Custom PC.

Colonel Sanders

New Member
Hey Guys,

*EDIT* Ok, This is my LAST system revision.

M/Board- Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 DDR3 Intel 1155pin

CPU- Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4Ghz 1155pin

RAM- G.Skill Sniper 8G Kit(4Gx2) DDR3 1333 F3-10666CL9D-8GBSR

Storage 1- Patriot 32GB TORQX-2 "PT232GS25SSDR" SSD-128M Buffer, 270MB ( OS )

Storage 2- SATA Samsung 2TB HDD

Graphics- GIGABYTE GV-N56GOC-1GI 1GB GTX560 PCI-E VGA Card

Case- Antec DF-85 Dark Fleet Gaming Case No PSU

PSU- A-Power 1200Watt. Tri-Fan PSU

Heat Sink- Thermaltake FRIO OCK Universal CPU Cooler Fan

So yeah, That Is My Final Review Of This PC.
 
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Krier023

Useful Poster
Yours is looking rreally good. Almost uneccessary haha. I just helped my brother put together his computer, ill post specs sometime else.
 

Sgt Jax Mehoff

Useful Poster
Instead of double posting just go to edit post. And that is extremely overpowered. It could run 3 copies of Battlefield 3 at the same time. :D
 

Colonel Sanders

New Member
Instead of double posting just go to edit post. And that is extremely overpowered. It could run 3 copies of Battlefield 3 at the same time.

Over Powered Id a bit Harsh, I Like to look at it more as a little bit of 'Head Room'.
But the Stupidest Part is that the only PC Game I play is GTA SA. However I do Love my Music. Hence the Enormous Storage Capacity.
I do like to Edit Multimedia so that Justifies the RAM, Having Sony Vegas Pro 10 (Legit Copy BTW) and Adobe PS/Premier Open, Kinda Tends to Chew your RAM.
And the only reason I got the monster Video card is for when I get around to GTA 4, I want to Mod it (Graphics Mods, Psysics mods ect. ect) and for When I Play Flight Sim X.
But yes, I do agree that It Is A bit Overkill. but hey, That is they Fun Part of working in the IT Industry, Building a monster Machine and seeing how much it takes to crash it!
 

PS3andCOD

Contributor
CPU- Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4Ghz 1155pin x2 = Dual Quad Core

I don't understand this. That mobo only has one slot for a processor. You must be fricking rich though, a 240gb SSD or a GTX590 are a lot of money... Plus you bought the RAM in 8 gb sticks, that's the most expensive. I'm running a AMD 6 core black edition, stock 3.2GHz. I can OC to like 4.5, but I'm not because I don't really need to so I figure I won't wear out the hardware as fast this way... I have a run of the mill gfx though, I think it's a GT 430 or something.
 
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Colonel Sanders

New Member
I don't understand this. That mobo only has one slot for a processor.

Holy Fish Sticks! Thankyou For Bringing That to my Attention, I did not Realise! Thanks, You just saved me from having to buy 2 M/Boards!
And Yeah, I do have and Expendable Income, Working for Local Government in the IT Dept. Kinda Rakes in the Dough. However, I'm Overkilling the Machine So I can Push it to the Limit to see how much It can handle before it's falls to it's knees >.<
 

HippieMagic

New Member
I don't understand why you would go with a 990x over a 2600k when you get equal, and often better, performance from the 2600k.

240GB SSD is unnecessary. You only need to boot from it and it does not increase performance during gaming. Actually gaming from one can ruin it... they aren't like hard drives and have a limited number of writes. If you are doing anything more than booting from it you are paying a LOT of money for something you are slowly destroying. If you are going to game from one don't get a 240GB one. Get one to boot from and another small one to game from to lessen your damage.

A 3TB hard drive is going to cause you grief. I would highly suggest getting 3 1TB if you really feel you need that kind of space. You should have multiple partitions anyway and this would open up stuff like RAID for video recording and not make you want to kill someone when you have to defrag a 3TB drive.

8GB of RAM is fine. 12GB only if you are going with an older chipset that supports triple channel or one of the new chipsets that are coming out soon.

Quad SLI needs over 1000w. Honestly you really need to get into 1200w at that point and that PSU needs to be good, high quality. Research it. I have a Corsair AX1200 and it is great... there are a few other high end power supply manufacturers as well.

Speaking of your graphics cards the GTX 580 is NVIDIA's flagship... not the 590. The 590 kind of sucks to be honest because it is simply 2 580 chips that are downclocked and put on the same board. It also only has 1.5GB of VRAM and if you want the best you need to pick up 4 GTX 580 3GB models. Keep in mind graphics cards get diminishing returns after 2 really so 3 is good but 4 is barely better. If you want 2 dual gpu cards as opposed to 4 single gpu cards then get an AMD 6990... They perform better than a GTX 590.

A dual gpu card will have a RAM amount on it that is something like 3GB for NVIDIA and 4GB for AMD. That means that each GPU on that board has access to half of it. SLI or Crossfire cards mirror each other so it is basically like having a single card as far as your computer is concerned.

If you want a good PC right now stick with a Z68 chipset 1155 socket. It is the current high end gaming chipset, overclocks easily, and runs cool. It is quad core but the 2600k performs on par with the 990x for a fraction of the price and actually outperforms it in a lot of games. Intel is also releasing a new chipset very soon that will be a new flagship CPU with 6 and possibly 8 cores.

Another thing about RAM... games are almost always 32 bit applications... actually I don't know of any that aren't... This means that they can only access 2GB of RAM. In some special cases they will have a switch that allows them to access up to about 3.5GB but NEVER more. They will pull the majority of that from your graphics card and just how much they pull depends on resolution and textures involved. Currently most games use less than 1.5GB but it is getting closer with new games due to the high res textures.

This basically means the only reason for having a sound card is for it to work as an amplifier for headsets or to push a surround system. It won't impact your performance in any way to use the onboard audio and some motherboards have amazing sound on their own at this point.

The only thing the PC you have drawn up there would excel at would be media editing large files and even then the difference would be minor over the 2600k.

When it comes to recording as long as the game is DX11 you will have ZERO impact by recording the file, but DX9 titles will hurt you quite a bit. Recording a DX9 title could very easily drop your FPS into the 30-40s. Rendering on my PC with a 2600k @ 4.3Ghz takes about 10 minutes for an average CoD clip with fairly heavy effects and less for one without hardly any effects added. I have never even come close to filling my RAM up and I am only using 8GB.

You just have to remember that it isn't about having the fastest computer(on paper) that money can buy so much as it is about having a faster computer than the average gamer because there is absolutely NO game designed for the enthusiast... only games designed with an enthusiast in mind.

Crysis 2 with the DX11 pack, Witcher 2 with Ubersampling, and Battlefield 3 with Ultra is the only thing really pushing computers right now and I can run them with my 2600k and SLI GTX580s without any issue. I actually noticed in the BF3 beta case that the 2500k and 2600k is outperforming the 990x. Building a computer is tricky because you waste your money if you buy too old or too high end and 1-2 years later you are obsolete again.

If you can wait Intel is going to release the 2011 socket and NVIDIA should be launching their 600 series early next year. That would get you superior performance than anything right now. If you can't wait you should stick to the 1155 socket because there will be more processors out that should perform better than the 990x for it and you definitely wouldn't be hurting with the current 2500k or 2600k processors. If money is no object I suggest 4 GTX 580s with 3GB so you can run high resolutions without it pulling from your system RAM.

These are all just suggestions though. If you want the 990x then, by all means... I just don't want you to buy it and realize you are getting outperformed by a quad core haha.

Also: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1179595

I
f you want 2 CPU: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=270-WS-W555-A2&family=Motherboard%20Family&series=All%20Motherboards&sw=5

Y
ou aren't going to get those kind of numbers from it like in the benchmark results and I can't guarantee high end performance in games but if you just want a big epeen that is how you get it. Make sure you have enough PCIe slots for what you are trying to put in it too. A case like the HAF X from Coolermaster should have plenty of room for you if you like it.
 
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dudesikoff

New Member
That must have been some serious cash. I really want to build a computer of my own, but sadly I don't have the money to make exactly what I want. I do agree with getting a stronger more high end PSU.
 

HippieMagic

New Member
Depends on what you want... it's possible to take shortcuts without hurting your performance. A lot of people think they need more than they do because of benchmarking and all. Those results don't exactly translate into games well. I am certified to build and repair PCs by the way and I do have a fairly high end gaming PC and actually follow it closely if you are wondering haha I am not just some know-it-all from the forums.
 

PS3andCOD

Contributor
Well HippieMagic, if you see this tonight mind giving me your opinion on this? : http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicati...1&csid=ITD&recordsPerPage=5&body=#ReviewStart

It's onsale for today only, I would be useing it in a new PC I would build this comming up summer. Wondering if you think I should jump on this deal (Yeah, it's 16gb, but with the sale it's legit $10 mor ethan the identicle thing in 8gbb, so why not?) or if the prices will come down even mroe in 8 months? Also, what do you think of bulldozer, I beleive it comes out in about 2 weeks.
 

Colonel Sanders

New Member
I don't understand why you would go with a 990x over a 2600k when you get equal, and often better, performance from the 2600k.

240GB SSD is unnecessary. You only need to boot from it and it does not increase performance during gaming. Actually gaming from one can ruin it... they aren't like hard drives and have a limited number of writes. If you are doing anything more than booting from it you are paying a LOT of money for something you are slowly destroying. If you are going to game from one don't get a 240GB one. Get one to boot from and another small one to game from to lessen your damage.

A 3TB hard drive is going to cause you grief. I would highly suggest getting 3 1TB if you really feel you need that kind of space. You should have multiple partitions anyway and this would open up stuff like RAID for video recording and not make you want to kill someone when you have to defrag a 3TB drive.

8GB of RAM is fine. 12GB only if you are going with an older chipset that supports triple channel or one of the new chipsets that are coming out soon.

Quad SLI needs over 1000w. Honestly you really need to get into 1200w at that point and that PSU needs to be good, high quality. Research it. I have a Corsair AX1200 and it is great... there are a few other high end power supply manufacturers as well.

Speaking of your graphics cards the GTX 580 is NVIDIA's flagship... not the 590. The 590 kind of sucks to be honest because it is simply 2 580 chips that are downclocked and put on the same board. It also only has 1.5GB of VRAM and if you want the best you need to pick up 4 GTX 580 3GB models. Keep in mind graphics cards get diminishing returns after 2 really so 3 is good but 4 is barely better. If you want 2 dual gpu cards as opposed to 4 single gpu cards then get an AMD 6990... They perform better than a GTX 590.

A dual gpu card will have a RAM amount on it that is something like 3GB for NVIDIA and 4GB for AMD. That means that each GPU on that board has access to half of it. SLI or Crossfire cards mirror each other so it is basically like having a single card as far as your computer is concerned.

If you want a good PC right now stick with a Z68 chipset 1155 socket. It is the current high end gaming chipset, overclocks easily, and runs cool. It is quad core but the 2600k performs on par with the 990x for a fraction of the price and actually outperforms it in a lot of games. Intel is also releasing a new chipset very soon that will be a new flagship CPU with 6 and possibly 8 cores.

Another thing about RAM... games are almost always 32 bit applications... actually I don't know of any that aren't... This means that they can only access 2GB of RAM. In some special cases they will have a switch that allows them to access up to about 3.5GB but NEVER more. They will pull the majority of that from your graphics card and just how much they pull depends on resolution and textures involved. Currently most games use less than 1.5GB but it is getting closer with new games due to the high res textures.

This basically means the only reason for having a sound card is for it to work as an amplifier for headsets or to push a surround system. It won't impact your performance in any way to use the onboard audio and some motherboards have amazing sound on their own at this point.

The only thing the PC you have drawn up there would excel at would be media editing large files and even then the difference would be minor over the 2600k.

When it comes to recording as long as the game is DX11 you will have ZERO impact by recording the file, but DX9 titles will hurt you quite a bit. Recording a DX9 title could very easily drop your FPS into the 30-40s. Rendering on my PC with a 2600k @ 4.3Ghz takes about 10 minutes for an average CoD clip with fairly heavy effects and less for one without hardly any effects added. I have never even come close to filling my RAM up and I am only using 8GB.

You just have to remember that it isn't about having the fastest computer(on paper) that money can buy so much as it is about having a faster computer than the average gamer because there is absolutely NO game designed for the enthusiast... only games designed with an enthusiast in mind.

Crysis 2 with the DX11 pack, Witcher 2 with Ubersampling, and Battlefield 3 with Ultra is the only thing really pushing computers right now and I can run them with my 2600k and SLI GTX580s without any issue. I actually noticed in the BF3 beta case that the 2500k and 2600k is outperforming the 990x. Building a computer is tricky because you waste your money if you buy too old or too high end and 1-2 years later you are obsolete again.

If you can wait Intel is going to release the 2011 socket and NVIDIA should be launching their 600 series early next year. That would get you superior performance than anything right now. If you can't wait you should stick to the 1155 socket because there will be more processors out that should perform better than the 990x for it and you definitely wouldn't be hurting with the current 2500k or 2600k processors. If money is no object I suggest 4 GTX 580s with 3GB so you can run high resolutions without it pulling from your system RAM.

These are all just suggestions though. If you want the 990x then, by all means... I just don't want you to buy it and realize you are getting outperformed by a quad core haha.

Also: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1179595

I
f you want 2 CPU: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=270-WS-W555-A2&family=Motherboard Family&series=All Motherboards&sw=5

Y
ou aren't going to get those kind of numbers from it like in the benchmark results and I can't guarantee high end performance in games but if you just want a big epeen that is how you get it. Make sure you have enough PCIe slots for what you are trying to put in it too. A case like the HAF X from Coolermaster should have plenty of room for you if you like it.

Cheers for the Heads up mate.

I will do One More Revision of the system!
 

HippieMagic

New Member
Well HippieMagic, if you see this tonight mind giving me your opinion on this? : http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicati...1&csid=ITD&recordsPerPage=5&body=#ReviewStart

It's onsale for today only, I would be useing it in a new PC I would build this comming up summer. Wondering if you think I should jump on this deal (Yeah, it's 16gb, but with the sale it's legit $10 mor ethan the identicle thing in 8gbb, so why not?) or if the prices will come down even mroe in 8 months? Also, what do you think of bulldozer, I beleive it comes out in about 2 weeks.

I have that RAM in my PC(8gb) and it works fine. I have had no issues at all with it as far as performance is concerned but it is MASSIVE and will block your CPU cooler if you have an aftermarket air cooler. I have a Hyper 212+ on my CPU and I had to reverse the fan and only put it on one side because the RAM was so tall it made it impossible to install any other way.

Unfortunately RAM changes a lot and that may not be the best for your build when it is all said and done unless you fully intend on keeping with the 2500k or 2600k as that ram is Dual Channel 1.5v(sandy bridge RAM basically).

You also have to take into consideration that DDR4 RAM is just around the corner so if you are looking to upgrade this summer the odds are good that DDR4 will be the norm and intel will have their new line of 6 core processors out(socket 2011).

Bulldozer is... meh. AMD has it hyped up but they have been having some serious issues getting it out and I don't expect it to beat out intel. I fully expect it to barely be faster than the Sandy Bridge stuff right now if it even surpasses it. I don't think it will have anything on the new stuff Intel is getting close to releasing and the price point is putting it around the current 2600k. That makes me think it will have double the cores but not the performance to justify it.
 

PS3andCOD

Contributor
Thanks for the info, I did not end up buying it. I will be buying whatever the top of the line processor is, so DDR4 might be what I'll need then... I have an aftermarket cooler, but I think I wuld have been OK, I have an inch between my RAM's top now and the cooler. It's a coolermaster CPU cooler.
 

odingalt

Well-Known Member
Staff member
On the topic of custom building your own PC, I've purchased from Newegg.com and Mwave.com in the past. Does anyone know of any other good on-line PC component "superstores"? I get frustrated with Newegg sometimes. They are still good, but they ship stuff from 3-4 different warehouses some times (which drives up their shipping costs), their RMA process is kind of a joke (you pay a hefty restocking fee even if the product is falsely advertised), and every third purchase I end up getting delayed for a week because of their fraud detection (despite the fact that my address and card are on file and I haven't modified any of my information in the past 5 orders...)

When they ship on time, you can't beat 'em. But when you're unlucky enough to catch a glitch in their order system, good luck getting your stuff sooner than 2 weeks later.
 

Krier023

Useful Poster
I usually end up buying from tigerdirect.com.
And I completely understand your frustrations from newegg. Shipping times vary a fair amount because of the warehouse locations. I am on the east coast, and my last build, most of the stuff came in a couple days, but it took a little under two weeks to get the motherboard here.
 

odingalt

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I usually end up buying from tigerdirect.com.
And I completely understand your frustrations from newegg. Shipping times vary a fair amount because of the warehouse locations. I am on the east coast, and my last build, most of the stuff came in a couple days, but it took a little under two weeks to get the motherboard here.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. There's always a risk that one component that you need won't make it. So even if you pay for 2-day shipping, there's a risk that one of the components takes forever to show up. I'd much rather pay a couple dollars more if they could warehouse everything together, rather than "dropshipping" with other smaller distributors like that.
 

HippieMagic

New Member
I tried to purchase from Newegg and they refuse my order every time because my bank won't release information to a blocked call and Newegg refuses to give me a number to call to confirm my identity because it is "against their policy". I got into an argument with a customer service rep from Newegg because he decided it was a good idea to act like I was an idiot. I had a valid argument and the fool couldn't see it. Basically they wanted all of my information confirmed by my bank and by me. They tried to call me from a blocked call and refused to give me a valid number to contact them with and refused to call me on my cell because "That's not the number on your debit card". I just found it way too fishy and my bank told me they would rather me not do business with Newegg because they have a very high fraud rating on an internal list that is distributed to the banks. Apparently there is a very high number of stolen debit cards used on Newegg.

Newegg is a great resource for finding PC part numbers but Amazon is vastly superior once you have what you are looking for. If you have Amazon Prime you can really get a huge discount on shipping. Newegg wanted to charge me somewhere around $300 for ground shipping. It was insane. I used Tiger Direct and Amazon for my entire PC and I have to say that Amazon has a great return policy and Tiger Direct shipped incredibly fast.
 

PS3andCOD

Contributor
I have bough a lot of stuff from teh Canadian site for tigerdirect, and I have always been happy with them too. Shipping is very reasonable, when I bought a full tower case that weighs 40 pounds along with all the components for a PC the shipping was about $50. It's also quite fast, I usually get stuff in 2 or 3 days, with the standard shipping option. Their prices are gennerally good, but sometimes you can bea tehm if you shop around.
 
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