SOLVED New Intel Build

[Dizzy Strife]

New Intel Build - UPDATE

Hey, welcome to OCF!

When trying to recommend a build to you, there's some information that's extremely helpful for us to know. If you could answer these few short questions, we'd be happy to help!

• What are you planning to do with this compuer? Please be as specfic as possible.

• What is your budget?
  
  1. Does this include a copy of Windows?
  2. Does this include peripheals (a keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers, etc.)?
• Are you from the United States or a different country? Are you ordering from your own country or from across borders?
  
  1. Wherever you may be from, does the store that you are planning to order from have a website? It's okay if it isn't in English, we can manage.
  2. If you are from the United States, do you live nearby a Microcenter?

• Do you have any specific requests with the build?
  
  1. Do you plan on overclocking? If yes, do you have a specific goal in mind?
  2. Would you prefer the build to be particularly small?
  3. Would you prefer the build to be particularly quiet?
  4. In general, do you prefer this to be a computer that you can spend money on now and let it rest, or a box built for continuous upgrading?
  5. Do you ever plan on utilizing NVIDIA's SLI or AMD's CrossfireX technologies? These features, with a compatible motherboard, allow a user to link multiple identical graphic cards together for added performance. In real world terms, this lets you buy a second identical graphics card down the line as a relatively cheap and easy way to gain a fairly large boost in performance. However, this requires buying a SLI/CFX compatible motherboard and PSU now, which may result in slightly higher initial cost.

Once again, thank you in advance for taking the time to answer these, and I hope you enjoy your stay at OCF!

1. I plan on gaming, recording game play, rendering videos for YouTube, picture editing in photoshop, occasional streaming of games on Twitch.tv, watching movies online, and just general surfing of the web and e-mail. I am also in school working on my bachelor's in software engineering, not sure if that will impact this at all, but thought I would mention it. But basically, this will be a gaming rig.

Games I generally play. D1, D2 and D3, WoW (on occasion) CoD Black Ops, Minecraft, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Batman Arkham Asylum, Fallout 3, League of Legends (still learning that one), EVE Online (occasionally), Starcraft 2 and a few other games off and on that are generally older games. I do in the future want to play Hawken and MechWarrior Online and possibly Battlefield 3 since I didn't like it much on the xbox 360 as well as other newer games.

2. Budget is $1000. Max would be $1300, but that will mean less Christmas money, which is something I want to avoid if possible.

3. I will be buying a retail copy of Windows 7 Home Premium as I have heard that OEM copies cause problems if you change hardware.

4. I already have two monitors, 1 24" and 1 19", I also have a KB, mouse and speakers.

5. I am from the US ordering from Newegg. I do not live ner a microcenter.

6. No specific requests other than it will perform great for what I specified above.

7. No plans for OC'ing immediately. Maybe after I learn how to safely do it, but nothing extreme. Maybe up to 4.0 to 4.2ghz

8. No it does not need to be small

9. No it does not need to be quiet, but I also don't want a jetplane. Lol.

10. I want it to be good for quite some time with maybe an upgrade of RAM, video card and maybe CPU in the future.

11. For now, I do not plan on using Xfire or SLI. Maybe in the future when I can afford it.

Now that I have Knufire's required questions out of the way, on to the meat and potatoes.

Parts I already have:

Case: CM 690 II Advanced
PSU: Corsair HX850W Modular with an 80 Plus Silver rating
GPU: ASUS Radeon HD7750 1gb 820Mhz OC. This is what I am using currently in my HP PC that I have now and it is running my 24" Samsung at 1920x1080 through HDMI and my 19" Samsung at 1440x900 through DVI Just fine. I figure this will last me until I get the money to upgrade to an even better GPU. I've only had it maybe 6 months.
Case Fans: I have plenty of these for all possible fan slots.

Now the part I plan on getting to finish it off.

MB: ASRock Z77 Extreme4
CPU: i5-3570K
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 3Tb 7200 RPM
Ram: This will depend. If the sale is still going on, then I will be using the free GeIL EVO Veloce 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 Mhz memory kit that comes with the MB. IF not, then I plan on getting Corsair Vengeance 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 Mhz memory kit.
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium OEM
Optical Drive: Some cheap LG DVD Sata burner.
Media Card Reader: AFT PRO-55U All-in-one USB 2.0 Card Reader - If you know of a cheaper one, please suggest it. I just went with top rated internal on newegg.
CPU Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper 612

Ok so I think that is everything. It will be about 2-3 weeks before I order the parts, so yes things could change, but I wanted to make sure I was well prepared. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[ninjacore]

If you aren't going to OC much, I don't see the need in going with the liquid-based CPU cooler. I would shoot for a Thermalright Spirit 140 or 120 ($40 or $30).

You could use the money from that price difference to grab an SSD. Even if you don't do the different cooler, I would highly recommend finding room somewhere in the budget for an SSD. Grab a Crucial M4 128GB or something similar. Doesn't have to be huge capacity. Just enough for OS. You will see a drastic improvement from an SSD.

That power supply is probably overkill in terms of wattage. You can spend ~$70 and get a 650-750w Corsair or Antec.

Otherwise, you're on the right track

 

[Dizzy Strife]

If you aren't going to OC much, I don't see the need in going with the liquid-based CPU cooler. I would shoot for a Thermalright Spirit 140 or 120 ($40 or $30).

You could use the money from that price difference to grab an SSD. Even if you don't do the different cooler, I would highly recommend finding room somewhere in the budget for an SSD. Grab a Crucial M4 128GB or something similar. Doesn't have to be huge capacity. Just enough for OS. You will see a drastic improvement from an SSD.

That power supply is probably overkill in terms of wattage. You can spend ~$70 and get a 650-750w Corsair or Antec.

Otherwise, you're on the right track

I already have the power supply. I bought it a year ago or so. I got it at an amazing deal. The liquid CPU cooler is only $80, so I doubt I could find an SSD for $40. I realize it might be overkill if I am not OC'ing much, but I wanted to try out WC'ing without going extreme. Lol

I didn't want to spend the extra money on an SSD just because I didn't see it being worth it just for a little extra speed. I play so many different games at different times, that I wouldn't know what to load on the SSD other than the OS. Is putting just the OS on an SSD that much faster that I would really feel like it was worth the extra money?

 

[PolePosition]

By all means, having an SSD for a boot drive is the single most performance upgrade one can do these days and has become mainstream since the cost of them has come down. You can expect to shave 4 seconds minimum off your boot time compared to 10,000rpm mechanical HDDs plus other applications snap to your desktop. SSDs are also more reliable since there are no moving parts, which also cuts down on friction and heat.

Perhaps you could cut down on the 3TB HDD and get a cheaper one with less space and allocate the money to a 120GB SSD. Get only what you really need at present in drive space and add more drives later as your needs increase as well as your money.

 

[Knufire]

I don't use my SSD for games at all, just OS, Office, and Chrome, and it was very well worth it.

You'll also be fine with the OEM version of Windows, technically it's tied to the motherboard of the machine you install it on. Even with that, if you call MS and say you replaced the motherboard, more often than not they'll reactivate the key for you.

Some combo deals to save you a bit of cash:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1032600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1077637

 

[Dizzy Strife]

OK well considering I am dropping almost $100 dollars off of the Windows 7 purchase because I have decided to go with an OEM copy thanks to Knufire, can you guys recommend a good SSD for around $100 that will be big enough for the OS, office 2007, Browsers and Adobe CS4?

EDIT: And to add the extra money those combos that Knufire posted saved me.

 

[PolePosition]

I use this one.

EDIT: Be sure to read the descriptions and specs on that page. While the Intel SSD does have slower writes, the reads are just as fast (which is what counts) plus with Intel, you have years of proven reliability and the ultimate compatibility unlike the others which have been known to fail in recent months. You also can download software which in the future allows you to clone the operating system to another drive without having to start over from scratch or reinstall the operating system.

 

[ninjacore]

By all means, having an SSD for a boot drive is the single most performance upgrade one can do these days and has become mainstream since the cost of them has come down. You can expect to shave 4 seconds minimum off your boot time compared to 10,000rpm mechanical HDDs plus other applications snap to your desktop. SSDs are also more reliable since there are no moving parts, which also cuts down on friction and heat.

Perhaps you could cut down on the 3TB HDD and get a cheaper one with less space and allocate the money to a 120GB SSD. Get only what you really need at present in drive space and add more drives later as your needs increase as well as your money.

+1

I have a 128GB M4 and have enough room for Windows 7 Pro, Office, BF3, and about 50GB left over. I have seen M4's for as cheap as $80, so I would definitely try and make room.

edit: tigerdirect.com sometimes has some prices which compete with or beat newegg, so it's probably worth your time to check them out as well for some of the parts.

 

[EarthDog]

OK well considering I am dropping almost $100 dollars off of the Windows 7 purchase because I have decided to go with an OEM copy thanks to Knufire, can you guys recommend a good SSD for around $100 that will be big enough for the OS, office 2007, Browsers and Adobe CS4?

EDIT: And to add the extra money those combos that Knufire posted saved me.

OCZ Vertex 4 ($100)
Samsung 830 ($110)
Crucial M4 ($99)

NOTES: With the Intel 330 drives they are slower in IOPS by far than the other drives listed. The crucial has slower writes but still exponentially faster than a traditional HDD.

My preference would be the Sammy or Vertex 4.

 

[Dizzy Strife]

Thanks for all the advice guys. So I think I'm set. As it sits right now, with the changes I've made and the additions and even without the combo deals Knufire posted and having to buy memory, I'm at $909.53 with next day shipping. Granted that could go up or down depending on deals that come or go in the next 2 or 3 weeks before I get my money. Even if I add in the discounts that are currently available, it only adds on about 100 dollars. So either way, discounts gone or not, free memory gone or not, I will still be right around my budget. Which is about $200 less than I had originally planned. Of course, if those deals are still around when my money hits my bank account, I will be able to add in a new KB now instead of later. Still waiting for some good advice on that in my keyboard thread. Lol

You guys are awesome!

 

[Metlcub]

Id go
I7 ivy bridge
Hyper 212 evo
ASRock z77 extreem 4
16gig DDR3-1600 or 2100
GTX 660ti -MSI and Asus have great cooling versions
120 SSD for OS, programs
1or 2tb HDD
DVD rw combo drive
Mid tower HAF 912
Full tower HAF 932 both cases a great cases
Corsair AX,HX,TX 750w would be plenty
Win 7

That would run ya right around 1k, maybe slightly less.

 

[Dizzy Strife]

Id go
I7 ivy bridge
Hyper 212 evo
ASRock z77 extreem 4
16gig DDR3-1600 or 2100
GTX 660ti -MSI and Asus have great cooling versions
120 SSD for OS, programs
1or 2tb HDD
DVD rw combo drive
Mid tower HAF 912
Full tower HAF 932 both cases a great cases
Corsair AX,HX,TX 750w would be plenty
Win 7

That would run ya right around 1k, maybe slightly less.

Thanks for your input, but I think I have narrowed down what I am going to get. Also, as I said in my original post, I already have my case, power supply and video card. Do appreciate the input though.

 

[Conumdrum]

Solve it then close it out.

 

[Dizzy Strife]

Solve it then close it out.

Oh ok. Will do. Sorry, I'm new around here.

 

[Conumdrum]

No worries, helps to keep threads from becoming ...old with silly non useful posts since your done for now. Saves no-informed posters from , umm posting useless info..

 

[Dizzy Strife]

No worries, helps to keep threads from becoming ...old with silly non useful posts since your done for now. Saves no-informed posters from , umm posting useless info..

Makes sense.

 

[Dizzy Strife]

My parts should be here tomorrow. =D

 

[Horrerblade]

Make sure to take lost of pictures.

 

[Dizzy Strife]

Make sure to take lost of pictures.

Oh I will. I will most likely start a new thread in here when I am ready to upload them. Dies this site have direct picture uploads, or do I need to host them somewhere?

 

[Horrerblade]

Yes and there is a picture out there on how to do it so some one will post that on here and it shows you how