Build advice needed

kevovek

Been reading this part of boards for a long time, But I've just never had the money available to build my own PC until now
Also do they sell anti static wrist bands on hardwareversand?

1. What is your budget? [€450 - €500 including delivery]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming/Internet/Unity 3d/ 3ds max] (Far cry 3, Crysis 3, Tomb raider, Arma 3)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes I've already purchased a Club 3D 7870 xt

5. Do you need a monitor? [Yes]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [22']

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? Don't have one.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Mouse/Wireless Card]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes]

8. How can you pay? [Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser]

9. When are you purchasing? [In 7 days]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Wexford but I'd like to give it a go myself]

BloodBath

A couple of the parts are out of stock at the moment but might be back in by the time you order.

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€122.56
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€34.03
BitFenix Spectre 120mm Lüfter - all black|€5.99
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€44.14
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€58.58
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€9.90
Revoltec Wired Gaming Mouse W102|€8.17
Hanns.G HL225DPB|€106.07
ASRock 970DE3/U3S3, AM3+, ATX|€55.64
8GB-Kit A-Data Value PC3-1333 CL9|€46.10
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€510.17

kevovek

Thanks for the reply! Will that 450w psu be able to handle the cpu and gpu being overclocked? And if I'm overclocking the cpu will I need a cooler for it?

Gumbi

Is there a GPU in that setup, Bloodbath?

kevovek

I've already bought a 7870 xt

Gumbi

kevovek wrote: »

I've already bought a 7870 xt

Missed that, sorry; great pick!!!

kevovek

Would there be any disadvantage going for a sharkoon vaya case instead of the bitfenix alpha?
I've just changed cases in the below build and included a cooler master hyper 212 that I assume I'll need for overclocking the cpu.

Item|Price
ASRock 970DE3/U3S3, AM3+, ATX|€55.64
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€59.28
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€27.99
Revoltec Wired Gaming Mouse W102|€8.42
Sharkoon Vaya schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€25.89
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€123.59
8GB-Kit A-Data Value PC3-1333 CL9|€46.10
Thermalright X-Silent 120 mm - 1.000 U/min|€5.99
Hanns.G HL225DPB|€109.00
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€46.34
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€527.23

Will the 450W psu be enough for overclocking both the cpu and gpu? Or would I be better off going for a 550W?

joetoad

I really thing people are better off with a 550 watt in the long run, just for extra headroom

BloodBath

Yes a 450w is loads for single gpu setups with overclocking on both. I'd say it will use roughly 300w-350w with your system highly overclocked. 550w is kind of useless. It's too much for single gpu setups and not enough for duals. I'd say you want 400w-450w for singles and 650w-700w for duals.

The sharkoon is a reasonable budget case but it's going to have poor airflow. The bitfenix has the fan options of a high end case. I'd say you should stick with the bitfenix and order more fans and the cpu cooler later if it's outside your budget at the moment.

kevovek

Ill stick with the 450w then and the bitfenix, I might try get quiet fans for the case depending on how much they cost and I'll stretch my budget for the cpu cooler as well

BloodBath

The fans I listed are quiet and the same as the 1 that comes with the case.

kevovek

Thanks! Would a fan at each of the front back and side mounts provide sufficient airflow with the cpu cooler also installed? Or are the bottom and top fan mounts better to use instead of the side?

BloodBath

It depends on how good you want the airflow. Ideally 4 fans with balanced airflow would give you good results. 2 is the bare minimum. With 2 it won't really matter. 1 front or bottom and 1 exhaust at the rear. With 3 I'd go front and bottom intake + rear exhaust. With 4 go 1 front and bottom intake, 1 rear and top exhaust. With 5 the same as 4 but add a bottom side intake.

Go with at least 3 total if you can.

kevovek

Took me a while longer to order this than originally planned but I'm literally about to pull the trigger on this:

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€117.21
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€31.57
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€26.43
Revoltec Wired Gaming Mouse W102|€7.86
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€54.29
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€43.43
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€9.67
3 x ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€10.17
Samsung SH-118AB schwarz|€11.80
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€52.49
ASRock 970 Pro3, AM3+, ATX|€58.35
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€442.26

I changed the motherboard and the ram to presumably better ones and I've picked up a monitor myself. So is every thing all right in the above build? I'm dying to order it asap!

BloodBath

Looks good. If you want to spend €10 for a better case then you could get this.

It was only €5 more than the merc alpha last week but the prices have changed on both.

It's still a steal for that money though imo.

kevovek

Done! Thanks for all the help, now to wait impatiently!

kevovek

My packages arrived today!



Nervous/excited about putting it all together! I'm sure I'll be back here with a few questions anyway, first things first though I have to clean up this dusty room before I open anything.

BloodBath

Gotta love delivery day

kevovek

So I finished putting everything together and turned on my pc all the fans spin including graphics card and cpu cooler but Im getting no picture I'm thinking this is something very small?

BloodBath

Yes nearly every new build lately has had the same problem

Did you connect both the power pins to the graphics card?

Did you connect the 8 pin mainboard connection? There should be 2 power power connectors going to the mainboard.

Is the output to the monitor connected to the graphics card?

kevovek

Thanks I had forgotten to plug them both into the gpu but I also forgot to plug the cpu power in lol, on the boot screen now about to install windows! I have 2 fans left to go on the bottom and top but I cant seem to find the right screws? I went with the merc alpha in the end if that helps

BloodBath

Did the fans not come with screws or rubber plugs?

kevovek

They came with screws but they just wouldn't screw in properly I'll try them again in a while I was kind of afraid of damaging the case. Is there a program that downloads all the drivers and updates for you in one go? I think I heard someone talking about something like that on here before?

tuxy

Not sure what that program is but you should install the driver for your wifi card from CD. This should get you on the net, then go to the radeon website and get the drivers for your graphics card.

After that go to the motherboard makers site and get all the latest drivers for your motherboard.

That should be all the drivers you need.

kevovek

I'm posting from my new build already windows 8 gave me the option to connect to a wireless network during setup, I'll do the graphics card and motherboard drivers now

tuxy

Cool sometimes windows already has the network drivers for your card

kevovek

My wireless card seems to be getting an abnormally low signal my phone and laptop are in the same place and they are practically on full bars

tuxy

sounds like the aerial might not be connected correctly.

kevovek

Your dead right!
Note to self: Actually look at the back of your case before posting here again!

kevovek

What should I take note of while stress testing? I got furmark, HWMonitor and prime 95 but haven't run them yet is there anything else that will help?

BloodBath

That's all you need.

Are you overclocking the graphics card?

Grab Sapphire Trixx or Msi Afterburner if you are.

Just check your temps, mainly cpu cores and the gpu core temps.

tuxy

kevovek wrote: »

What should I take note of while stress testing? I got furmark, HWMonitor and prime 95 but haven't run them yet is there anything else that will help?

Run small FFTs in prime 95 to test the cpu.

I'm not sure what is normal for that CPU but I would guess that temps should be 85 C or lower.

Do some short tests and when you find a speed and voltage that you are happy with run it for a few hours to make sure it's stable.

kevovek

Yeah I'll be overclocking the graphics card tomorrow just grabbed sapphire trixx what would be a good temp for a graphics card under heavy load?

Gumbi

kevovek wrote: »

Yeah I'll be overclocking the graphics card tomorrow just grabbed sapphire trixx what would be a good temp for a graphics card under heavy load?

75 or below should be fine. Put the power to plus 20% and tweak the core clock speed. Say add 25mhz and then test it in furmark. Run it in furmark for a min or so, then add another 25mhz. When it begins crashing in furmark, up the voltage, in, say 10mv increments (0.01). Up the voltage And test the stability. Keep upping the voltage and core clock speed until you hit a temperature wall (upping the voltage increases temps quite a bit). Don't let temps above 75 degrees.

When testing in furmark, keep the fan at 100%. Furmark is very stressful for the card, much more so than games. I use it just to see of the card can handle the higher clock speeds at certain voltages quickly. Use Unigine Valley or something to see if the card is stable over a longer timeframe (google it, download it).

kevovek

I did the 15 minute 1920x1080 burn in on furmark and I got a score of 4095 with the gpu core at 1000MHz max temp 74.
I've still got only 2 fans in the case if I put in the other two would that allow me to set the clock to 1010MHz?

Gumbi

kevovek wrote: »

I did the 15 minute 1920x1080 burn in on furmark and I got a score of 4095 with the gpu core at 1000MHz max temp 74.
I've still got only 2 fans in the case if I put in the other two would that allow me to set the clock to 1010MHz?

What were your graphics card fan speeds at that temp?

Only add voltage if you're not stable at a given clock speed. You're fairly stable at 1000mhz bump it up to 1010 now.

BloodBath

More case fans will help temps for sure. I'd have 1 front and bottom intake, 1 rear and top exhaust.

The club3d cooler isn't the best in the world for overclocking though.

kevovek

The fan speed for the 15 minute test were all at 100% Loud as hell! 4098 points 45 FPS, 73°C with the power control turned up to 20% doesn't seem like much of a difference but its only a small increase

BloodBath

73c with 100% fan speed?

That's pretty damn hot for that speed and those clocks.

Gumbi

Download heaven benchmark/valley benchmark. They're fairer gaming loads. Set the fan speed to 60/70% at your current clock/voltage and see how far that gets you.

kevovek

Not sure if I'm doing this correctly but here is the settings I was using the get the heaven benchmark

Gumbi

If your temps were under control in that loop through then you have a fantastic overclock at 1230mhz.

BloodBath

For sure. You should have tessellation maxed out in that though. The benchmark isn't stressful without it.

kevovek

I'll try it with the tessellation in a few minutes, my temps were good about 54 - 58. I think I'll OC the cpu tonight or tomorrow I was thinking of going to 4 or 4.2GHz

kevovek

Here's the score with tessellation and the cpu OC'd to 4.2



Everything looking ok there? temps were fine.

Gumbi

kevovek wrote: »

Here's the score with tessellation and the cpu OC'd to 4.2



Everything looking ok there? temps were fine.

Did you change the CPU voltage much to get 4.2ghz? With a bit of luck you mightn't need to for 4.2. I would aim for a 4.4 overclock and leave it at there for now.

kevovek

Just installed the two other fans I had making it 4 in the case now over all I plugges the bottom fan into 3 pins marked pled on the motherboard as its the only 3 pin left available and that didn't work so... can I plug a 3 pin fan into the 4 pin places marked fan on the motherboard?

BloodBath

Yes you can. That pled is for the power led on the front of your case.

kevovek

Cheers I'll do it tomorrow then is there any good fan control software out there or is the bios the best way to go?

BloodBath

There should be software you can get for the board that will let you change it from windows. Otherwise the BIOS is the way to go.

Asrock extreme tuner is the software.

Those F12's are noisy at full speed but fine turned down a bit.