Do I need to upgrade anything

[confuzedsushi]

So I'm building a PC, first time and all that. Setup will be
Thermaltake element t case
cpu: i5 2500k 3.3 ghz (I'm going to overclock a bit [3.7 or 4])
motherboard: gigabyte p67ud3b3
ram: 6gb corsair dominator
gpu: amd radeon 6870
power: coolermaster 800watts silent pro gold
hard drive: 40gb ssd for os, 1 terabyte data drive
CPU COOLING: Corsair H60 liquid cooling

Now, my questions.
Is that a good build?
Does the case have 120mm fans at the back (for water cooling compatibility)?
Is that a good liquid cooler?
Do I need another cooling form for the other parts since I think it only goes over the CPU? Or will case fans suffice for the other stuff?
Does the liquid cooling cool the entire thing or just the cpu?
Does a fan cool the entire thing or the cpu only?

Please explain in depth I'm a noooob.

[flanzig1]

If this is your first build, would stay with air cooling. With today's aftermarket fan CPU heatsinks, you can do some OCing. Watercoolong was for the guys that did max OCing. Watercooling kits tend to not have all quailty parts. Experianced water cooler people will buy quality parts from different makers to get the best system.

[glc]

Get either 4 or 8 gb of ram - the P67 is only a dual channel chipset, install ram in pairs, not threes.

[renowilliams]

I can definatley recommend a Noctua DH14 air cooler. I have one and with my i7 860 clocked at 3.8 GHZ its idle temperature runs around 72-74 F. The build quality on this cooler is excellent. However it is large so you need a case large enough to accomodate it. Here is a picture of mine in a Cooler Master HAF 932 case.

DSC00171 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[David M]

These days you need to spend a lot of money on water cooling parts to beat the most efficient air coolers, most of which cost under a hundred bucks. I don't see it as worth it to spend hundreds of additional dollars to get that last 5% to 10% of additional overall computer speed with water cooling. There are water cooling blocks for CPU's, graphics cards, RAM, motherboard chips and hard drives. You can pick and choose what you want unless it's a kit.

I think you are better off performance wise buying a high end air CPU cooler than a cheap or mid range CPU water cooling kit. Have a look at some benchmarks where the two types are compared.

It takes a real expert and a 1366 CPU to really max out everything on a computer and for a first build you do not want to go there. Get a Sandy Bridge 2600K CPU. Do a mild overclock with an aftermarket air cooler and you will be in at least the 90th percentile. It won't cost a fortune and it will be stable. What will cost you is a really nice graphics card if you want all the eye candy for those games.

[birddog_61]

The sandy bridge CPU is very good at over clicking, unless your planning a high 4 to 5 4ghz oc you will be fine with a good air cooler.

[confuzedsushi]

Right, now can anyone give me a review or what they've heard of the coolermaster v6gt?
I'm not sure if it will fit in my case, however, if it doesn't, i'll return it and get a 212+
Can anyone give me personal experience from them or a friend with it?
Oh and will this computer run CoD4 on max settings/max settings on promod.

[glc]

You should also wait for the Asus Sabertooth P67 board to be re-released. It has its own cooling system and a 5 year warranty.

The 212+ is an excellent cooler for the money.

[birddog_61]

Top 5 Intel & AMD Heatsinks on Frostytech

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=2572&page=5

[confuzedsushi]

Ok so would it be safe to assume that this will run CoD 4 on Max Settings with 8gb of ram and overclocked to 4? I'm going to stick with my original plans besides the ram and watercooling, as I need to conserve money.
I'm going to go with a coolermaster 212 as my fan.
Thanks for the help

[birddog_61]

Overclocking depends entirely on your chip, some people get lucky and get a chip that overclocks like mad, some people dont and get one that requires large amounts of voltage to make much of a move on clock speed. You should have no problem hitting 4ghz, but there is no guarantee. As for playing cod4 maxed out, that should be no sweat.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 review

[David M]

Once your CPU meets some pretty minimal standards, it's your graphics card that becomes the speed limit for how fast your computer will run games. In other words, you don't need to overclock any Sandy Bridge to meet that standard.

Cards that play all the games at maximum settings at playable frame rates on decent resolution monitors don't come cheap.

If you think you might enjoy overclocking your Sandy Bridge, hitting 4GHz is pretty easy. Some people have had them up near 5 GHz. Get one of the K's so your multiplier is not locked up.

[glc]

And I stand by my motherboard recommendation - and I'd also recommend a better brand of power supply.

[confuzedsushi]

So heres how it lays out right now. I don't want to spend $100 more on a motherboard or $200 more on a graphics card because basically I want to play
CoD4
CoD2
CSS
Quakelive
TF2
Portal 1 and 2 when it comes out
And I might pick up BF3 but I'm willing to play on lower settings.

I'm on a budget of around $1200-1300
Is there anything you see that's completely off for those games with this setup? And, Is it worth it to have a solid state for boot up?

CPU:i5 2500k 3.3 ghz
Motherboard: gigabyte p67ud3b3
Memory: 8gb corsair dominator @ 1600
Graphics Card: Amd Radeon 6870
Power Supply: Coolermaster 800watts silent pro gold
Hard Drive: 40gb SSD for OS, 1 terabyte data drive
Cooling: Coolermaster 212+

[confuzedsushi]

So heres how it lays out right now. I don't want to spend $100 more on a motherboard or $200 more on a graphics card because basically I want to play
CoD4
CoD2
CSS
Quakelive
TF2
Portal 1 and 2 when it comes out
And I might pick up BF3 but I'm willing to play on lower settings.

I'm on a budget of around $1200-1300
Is there anything you see that's completely off for those games with this setup? And, Is it worth it to have a solid state for boot up?

CPU:i5 2500k 3.3 ghz
Motherboard: gigabyte p67ud3b3
Memory: 8gb corsair dominator @ 1600
Graphics Card: Amd Radeon 6870
Power Supply: Coolermaster 800watts silent pro gold
Hard Drive: 40gb SSD for OS, 1 terabyte data drive
Cooling: Coolermaster 212+

Is there anything I need to change? Or can I downgrade some of the lesser parts?

[glc]

Threads merged.

Like I said, I would not buy that motherboard or PSU, but you seem to be determined to do so. I also don't think a SSD is a good use of your limited funds.

[confuzedsushi]

The only way I can afford the one you suggested (I believe the Asus Sabertooth) is if get rid of the SSD. I'm already spending extra on 8 GB of ram.

What difference does the motherboard make?
-Is there another motherboard that has better performance than the one I'm looking at for a better price/deal? What is the best deal for at or under the price of the card you suggested?

Can I still keep a 1 terabyte and put the OS on it and put all my games, programs, etc... and will it run the same?

Thanks for all the help

[glc]

It's not a performance issue with either the motherboard or the power supply - it's stability and reliability. A WD Black is fine for everything.

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Newegg.com - ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (or wait till the Sabertooth is back in stock)

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

[confuzedsushi]

One problem, that power supply won't fit my power requirement. The minimum is 700watts for my old build, and I would rather go over, and get an 800 or an 850.
Any suggestions?
From what I've read, the ax 850 is a very good PSU. Should I spend $20 more for that or get the tx 850 instead?

And I can install the OS on the hard drive, and put loads more on it, correct? I'm getting 64 bit OS if that matters.

And is that the new Asus Sabertooth you were talking about (if there is 2 versions)? If not, I can wait.

Final question, should I buy as much as possible off of newegg or amazon? (Will I get free shipping or anything from either) Or should I just go with the cheapest I can find from trustworthy places.

Thank you SO much for the help

[glc]

What makes you think you need 700 watts, much less 850?

AMD Radeon

500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for AMD CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)

ANY of the Corsair TX, HX, or AX units are excellent.

You can put everything on one drive.

The particular Sabertooth is the "Sabertooth P67 version 3.0".

Newegg lists shipping charges for each and every item. Amazon is reliable too. However, i wouldn't use too many different vendors to keep things reasonably simple.

[confuzedsushi]

Well according to cyberpowerpc, I should have 700 watts. However, I personally feel more comfortable if my system was a bit above that just incase.
Heres the power consumptions I found:
247W - Radeon 6870
151W - i5 2500k
10W - Caviar Black HD
4W - 212 plus
412W - Total

Now, are there any important components that I missed that take up lots of power?
I tried to find the consumption for my memory and motherboard but I couldn't come up with anything.

So does this mean CyberPower has just gone off their rocker or am I totally wrong... Also, I figure I should get over 500W since I want to OC, and I want to be safe with a bit of extra power behind it/or if I upgrade in the future.

Thanks!

[glc]

Cyberpower is smoking crack. The Corsair 650 is MORE than enough power. I'm just trying to save you some money where it doesn't really need to be spent. The only reason to spend more in my opinion is if you want a modular unit.

[David M]

Claimed power output is not the only factor with a PSU. I would take an excellent quality 650 watt PSU over a questionable 700 watt PSU any day.

A high quality 650 watt PSU will power 99% of the single graphics cards out there. You can't say that about marginal or junk quality PSU's.

What Power Supply should I get? How many Watts? Who made it? Guide Inside.

[confuzedsushi]

Now, really the last question,
With the uses listed below, can I go down to 6gb ram @ 1600mhz with the same performance? Or is that a bad idea for the future games and video editing.

Uses(again)
Advanced video editing (Independent 3D sequence renders)
Some photoshop
CoD4
CoD2
CSS
Quakelive
TF2
Portal 1 and 2
Maybe BF3

THANKS AGAIN!

[glc]

6gb is really only an option for triple channel boards. Decide whether you want 4gb or 8gb. I'd go for 8. You don't necessarily need Dominator.

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

[confuzedsushi]

Aha, I thought the sabertooth had 3 or 4 ram slots. I want the dominator, I just feel like if I'm going to buy big, I should buy good core products. And if you feel like responding, can you speak for the antec 900?

[glc]

I'm recommending the Vengeance instead of the Dominator for more than one reason. Not only is it cheaper, but it is lower voltage - thereby more stable and more overclockable.

The board does have 4 slots, but it's a dual channel board. That means ram should be installed in pairs. If you install 3 modules, it will no longer be running in dual channel mode.

Cases are personal preference, but from a quality standpoint, there's nothing at all wrong with Antec.

[confuzedsushi]

Now what is the advantage of the dominator? explain in noob words pl0x

[glc]

The Dominator is the OLD overclocker's ram. There is NO advantage any more. I've never recommended Dominator for anything anyway, it's always been a waste of money in my opinion.

[confuzedsushi]

Ok, I've got it all sorted out, thank you all for the help! Should be ordering this stuff soon and be building it within the month