$1300 Build. Part suggestions and ideas are appreciated!

[Pippin]

Hey there, this by no means, is my first build. I usually build computers for friends. But with every single build I find it best to review your parts with people of all different experiences and ideas. So, to forums I come.

My budget for this computer was originally $1200, but I realized quickly that to get the graphics performance I wanted, with a 580, and not be limited by my other components.. I'd need to bump that up to $1300.

With my current computer (Q6600, 9800 in SLI, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM 500GB Raid 0) my biggest bottleneck is my RAM. I often see it hit 98-99% due too my habit of multitasking. It isn't uncommon for me to have Minecraft, iTunes, Ventrilo, Steam, Chrome, and Netbeans all open at once. And for me to be actively derping with them all.

This computer will be going through portions of programming, Photoshop, Just Cause 2, TF2, Minecraft, more Minecraft, and Fruity Loops. I'd love to get into 3D modelling, but I lack a computer to be able to avidly do that on. So 8GB of RAM is a must. So is a nice graphics card. I'm trying to futureproof it, even though with computers, that's impossible.
Also, I left out an SSD. That'd be nice to fit in.

This is my current idea:

Case (Gotta have a perty box):
COOLER MASTER HAF 932
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior

HDD (Spin, spin):
Seagate Barracude 7200RPM 1TB
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Graphix (Oh! Shiny!):
EVGA 015-P3-1580 GTC 580 1.5GB
Newegg.com - EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

PSU (Watts cracking?):
Corsair HX650 80+ Bronze Modular
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 (CMPSU-650HX) 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

RAM (Lovin' that multitaskin'!):
G. Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB DDR3 1600
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

Motherboard (Not to be confused with Mothership):
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel 1155 ATX
Newegg.com - ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU (The brains of the operation.):
Intel i5 2500K
Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

And a 20 dollar burner. Total currently is 1,258. But I know I can do better :/

Possible additions:

32GB SSD purely for Windows/GnackTrack
One of those fancy Corsair Hydro H-whatevers.

[glc]

Here are my recommendations:

1. Replace the Seagate drive with a Western Digital Black.

2. Replace the ram with Corsair Vengeance low profile or other 1600 speed 1.5 volt ram from Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, or A-Data that supports XMP.

3. Replace the motherboard with an Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI.

If you get a SSD, you will need something bigger than 32gb.

[Deathdiesel]

Go with everything glc reccomended, although personally id go with a 750W PSU in case you decide to overclock, add more HDs, or whatever other addons.

[Masaki 7-11]

If you make good use of ram, might as well go for 16GB, dirt cheap right now and you won't have to worry about upgrading that for a good while. If you do get a SSD, you'll probably want a minimum of around 60GB or space and that won't allow for many games to be installed, 120GB would be preferred (though that's going to be pretty expensive at around $200), going with an SSD and storage drive, i would pick up a 2TB drive since they are plenty fast and the more storage the better. If you just need a hard drive to stick everything onto, WD Caviar Black are great, very fast, very reliable, sequential read/write speeds are over 140MB/s from my personal experience and get fairly close to lower end SSDs.

Regarding video card, if you don't mind tweaking and want to save a good chunk of money, you can try getting a HD6950 (Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100312-3SR Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity) and unlocking it to a HD6970. The performance difference between the HD6970 and GTX580 isn't too big and if you are running games at 1920x1200 or around there, you won't notice much difference. The HD6950 has dual bios with a switch on the side, so you can try unlocking it, and revert back to original bios if you have problems. I bought a HD6950 for a computer I build earlier this year, and unlocking took me a few minutes and worked well, though unlocking isn't guaranteed. The performance of the HD6950 is also fairly decent if you can't unlock it up to a HD6970.
This is a link to Tom's Hardware that compares GTX580 to HD6970 and HD6950 so you can kind of get an idea what differences in performance you should expect: http://tinyurl.com/3m4nsv6

I've used the Corsair H50 and H100 kits so far, been pretty happy with them, though I doubt you'd find much use for them if you're not overclocking. I like the H series kits since they lower temperatures a fair bit without putting a big strain on your motherboard while keeping the general area around your CPU pretty clean and not obstructing airflow. If you just want to have something better than the stock Intel HSF that will be quieter and not going to do too much overclocking, this is a good cooler: Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler. I've used at least a dozen of them in the builds I've done and have had no issues with them while lowering temperatures and noise compared to stock HSFs.

Regarding power supply, I think 650W is more than enough for a build with only one card, even if overclocking, but if you ever want to add another graphics card or reuse this power supply in a build later on down the line, might not be a bad idea to get a bit more wattage.

[Pippin]

I am a really big fan of ASRock and Asus motherboards. But after reading many reviews like this one I feel like the Z68 Motherboard is absolutely amazing. It has a PCI-E 3.0 Slot, which, if I ever try to go for a Sandy Bridge E chip, I'll be able to utilize. The Z68 hybrid chipset has some nice nifty features, and I think that the ASRock's BIOS is amazing. It's simple, mouse-based, and easy to use (gotta love that system snapshot feature, aswell). The mobo is roomy, and should allow expansion room.

I went ahead and chaged my PSU to a CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V and switched my RAM over too CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB). I have been a big fan of Seagate HDD's and over my maybe 15+ builds with them, not one of them has crashed/arrived DOA.

As far as graphics cards go.. I really like the 580. But, if I went with your 6950 w/ BIOS flash, I'd be able to go with an SSD in my budget. So is 580 > 6970 + SSD??

Also, I've done the BIOS flash before.. But a friend tried it and his card was a Revision 2. Are you sure this one will work to be a 6970?

[glc]

Reviews do not address reliability or component/assembly quality or support. These are areas where Asrock is lacking.

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by glc Reviews do not address reliability or component/assembly quality or support. These are areas where Asrock is lacking.

Do you know of another X68 motherboard, supporting PCI 3.0 and two USB 3.0's on the front below 200-ish with reputable status? I could up my budget too $1500 if needed, but I'd need to wait until October to aquire the money, of course, the Sandy Bridge-E's might be out by then.

Looking off of this list off of newegg sorted top rating first, and sporting the Z68 chipset with a 1155 socket, Asus and ASRock come out on top. Obviously, Asus makes some kick-ass motherboards, bought them many a-time, but with that pricetag of 360?

[Masaki 7-11]

Did a bit of research on the HD6950, looks like all the current available cards don't support unlocking or dual bios, all the older revision are out of stock. So if you want to grab an SSD, you could take a look at getting a stock HD6950, OCd HD6950 or a stock HD6970 if the performance looks decent to you. The HD6970 is selling for $340 which is about $120 less than GTX580.

Regarding motherboard, why do you need PCIe 3.0? It's not yet supported by anything as far as I know, and even the best dual GPU cards right now still don't saturate PCIe 2.0 slot.

[glc]

If you really must have PCI-E 3.0, Asrock is the only game in town. NOBODY else is implementing it at this time.

[David M]

The earliest adopters of a new technology get screwed more often than those who wait for the bugs to get worked out.

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 Did a bit of research on the HD6950, looks like all the current available cards don't support unlocking or dual bios, all the older revision are out of stock.

Yup, that's exactly what I thought

Well, PCI 3.0 is definitely not a must-have,but it would be nice to have a logical upgrade path with the Intel sandy bridge-e, and, if I ever need a card that WOULD use the capabilities of 3.0.. Then that would be decent too. But, it isn't a must. Especially for now.

So, 6950/6970 with a 64GB SSD? Or, a 580?

[Deathdiesel]

Are you going to be running 2 monitors? If not, just go with a 6950/70 and the SSD, i have a 580, and yes i can max every game out at 1920x1080, however a 6970/50 will come very close to doing the same, you may have to tune things back a little bit but not much, but the worthiness of a SSD is probably more worth it.
Heres a comparison between a 580 vs 6970
AnandTech - Bench - GPU11
And one with 6970vs6950
AnandTech - Bench - GPU11

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by Deathdiesel Are you going to be running 2 monitors? If not, just go with a 6950/70 and the SSD, i have a 580, and yes i can max every game out at 1920x1080, however a 6970/50 will come very close to doing the same, you may have to tune things back a little bit but not much, but the worthiness of a SSD is probably more worth it. Heres a comparison between a 580 vs 6970 AnandTech - Bench - GPU11 And one with 6970vs6950 AnandTech - Bench - GPU11

I was hoping, in the future I could possibly have 2 or even 3 monitors at 1680x1050... In hopes I have enough $$$ for them.

[Deathdiesel]

In which case you need to consider if you want to crossfire or SLI 2 graphic cards, or just get one more powerful card. A 580 could probably run 3 monitors(i havent checked), with relative ease if your not gaming, but if you are you'd have to dumb the settings down graphic wise a good bit with 3 monitors. Running 3 monitors while gaming can take a big toll on cards. So you may need to set up a budget, or get a 6970 now, and plan to crossfire a second later.

[David M]

I wouldn't bother gaming on three monitors with anything less than a 6990 or two high end cards in Crossfire or SLI. I have tried it with the newer games, it stinks basically. You have to turn most game settings way down to get playable frame rates. You really need two GPU's to power three monitors for playing graphics intensive games.

If you do want to get three monitors and two high end cards then you have to pick a different board. You want a P68 board with two PCIe slots at 16 graphics lanes each or wait for the next generation of boards that are designed to replace the 1366/X58 chipsets.

[Kidd]

That board has Intel Smart Response- Do you need a SSD to take advantage of that? I thought adding a small SSD to make Z68 builds faster was what ISR was used for....

[David M]

You can have 2 x 16 graphics lanes or you can use a SSD as cache but you cant have both....not at this point in time.

It boils down to a choice of fast gaming for a multi-screen rig or extremely fast load times...take your choice. If it is a single screen rig then the choice is obvious, a Z68.

[Kidd]

Originally Posted by David M You can have 2 x 16 graphics lanes or you can use a SSD as cache but you cant have both....not at this point in time. It boils down to a choice of fast gaming for a multi-screen rig or extremely fast load times...take your choice. If it is a single screen rig then the choice is obvious, a Z68.

David, could you elaborate more, or point me to a better resource?

1. Is the Z68 not capable of using SSD caching when both x16 lanes are occupied?
2. Does the SSD used for ISR connect through SATA, or does it need to be PCIe SSD?

I was under the impression the SSD (+/- 40 GB) must be connected to a specific SATA on the board, but I've never used one...

[David M]

There are no Z68 boards with two PCIe slots at 16 graphics lanes each. There are no P67 boards that do SSD caching.

This is why I chose an Asus Revolution P67 board, because I have three monitors and two very fast graphics cards and did not want the gaming bottleneck to be the PCIe slots....which is what was happening with my last board that was 2 slots with 8 graphics lanes each.

The P67 is also a better overall chipset for gaming if that is what is most important.

I would say in the vast majority of situations the Z68 is the better choice over the P67, mine just wasn't one of those situations. It sounds like the OP is going to have more than one monitor AND have two very fast graphics cards, then a Z68 may not be the optimal board for him either....it depends on how fast of graphics cards that he wants and the number of monitors he purchases.

That's all I am trying to say.

[Kidd]

Originally Posted by David M There are no Z68 boards with two PCIe slots at 16 graphics lanes each. There are no P67 boards that do SSD caching. This is why I chose an Asus Revolution P67 board, because I have three monitors and two very fast graphics cards and did not want the gaming bottleneck to be the PCIe slots....which is what was happening with my last board that was 2 slots with 8 graphics lanes each. The P67 is also a better overall chipset for gaming if that is what is most important. I would say in the vast majority of situations the Z68 is the better choice over the P67, mine just wasn't one of those situations. It sounds like the OP is going to have more than one monitor AND have two very fast graphics cards, then a Z68 may not be the optimal board for him either....it depends on how fast of graphics cards that he wants and the number of monitors he purchases. That's all I am trying to say.

It slipped past me that Z68s don't have 2-x16 lanes (yet)
Thanks, now I get it

[glc]

There are Z68 boards that do have the NF200 bridge to get 2 slots at x16. The P67 also needs a NF200 to do that. However, dual x8 slots should be good enough.

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by David M There are no Z68 boards with two PCIe slots at 16 graphics lanes each. There are no P67 boards that do SSD caching. This is why I chose an Asus Revolution P67 board, because I have three monitors and two very fast graphics cards and did not want the gaming bottleneck to be the PCIe slots....which is what was happening with my last board that was 2 slots with 8 graphics lanes each. The P67 is also a better overall chipset for gaming if that is what is most important. I would say in the vast majority of situations the Z68 is the better choice over the P67, mine just wasn't one of those situations. It sounds like the OP is going to have more than one monitor AND have two very fast graphics cards, then a Z68 may not be the optimal board for him either....it depends on how fast of graphics cards that he wants and the number of monitors he purchases. That's all I am trying to say.

Thank you guys for all your wonderful help!

Super fast boot times aren't really needed for me. It isn't like I'll be live-rendering HD streams or anything. But, gaming, obviously takes priority. I don't think three monitors is absolutely necessary, but I would like to have a rig with two monitors, and preferably pretty insane graphics. My current setup runs on a 1680x1050 resolution, so I'll be ending up buying two monitors of at least 1080p.
So, maybe, Z68 isn't for me. But I do like the idea of futureproofing some of my components. Basically, I need a board with 2 x 16 Graphics lanes, 16GB of RAM, 7.1 Audio, until I get a better sound card that'll work with my tube preamp nicely :/. And obviously a LGA1155 socket. I was taking a look at some of Asus's Gaming motherboards, but, they're all quite pricey.

[glc]

I need a board with 2 x 16 Graphics lanes,

2 x8 lanes will do the job just fine.