Builing my second gaming computer.

greg014

Honorable
Apr 7, 2012
15
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10,510
Hello, i am giving you guys these specs so you can hopfully help me on building my comp.

Case: Cooler Master HAF ATX Mid Tower Case(Black) has 200MM fan on top, seen some infront of the tower, and ill put in 4-7 more fans throughout the tower.

Fan controller: NZXT SENTRY 2 Accessories 5.25-Inch Touch Screen Fan Controller (Black), bought before reading reviews and bought 4 fans that don't work with it. so it will at least gauge the temp of the comp, hopefully.

Power Supply: Corsair CX600 i think 600W will be enough for OC and the G card ill be using.

Mother Board: ASUS P8P67-M PRO read a lot of reviews and was one of the best for overclocking and for the price.

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Processor, that i will OC to 4.2-4.5ghz.

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler, read reviews and the best for price and dimensions.

Ram: Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB DDR3, imo the best on the market for gaming that i've seen and read about on websites. any opinions on better ram?

Hard Drive: 2x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB, imo the best out there for their price. ofc 7200 rpm and sata III.

Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card, comes with lifetime warranty and SLI enabled so down the road i might SLI and get a bigger power supply.

I already have a monitor, keyboard and a razer mouse and pad that i will use.
I would defiantly like to read your reply's.
 

That CX600 psu is manufactured by CWT for Corsair and is not one to be recommended.

You can do cheaper on the motherboard that's set up for a single card, and forget about RAID 0. Get one decent hard drive and save some money up for an SSD. SSD's have been dropping in price on a weekly basis now.

16GB of RAM for a gaming build? Never. This is a gaming build, not a work station.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546 $44.99 FREE SHIPPING
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-8GAB

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM003/dp/B005T3GRNW/ref=sr_1_9?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1333216718&sr=1-9 $109.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST1000DM003

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Series-80PLUS-Performance-compatible/dp/B005A2RJJ8/ref=sr_1_12?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1333856810&sr=1-12 $69.99
OCZ ZS Series 550W 80PLUS Bronze High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157279 $104.99 FREE SHIPPING
ASRock Z68 PRO3 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Save up some money and later on pick up an SSD ... something like this down below

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236 $124.99 FREE SHIPPING
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Enforcer-Interior-SGC-1000-KWN1/dp/B004WK3KKQ/ref=sr_1_16?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1333857104&sr=1-16 $87.12 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping
Cooler Master Storm Enforcer USB 3.0 Mid Tower ATX Case with Window and Black Interior (SGC-1000-KWN1)
 
Some points:

1) 16GB is overkill for gaming. Get 8GB. More than that just adds heat with ZERO benefit. More than 8GB only benefits certain video editing applications.

2) RAM type won't affect gaming with your current setup. Anything you get won't cause a bottleneck so as long as it works it'll be identical to other RAM.

3) Game load times aren't much different with RAID0 vs single drive. There are other factors. RAID0 is also not as reliable. I advise to use a single drive and create backup images. FYI, my STEAM game folder is on a 2TB green drive and I use a 120GB SSD for Windows.

4) 560Ti superclocked. Fine unless it's much more expensive than other 560Ti's then the value might not be there. 560Ti is a good value, medium/high card.

5) CPU overclocking won't make much difference in gaming. Will for video editing using CPU. I advise to OC to about 3.5GHz as more than 4GHz significantly increases heat, possibly creates instabilities and again adds little to no benefit for gaming with that graphics card (would matter for a GTX680).

6) FANS.
You only need TWO, low noise fans (about 16dB) for a gaming case. One bottom-front and one top-rear.

I recommend the ANTEC ONE which has two fans installed, cable hiding system, front USB3 and is pretty cheap.
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA0OTIzJjI=

So just get the case and forget about adding fans and a fan controller.

7) Power Supply
It's probably fine.

8) Windows. Make sure it's 64-bit, i.e. Windows 7 Premium 64-bit OEM ($100)
 
Other:
- the motherboard you chose is uATX so it's basically shorter and will have less slots for cards. You may wish to get a similar ATX board

The other guy had good recommends. I like this board better which is nearly identical to his choice:
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=63945&vpn=Z68%20Extreme3%20Gen3&manufacture=ASRock

Without knowing your budget, my recommends are basically the above board plus:

- Antec 100 case
- Windows 7 64bit Premium OEM
- G.Skill 2x4GB
- GTX560Ti
- 750W XFX http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=59617&vpn=P1750SNLB9&manufacture=XFX (or similar)
- i5-2500k

I would not use the HSF cooler you chose to go above 3.5GHz as it's not likely good enough.
 


It also depends on the ambient room temperature, but I'm going by this review:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1630&pageID=7264

Quote is:
"Once I cranked up the CPU to 3.4 GHz, the Hyper 212+ CPU cooler hit my limitation of 60°C pretty fast."

I'll admit that I couldn't find a review with the same CPU he has.

It's a good cooler, and as long as he knows the maximum recommended temperature for his CPU and stays at least a few degrees below that he should be fine.

*While I don't recommend it and don't see the point with this graphics card, there's likely some good information here for overclocking:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/07/how-to-overclock-the-intel-core-i5-2500k/1
 

greg014

Honorable
Apr 7, 2012
15
0
10,510
ok i already bought the 16gb of ram so should i just use 2 sticks now and then sell them to a friend? I havent got the harddrive yet so ill go with 1 500gb or a 1TB HD and then save on a SSD(i heard that SSDs have a lifespan?) and i have to stick to the mother board because i love ASUS products and a couple of my friends have the same on and told me it was easy to OC with the bios.
 

greg014

Honorable
Apr 7, 2012
15
0
10,510
i got the coolmaster HAF ATX because it allows more air flow than the one you stated and dont really care about the inside being painted because i could just paint it my self really easy.
 

The HAF X is a great case, but it's like a school bus for a single gtx 560ti. Those cards aren't that big and that case is humongous.
 

greg014

Honorable
Apr 7, 2012
15
0
10,510
yep the HAF series are great on their concave side panels for wire management, and space, and plenty of fan spots, and the looks are fine. Just no paint on the inside metal, so thats probably why no one likes them that much.