Need someone to look over a new system

[TaintedShirt]

Hi,
I am hoping to buy this either Sunday or Monday so would really appreciate some feedback.

Intel Core i5 2500k
Asus P8Z68 Deluxe
EVGA FTX 560 Ti 448Cores
Corsair Vengence Ram either 2x4 or 4x4 sticks.

I intend to carry as much of my currnet set up in to the new system. So the psu will be a Corsair HX1000W, many Samsung Spinpoint HDD, the OCZ Vertex 240GB ssd, and even my current xfx 8800gtx card for use a a physx card.

The psu, I guess, is more than ample. Is there any point to keeping the 8800gtx card?
I hope to watercool using pretty much my current set up, changing the cpu block to a XSPC Raystorm.

My current dvd drives are pre sata so I'll have to update them I guess.

Is there any glaring problems with this? Any advice?




thanks everyone.

[Pob255]

Looks good.

Yes you will have to replace the DVDr/w as IDE has been dropped from new motherboards.

Keeping the 8800gtx as a physx card . . . depends on how many physX games you play.
And even without a separate physX card you should be ok.

The 560 Ti 448Cores is actually badly named, it should be a 565 as it's a GF110 (same as the gtx570 and gtx580) with faulty cores masked off.
That's not to say it's bad, far from it, it does sit nicely between the gtx560ti and gtx570 in terms of performance but it's not a GF114 that the gtx560ti and gtx560 use, so it really shouldn't be given the same 560 model number.

One thing I'd say is cost? as you've not listed costs I cannot say if it's good or bad, what I would say is if you can get the gtx570 for the same money get that instead.

Carrying a water loop over should be fine, you might be able to use the same block if you can get a 1155/1156 mounting kit for it.

If you intend to watercool your graphics card EVGA is a good option, or used to be, the reason is that they where the only company that openly allowed you to remove the stock cooler and fit a water block without invalidating your warranty, as long as the card wasn't physically damaged.
I say used to be because EVGA has been changing their warranties, they are only 3 years on most of their cards now not the 10year lifetime warranty, so they might of changed their stance on cooler replacement too.
(and remember if you're using a water block that only covers the gpu then you'll need some heat sinks on the VRM's and GRAM and probably a fan to supply some air flow.)

[TaintedShirt]

Thanks Pob for the response.

I have been reading Cat The Fifth's extensive guide so I'll be picking up a Samsung SH-S222AB/ BEBE DVD r/w drive.

I just did a search on PhysX games and not many I play are. NVidia actually have Heavy Rain listed as one on pc! Wikipedia's list doesn't show many new games tbh. I am just loathe to get rid of what was such a great card. I like fps game, BF3 is a game I hope to be able to play and maybe go back and play BFBC2 in full glory. I will probably check out Skyrim seeing as it is so popular. I suppose I could try to sell the card if it is of no real use.

The mounting block for the CPU is gonna cost me over £25 after postage. Swiftech have rather nicely said that they would be willing to sell to me (they don't usually ship to Europe). The new CPU block I was looking at was £50. MartinM posted about it here. I guess I am still trying to figure out whether it is worth the extra £25.

The EVGA card was purely because of the availability of water blocks. There are not many available for other cards. The card is the non overclocked version at £227, figure I could try to overclock it.

Motherboard is £190 and Core i5 2500K £180. Total cost without ram is £597. If I go over £599 at Dabs I get £40 off !!!

So the Corsair Vengeance ram will essentially be free. There are many sets of the ram, at £34, £60, £55 or even £70 for 16GB. If you take the £40 off each of these, then ...

I can't really see a reason for 16GB, unless I want to let Firefox fill it up or maybe a ram disk but I don't know much about them. Do you reckon there is much difference between the ram? Should I get the 16GB for future proofing seeing as it would be costing me essentially £30 ?


Thanks again for taking the time to have a look at this for me.

[Hoonigan]

The Core i5 2500k, Asus P8Z68 and Corsair Vengeance RAM is a very good combo IMO; It's stupidly fast for everything I use it for.

I'd go for a GTX570 instead of the GTX560Ti 448. It doesn't cost much more but it's definitely a better card for the money.

With the price of RAM ATM, you're probably better off going for 16GB instead of 8GB, just for future proofing and the fact that it's going to cost you barely anything. I'm considering upgrading to 16GB, but ATM I don't think there's much point for me. If I see another 8GB set for under £30 then I'll buy it.

[vrykyl]

Its worth noting that filling all 4 ram slots on your mobo CAN hinder high overclocks though - Id stick with 8gb ram and sling the extra £40 into the best gfx card you can get - it'll make the most difference!

[TaintedShirt]

Thanks Hoonigan, the Asus GTX 570 is only £20 dearer and I get Batman AC chucked in.

@ vrykyl, I knew filling all ram slots was a problem with my current era motherboard but I thought that had been fixed. Thanks for bringing that up.

So if I stick with 8gb ram, then am I right in thinking that the timigs are not of much concern with sandybridge there days. In other words should I just go for the cheapest of the ram I have listed?

[Hoonigan]

Thanks Hoonigan, the Asus GTX 570 is only £20 dearer and I get Batman AC chucked in.

I'd definitely go for the GTX570 instead, it's a much better card. Just out of interest, what resolution is your monitor?

I knew filling all ram slots was a problem with my current era motherboard but I thought that had been fixed. Thanks for bringing that up.

I'm quite new to the Core i range, so I'm not an expert, but I thought that having more RAM sticks didn't make a difference anymore because it's now separate when overclocking?

So if I stick with 8gb ram, then am I right in thinking that the timigs are not of much concern with sandybridge there days. In other words should I just go for the cheapest of the ram I have listed?

I certainly wouldn't pay an extra £26 for 8-8-8-24 over 9-9-9-24. The difference you'd notice from that drop in latency would be so small that even synthetic benchmarks would barely notice it. I've got the Corsair Vengeance 1600 CAS9 kit, which is absolutely spot on for my CPU IMO, and it's cheap as chips atm

[TaintedShirt]

I have read two different viewpoints on filling the ram slots.
One site agrees with you but most say that it places extra strain on the memory controller so you'll find that your 1600Mhz ram will become 1333MHz to compensate. Overclocking then can become more difficult/ temperamental. I suppose if you were fortunate you may be able to overclock the ram back but probably not.

Sorry, I don't have links to any of these sites. I have just been reading and moving on to the next site trying to find a definitive answer. More sites seem to lean towards not filling all the slots which to me seems to be ridiculous, I mean why give 4 slots if the memory controller can't handle it!!

Hoonigan, I'll stick to the 9-9-9-24 ram. Cheers. monitor is 24 inch 1920*1200. Later next year I may think of an upgrade. The guys here were helping me decide about that in a different thread.

So thanks guys for your help, I think I'll push the button this evening. I hope all parts arrive before Christmas.


edit, have been reading more about filling all the slots (ahem), just found yet more sites stating that increasing the ram voltage will overcome the problems associated with the memory controller. Posts like this from [H]ardforum seem to be common.

[Pob255]

AFAIK on the SB it doesn't matter, the reason is the ram speed is totally separate to overclocks.
This is because you cannot really change the fsb any more, overclocking on these is purely down to cpu the multiplier, overclocking is near totally independent of ram on SB
Ram speed is based on a separate multiplier of the fsb, the ram controller should be unaffected by any overclocks, except of that of the ram, stick with stock settings and you'll be fine.

With DDR3 ram speed and timings makes little real difference except in ram benchmarks, 1600mhz cas9 is suggested as at the moment those are the cheapest chips.

Personally I'd just stick with 8gb atm http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair...1600mhz&src=16 that still gives you scope to upgrade later if needed (although it's very unlikely you'll need more than 8gb, unless you're planning to run multiple VM's(virtual machines))

EDIT: while your screen isn't LED back lit or 120hz but it's far from old or bad.
The majority of screens now are 1920x1080 which would actually be a downgrade.

[TaintedShirt]

Thanks to all of you. Orders finally placed. Phew. I ended up with the 8gig of RAM. Most people don't seem to use even half this much so I thought I'd hold off until I need it.

Now we wait....

[Hoonigan]

Very wise decision IMO, that extra money can be invested somewhere else that will make more difference.

The only real reason to have over 8GB of RAM is if you're running VMs or you like to have all the programs on your computer running at the same time

If you've gone for the 2500k + P8Z68 + 8GB of Corsair Vengeance, you're going to be VERY pleased!

[TaintedShirt]

with Firefox's latest memory hoarding I may end up needing more RAM. It reached 1.3gig the other day! And then there is the plugin container to be added to that.

I am so looking forward to this arriving!!

[Pob255]

Flush your caches, firefox rarely goes over half a gb for me.

[TaintedShirt]

Thanks Pob, I'll try that. I usually use in excess of twenty tabs and these maybe spread out over two to four 'groups'. So it really creeps up. I'll try this out next time I get problems.

Edit
I usually see it skyrocket when an add-on has updated but I didn't restart. This is particularly true of NoScript

[TaintedShirt]

Well guys all the stuff has arrived.

Everything arrived quickly but I missed out on the deadline for the Batman offer by 16 minutes.

Not to be put off I chanced an email to Dabs. Dabs had already given me £40 off my order as I had exceeded the £599 threshold and here I was looking for more. So my expectations were low, tbh I was expecting to be told to go on my merry way.

Well Dabs came out trumps. They hadn't any keys for Batman left but have given me a key for Battlefield 3.

So after Christmas when I get time to rebuild the pc I'll be playing Battlefield 3 badly (altho I don't think I can blame that on dabs).

[TaintedShirt]

Double post I know but I just wanted to say thanks again to you all. Rebuilt PC is up and running, buttery smooth is BF3. Picked up so many games over Xmas what with Steam sale so I going to test the pc out fully.

Again thanks guys.