Need help with a new PC build

[Zonder]

I am building a new system at the moment and can't decide on a few bits if anyone can give any input it's much appreciated

I am using the system for development and games (get round to this long wishlist I have on amazon caused by kojack mainly lol)

Things decided and ordered:

Monitor: 27" 120hz
Case:Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case
CPU: AMD FX-8350
Cooling: Corsair Hydro H100
Storage: 2 x 128GB SSD striped (490Mb/s transfer) and have a spare 500Gb that I am sticking in for spare (I have 6TB of raid 5 storage on my server for backup so don't need anything on this box)
Sound: On board or will be using an external box I have will just see which is better. (I am not too fussed about this)
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth
GPU: Nvidia 770

Things pending a decision:


Memory: 1866Mhz
PSU: I am presuming a 1000W? I know this depends really on everything else

[Transporter]

GPU: Nvidia 770 or 2 x Nvidia 760

I would choose 770 because 2x 760 is more expensive and you have the heat of two graphic cards in you case.
ASUS GTX770-DC2OC-2GD5

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth vs Asus Crosshair V Formula (now if I go 2 x GPU it will be the Crosshair so I can drop a third in down the line)

This is a hard decision! I would choose the Crosshair.

Memory: 1866 / 2133 board dependent but will get 2 x 8Gb

2133, that's one reason to take the Crosshair.
Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR3-2133 Kit

I am presuming a 1000W? I know this depends really on everything else

On this website they say 600W or more. ASUS graphic cards are given with a spec of 300W per card. I think you can work with 800W+.
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 850W

[EricB]

If you're buying an AMD CPU with an AMD chipset then why the hell are you going to buy nvidia GPUs?

It is my personal opinion that you should always try to keep your brands the same if possible. What kind of video card do you think the guys down at AMD did all their cpu/chipset testing on?



If you were going with an Intel system then I wouldn't condemn the use of Nvidia unless you're a Linux user. Mainly because Intel GPUs are pure $@#7. Just my 2 bits.




And just for clarification I am an AMD/ATI fanboy since the late 90s. SO pepper and salt my comments as you please.

[cybereality]

While SLI has seemed to improve recently, I still think a single GPU is going to have less issues than multi.

I think it's also better to start a build with a fast single card, and then upgrade to SLI later when the card will be cheaper.

One reason to go with Nvidia is if that 120Hz monitor is 3D, then you can get the Nvidia glasses if you want. It is really cool to play in 3D, though 2D at 120Hz is also nice.

[Zonder]

While SLI has seemed to improve recently, I still think a single GPU is going to have less issues than multi.

I think it's also better to start a build with a fast single card, and then upgrade to SLI later when the card will be cheaper.

One reason to go with Nvidia is if that 120Hz monitor is 3D, then you can get the Nvidia glasses if you want. It is really cool to play in 3D, though 2D at 120Hz is also nice.

I actually posted my new monitor in another thread it has the 3D vision glasses with the IR built in. so thats why I am going nvidia else I would be going for an amd gpu and that was my original plan !

Edit

My new monitor
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MO-061-AC

[Zonder]

GPU: Nvidia 770 or 2 x Nvidia 760

I would choose 770 because 2x 760 is more expensive and you have the heat of two graphic cards in you case.
ASUS GTX770-DC2OC-2GD5

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth vs Asus Crosshair V Formula (now if I go 2 x GPU it will be the Crosshair so I can drop a third in down the line)

This is a hard decision! I would choose the Crosshair.

Memory: 1866 / 2133 board dependent but will get 2 x 8Gb

2133, that's one reason to take the Crosshair.
Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR3-2133 Kit

I am presuming a 1000W? I know this depends really on everything else

On this website they say 600W or more. ASUS graphic cards are given with a spec of 300W per card. I think you can work with 800W+.
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 850W

Did you look into the case I am buying? pleanty of room for ventilation so not worried about sli x2 or x3
but I need the crosshair for x3

but 1 good gpu then wait a year and drop the second in?

[Transporter]

Did you look into the case I am buying? pleanty of room for ventilation so not worried about sli x2 or x3
but I need the crosshair for x3

but 1 good gpu then wait a year and drop the second in?

If you install a real turbine in your case, you don't have to care about the heat of two graphic cards. Otherwise you'll increase the internal temperature of the whole system. If you have good fans in your case your temperature might be increase only about 2°C - 10°C. It's easy! Every graphic card is a real monster which takes a lot of space and disturb the air flow of the case fans. Also the air flow of the graphic card fans are not optimized to your case.

While SLI has seemed to improve recently, I still think a single GPU is going to have less issues than multi.

I think it's also better to start a build with a fast single card, and then upgrade to SLI later when the card will be cheaper.

I agree!

[Kojack]

Hopefully the corsair case you picked and the corsair H100 fit together well.
I got the H80 and a Lian Li case. The H80 is @#$%ing huge (the H100 is even bigger), I had to drill new holes in the case because the fan mounting spot on the back wasn't compatible with the size of the H80 radiator, it was bumping into part of the pcie back panel thing.
I also had to choose ram with low heatsinks, as it is there's only around 1-2mm clearance between the H80 and half my ram (I've got 16GB on either side of the cpu).

It all worked out well in the end though.

Storage: 2 x 128GB SSD striped (490Mb/s transfer)

I went for a single 512GB samsung 840pro. It can do 540MB/s without raid. Expensive drive, but pretty damn fast.

[Zonder]

Hopefully the corsair case you picked and the corsair H100 fit together well.
I got the H80 and a Lian Li case. The H80 is @#$%ing huge (the H100 is even bigger), I had to drill new holes in the case because the fan mounting spot on the back wasn't compatible with the size of the H80 radiator, it was bumping into part of the pcie back panel thing.
I also had to choose ram with low heatsinks, as it is there's only around 1-2mm clearance between the H80 and half my ram (I've got 16GB on either side of the cpu).

It all worked out well in the end though.

Storage: 2 x 128GB SSD striped (490Mb/s transfer)

I went for a single 512GB samsung 840pro. It can do 540MB/s without raid. Expensive drive, but pretty damn fast.

Yeah I checked the H100 would fit here is a pic. It can handle full liquid cooling as well but that is ott at the moment for what I need.

[Zonder]

Yeah 520MB/s is nice, I opted for a slower drive and stripe them but it's 490MB/s per drive I indicated otherwise above so theoretical 980MB/s transfer stripped.

[Kojack]

Hmm, looking at a photo of the parts I've remembered that I didn't get a H80, I got the thermaltake water 2.0 pro. The H80 was an option I was considering, but I went for the Thermaltake instead (can't remember why). Very similar though, both are thick radiator twin 120mm fan closed loop cpu water coolers.

[Zonder]

Yeah they certainly are big. As you can see though they designed the case with their top line rad in mind.

Anyone know if getting a PCIe 3.0 board is worth considering from what I am reading it doesn't make much difference unless you are using the GPU for non graphical work. If not I think it's going to be the crosshair v board.

[Zonder]

Decided to go with the sabertooth board for the bandwidth from pcie 3 and also going with a 770 gpu not decided on which exact gpu yet though

[Zonder]

Have ordered all my parts just need to wait for them to arrive case won't be here till mid august, at least I can assemble the rest and give it a test

[syedhs]

Have you ever give a thought that the new PC will also be hackintosh-able? I contacted one hardware guy supplier, he quoted me quite a nice spec and the price is good too - and he will install both Windows and MacOs in it.

[Kojack]

Have you ever give a thought that the new PC will also be hackintosh-able?

I'd pay extra to make sure it's not.

[EricB]

Have you ever give a thought that the new PC will also be hackintosh-able? I contacted one hardware guy supplier, he quoted me quite a nice spec and the price is good too - and he will install both Windows and MacOs in it.

If you're going about doing illegal stuff I'd go the VM route . Even works on AMD machines... Then you can cover all your bases: Linux32,Linux64,Xp,7,OSX on one machine without rebooting... You just gotta fiddle with the osx drivers some.

[syedhs]

I am not sure the current status of Hackintosh (last time I heard that in the USA, PC traders which openly built hackintosh pc were forced to stop their practise), but both OS Windows and OS are definitely legit..
As I am typing this, I searched for Hackintosh legality and it seems not legal, although technically possible..

[Zonder]

I am not sure the current status of Hackintosh (last time I heard that in the USA, PC traders which openly built hackintosh pc were forced to stop their practise), but both OS Windows and OS are definitely legit..
As I am typing this, I searched for Hackintosh legality and it seems not legal, although technically possible..

Yeah it's the MacOS license that prevents it legally but I am nor sure how that stands in all countries.

I am thinking of making a dual boot though on this build so I have linux available as well. Not sure what I am going to put on though not used linux in a very long time.

[Zonder]

Got my machine built last night. (Took ages for some parts to arrive)

Final spec is

Monitor: 27" 120hz - With 3D Vision Glasses
Case:Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case
CPU: AMD FX-8350
Cooling: Corsair H110 (HUGE RAD!! the case is actually designed to fit it so no problems on install)
Storage: 2 x 120GB SSD striped (490Mb/s transfer per drive) and a spare 1Tb for none performance items
Sound: On board
Motherboard: Asus Crosshair V Formula Z
GPU: Nvidia GTX 770 4GB RAM
Memory: 16GB @ 2133mhz

Not got my SSD's in yet so getting a poor windows rating 5.9! everything else is on 8 though not overclocked anything yet also not got latest drivers on everything. I did do a quick test at setting CPU to 4.6Ghz with turbo mode enabled at 4.8Ghz and no issues temp stayed steady at 32c, but didn't push the system so might not be stable . From what I read 4.6 - 4.8 is around the limit 5ghz gets hard to keep stable not sure I need to test that though.

Gave torchlight a go on it as it was quick to download got to say the 3D Vision works quite good in it compared to the PS3 stuff I have tried. Also got final fantasy xiv downloaded ready to try later

[cybereality]

Good stuff. Trine 2 is really nice in 3D.

[mkultra333]

Torchlight 2 looks great in 3DVision too. I set the convergence so the players head is just at screen depth inside dungeons, so the non-2D sprite names look ok. Only bad bit is when it zooms in when you talk to NPCs, but if you ignore the screen and just read the text box at those points it isn't a problem.