building first computer - dont want to make any stupid mistakes

[martin.kay]

Hi

I am in tyhe middle of buying parts for my first computer build and would appreciate any suggestions, some parts have already been bought others not as yet
Computer is mainly home media, editing photos, hd videos using Corel VideoStudio pro and multitasking - will try a bit of simple overclocking

Bought
Fractal Design R4 case
Intel i7-3770k
Asus P8Z77-v Pro motherboard
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
Seasonic 620w modular M12II-620Bronze PSU
Asus 12*Blu-Ray writer

Considering buying
2 * Corsair Vengence 8GB DD3 10-10-10-27 1600mhz
14 inch case fan
Welcome suggestions on a video card

[Biscuit]

Choice of RAM is fine.

As for the GPU; do you play any games an what is your budget?

Which fans were you looking at?

[martin.kay]

Choice of RAM is fine.

As for the GPU; do you play any games an what is your budget?

Which fans were you looking at?

For fans I was considering the Corsaire AF149 Quiet Edition

For GPU I dont play games as such on thr pc, more it is to assist with video editing/movie making though i dont know if this is required or not for this purpose

Sorry to mention that i also have bought:-
1) Windows 64
2) Crucial M$ 128gb SSD
3) Western Caviar Black 7200rpm 2TB HDD

am a bit concerned that I need a Low profile RAM to fit under the CPU cooler after reading some articles

[KeyboardDemon]

VideoStudio X5 (I'm assuming you're running the latest version) has support for GPU with Multi-core acceleration which means that either an ATI or nVidia card will be used to speed up rendering by offloading some of the work to the GPU.

If the budget allows it I think either a GTX670 or HD7970 would be good choice for top end cards, or if you drop down a level below that the GTX660Ti or HD7950 cards are good too.

[Dareos]

RAM i think is the same as mine, its not low profile tho, so check the cooler you are buying to make sure it doesn't overlap on that mobo, otherwise, looking fine. Case is awesome

[Zerox]

OP, you will find this link very useful in choosing ram for your system, in terms of what will fit under that formidable nh-d14

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=c...s_id=34&lng=en

[watercooled]

Or just buy bare RAM if aesthetics aren't important as the 'heatsinks' have no other purpose. It may, however, be cheaper to get some stuff with smaller heatspreaders on depending where you buy from; a well-known retailer seems to have a contract to sell a single brand of memory, but the cheaper stuff is often competitive with bare stuff sourced elsewhere. The link in the post above mine should come in useful then.

I'd stick with 8GB total (2x4GB) unless you know you need more for something; tons of unused RAM is unlikely to have an impact on performance; adding more RAM used to make more of a difference back when it was still fairly expensive for a decent amount so lots of stuff ended up being swapped out to disk. Now, most people are unlikely to pass 4GB, but more can make a difference in some scenarios as spare RAM is used by Windows for caching; for example, once a game is loaded in RAM, loading checkpoints might be quicker. But still, you probably won't see much difference beyond 8GB. Instead, I'd recommend putting the saved £40 towards an SSD which would make a more noticeable difference, especially in OS/application responsiveness. You can get a decent 120/128GB one for ~£60 now.

Do you really mean 14" case fan BTW? I'm assuming not, but such large fans do exist and they're generally completely useless.
The case will come with some fans, but you may or may not want to add more depending on GPU choice and if you want to overclock.

[martin.kay]

Or just buy bare RAM if aesthetics aren't important as the 'heatsinks' have no other purpose. It may, however, be cheaper to get some stuff with smaller heatspreaders on depending where you buy from; a well-known retailer seems to have a contract to sell a single brand of memory, but the cheaper stuff is often competitive with bare stuff sourced elsewhere. The link in the post above mine should come in useful then.

I'd stick with 8GB total (2x4GB) unless you know you need more for something; tons of unused RAM is unlikely to have an impact on performance; adding more RAM used to make more of a difference back when it was still fairly expensive for a decent amount so lots of stuff ended up being swapped out to disk. Now, most people are unlikely to pass 4GB, but more can make a difference in some scenarios as spare RAM is used by Windows for caching; for example, once a game is loaded in RAM, loading checkpoints might be quicker. But still, you probably won't see much difference beyond 8GB. Instead, I'd recommend putting the saved £40 towards an SSD which would make a more noticeable difference, especially in OS/application responsiveness. You can get a decent 120/128GB one for ~£60 now.

Do you really mean 14" case fan BTW? I'm assuming not, but such large fans do exist and they're generally completely useless.
The case will come with some fans, but you may or may not want to add more depending on GPU choice and if you want to overclock.

Hi - thks for the advice on the RAM, forgot to add already bought Crucial M4 128gb SSD - havent tried loading windows on it as still in the process of building the computer

The link for the Ram was great though unsure which is better - saw something on Samsung which looks good, Kingston and GSkill have good names though some saw some less good reviews on Corsair. though I am unclear as to what he difference is between 9.9.9.24 and 10.10.10.27? Does it matter if I choose 1.35v or 1.5v or Kingston 1.65 v - really unsure on this area

As to the case fan the Fractal comes with 2 14' inch fan already one as the intake at the front and one as the exhaust at the back, however I will have my HDD's at the bottom where there is no fan and was considering adding an additional one to cool the HDD's - why do you say 14' is no good?

[Macadee]

14cm not 14 inch

The fractal fans are OK and very cheap, I would add some more of them to save cost, though the corsairs are very good but about 2 to 3 times the price.

[Dareos]

I believe 1.5V Ram is what you want for an intel based processor, something to do with easy overclocking, but not looked into it much, theres others here who can advise better.

[watercooled]

The Crucial M4 is a good choice of SSD.

9.9.9.24 and 10.10.10.27 are RAM latency timings, basically lower is better, but don't pay over the odds for it; if it's the same price or a couple of quid more expensive then I'd go for the stuff with lower timings.

As for RAM voltage, get 1.5v or below for Intel CPUs; higher voltages are not recommended by Intel and could potentially (though I've not seen it happen) damage the memory controller, or possibly shorten its lifespan. Given 1.5v is generally the same price or even cheaper because of higher demand, it's best to go with that. 1.35v is better still but not really worth paying more for in general, but like the timings, you may want to get it if it's only slightly more expensive as you should get marginally lower power draw (probably not enough to offset more than a small initial purchase cost difference, mind) and potentially better compatibility with future platforms. I've not heard of 1.35v or 1.5v giving some OC advantage, although if anything I'd expect lower voltages to give more headroom, as to meet JEDEC spec, all DDR3 must survive up to 1.975v without frying, but it's not required to work while at those voltages. The IMC would likely die before that anyway. I'd avoid 1.65v either way.

[Dareos]

Explains a lot WC, thanks bud. Its one of those things I had half an idea of

[MrJim]

I'd stick with 8GB total (2x4GB) unless you know you need more for something; tons of unused RAM is unlikely to have an impact on performance; adding more RAM used to make more of a difference back when it was still fairly expensive for a decent amount so lots of stuff ended up being swapped out to disk. Now, most people are unlikely to pass 4GB, but more can make a difference in some scenarios as spare RAM is used by Windows for caching; for example, once a game is loaded in RAM, loading checkpoints might be quicker. But still, you probably won't see much difference beyond 8GB. Instead, I'd recommend putting the saved £40 towards an SSD which would make a more noticeable difference, especially in OS/application responsiveness. You can get a decent 120/128GB one for ~£60 now.

Actually, HD video editing is one area where more than 8GbB can make sense, & prices these days for 16GB kits are really quite reasonable. Personally I wouldn't worry too much about speed or latencies, although the 'sweet spot' for price & performance is at 1600 speeds. As a previous poster said, lower latencies are better, but not worth paying through the nose for. As I understand it, Intel memory controllers on Sandybridge or Ivybridge processors are fine with memory up to 1.65v, but it might be worth checking.

As for an SSD, these make a lot of sense for use as a scratch disk for editing video. 128Gb might be enough, but prices these days are as low as they've ever been; going to 256Gb would give you more headroom, depending on the length of videos you're producing.

[watercooled]

Intel specifically recommend against using 1.65v RAM if you check the documents, it might be OK but like I said, since they're basically the same price I wouldn't chance it.

[MrJim]

Intel specifically recommend against using 1.65v RAM if you check the documents, it might be OK but like I said, since they're basically the same price I wouldn't chance it.

Yep, seems you're right there. Just as well mine's 1.5 then!

http://communities.intel.com/thread/30798