I initially decided on the H70 due to the RAM slots, most large coolers that perform well are for too large for the sabertooth board so all dimm slots wouldn't be accessible. I quite like the corsair H50/H70 so will definitely be getting one of them. Do you not think it's worth the extra money for the H70? I plan on getting the gigabyte GTX 560 SOC so if I do sli in the future, i'll be getting the same. thanks for the suggestion on PSU, i'll look into it! Thanks
I don't have an overall budget but I aim altogether to spend less than £2000 (including peripherals and such) I'll be using the pc for gaming, home recording and video/image editing (but these aren't done on a huge scale) and I already have everything but the insides of the pc (2x Samsung Syncmaster B2330, Xigmatek Utgard case and i'll be using the corsair SP2500 speaker system) I do plan to overclock which is the reason for choosing the i7 over the i5. I do plan on buying an ssd but so far don't know much about them, though I would use it to install the OS, recording software, image + video editing software and maybe a game or two if theres room. Any suggestions? Thanks
I would save some money and go with the H50 and just buy an extra fan (or attach it to the back of one of your case fans) to create a push/pull configuration. That'll give you all the cooling you need while still keeping the memory slots clear. SSDs are a nice extra. They give you a huge speed boost in anything that accesses main storage (initial loading/updating/installs). You have the right idea for SSD use already. Because of the space limitations (brought on by the price -_-) most people just keep their OS and a couple programs that they want to load faster on it. I personally like Intel, Crucial, and Corsair SSDs. A ~64GB SSD will probably hold everything you need and a 128GB SSD is just if you think you need more space than that (which you really shouldn't unless you want all your apps on the SSD).
I was thinking about one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-018-CS&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910 for its high read speeds? Don't really mind how long it takes to install stuff tbh. Have they sorted out the problems with speed deteriorating over time yet? I read that somewhere but can't really find much about it. I may have to reconsider buying my H70 then...I suppose the smaller profile will fit better in my case either way! Thanks for the help though, very much appreciated
I'm not too experienced with specific SSDs as I have not gotten one myself (too expensive lol), but that one looks pretty good. Write speed deterioration is not completely solved, but Windows 7 does have the TRIM command which helps mitigate it. see the wiki on it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227590 That is what I use in my current build and I love it. No issues with any speed deterioration, and that is even with my wife downloading photos and savings docs to it...because you dosn't listen and save things tot he D drive...lol
the H70 may be overkill, but why compromise on cooling what is an 8 threaded beast --- ready and willing to be pushed to 4.8Ghz plus when overvolted --- Push/Pull config with PWM fans is the way to go if you do go H70... Else you now have the option of the Antec Kuhler 920... If you are going to populate all your ram slots with 4 sticks then seriously consider getting SuperCache With SuperCache, as a program sends and receives disk data, the most frequently used data is read from and written to RAM – not the hard drive – thus accelerating the program's performance. i7-2600k 4.8Ghz @1.375v | Corsair H70 Noiseblocker NB12 push/pull | ASUS P8P67 | Corsair HX650w | 8GB DDR3-1600 | HD 6950 2GB unlocked 910/1375 | Deskstar 7K3000 3TB HDD
Ok hello there and welcome to bit tech , a few things, do you actually need the 2600k? 2500k may suit your needs just as well, and comes in at a good wack cheaper, the only reason you may consider the 2600k is if you need the hyper threading, which from reading your posts, i don't think you do? also that gs700w psu looks relatively good, I suspect you'd be fine with 2 560's in sli from that. But you may have to check the 12v rail, I think you've got 56amps on the one 12v rail that psu has. also that ssd you suggested is ok, but in my opinion there are better, one of these would do you well. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120g...force-ssd-read-550mb-s-write-500mb-s-60k-iops as Dae said the deterioration problem was solved with trim in windows 7, also remember when you set the computer up in the bios you have to change the sata to achi mode. Also do you need 16gb of ram? as 8gb would be plenty.
Oh right I forgot about OCZ SSDs xD. Ya OCZ is also a good brand . re: supercache, I doubt he's going to be doing work which will make full use of that program. It sounds like an awesome application, but I just don't think it would be worth his $150 for what little good it'll do him. Most programs do just fine loading themselves into memory and running from there without any third party help. Well made programs will try to minimize the need to read/write data to the storage drive anyway so in all honesty I can't see that being very useful for what he said he does.
