Approx $1700 i5 build-looking for clarity

[ecms171]

County: Australia
Use: Gaming, normal everyday Pc duties
Don't Need: Monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, OS
OC: Yes (learning, noob)
SLi : Yes
Notes: Will likely homebuild, want a decent SSD for boot, using 42'' LCD as monitor

i5 2500k ~$230
OCZ Vertex 2 80Gb ~$180
2x Gigabyte 560Ti (OC or SOC if room in budget) 2x ~($275- $330)
G Skills Ripjaws 2x4gb 1600 DDR3 ~$115
CM 690 with window ~$120
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 ~$90
Sony DVD Dual Layer Burner Black SATA 24x ~$45
Antec 750W TruePower ATX ~$130
Samsung 3.5" SATA2 1TB 7200RPM 32MB SPINPOINT ~$60

My last major issue is MB
Have looked at Gigabyte, Asus and ASRock
less than $260
wanting 2x PCIe @16 in dual ( is that even possible, and assuming this is the desired setup for optimal SLi)
Have had a freind strongly suggest Gigabyte under the pretense of being colder, Concerned about only 2 year warranty for ASRock.

Dont know what im looking at.

Any help/comments on the rest of my build?

Whats the formula for the ideal power supply for a system?

Thanks for your help

 

[attackllama]

Only dual GPU cards will truly be bottlenecked on an 8x PCI express slot. With a card like the 560, an 8x slot will only <5% slower than a 16x slot, if that. The only lga 1155 motherboards that support dual 16x are $300+

I would recommended a psu with at least 800 watts so you have room for OCing. 700w is the bare minimum for 560 SLI

Dont worry about the 2 year warranty as opposed to 3. If you have a faulty motherboard it will give out long beofre 2 years. ASRock has excellent value and lots of good reviews compared to other LGA 1155 brands.
this one looks perfect for you
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-157-231

Edit: bandwidth test link
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696.html

 

[ecms171]

Dont worry about the 2 year warranty as opposed to 3. If you have a faulty motherboard it will give out long beofre 2 years.

If that is the case, why not offer a three year warranty, as do all other major players? Based on your theory warranty claims would be minimal between the second and third years, costing next to nothing, and ASRock stand to gain a large amount of customer confidence meaning increased sales & profits.....

If i have asked this question im surely not the first or last consumer to do so.

The extreme series seems to offer great value for money in terms of benchmarks and features, however the durability and manufacturing quality is so hard to establish on such new products so your running on brand popularity alone for reputation, not actual data.


However, thank you for the clarification on the 8x/16x matter, it helps ease my confusion and narrow my choice down to a couple for each major brand.

Anyone here happy to represent Gigabyte, Asus or Msi in this debate?

 

[attackllama]

If that is the case, why not offer a three year warranty, as do all other major players? Based on your theory warranty claims would be minimal between the second and third years, costing next to nothing, and ASRock stand to gain a large amount of customer confidence meaning increased sales & profits.....

If i have asked this question im surely not the first or last consumer to do so.

The extreme series seems to offer great value for money in terms of benchmarks and features, however the durability and manufacturing quality is so hard to establish on such new products so your running on brand popularity alone for reputation, not actual data.

Good point. I'm guessing it is one of the reasons their motherboards are a bit cheaper than most other brands. And you are right, it will be hard to find real data on such aspects of newer products. I used my own experience with an ASRock board and the reviews from newegg.

 

[ecms171]

Noctua makes great functioning and extremely ugly coolers but for $90 USD you can get an h60 with a scythe gentle typhoon fan that will blow any noctua out of the water completely...ocz vertex 3 is $120 more but worth every penny, i'd rather have a CM Storm Scout than a CM 690 and MSI 560 Hawk will beat out any Gigabyte 560...spinpoints are great hard drives but again for $30 more you can get a 1TB wd caviar black 6.0Gb/s...granted you don't get all the bandwidth...yet

http://www.totalpowerpc.com/soulreaper.html

Scythe looks great, fan is very cheap and specs are tops, recommending any heatsink to go with that?

Scout looks okay, love the window on the 690 and the front looks good, any particular reason? or just personal preference?

I had originally picked the WD, but most people here seem to be repping the spinpoints, also, slightly reduced performance at 30$ saving when i expect the SSD to do most of the reading and writing.

I'm now unsure about SSD, because if i drop it it brings my price down by a lot, however, i have had multiple friends give rave reviews for their new SSD boot drives. The Vertex 3 is too many $$ for me. I would rather get the SOC 560's instead. I'm still tempted to drop a class down to the 60Gb choices to save a fair bit, leaves me enough mem for boot and most major apps, maybe even a game if im lucky.




AttackLama, How is your ASRock treating you?

 

[ecms171]

Thanks for the link skullcrusher, but i would rather build myself, i have a few experienced friends, then i can put the saved dollars towards SLi and an SSD maybe

 

[attackllama]

I have the Extreme3 870 (amd board) and it has given me no problems whatsoever. You can probably do more research on different motherboards yourself, like looking for known issues/problems in forums and such (Ex. the asus P8p67 series has issues with sleep mode). Just make sure you feel confident about whichever one you end up choosing.

 

[mdd1963]

Twin 6950's cost about the same, but usually outperform SLI'd 560s at higher resolutions/AA-AF settings.....

 

[ecms171]

2500k $219.00
ASRock Extreme4 $174.90
CM 692 window $122.41
Spinpoint 1TB $57.75
ocz 60gb Vertex 2 $138.90
lg dvd burner $35.42
Gig GTX560 900MHz $269.00
G Skill 8Gb 1600 $115.35
CM 850W PSU $159.00
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 $85.54

Final cost ~$1700

I think its going to run pretty well, as long as i dont screw up. A lot of people are repping the ASRocks and are pretty happy with them, and its all about value for money.

 

[ecms171]

Best answer selected by ecms171.

 

[ecms171]

Swapping to XFire HIS 6950 2Gb