[mGGDrGooSe]

Hey all, thought I would get some opinions on my planned new system and hear any tweaks people might suggest.

• Intel CORE i7 2600 3.40GHz/8MB CACHE/LGA1155 CPU (assuming that any old 120 mm fan will do. Some website is trying to sell me liquid cooling...)
• Kingston 16GB (4x4GB) Kit HyperX Blu 1600Mhz DDR3
• Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 Z68, 4DDR3 2133+
• Corsair 60GB Force Series GT SSD
• Cavier Black 1TB HDD
• Sapphire HD6950 2GB (the 560 Ti is said to be slightly better (and $40 cheaper) but I figure the extra memory will help with higher resolution stuff).
• CoolerMaster STORM ENFORCER GAMING CASE (Sorry Mayo, my guys don't stock Tt mid towers)
• CoolerMaster 650W PSU

What the computer will be doing: Some gaming (and some simulation work, CPU usage = 50% for 1-2 weeks, or 100% for 1-48 hours based on i7 860). My current system (i7 860 with Sapphire HD4890 1GB) runs crysis 2 and far cry 2 on max or almost max as it is, and I don't plan on really playing anything more demanding than those. The 16 GB of ram is work related (so tempted to go 32 GB) and I'm also hoping it might allow me to do some video recording whilst playing games like X3 (Check it out, cross between simcity and WoW in space, the only reason it can't compete with SC2 is it's single player only).

So i'm pretty sure this will do anything I ask of it in the next few years. Just wondering if maybe people can suggest slight tweaks that might be beneficial...
Also do I need a sound card? I only ever use 2.1 speakers (need to find someone who stocks TDK, stuff this cheap and ugly logitech crap). And all this for ~$1500 (excluding the HDD). Thoughts?

[Asrathiel]

Quick, someone answer, then I get his old one.... and I can go Diablo-ing...

Quick Comments

	deL:
	NOM:

[Scope_IV]

Imo really bad time to upgrade, Keplar and Ivy bridge will be coming out really soon. So all you're parts are going to be a whole revision behind in like a month. Also ATI cards suckzors. Nvidia all the way.

Quick Comments

Hydroid:

Agreed with this.

[TCPLemminks]

Stealing my idea X_X
For the sound card, apparently everything sounds much better with even a basic sound card (the one I'm planning to get is only $39).other than that your system looks pretty sick^^

Quick Comments

	Asrathiel:	Cos your idea is good idea :P
	mGGDrGooSe:	Well der! Upgrading is contagious, yo.

[breadfan]

Don't really need a soundcard unless you are editing/recording audio or really really want quality surround - i.e. you are investing in good hardware that utilises it

Do check out if 1600MHz memory will actually perform at anything above 1333MHz unoverclocked on that CPU, otherwise it's redundant cost

I would definitely recommend an after market CPU cooler, the stock Intel ones are pretty terrible and especially for you since it looks like you'll be putting it through some work. Just make sure you do your research and get one that fits inside the case!

[PiG]

I'm so damn jealous! I want a beast like this!

[Mayo]

Could at least use a Tt PSU :P

Out of interest, where is this PC coming from?

[mGGDrGooSe]

Originally Posted by Scope_IV

Imo really bad time to upgrade, Keplar and Ivy bridge will be coming out really soon.

Yeah this is exactly the answer to I wanted to hear. If it's only a month, will likely wait for the new stuff, if only to get the older stuff cheaper.

Originally Posted by breadfan

Do check out if 1600MHz memory will actually perform at anything above 1333MHz unoverclocked on that CPU

Interersting, never thought of that.

Originally Posted by breadfan

I would definitely recommend an after market CPU cooler, the stock Intel ones are pretty terrible

Cool. Will do. Although I have a stock Intel on the current i7 860 and have run it 50% for 2 weeks on two occassions with no probs. That's with all sides of the case open though.

Originally Posted by Mayo

Out of interest, where is this PC coming from?

Usually I get my systems from Arc Penrith (arc.com.au). They do sell Tt stuff, they just don't stock much of it (that I've ever seen anyway). But if I'm waiting a month that won't matter. Recommendations for a mid-size with a USB 3.0 on the front? Also the Tt stuff is more expensive there. Can you hook me up ? :P

[Mayo]

I can hook you up with www.MWave.com.au.

Could look into this case - http://thermaltake.com.au/products-m...?id=C_00001803
otherwise, have a browse yourself.

Quick Comments

naviC:

do you rep for singapore too? :D

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Scope_IV

Imo really bad time to upgrade, Keplar and Ivy bridge will be coming out really soon. So all you're parts are going to be a whole revision behind in like a month. Also ATI cards suckzors. Nvidia all the way.

Way to just BM a prefectly good brand (that does in fact offer better value for money in terms of performance) with no justification.

@DrGoose: for that good a system, I would be looking at a better PSU. Coolermaster aren't exactly one of the top brands for that. Look at Antec, Silverstone, Corsair or Seasonic (http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/PSU_Recommendations) They generally have better build quality and use better components.

And if you're leaving it on all the time, I'd get a case that doesn't sound like a wind tunnel. I am in love with Fractal R2. Only reason I can tell it's on is the little blue light (practically no noise).

Quick Comments

mGGDrGooSe:

People who leave comps are on EVIL. Ever wondered why they keep going down?

[Paroxysm]

Not sure about the price difference, but you could even upgrade your gfx card to a HD7970 which is like, fairly new, and you will be able to play all of the new games that come out at the highest resolution etc, for quite some time. That's my only real opinion to be honest.

Quick Comments

[TA]LoSt:

[ToRDjvillian]

As a personal prefernce i like to use 120gb SSD's for OS/Games/most used programs. keep in mind windows 7 takes up around 18gb. I assume your going for a 64 bit version of windows?

you can check out the rigs thread and pull ideas from there if you like: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=2317

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Drgoose

People who leave comps are on EVIL. Ever wondered why they keep going down?

Mine has been shutdown maybe half a dozen times total in ~18 months with no hardware failures. Because I made sure I have adequate cooling and bought a high quality power supply that will run in it's cool, efficient, ~50% zone almost always.

The people who have problems with it will be those who let their systems run hot, and who buy cheap power supplies that will just supply their system with enough draw on load. And it doesn't really matter whether you leave it on always or not.

[mGGDrGooSe]

@Paroxysm - diff is about $300 - $400 :P Generally I get a $150 card, this one is $200 but worth the extra over the $150 ones in stock.
@ToRDjvillian - Yeah, im debating whether I even need one. Sure, people say the differences are big, but I'm not convinced its $120+ big.
@Eramus - it's more that I just hate seeing appliances left on when not in use. People should atleast put them in sleep mode, but off is still better (that goes for monitors too). When I leave work, I go around and turn everyone's towers and monitors off. Lazy so-and-sos.

[Asrathiel]

Originally Posted by Drgoose

it's more that I just hate seeing appliances left on when not in use. People should atleast put them in sleep mode, but off is still better (that goes for monitors too). When I leave work, I go around and turn everyone's towers and monitors off. Lazy so-and-sos.

Unplug your phone charger when you're not using it then afaik it's still using power

[[TA]LoSt]

You can get ideas from HERE too.

My only recommendation would be prioritizing a better graphics card over the SSD, especially since it's only 60GB and you're going to have a beast processor/RAM anyway. Still, your setup is fine either way. ^_^

[Hydroid]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

Way to just BM a prefectly good brand (that does in fact offer better value for money in terms of performance) with no justification.

Last person I told to go Nvidia rather than ATI/AMD ignored me and came and apologized after 3 months saying never again will they buy a video card from them. You might save some money, but they can't do drivers right. Every couple of weeks he would be having issues with drivers in relation to a new game. If all you do is play 1 game (hopefully SC2) and stick with it for years I'd be fine recommending AMD because they can only mess up drivers so many times for the same game. But if you like to grab a new game every so often to play on the side then I don't feel as though it is a good idea. He isn't the only one either. Numerous friends have the same issues with their AMD cards. Another friend even had to get their card replaced 3 times in a month before switching back to Nvidia. One of them the fan died, another just made a lot of noise and another wasn't performing to the standards of other reviews and benchmarks. And yet in an equal sampling of friends and family who have bought and used Nvidia there has been at most 1-2 cases of a DOA card. But if the card works at the start, it keeps working and is often still working 5 years later. So in my overall experience, I would agree wholeheartedly that an AMD card is a bad play when investing large amounts of your hard earned money in a new gaming rig. But hey, it doesn't affect my wallet when other people buy.

Quick Comments

Cute:

nv4lyf

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by Drgoose

Cool. Will do. Although I have a stock Intel on the current i7 860 and have run it 50% for 2 weeks on two occassions with no probs. That's with all sides of the case open though.

Just a note - it's really bad to leave the sides of a case off. In fact, it actually makes it hotter, because it reduces air flow, so all the hot air can just sit there. Cooling is all about keeping the air in your case moving, not how cool the breeze is.

A quick google gave me this as the first result: http://www.technibble.com/case-cooli...-good-airflow/ I haven't read it, but I am sure it will help you make decisions

I think of having good cooling like ABS brakes on a car. I can't remember the last time my ABS intitiated because I slammed on the brakes, therefore, I could say I don't actually need them. But, for that time when they are needed, which may or may not happen, I will really regret not having it. Of course, heating issues aren't just car crashes - CPUs need to cope with some fluctuation in temps before it hits that cutoff temp, because obviously they need to cope for brief periods of intense work. Just because your system doesn't turn off from overheating doesn't mean high temps aren't slowly deteriorating the CPU over time.

Originally Posted by Hydroid

Last person I told to go Nvidia rather than ATI/AMD ignored me and came and apologized after 3 months saying never again will they buy a video card from them. You might save some money, but they can't do drivers right. Every couple of weeks he would be having issues with drivers in relation to a new game. If all you do is play 1 game (hopefully SC2) and stick with it for years I'd be fine recommending AMD because they can only mess up drivers so many times for the same game. But if you like to grab a new game every so often to play on the side then I don't feel as though it is a good idea. He isn't the only one either. Numerous friends have the same issues with their AMD cards. Another friend even had to get their card replaced 3 times in a month before switching back to Nvidia. One of them the fan died, another just made a lot of noise and another wasn't performing to the standards of other reviews and benchmarks. And yet in an equal sampling of friends and family who have bought and used Nvidia there has been at most 1-2 cases of a DOA card. But if the card works at the start, it keeps working and is often still working 5 years later. So in my overall experience, I would agree wholeheartedly that an AMD card is a bad play when investing large amounts of your hard earned money in a new gaming rig. But hey, it doesn't affect my wallet when other people buy.

Just want to respond to this. Personally, I have used both Nvidia and ATI and have not had a noticable difference aside from the expected (I generally buy to upgrade, not to go sideways between brands, so there's not really been a direct comparison). Never had any driver issues from ATI cards, however I have to say that I really enjoy what Nvidia have done with their drivers and support to the point that I think they are setting the way in making this easier, but I haven't owned an ATI card in the past 3 years. This is from someone who grew up swapping out cards in a time where drivers were never easy to find from any manufacturer, so I'd be perhaps a little more blind to ATI drivers being difficult to track down if they in fact are. I certainly never had a problem with a video driver ruining gameplay or anything.

When it comes to replacing cards and DOAs - that could be lots of things beyond manufacturer, like the place you bought it from (freight, storage, handling etc). I'm guessing Hydroid's is also a fairly small sampling and all a fairly close proximity geographically, so the retailer has a high chance of being the same one in most cases?

Anyway, everyone has their preference, and people are more inclined to notice all the problems with another product that they don't prefer and make a bigger deal of it when it comes to their recommendations - that's just how we are. More likely to tell more people about something bad than something good. My point is, look at a wide range of reviews and sources. You might find that generally, there are similar things said on both sides of the ATI vs Nvidia fence. Evaluate for yourself always

Quick Comments

	mGGDrGooSe:	Always learning!
	TCPLemminks:	genius

[rizE]

If your spending that much money may as well get a soundcard, onboard is balls

[Asrathiel]

Originally Posted by rizE

Why do you need 16GB RAM ?

Originally Posted by Drgoose

The 16 GB of ram is work related

there you go! ^_^

[rizE]

yeah i skimmed across the bottom part until i read it again

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Hydroid

Massive rant.

Personal experience is well and good, but there's no rational basis beyond that for NVIDIA > AMD. That said, you're an idiot if you don't go and look around for what experiences people have talked about, and if your usage patterns match those of people who've had problems, maybe stay away from that brand. I've not had a single issue in the several years I've had ATI cards. As I said, my current one has barely been switched off in ~18 months (closer to 2 years now i think) and it's even been overclocked. And it's played more than just sc2 in that time.

If we're all going to get our panties in a twist about brands we personally don't like, I'd be telling people to never touch Western Digital hard drives with a 10 foot pole. And pretty much all my close friends in real life agree completely. For some reason we all have had terrible terrible luck with that brand. Hard drives failing in under a week, being replaced multiple times, etc. etc. But I generally don't because it's not like it's a truly horrible product if so many knowledgeable people recommend it. It's just that I have had bad luck in the past.

Quick Comments

NOM:

WD are pretty bad

[Maynarde]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

If we're all going to get our panties in a twist about brands we personally don't like, I'd be telling people to never touch Western Digital hard drives with a 10 foot pole. And pretty much all my close friends in real life agree completely. For some reason we all have had terrible terrible luck with that brand. Hard drives failing in under a week, being replaced multiple times, etc. etc. But I generally don't because it's not like it's a truly horrible product if so many knowledgeable people recommend it. It's just that I have had bad luck in the past.

I recommend staying the hell away from Acer products. This is based off my experience of everything I've ever bought from them, and that friends have owned, being horrible and not living for very long and having terrible customer service.

Quick Comments

	syfChadMann:
	NOM:

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Maynarde

I recommend staying the hell away from Acer products. This is based off my experience of everything I've ever bought from them, and that friends have owned, being horrible and not living for very long and having terrible customer service.

My point being there is somebody out there with a bad experience for every brand... Noone should buy any product because someone had a bad experience with the brand.

[mGGDrGooSe]

Re: the Radeon vs Nvidia debate, all I can say is that I have had both and never had a problem with either (actually, post XP I've never had a hardware problem fullstop. I still have old 10GB HDD and 8x CD drives that work fine). I've put the Radeon there atm because it's the best value for money in current stock. But if I'm waiting for the new Kepler cards to come out, then I'll likely get a 570 assuming they come down in price.

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by Maynarde

I recommend staying the hell away from Acer products. This is based off my experience of everything I've ever bought from them, and that friends have owned, being horrible and not living for very long and having terrible customer service.

When did you have these experiences?

In the case of Acer I'll add my own experience. When I first started out in IT, one of my first jobs was to deploy some number of Acer PCs (6 or 7 thousand) to TAFE campuses across SE Qld. The outright failure rate was something like 20% on PCs, and a similar number of monitors coming out of the box with dead pixel clusters. We also had to implement a check that HDDs were plugged into the right SATA controller, because so many were coming from factory plugged into port 4 instead of port 0. Bear in mind the same freight company was used for every site, so it's not certain it's an Acer thing, but they once were pretty shocking. So in Maynarde's case, if it was 6-7 years ago, that's probably very typical.

Given that this was a number of years ago now, I would be prepared to give Acer another try, because in technology terms that was so many generations ago, it's like choosing not to go overseas because wooden planes don't feel safe.

[Hydroid]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

Cut

Sure there may be no rational backing for the bias, but it's a bias I have from the past 10 years of taking note of the experiences of those I know and meet. Spanning from America, to South Africa and Australia and multiple distributors, that I have encountered more problematic ATI/AMD cards than NVIDIA ones. My own nvidia cards have not been perfect, I had problems with drivers from a couple of releases ago that kept crashing on the desktop and recovering.

I'm not ranting or getting riled up and foaming at the mouth over this. A request for feedback was given out to the community and I've given my recommendation. Otherwise I don't go out of my way to badmouth AMD. If asked, I give an honest and open opinion, but otherwise I keep it to myself. AMD aren't "bad" but I certainly see them as carrying a higher risk factor on the investment than Nvidia.

I do disagree with your point about whether or not somebody should avoid a product just because of a bad experience. When your own hard earned money is at stake you would be a fool to not take problems into consideration. If bad experiences occur frequently enough it should count as a reflection on that company's product. However, in this case, OP has had good experiences with both sides and so it doesn't matter what any of our experiences might indicate as his own personal experience outweighs ours. It's just how things work. I wouldn't fault you for recommending the world never buys another Western Digital drive. I've never had an issue with them although I've heard things like that, but I've also never had issues with Seagate drives despite hearing the exact model that is currently in my PC supposedly had a fatal flaw that could prevent it from spinning up on boot. Yet, I recently got rid of a 4GB Seagate IDE drive only due to lack of capacity that was over 14 years old which I stripped out of the first PC my family ever owned. We bought it 2nd hand so I don't even know how much longer that drive had been in use before we got it.

Bottom line, take advice with a grain of salt, including reviews because everyone has a bias and in the end your personal experience always carries 10x the weight of someone else's whether it's a valid way to make choices or not. And people don't change from their preferences even if another product is better, unless there are pain points for them with what they currently use.

[nirvAnA]

In before sheepy

Quick Comments

TCPLemminks:

Tell him to post in my thread

[Gibber]

I see some answers here saying that you should wait to upgrade because such and such is around the corner blah blah blah. I know that sounds pretty logical, it actually isn't.

The reason I say this is because in nearly every instance I could say that exact above every time someone comes my way with a new computer build I could say you should wait.

Well you shouldn't, because in my experience there isn't a right or a wrong time to buy with computers because the simple fact of the matter is that its out of date before it even gets the retailer. So just buy what you want when you want it, because I'm sure as hell that the system you listed will do everything that you demand of it. Everything.

[mGGDrGooSe]

Originally Posted by Gibber

I see some answers here saying that you should wait to upgrade because such and such is around the corner blah blah blah. I know that sounds pretty logical, it actually isn't.

The reason I say this is because in nearly every instance I could say that exact above. Every time someone comes my way with a new computer build I could say you should wait.

Well you shouldn't, because In my experience there isn't a right or a wrong time to buy with computers because the simple fact of the matter is that its out of date before it even gets the retailer. So just buy what you want when you want it, because I'm sure as hell that the system you listed will do everything that you demand of it. Everything.

Agreed 100%. When Ivy brdige comes out, the Sandy bridge systems wont go down by more than maybe $50 for CPU and probably not much if anything for Mboard. However, I'm hoping that when the Keplar cards come the 560 Ti will come down to $200 (Ideally I'd like the 570 to come down to around $250 but i dont think will happen for a few months). This is why I generally only upgrade when the computer stops doing what I need it to do. In this case it's another's computer that has stopped doing it and I want an upgrade so I can pass this computer on. Basically there is a 50/50 chance of me getting something tomorrow, otherwise I'll wait for the 560/570s to come down in price.

[NOM]

Don't really need a sound card. I have a similar board and it has a built in hd sound card in it. Sounds amazing. most other built in sound cards are poo though.

[Asrathiel]

So we going computer shopping tomorrow or not??

[Scope_IV]

[QUOTE=|Erasmus|;79151]Way to just BM a prefectly good brand (that does in fact offer better value for money in terms of performance) with no justification.

Sorry I didn't link benchmarks or talk about how terrible the drivers are. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

ATI releases new 7000 range. Still loses to 580. LoL.

[Hydroid]

Originally Posted by Scope_IV

ATI releases new 7000 range. Still loses to 580. LoL.

That's not a very good example. From my understanding they wanted those to become their new mid-high range. Not be the next fastest GPU on the market.

[Scope_IV]

^But still put a more expensive price tag onto it?

[mGGDrGooSe]

Parts have been purchased. Build is in progress. CPU coolers are the most fiddly damn thing ever.

[TCPLemminks]

GL Mate^^
Didn't Nvidia release a driver update that killed their graphics cards a while back?

Also are Western Digitals that bad? Cause I have this one in my current build

[Asrathiel]

Originally Posted by Drgoose

CPU coolers are the most fiddly damn thing ever.

And motherboard screws?










Sorry

[Antel0pe]

lol, nvidia makes high end graphics card, but AMD's graphics card have the better bang for buck. (at least in the hd6XXX and the HD5XXX)
AMD doesn't aim to be the best performance card IMO, they aim to be the best Value:Performance card.

[Hydroid]

Originally Posted by TCPLemminks

Didn't Nvidia release a driver update that killed their graphics cards a while back?

Yep, they did. Although it was an isolated set of cases with a specific model of cards (can't remember which one) but it caused the fan to stop working and the card would burn itself out. I don't remember it killing too many cards, but it definitely happened.

[FaDeEvetS]

Originally Posted by Hydroid

Last person I told to go Nvidia rather than ATI/AMD ignored me and came and apologized after 3 months saying never again will they buy a video card from them. You might save some money, but they can't do drivers right. Every couple of weeks he would be having issues with drivers in relation to a new game. If all you do is play 1 game (hopefully SC2) and stick with it for years I'd be fine recommending AMD because they can only mess up drivers so many times for the same game.

to be fair back when the 200gtx series was popular didnt nvidia release a set of drivers that 'blew' some peoples gpu's up cause the default fan profiles were wrong?

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by TCPLemminks

GL Mate^^
Didn't Nvidia release a driver update that killed their graphics cards a while back?

Also are Western Digitals that bad? Cause I have this one in my current build

No. all manufacturers of all products will have bad items. I've just been unlucky with western digital in the past, and my preference will be for other brands. Im just pointing out that it's silly to take a personal anecdote for reliability and beat it into every internet random.

[IcedTea]

I think getting a sound card is a good choice. If you have a 5.1 system, it'll sound much better with the correct sound card to support it.