First Time Build about £1500 ish

[TimmyTheMoonPig]

Hey all

This is going to be my first time building a PC from scratch.

The main use for it, is going to be gaming some video/photo and i'd like to start trying to learn 3D animation/rendering etc


The specs are as follows

Cooler Master HAF X NVIDIA Edition £169.99

MSI Z77A-GD80 £155.72

Intel Core i7 3770K about £250

2GB EVGA GTX 670 FTW £306.80

Corsair Vengeance Performance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1866 MHz CAS 9-10-9-27 £73.39

Corsair CMPSU-750AXUK £126.90

Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD £131.09

EK-Supremacy Acetal CPU Block £44.71

EK-FC680 GTX+ Acetal GPU Block £67.10

EK-CoolStream RAD XTX 360 £75.02

EK DCP 4.0 (12V DC Pump) £32.36

EK-BAY SPIN Reservoir Acetal CSQ £40.99

Asus PCE-N53 300Mbps £35.98

TOTAL £1499.99

I know there will be extras like fans, tubing coolant, etc I've guessed about £100 on top of the above price.

The GPU I'm not too fussed about as long as it's a GTX 670, so any recommendations will be appreciated but will need to be able to buy a water block for it.

I would use the SSD as my boot drive, as I currently have a regular HDD for the OS, programs and music the day to day sort of thing then a larger one that is purely for game's which is currently sitting at 540GB out of 700GB full, almost all steam based full, so until they come out with SSD's hitting the 1TB mark i'm not sure how well trying to split them onto multiple drives would work out.

Any and all advice/recommendations will be helpful. However the main two things i'm stumped about is, what is considered the best tubing and coolant as I've heard a lot of good things about Mayhems coolant and I was probably going to go with Mayhems X1 UV Green but there are so many mixed reviews about all the different tubing available, i'm really not sure what make and sizing to go for ?

Many thanks


Matt

[Bonebreaker777]

First time building PC from scratch will a full blown water cooling? Not bad. If by any chance you decide to go ahead with whatever setup you choose at the end, you can always keep us updated here trough regular updates, how's your building going

Now the setup :

CASE : whatever you choose, usually the look and design is more important to the end user that functionality, and that case looks badass .

Motherboard : literally any Z77 motherboard from the three most trusted MB manufacturers (Asus, MSI and Gigabyte). After that you can choose by the extra functions, price, layout and OC-ability (conservative or extreme).

CPU : Intel i7 3770k : you could/will use the extra logical cores provided trough HT, as you stated you will use this PC for semi-professional work/study. And overclock the **** out of it.

GPU : I think you would benefit more from a AMD 7970 more, faster that a 670 and specially faster in the professional sphere.

RAM : memory could be anything from 1600Mhz to 1800Mhz+. You will see very little difference and usually you can OC the 1600Mhz memories to the same as the more expensive 1800Mhz ones. You don't really need to worry about the height, you will be using a water cooling block .

PSU : can't find nothing wrong with this one.

SSD : I would suggest to choose a Crucial M4 256GB, more reliable and a bit more space. Possibility of a RAID0 with 2x 120GB/128GB SSD as TRIM is now supported on Z77 and Windows 7 (right?).

Cooling : Keep the rest but replace the 680 block with a one for a 7970? And watch out for galvanic corrosion, or use inhibitor.
And ask someone with experience while doing it, I would suggest. Would be bad to burn out your new PC just because you didn't checked for leaks (been there seen it).

Hope it helps a bit

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would probably go onto socket 2011 though if you are to do some 3D animation. The upgrade path is better IMHO.

[very deli reef]

I would use the SSD as my boot drive, as I currently have a regular HDD for the OS, programs and music the day to day sort of thing then a larger one that is purely for game's which is currently sitting at 540GB out of 700GB full, almost all steam based full, so until they come out with SSD's hitting the 1TB mark i'm not sure how well trying to split them onto multiple drives would work out.

These days Steam finally supports multiple "library locations". You can split the games between your drives however you like (with the exception that Source based games must reside in the default location). I have only my most played games on my SSD, for example.

[f3nc3po5t]

Can vouch for the i7 3770K, Eats anything i throw at it, Some video rendering but mainly gaming. Would consider changing the Corsair RAM for some Crucial Ballistix Elite http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-DDR3...0011342&sr=8-2. Looks pretty tasty and similiar in price although link shows a 2 x 4 GB kit. SSD wise quite pricey by a 240GB Corsair Neutron GTX http://www.scan.co.uk/products/240gb...90000-iops-max is a fantastic, reliable and fast SSD. Would you be entirely SSD based? I have an SSD for windows with everything else (Steam Games), Movies stored and running off a 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive. Although its just a standard HDD still adds to some solid cheap storage.

But Hardware wise. Awesome way to go

[TimmyTheMoonPig]

Thanks for everyone's replies and advice

I've got the case and its even better than i thought it would be along with the WIFI card the coolant i went with was mayhems pastel mint green and XSPC HighFlex Hose 1/2" ID Clear. and should be able to order just about everything else in the next few days

I've decided to skip an SSD for now as the 1TB Crucial M500 SSD seems pretty crazy if it comes out at the £450 mark as they suggest so ill just make do with the drives I've got now

The RAM I'd like to get 16GB in 2 sticks of 8GB for the 3d and video side of things also it means in the future i can go to 32GB in the unlikely event I'd ever need it, I'm trying to get as much as possible from Scan.co.uk to save on postage and there prices seem like some of the best out there so it slightly limits my choice to Corsair

The prices have gone up a bit so my main two choices are CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 or CMZ16GX3M2A1866C9 RAM is the only thing that confuses me between the relationship between the MHz and the CAS latency

I went with the GTX 670 as it seems to slightly out preform the 7970 in gaming which is going to be its main use as iv just started to learn 3D animation / rendering and the video editing would be a pretty minor part so I figured the benefits of the GTX 670 slightly outweighs the benefits of the 7970

[Phaz0r18]

Sounds like a good build, just remember, looks DO count

[sod16]

Mate, don't sweat about pointless watercooling. I do 3D modelling and if there is one thing that is important is power. Once you use power, you will stop caring about watercooling.
Here is a system for you to show power > silly cooling. Ignore the case if you have one but;

Scan.co.uk;

i7 3930k : £467.00
Asus P9X79 Pro : £203.75
Corsair DDR3 Vengeance 8gb X2 = £83.52
CORSAIR BUILDER 750W : 69.30 or AX/ w/e you won't notice it, I've had both.
Case: £80?
2GB Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X: £311.60 < ------------ more fans = better cooling isn't a crappy reference card, don't get EVGA because you heard it is good. This Gigabyte is better.
Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator : £59.87 Do a bit of research on heat sinks, check reviews. DONT GET WATERCOOLING! It's NOT worth it especially for your first build!
SAMSUNG 250GB SSD: 131.10
1TB HDD: £50.52

Sub total
1466.12 with shipping

Just a heads up, as I do 3D modelling/ rendering, DX11 gaming graphic cards are usually completely useless for 3D rendering. They rely on Quadro cards and equivalent (Which I DO NOT recommend, worry about that if you own and run a business).
The more cores you have the better (intel only ). Don't look at a processor at how good it runs games as I promise you, within a year of owning a 6 core, you will have a massive advantage. You won't have to upgrade for a long time.
This comes from experience when the Q6600 Vs E8400. Gamers obsessively thought Q6600 is pointless because "reviews" said so. However a few years down the line, that Q6600 was still useful while E8400 was useless.

Also 3D rending/ animation makes heavy, heavy use of multi core CPU's. This is where you will see the difference in 3D rendering/ animation, and video encoding. The graphic card will do absolutely squat. Quadro's are expensive and won't do games (£1600 ish for a decent one), you pretty much pay for different firmware.

As for the watercooling, it was for me the same question, more power or a timely, fiddly thing that needs almost £400 spent to make sure it is effective not forgetting the constant maintenance needed. Fan cooled, the PC above is far better then what you have in the OP. I seriously cannot stress enough at how useless the watercool set up is going to be.

Hope I can sway your mind

[sod16]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...w,3217-16.html

[Azazl187]

Get an 850 power supply incase of future sli

[IronEgg]

Just go with the Corsair H100i. It's all in 1.