first rebuild in over 4 years

[wormraper]

ok guys, I used to be an ENORMOUS PC gamer, upgraded about $1200 worth of equipment every 1 - 1.5 years

now I haven't gamed on the PC for a few years and I'm a few months past the 4 years date on my latest build. been out of the upgrade circuit for a while so I haven't kept up with all the available models. I'm not a wild overclocker so I just want a machine that will play games well and be a solid upgrade for my video rendering and everyday use

my old machine right now is an E8400 with 2 gigs of ram (had 4 gigs but 2 gigs went belly up this morning )

keeping my video card from the old machine since It's still keeping up well even though my proc can't. Might keep the case, it's an NZXT Tempest I believe from 4 years ago. although I wouldn't be adverse if someone threw out any good models of cases I can look at.

so far

Crucial 128 gig SSD (have a 1.5 TB sata and a 640 gig SATA for storage)
Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste
Still deciding on the heatsink and fan cooler (is zalman still the best?)
have a PC Power and Cooling 750 watt PSU, thinking I should get the next gen 750 watt PSU since it's 4 years old as it is
Asus P8H77--V mobob http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131834
Intel I7-2600
G.Skill Ripjaw 16 gigs of DDR3 1600 ram

like I said, not sure if I should get a new case or just keep the one I have, same with the PSU, but other than that looking solid???

[Trogdor2010]

The Nvidia GTX 670 card is a pretty good value for a higher end card, and is pretty energy efficient for it's class. You can also consider the GTX 560 or Radeon HD 7850 if you want a lower price card. There is also the GTX 480, although that card has known temperature problems.

Power supplies are pretty future-proof, but if you want a new power supply, I'd look at Antec, which has pretty good deals for it's quality. 750w should power almost any single card set ups.

Looking good so far. I'm not too much into cases, but most of them are future-prrof unless if you have damaged parts (like fans and vents).

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Trogdor2010

The Nvidia GTX 670 card is a pretty good value for a higher end card, and is pretty energy efficient for it's class. You can also consider the GTX 560 or Radeon HD 7850 if you want a lower price card. There is also the GTX 480, although that card has known temperature problems.

Power supplies are pretty future-proof, but if you want a new power supply, I'd look at Antec, which has pretty good deals for it's quality. 750w should power almost any single card set ups.

Looking good so far. I'm not too much into cases, but most of them are future-prrof unless if you have damaged parts (like fans and vents).

yeah, video card I'm keeping from my last build. I upgraded a little while ago and it's still viable.

powersupply wise I have a PC power n cooling 750 watt right now, but it's 4 years old and I didn't know if I should just scrap it and buy a new one just because it's old type of thing. if I can get away with using it for the new build that would be icing on the cake.

case wise. I don't like the way my Hard drive bays are setup and 3 of the fans are on life support (I never turn my machine off so 4 years of steady use on these babies.. already can hear the bearings grinding down to nothing.

[lucv13]

Originally Posted by wormraper

Crucial 128 gig SSD (have a 1.5 TB sata and a 640 gig SATA for storage)
Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste
Still deciding on the heatsink and fan cooler (is zalman still the best?)
have a PC Power and Cooling 750 watt PSU, thinking I should get the next gen 750 watt PSU since it's 4 years old as it is
Asus P8H77--V mobob http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131834
Intel I7-2600
G.Skill Ripjaw 16 gigs of DDR3 1600 ram

like I said, not sure if I should get a new case or just keep the one I have, same with the PSU, but other than that looking solid???

Crucial SSD
Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste
Keep your PSU they're easy to replace in the unlikely event that it fails
Asus P8H77--V
G.Skill Ripjaw 16 gigs of DDR3 1600 ram

Intel I7-2600 I'm assuming that you are getting a used cpu or a great sale on one, at first I was going to suggest the Ivy Bridge 3570 and save yourself $100 however after rereading your post I did see that you do some video rendering so the Hyperthreading would benefit you. If you are not going to overclock then why not get the 3770 for virtually the same price as the 2600 if you are going to OC then I might consider 3700k for a $20-30 price premium over the 2600. I do hear however that the 2600K is the better overclocker and may run cooler OC'ed than the 3770K

to summarize
2600k Daily use, Gaming, Video rendering & OC
3770k Daily use, Gaming, Video rendering & OC (OC runs hotter)
3770 Daily use, Gaming & Video rendering
3570 Daily use, Gaming & light Video rendering (no HT)
2600 Daily use, Gaming & light Video rendering (no HT)

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by lucv13

Crucial SSD
Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste
Keep your PSU they're easy to replace in the unlikely event that it fails
Asus P8H77--V
G.Skill Ripjaw 16 gigs of DDR3 1600 ram

Intel I7-2600 I'm assuming that you are getting a used cpu or a great sale on one, at first I was going to suggest the Ivy Bridge 3570 and save yourself $100 however after rereading your post I did see that you do some video rendering so the Hyperthreading would benefit you. If you are not going to overclock then why not get the 3770 for virtually the same price as the 2600 if you are going to OC then I might consider 3700k for a $20-30 price premium over the 2600. I do hear however that the 2600K is the better overclocker and may run cooler OC'ed than the 3770K

to summarize
2600k Daily use, Gaming, Video rendering & OC
3770k Daily use, Gaming, Video rendering & OC (OC runs hotter)
3770 Daily use, Gaming & Video rendering
3570 Daily use, Gaming & light Video rendering (no HT)
2600 Daily use, Gaming & light Video rendering (no HT)

gahhhh, I could have saved some money with the power supply . already wasted $120 on amazon getting the Pc Power and Cooling 950 watt. (well $100 in reality because it has a $20 mail in rebate)

and yeah, the 2600k was the one I got. $260 on newegg. while $340 for the 3770k.. oh yes and over clocking is a def with the 2600k.. that thing OC's like a champ from what I hear.

also went with the Asus P8Z77-V instead of the P8H77-V (better overclocking abilities)

[lucv13]

Originally Posted by wormraper

gahhhh, I could have saved some money with the power supply . already wasted $120 on amazon getting the Pc Power and Cooling 950 watt. (well $100 in reality because it has a $20 mail in rebate)

and yeah, the 2600k was the one I got. $260 on newegg. while $350 for the 3770.. oh yes and over clocking is a def with the 2600k.. that thing OC's like a champ from what I hear.

also went with the Asus P8Z77-V instead of the P8H77-V (better overclocking abilities)

You should be set for a couple of years with this system, since you are OCing I still think the 750w would have been enough but the 950w should definitely serve you well, certainly not wasted money...

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by lucv13

You should be set for a couple of years with this system, since you are OCing I still think the 750w would have been enough but the 950w should definitely serve you well, certainly not wasted money...

yeah, it should serve me well into my next upgrade. just glad to upgrade from my old machine

4 gigs of ram
E8400 dual core
750 watt PC Power n Cooling
7200 rpm drive


I'm hoping with this I get a handy upgrade . Have never tried an SSD before but I hear these things FLY

oh, and I chose the case finally. went with the Corsair carbide 400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139008

[R3P0]

How much do you have to spend is the key here. Right now the only motherboard I would buy would be the X79 Extreme 11 from Asrock, Also right now I would get an I7 Ivy Bridge chip to fully unlock PCIE 3.0 functionality, also anything less then 16GB of DDR3 Quad Channel Ram useless, but that's just me and my preferences, also for a video Card I would wait until nvidia releases there new cards this October with the GK110 chip currently all cards use GK104, keep in mind I spend about 2 grand every build but it will last me 5 years before any upgrades which at that point my PC goes to my wife, I do some minor upgrades more ram different CPU if needed and she can then use it another 5 years. So depending what you want and i mean truly want IE working machine, Gaming Machine etc. I can give you a better quote.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by R3P0

How much do you have to spend is the key here. Right now the only motherboard I would buy would be the X79 Extreme 11 from Asrock, Also right now I would get an I7 Ivy Bridge chip to fully unlock PCIE 3.0 functionality, also anything less then 16GB of DDR3 Quad Channel Ram useless, but that's just me and my preferences, also for a video Card I would wait until nvidia releases there new cards this October with the GK110 chip currently all cards use GK104, keep in mind I spend about 2 grand every build but it will last me 5 years before any upgrades which at that point my PC goes to my wife, I do some minor upgrades more ram different CPU if needed and she can then use it another 5 years. So depending what you want and i mean truly want IE working machine, Gaming Machine etc. I can give you a better quote.

eh, x79 is gonna be fairly worthless for the mainstream public IMO. most gaming requires little to no multithreading or will even see the benefits of that. like the 1366 chips they will coexist with the 1155 as kind of a high end "niche" market.

and as for the ram. 16 gigs is WAY overkill for 99% of uses. most gamers don't even break 6-8 gigs in HEAVY usage. and 16 is usually maxed out only with heavy duty video/graphics rendering. IMO anything above 16 gigs for the next couple years is just wasteful. as for upgrading I find a machine (even if you buy TOP of the line, is fairly worthless in 3 years. I USUALLY (except this last time) upgrade about a grand of components every 2 years.

and as for quad channel memory. just like triple channel it's worthless in real world performance. you MIGHT get a 2-3% performance boost above dual channel but that's about it.

I repair computers for a living and worked in the IT industry for the last 10 years. so performance is usually my livlihood (except in this situation where I haven't paid attention to the higher end proc's for the last 2 year since most of my client's don't buy that high end.)

[lucv13]

Originally Posted by wormraper

yeah, it should serve me well into my next upgrade. just glad to upgrade from my old machine

4 gigs of ram
E8400 dual core
750 watt PC Power n Cooling
7200 rpm drive


I'm hoping with this I get a handy upgrade . Have never tried an SSD before but I hear these things FLY

oh, and I chose the case finally. went with the Corsair carbide 400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139008

I love the SSD my first was OCZ which worked well for about 10 months then bricked on me - got a replacement from OCZ but sold it and bought the Crucial M4 - not quite as fast specwise as the OCZ but no difference in real world use. Cold boot in 20 seconds - love it. I tried waiting for IvyBridge but ended up building a SandyBridge system last December since IB got delayed to Q2.

Have been thinking about upgrading the cpu to IB 3750k for the HD4000 Since I only use my system for HTPC the HD 2000 that came with the SB 2320 hasn't been a problem - I think I'll wait for the Haswell tock with it's 14 nm shrink before my next upgrade

I upgraded from a C2D e6600 Conroe and what a difference my current HTPC specs link in my sig...

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by lucv13

I love the SSD my first was OCZ which worked well for about 10 months then bricked on me - got a replacement from OCZ but sold it and bought the Crucial M4 - not quite as fast specwise as the OCZ but no difference in real world use. Cold boot in 20 seconds - love it. I tried waiting for IvyBridge but ended up building a SandyBridge system last December since IB got delayed to Q2.

Have been thinking about upgrading the cpu to IB 3750k for the HD4000 Since I only use my system for HTPC the HD 2000 that came with the SB 2320 hasn't been a problem - I think I'll wait for the Haswell tock with it's 14 nm shrink before my next upgrade

I upgraded from a C2D e6600 Conroe and what a difference my current HTPC specs link in my sig...

wow, cold boots in under 20 seconds? I'm sitting at a minute an a half right now... lol, and I keep my machine VERY streamlined so not a lot of boot material. I'm hoping the SSD will treat me well. I went with the crucial because of the marvell controller. heard it's a bit slower than the ones OCZ uses but much more stable.

[wormraper]

on a side note. what's your recommendation on having side fans added to the case??? I've heard some people swear by them and other people say NOT to have side fans because they disrupt the flow of air from front to back.

[lucv13]

Originally Posted by wormraper

on a side note. what's your recommendation on having side fans added to the case??? I've heard some people swear by them and other people say NOT to have side fans because they disrupt the flow of air from front to back.

I had a side fan in a Lian Li case a few years ago - any extra airflow in a case is good in my opinion the only problem is that if you're in and out of the case often it's a pain disconnecting the fan all the time when removing the panel...

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by lucv13

I had a side fan in a Lian Li case a few years ago - any extra airflow in a case is good in my opinion the only problem is that if you're in and out of the case often it's a pain disconnecting the fan all the time when removing the panel...

lol, that it is. I tend to be bad at cable management as it is so that makes it look like a jungle in there with those additional side fans

[D-Blitz]

The king in heatsinks right now is probably Noctua. Their NH-D14 model is arguably the best overall heatsink on the market, but it's pricy. Here in Canada it can occasionally be had for under $60, and in a couple rare sales below $50. I have one and it is a phenomenal performer and extremely quiet.

As for cases, if you are looking at upgrading, look at the Corsair Graphite 600T. No matter how bad your cable management skills are, that case will help you get a decent job done. It's extra roomy on the back so even a poor cable routing job will look decent. I use one and have tons of cables used (5 drives total) and you can't see a single cable. It's also a beautiful case. A side fan is unnecessary in 95% of builds, unless you're doing some mad overclocking and need every bit of cooling you can get.

The Crucial M4 is the SSD to own at the moment, behind Intel's 520 IMO. The differences in performance are indistinguishable in real-life when compared to the better performing OCZ's, which are far, far less reliable. Only synthetic tests will point those out, really. To me reliability triumphs everything when it comes to hard drives - thankfully you aren't missing much in the way of performance with this one either. I do a cold boot in about 16-20 seconds.

You can try to sell your old PSU to recover some money. Even the best PSU's fail after a while. I've had Seasonic PSU's, which are supposed to be some of the better ones out there, fail on me in 3 years out of nowhere. Shouldn't be much of a problem selling it for like a third of its MSRP or even half of the MSRP if you're lucky. Or you can keep it as a backup because PSU failure does happen.

[adrian42677]

I would've went with a Z68 board instead of the Z77 as the only difference is the Z77 has Intel's USB 3.0 built into the Z77 chipset as the Z68 uses other companies such as Asmedia or Etron for it's USB 3.0. I mean I guess if you are planning somewhere down the line on upgrading to an Ivy Bridge chip that would be the other advantage. The Z77 with a Ivy Bridge CPU gives you the ability to use PCI-E 3.0 with a capable video card and Lucid Virtu MVP which allows you to use the onboard video chip in conjunction with the video card you put in for some kind of SLI/CrossFire X type gaming without buying a 2nd card. The Z77 with a Sandybridge cpu will not be any different than with a Z68 except for the Intel intergrated USB 3.0.

I just did the same thing and went with an AsRock Z77 Extreme 6 for my 2600K and then read from numerous sources that there is no gain other than the USB 3.0 with my CPU so I returned the Z77 and picked up a new Z68 for $80 ($60 after rebate). I'll run this until the next line of Intel CPUs and chipsets rollout.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/31...d-sandy-bridge

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2246555

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by adrian42677

I would've went with a Z68 board instead of the Z77 as the only difference is the Z77 has Intel's USB 3.0 built into the Z77 chipset as the Z68 uses other companies such as Asmedia or Etron for it's USB 3.0. I mean I guess if you are planning somewhere down the line on upgrading to an Ivy Bridge chip that would be the other advantage. The Z77 with a Ivy Bridge CPU gives you the ability to use PCI-E 3.0 with a capable video card and Lucid Virtu MVP which allows you to use the onboard video chip in conjunction with the video card you put in for some kind of SLI/CrossFire X type gaming without buying a 2nd card. The Z77 with a Sandybridge cpu will not be any different than with a Z68 except for the Intel intergrated USB 3.0.

I just did the same thing and went with an AsRock Z77 Extreme 6 for my 2600K and then read from numerous sources that there is no gain other than the USB 3.0 with my CPU so I returned the Z77 and picked up a new Z68 for $80 ($60 after rebate). I'll run this until the next line of Intel CPUs and chipsets rollout.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/31...d-sandy-bridge

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2246555

I almost went with the AsRock z68's , but I kinda wanted to stick with Asus for my MOBO and their z68's were the same as the Z77's in price range .

[R3P0]

Originally Posted by wormraper

eh, x79 is gonna be fairly worthless for the mainstream public IMO. most gaming requires little to no multithreading or will even see the benefits of that. like the 1366 chips they will coexist with the 1155 as kind of a high end "niche" market.

and as for the ram. 16 gigs is WAY overkill for 99% of uses. most gamers don't even break 6-8 gigs in HEAVY usage. and 16 is usually maxed out only with heavy duty video/graphics rendering. IMO anything above 16 gigs for the next couple years is just wasteful. as for upgrading I find a machine (even if you buy TOP of the line, is fairly worthless in 3 years. I USUALLY (except this last time) upgrade about a grand of components every 2 years.

and as for quad channel memory. just like triple channel it's worthless in real world performance. you MIGHT get a 2-3% performance boost above dual channel but that's about it.

I repair computers for a living and worked in the IT industry for the last 10 years. so performance is usually my livlihood (except in this situation where I haven't paid attention to the higher end proc's for the last 2 year since most of my client's don't buy that high end.)

Dood lol 2011 is the high end market its where all the 6 core chips are going to be. you can say its worthless that's fine and that's your opinion, but you were the one who came on here asking for advice. BTW the 2011 Chips on X79 boards are good until at least late 2014/mid 2015. the only thing that may change is the pin outs on the CPU's according to intel.

The fact you repair computers no offense don't mean dick in this situation, im an OSS tech as well for a major auto parts supplier, we do the same thing the only difference is for the past 2 years i've been researching and haven't pulled the trigger yet because I was waiting for the specific board that was just released.

I build to OC and future proof my shit as I said before what i build will last me a very long time possibly 10+ years at this point. In my opinion for future proofing and for gaming and for OCing PCIE 3.0 with Ivy Bridge on X79 + Quad channel ram is the way to go.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by R3P0

Dood lol 2011 is the high end market its where all the 6 core chips are going to be. you can say its worthless that's fine and that's your opinion, but you were the one who came on here asking for advice. BTW the 2011 Chips on X79 boards are good until at least late 2014/mid 2015. the only thing that may change is the pin outs on the CPU's according to intel.

The fact you repair computers no offense don't mean dick in this situation, im an OSS tech as well for a major auto parts supplier, we do the same thing the only difference is for the past 2 years i've been researching and haven't pulled the trigger yet because I was waiting for the specific board that was just released.

I build to OC and future proof my shit as I said before what i build will last me a very long time possibly 10+ years at this point. In my opinion for future proofing and for gaming and for OCing PCIE 3.0 with Ivy Bridge on X79 + Quad channel ram is the way to go.

lol, don't get your panties in a bunch buddy. I didn't go out of the way to insult you, I've been doing my own research and pretty much everyone I'm talking to on the forums all don't think x79 is worth crap for the next few years. sure it's the future but "future" stuff is always 10% increased performance for 3x the price. "present" day tech is usually 1/3 - 1/2 the price and is much more mainstream. and as I said, yes it IS the high end stuff, but as I said it's the "elitist" section that will coexist with the 1155 boards till they die out.

as for my statement about being a computer tech, it means that I DO see real world machines on a daily basis and believe you me, even for gamers and the such the x79 boards aren't even a CONSIDERATION. sure they have their uses but are overkill for everyone but specific purposes at this point in time. You mentioned that you may use this for 10+ years, but in MY experience and purpose upgrading once every 2-3 years max is much more beneficial since video cards , cpu's and processors become a NASTY bottleneck in that time period for games and rendering etc. My only "advice" on this thread was making sure I hadn't missed anything in my research. As per all the responses and knowing that 3 years is the max between now and the time I'll upgrade another grand into my machine I'm pretty sure I have.

while I haven't kept up on the mobos and proc's the last couple of years I HAVE kept very close tabs on the ram. quad channel ram may be nice on paper , but real world performance is a WHOLE nother ball of wax. right now, just like triple channel memory it's a small performance increase and really isn't worth crap IMO. I mean if you wanna pay for that tiny increase in performance go right ahead, but I'll save my money for actual real world results. will I ever get a 2011 socket board? probably yes if it REALLY is around till 2015 (which is probably when I'll do another complete rebuild), but as I said before for MY purpose, I see no benefit to getting an x79 board when really the only people who need such things are the extreme over clockers and system crunchers

my personal opinion is that "future proofing" for the computer world is pretty much nonexistant past a 2 year period. everything we have will be sub par within a year and obsolete within 2. while I COULD keep it running past 3 or 4 years I find it wasteful to throw money at something that's that old anyways when I can just rebuild and have something of that generation.

[adrian42677]

Originally Posted by wormraper

I almost went with the AsRock z68's , but I kinda wanted to stick with Asus for my MOBO and their z68's were the same as the Z77's in price range .

Well you didn't mention it had to be ASUS . Yeah, I was looking at a Z68 ASUS Rampage and it was still well over $200 for it even the Sabertooth version was $150+. Since I wasn't going to upgrade my CPU, I figured why spend so much if I'm going to get the next version after Ivy Bridge anyway. So I went the cheap route and bought a disco'd Gigabyte. Spent most of the pennies I had on the VC & PSU. Now if I was buying everything, I would've went Ivy Bridge.

I think most buying the x79 are those that want x16/x16 and maybe x16/x16/x16 SLI or CrossFireX as the Z68/Z77 boards do x16/x8 or x8/x8 SLI or CrossFireX.