Is this a good build?

akamossie

I would appreciate if you can comment/criticize if this built any good or would you change anything.

My budget is around €1000 and with these specs its coming around €900

Case - NZXT Phantom 410 Midi Tower Chassis
CPU - Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H, Intel Z77, ATX
RAM - 8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
SSD - Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")
PSU - Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W
GPU - Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC, full retail

Thank you in advance for your input.

M00lers

Seems like a decent build, but if have the budget maybe upgrade the graphics card.

akamossie

moolers2000 wrote: »

Seems like a decent build, but if have the budget maybe upgrade the graphics card.

Would you recommend a GPU that would be around €200 - €250?

jme2010

Looks fine.

What about a monitor? Don't splash all the cash then stick it onto a bad 17" lcd

Where are you ordering from? I'll always recommend hardwareversand.

akamossie

I'll be ordering my parts from hardwareversand

at the moment it will be connected to a Dell P1913S but this will be upgraded in the near time to fit my PC build spec.

M00lers

akamossie wrote: »

Would you recommend a GPU that would be around €200 - €250?

7870 XT are about 200 euro on Amazon but your very close to 7950 money so maybe save up a little bit more for one of them.

jme2010

akamossie wrote: »

CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Is that a single fan cooler?

You will be tankful for a push/pull set up.

Also check a load of reviews of similar coolers and look for the lowest db/temp combination and get that. Noctua are an amazing brand.

akamossie

moolers2000 wrote: »

7870 XT are about 200 euro on Amazon but your very close to 7950 money so maybe save up a little bit more for one of them.

I'll check out the 7870 XT, as 7950 wouldn't fit in my budget. Thanks for the tip

akamossie

jme2010 wrote: »

Is that a single fan cooler?

You will be tankful for a push/pull set up.

Also check a load of reviews of similar coolers and look for the lowest db/temp combination and get that. Noctua are an amazing brand.

Yes this is a single fan cooler. seems to be very demanding product for a CPU cooler.

i will defo check Noctua and see the reviews. thanks

marco_polo

Seems good, I'd make the following small changes to a more efficent PSU, faster SSD and a better GPU.

PSU should be fine unless you have SLI/Crossfire in the future.


Item|Price
NZXT Phantom 410 Midi - gunmetal, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€111.28
Super-Flower SF450P14XE Golden Green Pro 80plus gold|€67.99
ASRock Z77 Extreme3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€109.19
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€202.90
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9|€52.49
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.99
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB SATA 6Gb/s|€113.99
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT Boost, 2GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort, full retail|€215.15
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€920.97

M00lers

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Club-3D-7870XTV-JokerCard-Graphic/dp/B00BF9EYFM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1363177084&sr=8-3

akamossie

marco_polo wrote: »

Seems good, I'd make the following small changes to a more efficent PSU, faster SSD and a better GPU.

PSU should be fine unless you have SLI/Crossfire in the future.


Item|Price
NZXT Phantom 410 Midi - gunmetal, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€111.28
Super-Flower SF450P14XE Golden Green Pro 80plus gold|€67.99
ASRock Z77 Extreme3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€109.19
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€202.90
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9|€52.49
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.99
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB SATA 6Gb/s|€113.99
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT Boost, 2GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort, full retail|€215.15
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€920.97

May i ask why did you go for PSU with 450W? is that enough. Please bare in mind i will be adding 2x 1TB WD SATA as i already have them.

Is ASRock exterme3 would be better than the Gigabyte suggested?

i'll be defo updating my SSD as you have suggested.

Thanks for your input.

akamossie

moolers2000 wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Club-3D-7870XTV-JokerCard-Graphic/dp/B00BF9EYFM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1363176470&sr=8-3#productDetails

Thank you moolers2000, just checking this out now and see if it will allow me to overclock.

M00lers

Heres a 7950 with a stack of games, not too sure about XFX GPUs though.

And another 7870XT with free games.

M00lers

akamossie wrote: »

Thank you moolers2000, just checking this out now and see if it will allow me to overclock.

It should overclock to stock 7950 levels easily enough.

marco_polo

akamossie wrote: »

May i ask why did you go for PSU with 450W? is that enough. Please bare in mind i will be adding 2x 1TB WD SATA as i already have them.

Is ASRock exterme3 would be better than the Gigabyte suggested?

i'll be defo updating my SSD as you have suggested.

Thanks for your input.

A 450W is plenty for overclocking a i5-3570K and a single big GPU. It is also 80+ gold compliant which puts it at over 90% efficiency. Unless you were planning on adding and overclocking a second card, there's is really no need to get anything more powerful.

The ASRock is excellent value for money and very good overclocking board, Both boards can support 2X PCIe 3.0 (X8) crossfire/sli so unless there are some additional features that the Gigabyte has that you really really need, I don't see it is worth a extra €50 or so. That €50 is most of the difference between a 7870XT and a HD7950, which would have a much more significant impact on performance than board choice.

M00lers

marco_polo wrote: »

A 450W is plenty for overclocking a i5-3570K and a single big GPU. It is also 80+ gold compliant which puts it at over 90% efficiency. Unless you were planning on adding and overclocking a second card, there's is really no need to get anything more powerful.

The ASRock is excellent value for money and very good overclocking board, Both boards can support 2X PCIe 3.0 (X8) crossfire/sli so unless there are some additional features that the Gigabyte has that you really really need, I don't see it is worth a extra €50 or so. That €50 is most of the difference between a 7870XT and a HD7950, which would have a much more significant impact on performance than board choice.

+1, better GPU all day long IMO.

akamossie

Thank you both for your effort and i will look into your consideration.

Much appreciate it.

jme2010

marco_polo wrote: »

A 450W is plenty for overclocking a i5-3570K and a single big GPU. It is also 80+ gold compliant which puts it at over 90% efficiency. Unless you were planning on adding and overclocking a second card, there's is really no need to get anything more powerful.
.

Excellent point.

But may I add. As a psu is one of the most solid components in a build, and a good branded psu will last years. Why not just get a ~600W and keep the PSU for future builds?

The cost of a 450W then a 600W in a year or so. Why not start with the 600W and youre future proof.

Just a suggestion for the real money conscious builders.

akamossie

jme2010 wrote: »

Excellent point.

But may I add. As a psu is one of the most solid components in a build, and a good branded psu will last years. Why not just get a ~600W and keep the PSU for future builds?

The cost of a 450W then a 600W in a year or so. Why not start with the 600W and youre future proof.

Just a suggestion for the real money conscious builders.

I had the same in mind as you have suggested and i am looking into
Corsair Enthusiast Series Modular TX650 V2, 650Watt

my only issue is the GPU, not sure should i go for amd or nvidia, the more i read the more i am confused

BloodBath

Get this psu. It's 600w, the same price and is almost as efficient as the super flower. That corsair psu is pretty poor. Compare the 12v rails and connectivity to the be quiet. The only thing it has going for it is it's modular.

If you're set on going modular get this.

For a few beans more there's the 700w non modular.

If you are set on going sli or crossfire down the line get the 630w or 700w as both have the connectivity for dual cards.

Go amd. The Nvidia cards are beaten in price/performance in almost every area.

akamossie

BloodBath wrote: »

Get this psu. It's 600w, the same price and is almost as efficient as the super flower. That corsair psu is pretty poor. Compare the 12v rails and connectivity to the be quiet. The only thing it has going for it is it's modular.

If you're set on going modular get this.

For a few beans more there's the 700w non modular.

If you are set on going sli or crossfire down the line get the 630w or 700w as both have the connectivity for dual cards.

Go amd. The Nvidia cards are beaten in price/performance in almost every area.

Thank you for the great info - can you recommend a GPU for around €250.

i will look into the PSU and will decide then.

marco_polo

jme2010 wrote: »

Excellent point.

But may I add. As a psu is one of the most solid components in a build, and a good branded psu will last years. Why not just get a ~600W and keep the PSU for future builds?

The cost of a 450W then a 600W in a year or so. Why not start with the 600W and youre future proof.

Just a suggestion for the real money conscious builders.

What are you future proofing would be my question , component power consumption has been going steadily south in recent years and that trend shows no signs of reversing.

If you built a PC 3-4 years ago you might have been combining lets say a 965 BE (~ 140W), with a HD4890 (~190W).

Whereas nowadays you might be combining a i5-3470 (~ 77W) with a HD7850 (~110W).

So as per my original point unless the plan is to go dual card (with quite powerful cards) at some point in the future then, you are most unlikely to ever never anything more powerful than a 450W PSU.

BloodBath

Get this. It's close to 660ti performance and has a lot of overclocking headroom.

Overclocking increases power consumption by quite a bit.

akamossie

now i think we are getting somewhere to decide for the GPU.

one last question

whats the different between Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT Boost and Sapphire HD 7870 GHz Edition OC Version?

BloodBath

The XT uses a cut down version of the 7900 series gpu. It performs better than a standard 7870 and seems to clock higher. Clocking at 1285/1760 in the review below.

Here's the review showing it's pretty much on par with a 660ti.

It should have been branded as a 7890 or even 7930 would make more sense.

jme2010

marco_polo wrote: »

What are you future proofing would be my question

This

marco_polo wrote: »

unless the plan is to go dual card (with quite powerful cards)

I thought cpu power is coming down and GPU power is going up. They're slapping essentially two gfx cards on one board with 6GB of ram etc. etc. etc.

marco_polo

jme2010 wrote: »

This

I thought cpu power is coming down and GPU power is going up. They're slapping essentially two gfx cards on one board with 6GB of ram etc. etc. etc.

Trend is still very much going down though, even with two GPUs stapled together.

http://www.hwcompare.com/12713/geforce-gtx-690-vs-radeon-hd-4870-x2/

BloodBath

High end overclocked parts use as much power as they always did. Not really comparing apples to apples. If you compare intels 6 core processor to the extreme p4's or the core 2 duo quads then the power consumption isn't much different.

The same for gpus. An overclocked gtx Titan, 680, or 7970 all use 200-275w+

The gtx 690 up to 350w

The 7990 up to a whopping 575w

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,3329-12.html

joetoad

I really think its worth getting at least a 550 watt PSU. You never know what you need down the line and its only an extra 15 or 20 or so.