Need Recommendation for PC

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Hi guys,
this is my first time here and i read about asking for a build recommendations in the stickies, so here goes.


Approximate Purchase Date: Next 15 Days

Budget Range: INR 1,20,000 (2150 USD)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Multipurpose/Gaming

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers,

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: NA [Local Vendor(s)]

Country: India

Parts Preferences: None [CPU and Graphics Card are not changeable]

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 [will upgrade monitor later on]

Additional Comments: First time assembling so i need clarity on compatibility and PSU (most impt). Need just a boot SSD, have a 500 gb HDD lying around. Tried calculating the power at eXtreme power calculator, comes out betwen 650-750 W (they dont have GTX 670 listed so i tried with GTX 680).


Component Name
Motherboard Asus Sabertooth x79
Processor i7 3930K 3.2 Ghz
GPU Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 2GB OC [980/1502 MHz]
RAM G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 16 GB PC RAM (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL)
HDD OCZ Agility 3 60 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G)
Optical DVD RW
Cabinet Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011011-WW)/Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid-Tower Cabinet

Fan/Heat Sink Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CWCH80)/H100??
PSU Corsair CMPSU-850TXV2UK PSU/Corsair HX1000/Corsair AX850/Seasonic X Series - 80 Plus Gold SS-850KM 850 Watts/Something else??
 
Solution
I'll tell you what, if you are the type of person who really likes to load their system down and multitask, you will be extremely happy with that i7-3930K! I just got mine yesterday, have been playing with it for the past several hours, and I am absolutely blown away by its speed, by the quad-channel memory bandwidth, and by how much more efficient it is than my previous CPU (a Core 2 Quad Q6600).

I chose the Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard rather than the Sabertooth. I think my main reason was because my wireless-n card was PCI, and most of the X79 board don't have PCI slots, and I really wanted to be able to utilize all of the random bluetooth devices that I have been collecting because of my Android and iOS tablets/ipods/etc with my...

l0v3rboi

Honorable
Mar 30, 2012
723
0
11,160
You don't need an LGA 2011 cpu+mobo combo for your stated needs. Stick with LGA 1155.
i5 3570k + Asrock z77 pro 4 or Gigabyte z77 - D3h

For your GPU, I would choose the Asus DC II or EVGA FTW models.

You don't need 16 Gb of RAM for your purposes. 8 Gb of DDR3 1600 CL9 1.5 V RAM will be more than enough for your purposes.

For SSD, I would choose either Mushkin Chronos 60 Gb or Crucial m4 64 Gb.

For this setup, you only need a 550W PSU since you did not indicate wanting to SLI. I would suggest the xfx core edition 550W.
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
ok, can you suggest a rig within that budget, bare in mind the processor your suggesting isnt available. for reference you can see flipkart.com/theitdepot.com.

A rig you would build for yourself if you have that much money, to make it stand up to system requirements for at least a year?
 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640
I'll tell you what, if you are the type of person who really likes to load their system down and multitask, you will be extremely happy with that i7-3930K! I just got mine yesterday, have been playing with it for the past several hours, and I am absolutely blown away by its speed, by the quad-channel memory bandwidth, and by how much more efficient it is than my previous CPU (a Core 2 Quad Q6600).

I chose the Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard rather than the Sabertooth. I think my main reason was because my wireless-n card was PCI, and most of the X79 board don't have PCI slots, and I really wanted to be able to utilize all of the random bluetooth devices that I have been collecting because of my Android and iOS tablets/ipods/etc with my PC. It seems that the two boards are relatively similar. I am extremely happy with the P9X79 Deluxe, though, so having not tried the Sabertooth board out, I would recommend the P9X79 Deluxe first.

Others here recommended the Corsair H100 Liquid CPU cooler, but I had already ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, which is an air-cooled heatsink/fan. I have no interest in doing any overclocking in the near future, and it is keeping my CPU around 30C at idle (web browsing, running a Linux VM, etc). I haven't done much stress testing to give you any idea how air is working during any gaming or video encoding, though. I would imagine that the H80 will do a fine job, even with good amount of overclocking.

I chose Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 4 16GB (4 x 4GB) 1600MHz (PC3 12800) RAM, and I picked it because it was cheap. I wasn't paying attention, and it runs at 1.65V in order to pull off 1600MHz and 8-9-8-24 timings. It will serve my purposes just fine for a while, though, and I expected to replace it down the road in a few months to a year, but RAM was where I decided that I could save the most money while still pulling together a blazing fast box. I'll replace it before I decide to start doing any overclocking, though. Your pick runs at 1.5V, so I figure it's a great choice without being expensive.

I can't comment on the rest of your build. I had the rest of what I needed left over from my old PC.

I'll tell you what, this is about the most impressive computer I've ever laid my hands on, and I'm sure that you will love it if you build it. My only advice is that it could very well be more than you need. While I do play the occasional FPS, I do most of what stresses out my CPUs with video encoders, Photoshop, and several virtual machines going. If you only need a box for gaming, then the best bang for your buck is still probably the i5-2500K, or an Ivy Bridge processor if you have a little extra money to burn and want to run a much more efficient machine. If you're like me, though, pull the trigger! ;)
 
Solution

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
well, yeah, i do want the 3930k. I do want to use photoshop, do some video editing, play a game or two [BF3 to be precise] and i dont want to compromise for one end-use or the other.

I want to make my rig balanced and not GPU heavy [with sli/crossfire]. Im a big NOOB when it comes to building a rig or most other things for that matter but yeah i've been using stock computers from Dell/HP and i'm growing tired of doing it the easy way. ;) Been reading a lot of reviews, videos, product pages , benchmarks and the likes. I went for these components based on their availability in my country while keeping an eye on the overall budget.

well. the more i get into pc assembling , the more it confuses me. AND I LIKE IT. I think i will pull the trigger ;) , but first i need to get a few informed opinions. So thanks for yours and cheers!



 

l0v3rboi

Honorable
Mar 30, 2012
723
0
11,160
OIC.. so you are going to do some photoshop and video editing. An i7 will be able to help you then. That sucks, the i7 - 3770k would have been great if it was available. Oh well... here is what I would build based on the available parts in the website you provided:

i7 - 2700k - 19859
ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 Motherboard - 14734
Asus NVIDIA GTX 670 DC2 2 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card - 28227
G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 16 GB PC RAM (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL) - 7334
OCZ Agility 3 60 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) - 6821 (Though performance will be great, I'll be wary of long term reliability with this one though because it is uses a Sandforce controller.)
Asus DRW-24B3ST Internal Optical Drive (Black) - 1135
Corsair 400R Mid Tower Cabinet - 5040
Seasonic X Series - 80 Plus Gold SS-560KM 560 Watts PSU - 7561 (More than enough for this single GPU build)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Cooler - 2184

Grand total at the moment (does not include shipping) = 92 895

For the extra cash, I would upgrade the SSD to a 128 Gb or even 256Gb one. That way, you can also have Photoshop, your video editing software, and games in there as well.

Or,

I'm pretty sure it gets really hot in India. If you're not putting your computer in an air-conditioned room, I would suggest getting extra case fans to improve air flow.
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Thanks a lot for your help l0v3rboi. I appreciate your effort , you would have had to visit the website and browse through stuff.. well, you have got me thinking again..ill revisit the product reviews and everything AGAIN!! :)

And yeah..it does get pretty damn hot, and its summer right now. Will keep all these things in mind.. cheers.

 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640
If you are planning on doing any serious video editing, then the Ivy Bridge line of Intel CPUs have a feature called 'Quick Sync' that supposedly doubles the speed at which the computer can handle video transcoding (as compared to the Sandy Bridge line of CPUs). I have only seen Intel's page advertising this new feature, not anything that explains how it accomplishes this increase in speed, so I'm not exactly sure what it entails, other than that the video editing/transcoding software must be written to take advantage of the Quick Sync instruction set. It may be that the chip is capable of using its built-in Intel GMA 4000 GPU to decode and/or encode certain video codecs faster... I'm not exactly sure if this performance enhancement only occurs when working with specific video codecs, either (remember Elemental's "Badaboom" transcoder that used Nvidia's CUDA libraries to allow you to use an Nvidia GPU to transcode video twice as fast, but was never updated to support any codec other than H.264?).

If the software community comes up with some good editing software to support Quick Sync, then you may want to change your pick to an Ivy Bridge CPU. They are also significantly more efficient than the Sandy Bridge CPUs, but at the cost of having their temps rise much faster when overclocking (You can easily overclock a Sandy Bridge CPU well beyond an Ivy Bridge CPU, and you don't need a liquid cooler to safely overclock the Sandy Bridge chip that high.)

When it comes to the Sandy Bridge-E chips (LGA2011), though, you can always get fantastic video transcoding performance simply by using the two extra cores of the i7-3930K and its ability to be overclocked very easily to surpass the speeds of the regular Sandy Bridge processors. Since I also like to run a few virtual machines on my box from time to time (I always have an Ubuntu VM running, and often spin up some other Windows or Linux VMs for testing/learning purposes), I chose to have the extra cores and hyperthreading.
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Thats informative. Like i said I WILL pull the trigger.

I just want to double check with you guys if the components i listed can be successfully put together. I just dont want to have these components lying around my house coz i was a noob while ordering who didnt check if they were compatible. Especially the power supply.

Also, im getting the GPU from Germany, the version i shortlisted isnt available here. Will that be a problem with warranty etc. (Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 2GB OC).

even after l0verboi's comment abt going for 2500k, somehow i just cant get my eyes off 3930k. NOBOX is adding fuel to the fire so to say. So here is the config im going for, just let me know if you guys feel there will be compatibility issues.


Asus Sabertooth x79 - 23,082

i7 3930K 3.2 Ghz - 36,570

Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 2GB OC [980/1502 MHz] - 28,277

[Corsair Vengeance DDR3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) PC RAM (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9)] x 2 - 3,278

SSD >60 GB ~ 10,000

Asus DRW-24B3ST Internal Optical Drive (Black) - 1,135

Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011011-WW) - 4,595

Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CWCH80) - 5,650

Corsair CMPSU-850TXV2UK PSU - 7,910

Total - 1,20,500



 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640


Haha. Man, I have a terrible habit of spending other people's money. :)
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Some more questions..
1. RAM - What layout should it be? 8/12/16 GB? 8GB[4GB*2, 2GB*4], 12GB[4GB*3], 16GB[4GB*4]?
2. SSD - I read something about SandForce controller. Is that a deal-breaker? Should i go for Vertex/Agility/Force series from OCZ?
3. TX 850 Corsair will do the job or should i go for AX series. There's one in the "Gaming Series" [Corsair Gaming Series Gold 800W (CMPSU-800G) for 7000] and one by Seasonic [SEASONIC SS760KM 760W Gold for 10000]


In the final stretch here. Need some final words. Thanks.
 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640


1) With the X79 chipset and Socket 2011 chips, you will get the best performance out of your RAM if you have four identical DIMMs. The Core i7-3930K has a quad-channel memory controller, so four of the same stick will give you double the memory bandwidth of the standard Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors. I chose to start with a cheap quad-channel kit of 4 x 4GB DDR3 1600MHz DIMMs, though you can get better performance by choosing better (faster) RAM if you have the money to cover it. You should be able to use DDR3 2133MHz or 2400MHz depending on the board you choose. I will end up upgrading my RAM later when I've had the time to save up a bit of money to cover it.

2) The recommendations people here have been making for SSDs are the Crucial M4 and Mushkin Chronos Deluxe series. The OCZ SSDs are being criticized as being unreliable, so you may be taking unnecessary risks if you choose one of their SSDs. I have a Mushkin Chronos 120GB SSD that I've had in a USB3.0-to-SATA3 2.5" external enclosure, and I have been very happy with it. It isn't one of the 'Deluxe' edition SSDs, so I don't know if that means it isn't in the recommended list, but it has performed quite well for me.

3) For a PSU, I've been told to go with Seasonic, Antec, or PC Power and Cooling. If you need to be able to run SLi or Crossfire, then you should just go ahead and get an 850w PSU, but if not, you can get by with less. Maybe something like this Seasonic 80 PLUS GOLD rated 650w PSU. I am considering getting the 860w 80 PLUS Platinum rated Seasonic PSU for my computer, because I may decide to upgrade to SLi in the future, and I already have four 7200rpm hard drives in a RAID10 array.

In another thread, someone mentioned that some of the Corsair PSUs are actually manufactured by Seasonic, so that 850w PSU you've chosen might work out great.

I hope this helps!
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Just one more thing, I just read or saw, in a [video from newegg i think] that the GTX 670 Gigabyte OC card has a 8 + 6 connector?

I just wanted to check if the motherboard and gpu have the required optimal connectivity with the PSU.

I went through both the pages of the mobo and gpu but i simply dont know where to look, they say stuff abt 12v rails and "8 Peripheral Connector with 4 pins".

Just want to know if i can hook these up or not. FFS this is driving me crazy. :(
 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640
Ahh... well, that means that you'll need a power supply that has the proper power lines to power the card. Generally, the motherboard will have both a 24-pin and an 8-pin connector. That means that to power the GPU and the motherboard, you'll need a PSU that has at least two 8-pin connectors and a 6-pin connector or a PSU that has 3 6-pin connectors (it's possible to combine two 6-pin connectors to create an 8-pin connector, and some of the Nvidia GPUs come with those adapters). Just make sure that the PSU that you choose has enough of the proper connectors to do the job:

Either:
24-pin ATX power connector (for the motherboard. sometimes referred to as 20+4 instead of 24)
8-pin cpu power connector (sometimes referred to as a 4+4 connector. this one plugs into the motherboard. it might also be considered an 8-pin pcie power connector, or those two things may be different, but I really don't know)
8-pin pcie power connector (for the GPU)
6-pin pcie power connector

or:
24 pin ATX power connector
8-pin cpu power connector
3 x 6-pin pcie power connectors and a 2 x 6-pin to 8-pin connector adapter

Then just make sure that you have enough of the right kinds of power connectors for all of your Hard Drives, SSDs, and optical drives. Most modern drives now only use the sata power connectors, but most power supplies still offer connectors to power the old-style 4-pin molex connectors used by older IDE drives. If you decide to upgrade your GPU to the GTX 680 in the future or if future generation GPUs have the same power requirements, then you'd need two 8-pin pcie connectors instead of an 8-pin and 6-pin connector for the GPU, so it makes sense to get a PSU that has a few extra connectors available for use if you can afford to do so.

-- Matt
 

vm667

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
12
0
10,510
Hmmm. I just looked around and here's what i've shortlisted based on what you've said about the 8+6 connectors.

1. Seasonic 850W Power Supply (SS-850KM) : [INR 10,910] [http://www.theitdepot.com/details-Seasonic+850W+Power+Supply+(SS-850KM)_C14P10379.html]

Connectivity -
M/B 24/20 Pin Connector x 1
CPU 8/4 Pin x 1
CPU 8 Pin x 1
PCI-E 8/6 Pin x 4
Peripheral 4 Pin x 8
SATA x 8
Floppy x 2

2. Seasonic 760W Modular Power Supply (SS-760KM) : [INR 9,070] [http://www.theitdepot.com/details-Seasonic+760W+Modular+Power+Supply+(SS-760KM)+_C14P11629.html]

Connectivity -
1 x M/B 24/20 Pin Connector (600 mm)
1 x CPU 8/4 Pin Connector(650 mm)
1 x CPU 8 Pin Connector(650 mm)
4 x PCI-E 8/6 Pin (600 mm)
8 x Peripheral 4 Pin
8 x SATA
2 x Floppy(Y-adapter)

2. Seasonic 660W Modular Power Supply (SS-660KM) : [INR 8,150] [http://www.theitdepot.com/details-Seasonic+660W+Modular+Power+Supply+(SS-660KM)_C14P11630.html]

Connectivity -
M/B 24/20 Pin Connector x1 (600mm)
CPU 8/4 Pin x1 (650mm)
PCI -E 8/6 Pin x2 (600mm)
Peripheral 4 Pin x 5
SATA x 8
Floppy x 2(Y-Adapter)

They are the only ones which have the required layout plus some additional connectors. Agree?
 

N0BOX

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
75
0
10,640
Correct. Any one of those PSUs should support your motherboard, GPU, and enough drives, and they are all 80 Plus Gold certified or better (which is important if you care about the environment, or you're like me and you want to reduce the amount of heat the computer puts off).

Good luck with your build, and let us know how you like it!