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Building New Machine, Few Questions...Follow

#1 Apr 02 2013 at 10:26 AM Rating: Good
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Hey all, another "user" here seeking advice/suggestions from people who know more than I do about building a new system I've been slowly piecing together over the last year. I'm at the home stretch now, most everything listed below is already sitting in my basement. Now I need to know what I might be missing or would be advised to add to what I already have before I start putting it together. I think I'm going to be on my own doing it, which scares me to death. The last time I did this I was 18 years old and we were still in the 1900's, lol.

2 things I am very "iffy" on right now are my SSD and whether I need to buy extra fans or cooling devices. I am planning on buying an extra hard drive soon because the one I have is so small - wasn't sure if I should go for a disc drive or another SSD? Are SSD reliable... or better yet, is the one I have reliable enough to use as my main drive?

Anyways, please check out my stuff if you have some time to kill and I'll appreciate any/all feedback I get! =)


ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Galaxy 67NPH6DV5ZVX GeForce GTX 670 GC 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCIe (70SB135000000) 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card


LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support

COUGAR Evolution Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case with Dual 12cm COUGAR TURBINE HYPER-SPIN Bearing Silent Fans, USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 2

OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMD16GX3M4A1866C9

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650M 650W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Semi Modular High Performance Power Supply


EDIT: I would also appreciate any tips on what precautions to take when building it. All my floors are hardwood, so static shouldn't be too much of an issue - I know to ground myself by touching something metal first too (right?). Also could use any suggestions on what order I should put things in.


Edited, Apr 2nd 2013 12:51pm by scorleone

Edited, Sep 23rd 2013 10:00pm by Kaolian Lock Thread: spammer keeps bumping it.
#2 Apr 02 2013 at 10:54 AM Rating: Excellent
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Are you buying a sound card because you really want it (hook up to a professional speaker set-up) or because you think you'll need it? Onboard sound has come a long way in the last 18 years and you likely won't need it unless you have special audio plans.

Conventional wisdom is that an i7 isn't a significant enough upgrade form an i5 for gaming purposes to justify the cost. Unless you're planning on CPU intensive tasks such as high def video editing, you could probably step down to an i5.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2013 11:56am by Jophiel
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#3 Apr 02 2013 at 10:59 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Are you buying a sound card because you really want it (hook up to a professional speaker set-up) or because you think you'll need it? Onboard sound has come a long way in the last 18 years and you likely won't need it unless you have special audio plans.

Conventional wisdom is that an i7 isn't a significant enough upgrade form an i5 for gaming purposes to justify the cost. Unless you're planning on CPU intensive tasks such as high def video editing, you could probably step down to an i5.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2013 11:56am by Jophiel


I just figured I needed it (the sound card). I will be using my TV as my monitor/speakers (not sure if that matters) and plan to add a bluray drive eventually. I'll be using this machine for gaming, movies and some video editing (not professional, but I spend a lot of time making videos from the games I play.)

Knowing that, would you still suggest sending it back maybe?

And the only reason I bought the i7 was because its on sale right now @microcenter for $230. I figured why not since the i5 was only about $20 cheaper. ^^

In case anyone is interested in that deal - Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz LGA 1155 Processor (store pickup only)

Edited, Apr 2nd 2013 1:36pm by scorleone
#4 Apr 02 2013 at 11:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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I'd rather have the $70 than the sound card but that's just me. Sounds like you already bought it and I don't know what their return policy is but $70 is enough to leave on the table (to me) that I'd find out.

If the i7 was a good price there's no reason to worry about it and you certainly won't HURT for owning it. I have an i7 in my system (old Lynnfield model though, i7-890) and it does what I need it to do.
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#5 Apr 02 2013 at 11:11 AM Rating: Good
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What do you think about my hard drive? I don't know anything about SSD really, I just keep hearing they are a lot faster and found that one on sale for about $80 so I pulled the trigger for it. I was planning on using it as my main drive and buying either a larger disc drive or an external one for all my junk.

Good plan?
#6 Apr 02 2013 at 6:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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Avoid anything OCZ like the plague. Their stuff is crap, it will fail, you will lose all your data. That being said, it will probably be nice and fast for you right up until it does fail. Which it will. Soon.

Look for a good price on a Samsung 840 series drive if you want the fastest SSD out there. Otherwise, A crucial, Corsair, Intel, Kensington, or really any other company other than OCZ SSD will work. SSD's are reliable unless made by OCZ, but you would also want to stick in a pair of data drives in a raid 1 mirror array (all data exists on both hard drives) for data storage and backup. You should be able to get a pair of 500 GB drives for under $110. 130Gb is also really tiny to run an OS off of if you install alot of games. Windows 7 averages 30-70 GB, another 10-12 GB per game, call it 5 Gb for the user profile, etc. eats up space quickly. take a look at your existing computer and see how close you are to 120 GB. If you are still on XP, add 30GB to be safe to the final size. Thats what you can expect to have for an operating partition size.

I like Asus boards in general. the sabertooth socket 1155 board does have a known overheating issue though. if you get one, you'll want to remove that motherboard cover from it. Aside from that nice board though. The sound on the board is 7.1 surround, which is technically better than the sound card you specced out. I'd either opt for a higher end soundblaster card, or go with onboard sound personally. For a dedicated gaming rig, The cheaper Asus Maximus V Gene http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830 would be a better choice unless you need the extra PCI express slots.

Good case, essentially the same layout as the Cooler Master CM690 II.

If you are willing to spend $320 on an I7 processor, you should probably consider moving to a Socket 2011 processor and board instead of a socket 1155. The 2011 processors are on average 30% faster, and have double the ram slots. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=100006676&isNodeId=1&Description=2011
For example, the i7-3820 would be $20 cheaper and faster than the 3770k you have specced out. The hexacore versions start at $560, but if you are eliminating the sound card anyways... The downside to the socket 2011 is that you have to provide a heat sync of some sort. They don't come with one, so thats at least $20-$80 depending on make. (you want this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181030) Motherboard costs would be about the same. If you're up in the upper end range already anyways, it makes sense to me to go for the extra performance and cores. Unless you already bought the other one for a really good deal in which case nevermind but I'm still not going to erase this part because its already typed damn it.

Ram and PSU still works either way. i'd reccommend going with a larger PSU just because your system would be ideal for adding a second video card in SLI later on down the line to get a performance boost, but you would need around an 850 watt for that. The PSU you have specified will be fine for the single card. Video Card is a kind of no name manufacturer, but the card itself should be solid.

Jophiel wrote:
Conventional wisdom is that an i7 isn't a significant enough upgrade form an i5 for gaming purposes to justify the cost. Unless you're planning on CPU intensive tasks such as high def video editing, you could probably step down to an i5.
I disagree. It really depends on the game you are running and where your limiting factors in the system are. For this particular build with that video card, the processor would be the slow component as an I5. Flight sims are very CPU intensive for example, as are certain other genres. Certanly video card is more important, but when you are already at a 670, CPU becomes very important.
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#7 Apr 10 2013 at 10:26 AM Rating: Good
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Thanks so much for your input. ^^

I purchased one of the Samsung 840 SSD's the other day and now it seems I am pretty much ready to build as soon as it shows up.

One final question for you though! I will have 6 fans total running with that case...do you think they will be enough for me not to worry about buying a cpu cooler? I am pretty much out of money I can blow on this thing, lol. If you think the cooler is a must have I will go out and get one though...

EDIT: I don't know how to overclock things, so I doubt I will be messing with that if it makes a difference. I don't feel safe doing so since I really don't know what I'm doing...

Edited, Apr 10th 2013 12:31pm by scorleone
#8 Apr 10 2013 at 11:45 AM Rating: Good
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if you dont overclock you wont need one. Assuming of course you bought a CPU that comes with one.

Edited, Apr 10th 2013 10:47am by KTurner
#9 Apr 10 2013 at 11:49 AM Rating: Excellent
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The CPU will come with a stock fan unless its a socket 2011 CPU. the stock fan will be fine. If its a socket 2011 CPU, you will need some sort of CPU cooler otherwise it will not boot. But otherwise the stock one will be fine regardless of what you got.

Never attempt to power on a computer without at least some sort of CPU fan on it.
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#11 May 18 2013 at 3:56 PM Rating: Good
Solid State for housing programs that require continuous access, such as the OS, games, editing software is a great choice. I still house all my movies and music on a network attached drive (you could install a standard hdd for this) since those files are not really affected by drive speed. As far as sound is concerned I think the speaker choice has a bigger impact than anything. I run nvidia audio via hdmi out to a home stereo. Sounds amazing.
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