Building new gaming PC

[Leemorgan978]

Hey guys I wrote one of these out a few months ago and people told me to wait and see untill that new bulldozer came out. So I see its out now and im looking to build a new gaming PC i've also come back with a bigger budget now. Im looking to spend around £1500 on a new gaming computer. Last time I made one of these someone put a couple of questions up to help everyone see what I needed/wanted so basically i'm just going to recreate those right here.

Do you have a monitor? (I have a monitor already so monitor is not in with the budget and I also have a copy of windows 7 aswell.)
Is physical size important? (a larger case is easier to work in and often better for thermals, but a smaller case is less intrusive on space). (Nope size is not an issue.)
Is noise a factor? (Not as such but being a bit quiet wont hurt.)
Do you want something that looks 'cool' even when switched off? (Not really only im going to really see it at the end of the day. Its what inside that matters the most to me)
Do you prefer something 'young' and loud, with lights and colours, or something more understated? (understated is fine)
Do you need to factor in peripherals (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, printer ... etc)? (Nope have all that already)
Is a powerful / fast machine the main priority? (Mainly yeah)
Finally, is there anything other than gaming that you want to do with it? (Just general browsing thats all but mostly gaming)

Thanks for any help given guys, hope I provided enough information for you all.

[Matt94]

OK let me try and help.
Case wise, it's largely a matter of what you like the look of. For your budget, I would advise spending around £100 to £150 on a case. If you buy from Antec, coolermaster, fractal design or another reputable brand, you won't go far wrong.
For £1500, I would advise waiting 'till the X79 platform comes out in two weeks time and buying the cheapest SB-E CPU, which will likely be around £220. A motherboard for that would be around £150-£200, so if you wanted to save some money, the i7-2600k with a good Z68 motherboard would be just as good from a gaming point of view.
RAM wise, I would recommend 8GB of 1600MHz RAM from a reputable brand such as Corsair or Kingston as you don't get much better performance beyond that, and 8GB can be had for as little as £40 these days.
For storage, I would recommend the 128GB Crucial M4 SSD, with a 1TB HDD for storage, although you could wait a few months for that and use what you have in order to wait for prices to go back down after the Thai flooding.
Graphics card wise, for your budget, I would get the NVidia GTX 580 or the AMD HD Radeon 6970. I would avoid crossfire/SLI as it can cause stuttering issues. That said, both companies will be bringing out new series of graphics cards in the new year and it might be worth waiting for that if you can hold on.
I'd also get a generic Blu-ray reader, unless you especially need to write to BDs, in which case they're only an extra £30 or so.
For the PSU, I'd get a coolermaster, Antec or Seasonic PSU of probably around 1KW to allow for upgrades, but you could probably get away with as little as 750W. I'd also get a modular PSU as it allows for much better cable management.
Finally, for CPU cooling, if you're waiting for a SB-E CPU, I'd get the corsair H100 as they will probably get quite hot, however if you're getting the i7-2600k you'll probably be fine with the H50 or a good air cooler if you're opposed to closed loop water cooling. Also, if you're going to get an X79 motherboard for SB-E, bear in mind that most large air coolers will be obstructed by the RAM.

[Pob255]

To start with CAT's monthly buyers guide http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...er-2011-a.html

My suggestions
Case, Lancool K60, very easy case to build in, with lots of toolless features that actually work, it may not be fancy looking and it's unpainted inside however it's well built, using good quality materials, overall it's a decent case.
Main down side is lack of watercooling options.
Overall cooling is not the greatest but it's not bad ether.

If you are looking for overclocking then an i5 2500k (sorry but the extra cost of the i7 2600k is not worth it, the addition of hypertherading doesn't give you much in games, for an extra £80 it's just not worth it)
A good z68 motherboard, you're looking around £150 area
2x4GB of 1600MHz ddr3 cas9 (or lower), you could get away with 2x2gb but with your budget you might as well go for 8gb. Corsair Vengeance and G-Skill Ripjaws are good value.
Unless you actaully want to watch bluray movies then just stick with a basic DVDrw, a Bluray drive can always be added at a later time with minimal fuss.
Throw in a hard drive and an SSD
A good single graphics card (consider sli/crossfire if you want to run multiple monitors) gtx580 or 6970
PSU, a good brand/model, 1kw for that is a joke as is 750w, 600w would be more than enough, 750w only if you consider going crossfire/sli
Cooling an Antec H20 620 or corsair h60, or an air cooler in the £35ish range if you want some overclocking but are not going to be chasing the lowest possible temperatures or highest overclocks.

[Leemorgan978]

Hey guys thanks for the help, i've made a little list up and took into account what everyone has told me here and different places and this is what i've come up with
http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/b2...1374ea636b882b
Please if i've gone wrong anyway tell me.

Again thanks alot
Lee

[Matt94]

I would like to first point out that your motherboard is not compatible with your CPU.
I would definitely not buy the i7-950 (with an X58 motherboard). At that price, I would either get the i7-2600k (with a Z68 motherboard) or wait 2 weeks for the sandy bridge E CPUs (with an X79 motherboard), which is the replacement for the i7-950 platform. It will be immensely better value for money.
I would also get a SATA 3 SSD such as the Crucial M4, or the OCZ vertex 3.
I would also get a 7200rpm HDD as they're a bit snappier and not much more expensive. You will see the benefit, even with an SSD as the boot drive.
I recommended a 1KW PSU as it would survive almost any upgrade short of dual CPU + tri SLI/CF. They're not that much more expensive than 750W ones.
Apart from that it looks OK.

[Leemorgan978]

Ah sorry didn't realise that they werent compatible, made some few changes again and this is what I came back with. http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/30...8994d625073207

Again thanks for the help and sorry if i got the motherboard wrong again.

[Pob255]

That PSU is not compatible with that case, it's a special one Antec made that's bigger than standard ATX it will only fit in a couple of antec cases.

And please Ignore this idiot, you do NOT need a 1kw psu, unless you're going for a tripple card or two dula gpu cards.
The big Key to psu'd is quality not wattage, yes he suggest looking at good brands, but there are lots out there which are good.
yes I have a 625w psu, but that's because I was running sli on it

A good 550-650w will happly run the system, allow for upgrades for a good many years.

The cpu and GPU together consume about 95% of your total power consumption, under load the gtx580 uses under 250w an i7 2600k underload (not overclocked) uses around 60w (overclocking will increase that amount) so under full load you should be running about 350w.
Look around at some reviews, although remember that they will tend to load only the cpu or gpu not both together, but you'll see that system with a stock i7 2600k under cpu only load will come to around 150w, that's the whole pc not just the cpu.

In theory you should be able to run that on a 350w psu, however those power numbers are averages, pc components do generate quite large spikes in demand and you wouldn't want to be running your psu at near max.

So 550-650w will give you around 200-300watts of head room.

On top of that remember idel power needs, an i7 2600k pc will idle around 75w, energy efficiency rapidly drops off, and so can voltage stability, as you go below 20% load on a psu. at 75w you're under 10% load on a 1kw psu.

Good quality 650w psu http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-quiet-fan-atx
Go all out of a very high quality psu http://www.scan.co.uk/products/660w-...ssfire-eps-12v or http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-12vquient-fan (they are both the same PSU inside )

[Matt94]

Without wishing to get into an argument about PSUs, I would recommend no lower than 750W with a GTX 580, particularly a pre-overclocked one such as the EVGA 580 SC. Also, I see no reason not to overclock the i7-2600k to around 4.5GHz as it would be relatively cool with closed loop water cooling and perfectly stable. However, I would not want to run 2 pre-overclocked GTX 580s on a 750W PSU. Also, I would say that the GPU and CPU, in a single GPU system contribute closer to 80% of the total power usage. You have to factor in all the fans, LEDs, HDD, SSD, chipset stuff, VRMs (mobo and graphics card), water pump, peripherals etc.

[Leemorgan978]

Hey guys thanks again, went away and changed the case and PSU. Decided to go for a 750w.
Again thanks to both of you for all the help. This is what i've got http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/77...b8af71f8498234

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hey guys thanks again, went away and changed the case and PSU. Decided to go for a 750w.
Again thanks to both of you for all the help. This is what i've got http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/77...b8af71f8498234

What resolution are you playing your games at??

Sandy Bridge does not consume a huge amount power compared to previous Intel CPUs when overclocked.

A cheaper motherboard such as the following will do the job:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...a-on-board-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

I would also get a Core i5 2500K if your main use is gaming.

I would also consider going for a GTX570 or an HD6970. The alternative is to get a pair of GTX560TI or HD6950 cards.

[Leemorgan978]

I run my games at 1280x768. Will be looking to get a new monitor in future and looking how this is going it wont be far away.

[Pob255]

Sorry I did mean 80% with a single gpu, they turn into 95% with dual gpu

Your average 120mm fan uses between 0.1 and 0.2 amps at 12v or 1-2.5watts, hard drives vary but a rough rule of thumb is 20w per hard drive, motherboard is very tricky and does vary greatly.

But I still stand by it, lets have a look shall we.

CPU Intel Core i7 980X (which is more power hungry than the newer i7 2600k by about 70w at stock) + factory overclocked gtx580
System total, under load = 428w (that's cpu+gpu loaded playing Just Cause 2)
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...eview/?page=10

CPU Intel Core i7 980X + stock speed gtx580
System total, under load = 336w (cpu+gpu loaded playing Just Cause 2)
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...eview/?page=10

i7 2600k stock speeds + p67 motherboard + 6950 graphics card
System total, under load = 140w (cpu only Prime)
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/28...eview/?page=10
They didn't test power load when overclocked bad Hexus

Tomshardware (not always the best of sites but they did do a full look at power consumption at different clock speeds)
System total, under load = 158w (cpu load prime)
OC 4.4ghz system total, under load = 219w (cpu load prime)
so an increase of roughly 60w
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...cy,2850-9.html

So with an overclocked i72600k + overclocked gtx580 you should be looking at similar numbers to the hexus test of the i7 980X + factory overclocked gtx580 ie about 450w under full cpu+gpu load.

So 750w would give you a ton of headroom.

[Pob255]

I run my games at 1280x768. Will be looking to get a new monitor in future and looking how this is going it wont be far away.

do it now as part of this new build

23", 1920x1080, LED, IPS panel, monitor £148 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/23-lg...0cd-m-50000001

or

23" 1920x1080, LED, TN panel, 120Hz monitor http://www.scan.co.uk/products/236-v...0cd-m-2ms-vesa

Difference, a 120hz TN monitor will have narrower viewing angles, but should have less ghosting, also you have the option for 3d with an nvidia card and active shutter glasses (personally I dislike them active shutter glasses)
IPS panel will give you far better viewing angles and better colour reproduction (not such a big issue for game to be honest)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Oops!! I meant to say Sandy Bridge does NOT consume a lot of power.

[Leemorgan978]

Hey guys this is the list ive come up with, could anyone tell me if anything isnt compatible with something or is everything okay.

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/64...281ad7a6e7ab11

Thanks for all the help guys
Lee

[shaithis]

Holy is that really the price of a 1TB HDD now?