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Please comment on my PC build for gaming


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Firstly this will be the first PC I've ever built and secondly this is on a pretty tight budget of under £850 ($1300 approximately) including a 24" monitor.

After reading this I'm probably going down the ivybridge route rather than haswell.

I'd just like some comments on the components I've chosen for this purely gaming mATX machine.

i5 3570K

Fractal Design Core 1000 mATX or Fractal Design Arc Mini v2 (when it's released).

Asus PZ77-M Motherboard

Be Quiet Pure Power 530W Modular PSU

Crucial 8GB 1866 Mhz RAM (2 sticks of 4GB)

Then either a Cosair Hydro H55 or similar single 120mm rad closed loop (NZXT, Cooler Master or Zalman)

Or Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 r2

Graphics card will either be a HIS HD 7950 ICEQ Boost due to nice overclocking and good cooler or GTX 680 if the price drops.

I would like to do a custom loop watercooler but can't afford one now. When I can afford it, the Arc Mini 2 this has room for 2x 240m rads in the front and top so I have the possibility to add watercooling later on.

Will greatly appreciate any comments on this build.

Thanks

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Budget for graphics card is probably around £250-300 maximum (around $450). I'll be able to save some money by taking the SSD out of my laptop if necessary.

Pretty sure graphics card are more expensive in UK than US so factor that in as well. GTX 780 costs £550 ($800) which would be way out of budget!

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Looks like a very solid build and good part choices. For the PSU you might wanna go 700W+ just to have some wiggle room for when or if you decide to go Crossfire and you add in other things in your system. As for Haswell, it is hit or miss depending on the system BUT it definitely encodes faster than Ivy Bridge, has a better iGPU (if you ever need it) and clock for clock, the IPC is about 10-15% faster than Ivy Bridge. If I were building a system today, I'd go with Haswell just because it will be around until 2015 so you will be good for upgrades and not have to worry about a socket change.

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The fact that pcgamer said ivy bridge is an inferior overclocker to sandy bridge with no explanation makes me regard that entire "review" (they posted no results) as crap. Yes some IHSs are attached poorly resulting in high temps, but if you get a CPU that doesn't have that problem or you get one but you fix it, ivy bridge clocks just as well as sandy bridge with an average 5% ipc increase while using a little less power.

By my understanding haswell will clock as high as ivy and sandy, but will burn around 9% more power for around 11% more ipc over ivy. This is a net gain for desktop overclockers, but a wash for laptop overclockers since we're heat limited while the desktop guys aren't.

I don't know if the IHS issues have been fixed with haswell or not, so going for haswell to not have to worry about redoing the IHS might not work out. So as for haswell vs ivy bridge, get whatever is a good deal if you don't want to overclock much. Get haswell if you plan on getting good aftermarket cooling and overclocking up to the clock wall.

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Haswell only really add about £30 to the total cost using the:

Gigabyte GA-Z87M-D3H mATX m/b and i7 4670K.

I'll probably still get the HIS HD 7950 due to it being on par with a 7970 and massively overclockable.

I want to see what AMD bring out this year before settling on a more expensive Nvidia.

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Yeh I would love to go down the haswell route but if I could save £50 on cpu and m/b that will free up funds for a better gfx card. Seriously considering if I can fit a gtx 780 into my budget.

Any real difference between five phase stock PCB and 8 phase gigabyte PCB?

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The fact that pcgamer said ivy bridge is an inferior overclocker to sandy bridge with no explanation makes me regard that entire "review" (they posted no results) as crap. Yes some IHSs are attached poorly resulting in high temps, but if you get a CPU that doesn't have that problem or you get one but you fix it, ivy bridge clocks just as well as sandy bridge with an average 5% ipc increase while using a little less power.

By my understanding haswell will clock as high as ivy and sandy, but will burn around 9% more power for around 11% more ipc over ivy. This is a net gain for desktop overclockers, but a wash for laptop overclockers since we're heat limited while the desktop guys aren't.

I don't know if the IHS issues have been fixed with haswell or not, so going for haswell to not have to worry about redoing the IHS might not work out. So as for haswell vs ivy bridge, get whatever is a good deal if you don't want to overclock much. Get haswell if you plan on getting good aftermarket cooling and overclocking up to the clock wall.

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Hmm is single 12v rail the best?

Cosair CX Builder 600W PSU with single 12V rail is £55 (non-modular could be hard in the tiny case I've chosen)

Be Quiet Pure Power 630W Modular PSU has 2 12v rails and is £70.

Which would be better for K-series overclocking? I won't be buying this computer until September so I have to time to consider AMDs offerings. I can't believe the 7950 is still much better value than GTX 760 and possibly even GTX 770. Apparently the HIS HD 7950 can score 9291 graphics on 3dMark 11 with a stable overclock of 1100mhz on core, What a beast!

I also read that you can overclock with a H87 by ratio overclocking http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/h87-express-overclocking-bug,news-44605.html

It turns out that you can drop a K-series CPU into the well-equipped $105 motherboard and overclock it using the processor’s ratio multipliers. The cost savingsicon1.png compared to Z87 is almost large enough to make up for the fact that Intel charges an extra $40 for its -4770K over the locked-up -4770.
. Save some pennies and get a H87 board?

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Hmm is single 12v rail the best?

Cosair CX Builder 600W PSU with single 12V rail is £55 (non-modular could be hard in the tiny case I've chosen)

Be Quiet Pure Power 630W Modular PSU has 2 12v rails and is £70.

Which would be better for K-series overclocking? I won't be buying this computer until September so I have to time to consider AMDs offerings. I can't believe the 7950 is still much better value than GTX 760 and possibly even GTX 770. Apparently the HIS HD 7950 can score 9291 graphics on 3dMark 11 with a stable overclock of 1100mhz on core, What a beast!

I also read that you can overclock with a H87 by ratio overclocking Bug In Intel H87 Chipset Allows Ratio-Based Overclocking

. Save some pennies and get a H87 board?

currently only the Fatal1ty H87 Performance (atx) has oc function i'd wait a bit to see an announcement which motherboards will get the bios updates though the 16 pcie 3.0 lanes from the cpu cant be shared/split (z87 exclusive) so not so suitable for multi-gpu applications.

i think the cx600 is cheaper because it is not modular and not 80 plus certified as for the the single/multi rail debacle i think it just boils down to how well the whole psu is built ;the multi rail feature from what i read is an additional safety feature that allows the psu to trip at a lower current and earlier compared to a single rail though if something went wrong inside the pc that would suddenly trip the rail should have been caught by the short circuit protection circuitry in a good quality psu anyways and In some rare applications though a single rail design may be favorable since it can distribute the power more evenly .

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Stick with the ivy i5. I have the same chip on a EVGA z77ftw mobo and i hit 4.8Ghz. I am under water so I get good temps. You could easily get 4.0-4.2 on a good air cooler.

If it were me I would go with this power supply. I have it in my FX-8350 build and it is SOLID.

OCZ ZT Series 650W Fully-Modular 80PLUS Bronze High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom - Newegg.com

You will also be happy with the 7950, I a 7970 and it runs anything i like. I will comment that in my experience NVIDIA cards have noticeably better image quality.

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Firstly this will be the first PC I've ever built and secondly this is on a pretty tight budget of under £850 ($1300 approximately) including a 24" monitor.

After reading this I'm probably going down the ivybridge route rather than haswell.

I'd just like some comments on the components I've chosen for this purely gaming mATX machine.

i5 3570K

Fractal Design Core 1000 mATX or Fractal Design Arc Mini v2 (when it's released).

Asus PZ77-M Motherboard

Be Quiet Pure Power 530W Modular PSU

Crucial 8GB 1866 Mhz RAM (2 sticks of 4GB)

Then either a Cosair Hydro H55 or similar single 120mm rad closed loop (NZXT, Cooler Master or Zalman)

Or Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 r2

Graphics card will either be a HIS HD 7950 ICEQ Boost due to nice overclocking and good cooler or GTX 680 if the price drops.

I would like to do a custom loop watercooler but can't afford one now. When I can afford it, the Arc Mini 2 this has room for 2x 240m rads in the front and top so I have the possibility to add watercooling later on.

Will greatly appreciate any comments on this build.

Thanks

Look at the GTX 770s instead of the 680 unless you can get a 680 for 50+ cheaper. There's little difference save for the faster GDDR5 on the 770 and the inclusion of Boost 2.0.

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Look at the GTX 770s instead of the 680 unless you can get a 680 for 50+ cheaper. There's little difference save for the faster GDDR5 on the 770 and the inclusion of Boost 2.0.

Thanks @mb001 but really any gtx 6XX or 7XX card doesn't offer the value of the 7950 which is a champion overclocker.

Not going to be able to buy this PC now until probably September due to having just had a holiday and funds being low so maybe AMD will release new cards by that stage.

Still not sure on the case, that fractal design mATX case I like because of how basic and simple it looks but its not the most practical or easy to work with and has basically no expansion space or additional airflow or radiator possibilities (except using the front 120mm intake).

Really hoping the Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 isn't too expensive as that looks like a winner.

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Seems like a decent build using last-gen parts. Prices might come down if you wait till mid-late August.

Think I'm going for Haswell i5 4670K now rather than old stuff. Probably won't build this till September but might wait till amd 9970 which is out in October.

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Yeh I'm thinking of getting the Cooler Master Hyper Evo v2 for now then maybe upgrading to the 240 cooler master eisberg which you can add a vga block too :)

Also starting to look at two HID HD 7950 IceQ Boost Clocks due to that only costing £450-500, cheaper than a GTX 780 and possibly more performance when updated CF drivers are released.

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