Hi and Proposed £1,100 new build PC

[Sigporsson]

Hi All,

Finally specced myself a new PC using parts from SCAN. Thoughts and criticisms welcome. Will be adding a Cooler for the cpu and the PSU is for when I probably go SLI:

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM £62.07 £74.48

Samsung SH-S223C/RSMS, 22x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, x12 RAM, SATA, Retail £11.89 £14.27

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM £32.98 £39.58

60GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2E, 2.5" Sandforce SSD, MLC-Flash, Read 285MB/s, Write 275MB/s £74.60 £89.52

1000W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold, Modular, 80 PLUS Gold, 90% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, , EPS 12V £99.99 £119.99

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-27, 1.65V £62.12 £74.54

1280MB MSI GTX 570 OC, 40nm, 4200MHz GDDR5, GPU 786MHz, Shader 1572MHz, 480 Cores, DL DVI/ Mini HDMI £219.57 £263.48
Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, 1155, Sdy Bridge, QuadCore, 3.3GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, Retail

* LN36726 Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, 1155, Sdy Bridge, QuadCore, 3.3GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, Retail
* LN38200 MSI P67A-GD65 (B3), Intel P67, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1600/2133, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID, ATX £237.99 £285.59

Coolermaster HAF 932 Black, High Air Flow Tower Case w/o PSU (New Version) £78.99 £94.79

Total of £1056.66

[ik9000]

you want 1.5V RAM if possible - it's supposed to work better with SandyBridge CPUs. You can get that at 9-9-9-24 timings for quite cheap at the moment.

re SSD - read up on the 25nm vs 34nm NAND debate:

http://forums.hexus.net/flash-memory...?highlight=SSD

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-capacity.html

[ik9000]

your PSU is way more than you need. The 600W version will be fine. 750W would be the max I'd go to for your system. Nothing wrong with using a 1000W supply, just you'll be spending more than you need.

[Sigporsson]

your PSU is way more than you need. The 600W version will be fine. 750W would be the max I'd go to for your system. Nothing wrong with using a 1000W supply, just you'll be spending more than you need.

It seemed a good price considering I'd hopefully be adding a second 570 GTX in the future and it appears the recommended size of PSU for running two is around 850w +

If it's possible to go for something smaller in size from a good price etc that will suffice running two 570s then I'd it.

[ik9000]

It seemed a good price considering I'd hopefully be adding a second 570 GTX in the future and it appears the recommended size of PSU for running two is around 850w +

If it's possible to go for something smaller in size from a good price etc that will suffice running two 570s then I'd it.

NOOOO it's all just bull. Have a look at this post. http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...n-numbers.html

He's running 2 cards in crossfire and not even drawing 500W. The only problem will be if the PSU starts getting noisy at high loads, and this is a matter for personal preference, and also depending on how much noise your graphics cards make, this might not even matter.

[Sigporsson]

NOOOO it's all just bull. Have a look at this post. http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...n-numbers.html

He's running 2 cards in crossfire and not even drawing 500W. The only problem will be if the PSU starts getting noisy at high loads, and this is a matter for personal preference, and also depending on how much noise your graphics cards make, this might not even matter.

Thanks for the link.

Could I get away with say an 850w PSU do you reckon?

[ik9000]

Thanks for the link.

Could I get away with say an 850w PSU do you reckon?

yup, but only if it's not costing more than a 650-700W one of equivalent spec + performance. Make sure whatever you get is at least gold efficiency.

you risk getting worse efficiency when the system is idling however. A 650W-700W gold efficiency PSU will probably give the best balance for both preSLI and when you get your second card.

BTW most games will run just fine at 1920x1080 on just one card - unless you're running multiple screens or at higher res than 1920x1080 you'll probably be able to get away with just one gtx570 for a good while yet.

[Molotov]

Also considering the hefty investment in question here, if I were you I'd think about waiting for AMD's Bulldozers CPUs to come out - you might either get a better deal or possibly save a bit if you still stick with Intel - obviously depends on how much of a rush you are in

[Sigporsson]

yup, but only if it's not costing more than a 650-700W one of equivalent spec + performance. Make sure whatever you get is at least gold efficiency.

Thanks - much appreciated.

[Pob255]

Most decent psu fan speeds are temperature controlled not load controlled, granted more load, more heat, but generally it's not an issue for a decent psu.

We do tend to over spec our psu's, but at the same time pc power demand is not flat it's full of spikes which means you do want a little overhead.
however 1000w is not a little overhead even for a pair gtx570 in sli, I'd look at 650-750w range
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...-sli-review/13 gtx570 under full stress testing is still under 600w and under game load is only 410w

[Sigporsson]

Also considering the hefty investment in question here, if I were you I'd think about waiting for AMD's Bulldozers CPUs to come out - you might either get a better deal or possibly save a bit if you still stick with Intel - obviously depends on how much of a rush you are in

They are at least three months off right? My current system is not up to scratch. I reckon the SB will still do a great job gaming wise. I doubt anything will really test it for some while.

[ik9000]

Most decent psu fan speeds are temperature controlled not load controlled, granted more load, more heat, but generally it's not an issue for a decent psu.

yup but manufacturers tend to put their charts as noise vs %of rated power hence the reference to load. It's not just fan speed either that produces noise, though my understanding is that is by far the main element.

[ik9000]

We do tend to over spec our psu's, but at the same time pc power demand is not flat it's full of spikes which means you do want a little overhead.
however 1000w is not a little overhead even for a pair gtx570 in sli, I'd look at 650-750w range
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...-sli-review/13 gtx570 under full stress testing is still under 600w and under game load is only 410w

but PSUs (unless they're rubbish ones) state rated power for continuous output, with a peak value that exceeds this. Ie a decent 650W will deliver 650W continuously, but is able to supply more of this intermitently for spikes. You need to pick a decent PSU for your standard load only +25% to 50%, it will handle any spikes in demand.

[Pob255]

My point is that a plugin power meter doesn't record the spikes just averages over their timed tick rate.
Although at the same time the PSU it self is designed to cope with the spikey nature of pc load demands and actually helps level off those demand spikes from the ac source.

There's also the issue of increasing ripple and voltage stability, while a psu might still be within ATX specifications, overclocking is far more sensitive to ripple and voltage fluctuations.

And benchmarks are often taken on test bed platforms which are often bare minimum components, granted a few extra fans, usb powered devices, hard drives and a dvd drive don't add much, but it is still a few more watts. (and I do mean a few, 80-90% of a pc's power demand is the cpu&gpu)
I would however still play slightly more of the side of caution just not pointless number overkill.

On the fan speed & noise, a lot will depend on the psu and the environment, you can get into the situation where in a low ambient temperature and 70% load the fan will be spinning slower (and thus less noisy) than a higher ambient temperature and 50% load.
And with many of the better psu's the fans just don't run fast enough to ever be called really noisy.

I'd also like to warn that there's efficiency and efficiency, it's been seen recently that the 80+ certification is not that stringent and that some psu's could easily go up a rank if they wanted too.
Also that many current designs actually perform better when slightly warm than cool.

[Sigporsson]

Thanks for the info on the PSUs lads. I think i've found a better PSU fo this build and slightly better on the wallet

[ik9000]

do tell - what've you gone for?