The PC Build Thread

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Building a pc for a mate of mine just need some input, with regards to choice and price.

90% gaming purpose, with 15k to spend

CPU: Core i5 3750K
GPU: GTX 680
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD65? or GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H?
PSU: Corsair AX850?
Cooler: Corsair H100
Ram: Corsair 2x4GB later 4x4GB
Chassis: Cosair Graphite white 600Tz
HDD:1TB or 2TB depending on price

Before you ask where is the ssd I had it in the list at first, but it doesnt look like it can fit in the budget so will have to leave that out for now.

Will do a price check later tonight as well.

I might also be doing a similar pc for myself as well, though I have a AX750, would it be sufficient, I assume so as long as I don't go sli?

Hi HOLY MAnIAC

The Corsair AX850 is extreme overkill, a TX 650 will be more than enough for the one GTX 680. A H100 isn't necessary, an H80 or an Antec Kuhler 920 would be suffice for gaming, rather instead of spending too much money on a CPU cooler, water cool the GPU and overclock it, you should see a much better gaming performance than overclocking your CPU. For your HDD the better option would be to get the 1TB now and when HDD prices come down in a few months time, get another 1TB or 2TB. For your PC the AX750 would be able to handle a GTX680 SLI setup with a fair amount of ease. I will do a full quote later on in the day, kinda busy now.
 
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Hi HOLY MAnIAC

The Corsair AX850 is extreme overkill, a TX 650 will be more than enough for the one GTX 680. A H100 isn't necessary, an H80 or an Antec Kuhler 920 would be suffice for gaming, rather instead of spending too much money on a CPU cooler, water cool the GPU and overclock it, you should see a much better gaming performance than overclocking your CPU. For your HDD the better option would be to get the 1TB now and when HDD prices come down in a few months time, get another 1TB or 2TB. For your PC the AX750 would be able to handle a GTX680 SLI setup with a fair amount of ease. I will do a full quote later on in the day, kinda busy now.

2TB's are like R250 more than 1TBs so worth the 1/4 outlay for double the capacity! :D
 
Soooo... Ivy Bridge is out.

I'm thinking I should grab the following:
G.SKILL F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL, RIPJAWSZ
MSI Z77A-GD65
INTEL I5 3570K

Thoughts?

Alternatively I suppose I could still grab that motherboard since it's good quality and apparently SB likes the Z77 chipset, and slap a 2500k in there?
 
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Should I be concerned about Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge? Is it THAT much better? I'm actually now considering an i7 2700K instead of the AMD route.
 
Building a pc for a mate of mine just need some input, with regards to choice and price.

90% gaming purpose, with 15k to spend

CPU: Core i5 3750K
GPU: GTX 680
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD65? or GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H?
PSU: Corsair AX850?
Cooler: Corsair H100
Ram: Corsair 2x4GB later 4x4GB
Chassis: Cosair Graphite white 600Tz
HDD:1TB or 2TB depending on price

Before you ask where is the ssd I had it in the list at first, but it doesnt look like it can fit in the budget so will have to leave that out for now.

Will do a price check later tonight as well.

I might also be doing a similar pc for myself as well, though I have a AX750, would it be sufficient, I assume so as long as I don't go sli?



A 15k Rig without a SSD?
 
Soooo... Ivy Bridge is out.

I'm thinking I should grab the following:
G.SKILL F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL, RIPJAWSZ
MSI Z77A-GD65
INTEL I5 3570K

Thoughts?

Alternatively I suppose I could still grab that motherboard since it's good quality and apparently SB likes the Z77 chipset, and slap a 2500k in there?

The new i5 3570K offers around a 15% performance increase over the i5 2500K, but it doesn't overclock as well as the Sandy Bridge i5 as temperatures get too high on it.

So say, hypothetically, the Ivy Bridge i5 starts of with a performance of...well lets say... 100 and the Sandy Bridge i5 starts of with a performance of 85. The Ivy Bridge CPU, due to heat problems, will only overclock to give a performance of 120, whereas the Sandy Bridge i5, which runs cooler, will have more overclocking headroom and could be overclocked to give a performance of 125 and thus justifies the performance difference.

I would suggest, if you are going to seriously overclock your CPU (4.8GHz and above), go with the 2500K, if not and you are going to "mildly" overclock your CPU (around 4.2GHz - 4.5GHz) go with the 3570K. Also if you choose the 2500K and you're not satisfied, you could always sell it and get a 3570K, and if you do go the 2500K route you would have around R600 more to spend on whatever else you want.
 
Should I be concerned about Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge? Is it THAT much better? I'm actually now considering an i7 2700K instead of the AMD route.

I wouldn't be concerned about Ivy Bridge vs Sandy Bridge, as the new chips only offer around a 15% performance increase over SB and they don't run as cool as SB chips, thus far less overclocking can be done. The big concern would be about Haswell vs Ivy Bridge, as Haswell will have new architecture and offer a performance boost comparable to that of the jump from Nahalem (i7 920, 980 etc.) to Sandy Bridge.

If you do end up going the Sandy Bridge route, rather get the i7 2600K. The only difference between the 2600K and the 2700K is the base clock, with the 2600K having a base clock of 3.4GHz and the 2700K having a base clock of 3.5GHz.
 
Thanks Duff-Man. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I wilbe running quite a bit of virtualization labs, and the of course some gaming. Will this processor, i.e. the 2600K be a good option considering my requirements?
 
A 15k Rig without a SSD?

I personally take an SSD as an extra and not a "must have". For example I would rather spend my R1500 on buying a better GPU, CPU, motherboard, etc. After I have completed a rig for myself with all the components that I had in mind, then I would look into getting one, I wouldn't sacrifice a core component for the sake of getting an SSD. Take HOLY MAnIAC as an example, in his R15 000 rig, he could've spent the R1 500 on an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB and possible ended up with a Radeon 7970 instead of a GTX 680. But again this is my opinion, if you ask SSD owners they will tell you than an SSD is a must have, whereas there are people out there who would never buy an SSD ;)
 
Thanks Duff-Man. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I wilbe running quite a bit of virtualization labs, and the of course some gaming. Will this processor, i.e. the 2600K be a good option considering my requirements?

The 2600K will be more than enough for your requirements. Just a quick question what motherboard are you going to get?
 
Was thinking an MSI Z77A-G43
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=5700

Also, I notice on Rebel Tech the 2600K is about R100 more expensive than the 2700K.... Mistake?

Good choice, only reason I had asked, was that I thought you might have gone for a P67 or Z68 motherboard instead of the newer Z77's.

Rebel Tech must've made a mistake on their pricing, generally the 2700K goes for around R100-R200 more than the 2600K.
 
Thought as much. Thanks for the advice. Been a while since I've looked at the high-end PC market. This thread helps a lot.
 
I personally take an SSD as an extra and not a "must have". For example I would rather spend my R1500 on buying a better GPU, CPU, motherboard, etc. After I have completed a rig for myself with all the components that I had in mind, then I would look into getting one, I wouldn't sacrifice a core component for the sake of getting an SSD. Take HOLY MAnIAC as an example, in his R15 000 rig, he could've spent the R1 500 on an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB and possible ended up with a Radeon 7970 instead of a GTX 680. But again this is my opinion, if you ask SSD owners they will tell you than an SSD is a must have, whereas there are people out there who would never buy an SSD ;)

SSD.must.have.
 
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