New Build for the New Year

Macker1

Folks,

Looking for some advice / suggestions..................

1. What is your budget? €1500

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming ( BF3, Far Cry 3, GTA5 whenever it comes out) also would be general surfing and some MS Office activity for work

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes.... was planning on Windows 8

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Hard drive/DVD Drive/Case/PSU/etc.] All new parts with the exception of an LG Blue Ray / HD-DVD drive which I plan to migrate from old PC

5. Do you need a monitor? I have a decent 22" Dell but would like to upgrade to a 24"-27" model

5a. If yes, what size do you need. 24" plus

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1080/1440x900/etc.] Current monitor can do 1920 x 1080

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.] Not at first but can add on as required

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes/No] Yes I suppose but not that pushed.

8. How can you pay? Paypal, Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing? Staring in Jan13

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [South Dublin City/Cork City/Kerry/etc.] Based in Ballivor Co. Meath I'm confident enough to tackle this as its not me first time. This actually is a father son project so it should be fun.


Couple of things to point out

I have sourced with the help of a family member a I7-3770k CPU (socket LGA 1155) and an Intel 520 Series 240gb SSD for a great price so they are already covered.

I will need the following

Case (I like the Fractal Design Brand http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=99)
MotherBoard ????
Memory (For this I was planning on 16gb)
Power Supply ????
Cooler (For this I was thinking of Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler)
Hard Disk Storage (For this I was planning on a least 4-6 TB in size)
Graphics Card ???? (Something with a good bit of power that will run the latest games at High Option settings)

All comments welcomed and appreciated :D

challengemaster

Is the 1500 including or excluding what you're paying for i7 & SSD?

(Basically is it 1500 left to spend after those are bought?)

Macker1

Sorry I wasn't clear on that. The i7 and SSD are running in at around €350 so around €1150 for the rest of the build there or thereabouts. There is a small bit of flex in the budget as I want this PC to be the best I can afford and be future proof (if that ever exists) for a number of years.

MRTULES

So I am not too sure about this but here it goes

Item|Price
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance schwarz PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€74.87
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€97.79
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€53.91
ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Sockel 1155, ATX|€125.99
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€284.54
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€245.68
Corsair Hydro Series H80i|€89.30
Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€86.09
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1077.16

do you need 16gb of ram, probably not but with that budget, why not.
Popped in that R4 case, it comes in other colors too.
A 550w PSU that gets good recommendations on here.
I dont know about the mobo and if you'd need the extra fetures of the extrem 4 over say this one so could save a few bob there.
The GPU is very decent and from at least one review it over clocks pretty well, although we have not seen more back up for this so could have been a fluke. Also there may be no need to go that high on the GPU as I believe some of the 7870/7850 are about the "best bang for ur buck" atm.
2 by 3tb HDDs
and lastly I swaped out the h100i for a h80i. the sole reason being this review here. Not sure if its enough to go on but just more reading for you. Also I believe I spotted a H100 on adverts today asking €80 and IIRC it said brand new in box.
Anyway, wait till someone who actually knows what their talking about gets on and advise you properly

:)



Edit-- LOL after all that I for got a monitor so not sure where that leaves you
Monitors range all over the place and although I know very little about computers, I know even less about monitors.
Here is what I have learnt from here anyway
This is the bees knees
I think this one gets lots of recommendations too.
And I think I have even seen this one recomended

MRTULES

Ok
took my own advice and came up with this, pretty close to budget
an extra €50 for a 24 inch screen but to keep close to €1150 here you go.

Item|Price
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance schwarz PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€74.87
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€97.79
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€53.91
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€245.68
Corsair Hydro Series H80i|€89.30
Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€86.09
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€85.04
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, 2GB GDDR5, PCI-Express|€215.84
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM|€199.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1166.51

Good night

Serephucus

Very nice build there, wouldn't really change much.

OP, if you can, I'd have a look and see if you can source a 3570K instead. If you can save the money it would be worth it. 3770K doesn't offer anything extra for games, but at that price it's not a bad deal.

My only concern would be the hard drives. With that much space I'd be thinking of backups as well. When I built my first gaming rig, I wanted all my data backed up, so I picked up 2x1TB drives and set up daily backups on them. Since then, I've always bought hard drives in pairs. Unless you need the 6TB right away, I'd set them up in RAID 1, then buy another two 3TB drives down the line (they'll be cheaper anyway). Most people don't bother with it, but I've really gotten used to the piece of mind, I don't think I could go back at this point.

uncle_sam_ie

Serephucus wrote: »

Very nice build there, wouldn't really change much.

OP, if you can, I'd have a look and see if you can source a 3570K instead. If you can save the money it would be worth it. 3770K doesn't offer anything extra for games, but at that price it's not a bad deal.

My only concern would be the hard drives. With that much space I'd be thinking of backups as well. When I built my first gaming rig, I wanted all my data backed up, so I picked up 2x1TB drives and set up daily backups on them. Since then, I've always bought hard drives in pairs. Unless you need the 6TB right away, I'd set them up in RAID 1, then buy another two 3TB drives down the line (they'll be cheaper anyway). Most people don't bother with it, but I've really gotten used to the piece of mind, I don't think I could go back at this point.

Seeing that he's getting Windows 8, he might as well take advantage of Storage Spaces. Skip to to 2:40, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7R6fU0Tn6g&list=UUjTCFFq605uuq4YN4VmhkBA&index=15

Serephucus

I wouldn't trust that, to be honest. I've heard quite a few bad things about it. It's excellent in theory if it works but from the sounds of things it's still pretty buggy. It's not very good at figuring out backup requirements if using different drive sizes, and if drives are the same size, you might as well just use RAID.

Macker1

Serephucus wrote: »

Very nice build there, wouldn't really change much.

OP, if you can, I'd have a look and see if you can source a 3570K instead. If you can save the money it would be worth it. 3770K doesn't offer anything extra for games, but at that price it's not a bad deal.

My only concern would be the hard drives. With that much space I'd be thinking of backups as well. When I built my first gaming rig, I wanted all my data backed up, so I picked up 2x1TB drives and set up daily backups on them. Since then, I've always bought hard drives in pairs. Unless you need the 6TB right away, I'd set them up in RAID 1, then buy another two 3TB drives down the line (they'll be cheaper anyway). Most people don't bother with it, but I've really gotten used to the piece of mind, I don't think I could go back at this point.

I can get either CPU but I figured because I'm getting a good deal I would get the higher spec chip. Family member works in Intel and can purchase via employee store from USA. Even with delivery and duty the cost savings is great.

Serephucus

Well if they're the same price, go for the 3770K, but if you'll save a proportional amount ($220 vs. $330 on Newegg) then I'd go for the 3570K, and maybe put the money into a better GPU.

Macker1

Corsair Cooler not in stock

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=71315&agid=669


Any other suggestions ???

Serephucus

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/Intel+AMD/71314/Corsair+Hydro+Series+H100i.article

I guess?

Stuff comes back in stock very quickly on HWVS, usually within a day or two. Just keep an eye on it.

challengemaster

The h100i is worth the extra few quid, it demolishes the other coolers on the market

indough

ive read that the kraken x60 is a bit better than the h100i but its a 280mm rad rather than the h100i's 240mm

i was considering the corsair unit for my own build but now im thinking i might go ith their h80i instead and save a bit of space

MRTULES

Sorry. I had mentioned the h80 to the op because of the review I linked

beno619

Theres a brand new H100 up on adverts for €80.

Serephucus

And I'll be anything the reason it's there is because of the H100i. That's still the one I'd go for though (in your build as well indough, not much else you can put in a Prodigy really).

beno619

Serephucus wrote: »

And I'll be anything the reason better there is because of the H100i. That's still the one I'd go for though (in your build as well indough, not much else you can put in a Prodigy really).

Is there a substantial difference? I thought it was just better tubing and monitoring software..
Anyway I was suggesting it instead of the H80.

Macker1

Folks,

Thanks for all the input to date. Its been a great help so far. Whilst not a complete virgin to building a PC, it never hurts to get other peoples opinions and ideas. I will be getting the CPU and SSD sorted this week as its coming with the help of the brother from Intel in the States. I want to get these in the bag as its a great deal.

Hopefully I will have my order placed for the remaining components near end of Jan when I get paid. It looks like most of the parts will be sourced at hardwareversand.de. Their prices are good and based on the input I read their service and delivery are fine. I will share the shopping list when finalised.

One question from the time of placing order and making required payment without delay how long does it take for a delivery to arrive. Bear in mind I will only order when every item is showing in stock. What courier is used for shipments ?

indough

beno619 wrote: »

Is there a substantial difference? I thought it was just better tubing and monitoring software..
Anyway I was suggesting it instead of the H80.

it also comes with sp120 fans afaik

indough

Serephucus wrote: »

And I'll be anything the reason it's there is because of the H100i. That's still the one I'd go for though (in your build as well indough, not much else you can put in a Prodigy really).

yeah if I chose to leave out an optical drive the ill be going with the h100i rather than the h80i. im not sure whether you can fit the spectre pro 230 in the front if you have that in the top though

Macker1

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-098-GI

Guys, any opinions on above graphics card. Comes in at €319 delivered.

beno619

Macker1 wrote: »

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-098-GI

Guys, any opinions on above graphics card. Comes in at €319 delivered.

Regarded as one on the best 7950's but its €300 on Hardwareversand ?

marco_polo

beno619 wrote: »

Regarded as one on the best 7950's but its €300 on Hadwarevesade ?

18 euro delivery though so would work out a euro or two cheaper and ocuk would have it delivered in two says.

beno619

Sorry its €300 delivered, yeh I suppose if you get it in 2 days, depends how soon you want it .

Macker1

Macker1 wrote: »

Folks,

Thanks for all the input to date. Its been a great help so far. Whilst not a complete virgin to building a PC, it never hurts to get other peoples opinions and ideas. I will be getting the CPU and SSD sorted this week as its coming with the help of the brother from Intel in the States. I want to get these in the bag as its a great deal.

Hopefully I will have my order placed for the remaining components near end of Jan when I get paid. It looks like most of the parts will be sourced at hardwareversand.de. Their prices are good and based on the input I read their service and delivery are fine. I will share the shopping list when finalised.

One question from the time of placing order and making required payment without delay how long does it take for a delivery to arrive. Bear in mind I will only order when every item is showing in stock. What courier is used for shipments ?

Any input on part in bold re: order process & delivery ??

III

Buy an SSD to supplement a HDD instead of two 3TB HDD's (seriously what?). At least get a 128gb ssd for your OS for goodness sake

MRTULES

III wrote: »

Buy an SSD to supplement a HDD instead of two 3TB HDD's (seriously what?). At least get a 128gb ssd for your OS for goodness sake

Pretty sure he has stated that he is getting a 240gb Intel ssd already.

Macker1

MRTULES wrote: »

Pretty sure he has stated that he is getting a 240gb Intel ssd already.

Thats correct an Intel 520 series 240GB SSD for Boot Drive. Nice and fast.:):)

Macker1

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-158-GL

This memory on offer any good ????

Eboggles

Macker1 wrote: »

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-158-GL

This memory on offer any good ????

It's just normal 1600mhz RAM, but it looks really cool.

If you're into that stuff, of course.