New system. Everything ok? (+oc question)

[niklasbrock]

Ey Guys!

Buying this Build:

CPU COOLER: ZALMAN FAN CNPS10X EXTREME S-1155/1156/1366/AM3
CPU: INTEL CORE I5 2500K 3.30GHZ 6MB S-1155
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, Socket-1155
Ram: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9
Case: NZXT Phantom Big Tower Hvid
SSD DRIVE: OCZ AGILITY 3 2.5" 60GB SSD SATA/600 MLC
HDD Drive: Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB
Power supply: Corsair TX V2 750W PSU
GPU's: ASUS GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB
ASUS GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB
DVD DRIVE: Sony Optiarc DVD±RW Burner
WIFI CARD: LINKSYS WIRELESS-N WMP600n PCI ADAPTER WITH DUAL-BAND
Light Mod: NZXT Sleeved LED Kit Cable 1M Blue
200mm casefan:COOLER MASTER MEGAFLOW SILENT FAN 200MM LED BLUE
140mm casefan:ANTEC TWO-COOL 140MM BLUE

Does this look good?
This build is for gaming, webdesigning, photoshopping, and "light" video editing
but primarily for gaming.
How much performance increase will you get in games (like BF3 when that comes out)
by overclocking the 2500k to lets say 4.5GHz. Is it worth it to go that high?
I have never overclocked cpu's before, so i don't know how much performance increase
you gain.

Thanks!

 

[Raysito22]

About OCing the CPU, Frostbite engine is, as far as I know, a CPU demandant game, but even so, I don't think you'd see a big increase in FPS, time will tell us if Frostbite 2 is a really demanding engine ever for today's CPU's. A lot of people here want to travel in time to know how much horsepower BF3 needs, but we don't know yet. The people who are trying the Alpha's say it's not really a demanding game, but they also say it does look terrible for the moment (it seems the best quality for graphics has been left for the Beta or the Full release, again, as far as I've read, maybe somebody here knows more about it).

As far as I can tell, the only thing I'm not quite confident of your build is the SSD, thing that has been said around here about a thousand times. Sandforce powered SSD's suffer from (yet) unknown problems which might cause BSOD's and/or freezings.

As I've recommended to other people, I'd choose a Crucial M4. Not all SSD's powered by Sandforce suffer from those problems, yet the number of affected SSD's is a bit too high to take a risk (at least, it was for me).

Real world difference will be barely noticable, but reliability is quite important for an SSD. You make the choice, I'm just giving a piece of advice. A lot of people say that those problems don't exist anymore, but if you make a search yourself, you'll see the problem is there, affecting loads of people with Corsair and OCZ SSD's.

PS: Real person I know has had problem with 1/3 of the SSD's he's bought, having 3 Agility, 3 Vertex and 3 Corsair. I'd say probably the affected rate is 1/10, maybe 1/20th, still too high. Some people have tried luck and are happy with their super speedish Sandforce powered SSD's. You decide.

Hope this helps! And sorry for my English

 

[niklasbrock]

Thank you so much for your reply!

Will this BSOD problem still be a problem when using the SSD as a cache drive with SRT? Because that is my plan

 

[Raysito22]

I wouldn't recommend that. Using the drive as a cache drive is an option for those inexpensive 20GB SSD's, but when your SSD is able to have the whole OS in it, just install it there (and probably a game or two, the ones you like most, or the most used important applications), and for the rest just use the spinpoint. Performance-wise, it will give you quite a boost when booting, resetting, or opening programs in the SSD.

SRT isn't that usefull, just read a few reviews about it. As I said, it's an option just for those 20GB SSD's (and I bet SRT will die in a few years, as it's not really as good as Intel sells it is, and SSD's will become cheaper).

Yet, SSD's with Sandforce controllers aren't stable. I haven't read of anyone using it with SRT, just because as I said, it's pointless.

Stick with an M4 for stability and reliability, or take a risk with Sandforce, but either way, use it as OS drive for better performance.