Building a new computer (need advice)

[MadReaper]

This is what i got so far.

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233143

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131821

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

I want to stick with around those price ranges and I don't plan on overclocking. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Also I already have a gtx 580 1536mb gfx card.

 

[Arwin]

If you don't plan on overclocking, then why take an i7K? Isn't overclocking its only main advantage? (that's what I just learnt here on these forums myself after buying a 'normal'i7 )

 

[MadReaper]

The Reason I'm taking the I7 is because it's faster than the i7 3820 and it's only $40 more.

EDIT: You never know maybe down the road I'll try to overclock if I ever grow a pair.

 

[swaaye]

Xigmatek Gaia 1283 has a quieter fan. Make sure your case has an opening behind the CPU for a backplate. But if you're not overclocking you can stick to the stock cooler instead. At stock these chips are not hot.

Might want to ask yourself what apps you plan on running and whether hyperthreading has any value to you. A 3570k lot cheaper. 2500K is still a decent option for that matter.

2x8gb might be a preferable RAM choice. 4 DIMMs can mean troubles, although I have a 4x4 setup myself. A high end motherboard might be better at this and my ASUS P8Z68V Pro is fine. 2x8 allows easy upgrade in the future though.

I would get an SSD to use as your Windows drive. 128gb is far more than enough (I can do with 60gb). I don't do HDDs for that anymore. Or you could consider a Momentus XT or two. Neat drives.

PSU is overkill unless you plan on SLI. You don't need more than a decent 550-600W. Check out Seasonic S12II/M12II.

 

[Davros]

What are you using the pc for ?
with the 1tb drive and the gtx 580 i'd say gaming so i'm going to suggest something a little different
THRUSTMASTER FERRARI F430 Force Feedback Racing Wheel PC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826280013

yes its, not cheap but it makes so much difference to racing games its well worth the money, plus look after it and it will last you a decade.

 

[MadReaper]

Xigmatek Gaia 1283 has a quieter fan. Make sure your case has an opening behind the CPU for a backplate. But if you're not overclocking you can stick to the stock cooler instead. At stock these chips are not hot.

Might want to ask yourself what apps you plan on running and whether hyperthreading has any value to you. A 3570k lot cheaper. 2500K is still a decent option for that matter.

2x8gb might be a preferable RAM choice. 4 DIMMs can mean troubles, although I have a 4x4 setup myself. A high end motherboard might be better at this and my ASUS P8Z68V Pro is fine. 2x8 allows easy upgrade in the future though.

I would get an SSD to use as your Windows drive. 128gb is far more than enough (I can do with 60gb). I don't do HDDs for that anymore. Or you could consider a Momentus XT or two. Neat drives.

PSU is overkill unless you plan on SLI. You don't need more than a decent 550-600W. Check out Seasonic S12II/M12II.

I would get an SSD card if they didn't offer such little space. I'm gonna wait till they offer more space and replace the hard drive all together.

@Davros
lol thanks, but I don't like racing games. I'm mostly building a new PC for ARMA 3 and I'm sure there will be other titles down the road.

 

[Albuquerque]

You're buying a Z77 board; just use the Intel RST capabilities and a small SSD to build your own SSD-cached HDD.

You keep your 1TB of storage, and you get SSD speeds for anything that you use on a regular basis (OS boot, games that you always play) without having to manage it as a separate partition or boot instance.

 

[MadReaper]

You're buying a Z77 board; just use the Intel RST capabilities and a small SSD to build your own SSD-cached HDD.

You keep your 1TB of storage, and you get SSD speeds for anything that you use on a regular basis (OS boot, games that you always play) without having to manage it as a separate partition or boot instance.

Ohhhhh I get it now! Thanks will look into it.

 

[Arwin]

Yeah, I'll definitely get an SSD for my 'fixed' software like OS, Office, Visual Studio, and other stuff I use all the time, and my 2TB other drive will be for games only.

I'm saving this for when I'm ready to install Windows 8 though (knowing that all the apps, devices and drivers I need work). By that time, SSDs will probably be cheaper and faster etc.

 

[Mize]

EDIT: You never know maybe down the road I'll try to overclock if I ever grow a pair.

You know you should.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The Reason I'm taking the I7 is because it's faster than the i7 3820 and it's only $40 more.

EDIT: You never know maybe down the road I'll try to overclock if I ever grow a pair.

IIRC, that motherboard has an auto-overclock feature you might want to turn on. It won't be extreme, but it should give you a boost with little effort and no loss of stability.

 

[Albuquerque]

Yeah, I'll definitely get an SSD for my 'fixed' software like OS, Office, Visual Studio, and other stuff I use all the time, and my 2TB other drive will be for games only.

It's easier than that, if you have a Z68 or pretty much any of the new <x>77 boards. The Intel SRT (I mistyped it in my earlier post) allows you to connect any SSD drive and build your own SSD + HDD hybrid drive. It "just works" and you do not have to bother with reinstalling your OS or migrating apps back and forth.

Your normal use of the machine will cause the underlying Intel technology to move data in and out of that SSD cache for you. Things that you use more often will find itself in cache, things that you rarely use will stay on the platters.

 

[Arwin]

Yeah, but I don't think I'll use that, I like having two different drives and having this under control what I have on which drive and when.

 

[MadReaper]

Thanks for all your help guys and gals! Gonna order everything tonight.

 

[Davros]

@Davros
lol thanks, but I don't like racing games.

Thats because you dont own a ForceFeedback Wheel, you should study the teachings of the gaming gods more closely.....

 

[Arwin]

Thats because you dont own a ForceFeedback Wheel, you should study the teachings of the gaming gods more closely.....

I love racing games. What do you play? I tried Project Cars (donated $10) which looks pretty good, but not that happy yet with what seems to be on offer so far. Driving model is often decent enough, but few games have half-decent graphics ... rFactor 2 is still not out I see (seems to take forever), so the first thing I'm looking forward to now is GTR-3, which hopefully will come out this year, and from what I played at GamesCom (thought that was RaceRoom, but apparently that's either a new version based on the new GTR-3 engine, or it was GTR-3 itself, because it looks vastly different from RaceRoom right now)

 

[Davros]

At the moment I have these installed


ps: F1 challenge has nearly every season 1982-2011 and a few others like 1977/76/71/55 plus a ton of other mods like Prototype-C ,FIA GT-GTR2002 by simbin which later became gtr, DTM, IndyCar It's really every track based racing game you could ever want

 

[swaaye]

I would get an SSD card if they didn't offer such little space. I'm gonna wait till they offer more space and replace the hard drive all together.

The thing with moving to SSD is you don't need to store much more than Windows and your applications on it because other things like games and bulk storage don't benefit all that much. But Windows likes to do a lot of things at once with its files and this bogs down a HDD particularly during startup. SSD is a giant performance booster. Intel Smart Response should get you close to a full SSD experience though.

But note that for Smart Response Tech you can only use either 18.9GB or 64GB as the cache size. So you don't need a SSD bigger than 64GB. The 18.9GB size is related to the Intel 311 SSD which is a 20GB SLC SSD built for SRT. I personally have a 128GB Crucial m4 that has the OS on it along with a 18.9GB SRT cache partition that caches my games HDD (it takes some steps to set this up).

 

[Arwin]

ps: F1 challenge has nearly every season 1982-2011 and a few others like 1977/76/71/55 plus a ton of other mods like Prototype-C ,FIA GT-GTR2002 by simbin which later became gtr, DTM, IndyCar It's really every track based racing game you could ever want

I played a tonne of F1 Challenge and its mods back when the game came out ... lots of my gran turismo 3 friends were playing this game as well, so I had a nice group of people to race with as well.

GTR-3 seems further off still - what I played at GamesCom was the new raceroom, which will come out first (i.e. before GTR-3) but probably will have very similar engine and graphics, which is cool. I played a little Most Wanted (2010) just now again, in 2D, but definitely cooler in 3D. It's a fun game though, but a bit shallow.

 

[Malo]

You don't need balls to overclock anymore, you don't even need a brain. With k series Intel processors and stock coolers, you can throw another 500Mhz on your processor simply by increasing the multiplier or using UEFI BIOS presets without breaking a sweat. You can even go a slower i7k to save some money and achieve the same speeds.

Unless you're going to be transcoding all the time, any gaming you do won't cause any issues with Ivybridge heat. And since you're buying an aftermarket cooler, you might as well do it.