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First Build Help

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coleix

New Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2011
Location
venezuela
Hey guys, need some much appreciated help here, making my first build here and mostly i have just changed the hard drive, optical drive and memory on a computer before, so no technically skilled here so bear with me a little and i'm probably gonna need help building this thing. I'm under a $1500 budget right now, so i checked your guide for the 1000+ and 1500+ budget system and kinda went from there.

Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case $159.99
Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K $314.99
GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD5-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $259.99
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 $99.99
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible ... $89.99
SAPPHIRE 100312SR Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity $274.99

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $89.99
ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm 2 Ball Low-noise Blue LED CPU Cooler $64.99
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $124.99
LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50 - OEM $18.99

So with that plus shipping I'm over by like $25 or something, maybe i should take out the optical drive, does that build work? missing anything? i would like your opinion on the psu and the cpu fan cause i just got that in there from the reviews from newegg, maybe something cheaper but that still does a good job?, i got the ssd in there but maybe should take it out and buy a another 1tb one? what do you think of the gpu? i saw you guys recommended the hd 5870 but i thought this 2gb one was better and actually cheaper, probably I'm wrong. With this I'm broke so it would be a month or month and a half before i can buy the monitor (i want a 24 inch one) and keybord/mouse.
 
That setup looks good to me. I'd look to save money on the case - there are some pretty good options in the $100-110 range if you want to bring your price down.

We discussed some of the options in that lower price range in the comments on our Define R3 article, you may want to check that out.
 
The build looks great.
I have the same Sapphire video card and could not be happier with it. It is powerful, cool, quiet and you can even update the BIOS and unlock to a 6970 without much effort (Disclaimer: There is no guarantee that it will unlock, but chances are good).

I would look at changing is the case as IMOG has already mentioned. There are other options out there that will save you some money. I own the CM 690 II Advanced and find its styling to be much better than that of the Antec case. It is a Mid-Tower case, but it fits all my HW comfortably and it looks quite good doing it too.

And I would also recommend you look at a different cpu cooler; if you're planning on spending $65 on a cpu cooler might as well get a really good one... And the Zalman is not one of the good ones, not by a mile... I would go for one of these: Thermalright Venomous X RT in that price range....
 
Thanks for the replies guys, the fractal looks kinda plane for my taste, i suppose they were going for practicality on cooling and noise reduction but hey, i'm going to be seeing the thing everyday for at least a year and a half so i better like it right?. The Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 looks great but i just wanna make sure is not gonna be a tight squeeze inside the case, is there much of a difference between the 900 and the 902 v3?
Sebas, i read some feedback from the CM 690 II Advanced on newegg and it says some of them got units that when you connect to the front port the pc resets itself and that you need to buy a replacement part from cooler master, so i don't wanna risk it but i also kinda like the side window to see into the case which this one doesn't have. The Thermalright Venomous X RT doesn't say it supports the lga 1155, would it support the i7 2600k?

EDIT: I saw that the thermalright is out of stock, didn't realize earlier, but saw this COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle that is actually a little more cheap but looks massive, will it fit alright in this build?
 
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What are you using this computer for? If it's mostly for gaming, you get minimal gains from a CPU with HT, so you can drop to the 2500k (2600k w/o HT), and save quite a bit of money.

Going with the Gigabyte UD4 instead of the UD5 might save you a little.

If you want a budget cooler, the Hyper212+ is one of the best for price/performance. Also, if the cooler supports 1156, it will fit on 1155.
 
What are you using this computer for? If it's mostly for gaming, you get minimal gains from a CPU with HT, so you can drop to the 2500k (2600k w/o HT), and save quite a bit of money.

Going with the Gigabyte UD4 instead of the UD5 might save you a little.

If you want a budget cooler, the Hyper212+ is one of the best for price/performance. Also, if the cooler supports 1156, it will fit on 1155.

^^ This is great advice. Unless you want to obtain the ultimate overclock speeds available, the 2500K and the lower end motherboard will work nicely if the board still has the connections you need.
 
What are you using this computer for? If it's mostly for gaming, you get minimal gains from a CPU with HT, so you can drop to the 2500k (2600k w/o HT), and save quite a bit of money.

Going with the Gigabyte UD4 instead of the UD5 might save you a little.

If you want a budget cooler, the Hyper212+ is one of the best for price/performance. Also, if the cooler supports 1156, it will fit on 1155.

Well i suppose i should have said what it is for, i guess i forgot, I want it to be able to run games at a good frame rate with the settings decently hight, i suppose i would be doing some video converting to stream some hd movies to my ps3, web browsing and seeing videos online of course, using word for college work, nothing else from the top of my head but i guess is for everything that requires a computer, lol.

Besides my budget is $1500 so i don't really see the point of lowering to 2500k if the 2600k doesn't go over it, and like i said i'm gonna be using this one like for a year and a half before i make any major upgrades and i hope is going crossfire, so i wanna squeeze those $1500 as much as i can.

Edit: I forgot to say that i plan on OCing (with you guys help of course), i wanna keep it cool so maybe 4.2ghs, i dont wanna go for a too cheap cpu fan if im gonna take a hit in the noise/coolness ratio thing.
 
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Well, sometimes the money can be better spent on different parts of the computer. For example, if the majority of your use is gaming, the difference between the 2500k and 2600k would be minimal. However, spending that $100 on your graphic card would give you a much bigger performance boost.

Also, Sandy Bridge runs very cool. You'll probably hit over 4.2Ghz with acceptable temps with a Hyper212+. I'm running on Bloomfield, I wish I could say the same. <.<

But anyway's, this is what I would do. Combo's FTW. Just add a case of choice.
 

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