- Aug 27, 2011
- 20
- 0
- 18,510
Approximate Purchase Date: As soon as possible.
Budget Range: X-~1200, no rebates
System Usage: mostly gaming, then everything else; but not necessarily AAA gaming in e.g. 2013 on the highest settings
Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com for comparisons, but I won't be able to buy from there
Country of Origin: Germany. I will also buy my hardware from there.
Parts Preferences: None.
Overclocking: I'm interested in it, but if it costs me a lot more, I won't do it.
SLI or Crossfire: No.
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050, 1920x1080 (at the latter resolution, I will also need a new monitor)
Additional Comments: If possible, I'd like a rather quiet PC. But I won't sacrifice much for this goal.
My finalized build can be found here. All items in boldface are my current (!) final choices.
That means:
■Case: Fractal Design Define R3
■PSU: Corsair Professional Series HX650 650W (modular; I remembered I hated the mess of cables in my last (and current) build so much that getting rid of it would be worth much more than the ~40 dollars price difference of this PSU to the Corsair TX560)
■CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K
■Cooler: Scythe SCMG-3000, i.e. Scythe Mugen 3
■Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3
■Graphics Card: MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC
■RAM: Corsair XMS3 DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)
■SSD: Crucial CT128M4SSD2 128GB
■Optical Drive: I haven't ordered yet, so I'll just order any random ~20 $ DVD burner from someplace cheap.
Questions:
■Do I need extra thermal paste in addition to the extra CPU cooler? Or is the thermal paste bundled with those usually good enough?
■Will the CPU cooler fit into the case? Apparently, its height is 158 mm high, versus ~160 supported by the case, so it should fit?
■My case doesn't seem to have 2.5'' drive bays. So what will I need to fit my SSD inside?
And in general:
■Does my build work? Any major shortcomings/inefficiencies?
■Is there anything I could downgrade without sacrificing a lot of performance?
■Are there any better modular PSUs, Z68 motherboards and silent CPU coolers at that price point?
■I've heard from several places that the Radeon 6950 HD is better in performance/cost than the GTX 560 Ti. But this article on bit-tech really liked the graphics card I picked. So who is wrong, and why?
■My chosen case apparently doesn't really like graphics cards that exhaust air into the case rather than out of the back of it. Is that enough to warrant choosing another card?
■Any other comments?
(I already wrote an earlier thread when I was still somewhat unsure about the scope of my build. It can be found here.)
Budget Range: X-~1200, no rebates
System Usage: mostly gaming, then everything else; but not necessarily AAA gaming in e.g. 2013 on the highest settings
Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com for comparisons, but I won't be able to buy from there
Country of Origin: Germany. I will also buy my hardware from there.
Parts Preferences: None.
Overclocking: I'm interested in it, but if it costs me a lot more, I won't do it.
SLI or Crossfire: No.
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050, 1920x1080 (at the latter resolution, I will also need a new monitor)
Additional Comments: If possible, I'd like a rather quiet PC. But I won't sacrifice much for this goal.
My finalized build can be found here. All items in boldface are my current (!) final choices.
That means:
■Case: Fractal Design Define R3
■PSU: Corsair Professional Series HX650 650W (modular; I remembered I hated the mess of cables in my last (and current) build so much that getting rid of it would be worth much more than the ~40 dollars price difference of this PSU to the Corsair TX560)
■CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K
■Cooler: Scythe SCMG-3000, i.e. Scythe Mugen 3
■Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3
■Graphics Card: MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC
■RAM: Corsair XMS3 DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)
■SSD: Crucial CT128M4SSD2 128GB
■Optical Drive: I haven't ordered yet, so I'll just order any random ~20 $ DVD burner from someplace cheap.
Questions:
■Do I need extra thermal paste in addition to the extra CPU cooler? Or is the thermal paste bundled with those usually good enough?
■Will the CPU cooler fit into the case? Apparently, its height is 158 mm high, versus ~160 supported by the case, so it should fit?
■My case doesn't seem to have 2.5'' drive bays. So what will I need to fit my SSD inside?
And in general:
■Does my build work? Any major shortcomings/inefficiencies?
■Is there anything I could downgrade without sacrificing a lot of performance?
■Are there any better modular PSUs, Z68 motherboards and silent CPU coolers at that price point?
■I've heard from several places that the Radeon 6950 HD is better in performance/cost than the GTX 560 Ti. But this article on bit-tech really liked the graphics card I picked. So who is wrong, and why?
■My chosen case apparently doesn't really like graphics cards that exhaust air into the case rather than out of the back of it. Is that enough to warrant choosing another card?
■Any other comments?
(I already wrote an earlier thread when I was still somewhat unsure about the scope of my build. It can be found here.)
. If possible, I'd like to finish this build and use it for the next three years without any huge hickups, preferably only opening the case to get rid of dust^^.
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