PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Jojimbo]

Are you allowed to overclock parts? You could get a better PC for that price, like this. $2500 for 3930k (+ good cooler to OC), 16GB RAM (can OC to 2133~2400), 670 GTX (don't need 4GB vRAM on these), better SSD, 2x 24" IPS, lacking HDD though. The MB you listed is incredibly expensive for an LGA 1155, mostly because of a chip that simulates extra PCIe lanes, it's completely unnecessary in a single GPU system imo.

Parts could be swapped if stuck with tigerdirect though, as some (like GPU) are much much cheaper at other stores)

i5-3570k/gigabyte z77/corsair xms3 8 gb/evga gtx 670 ftw

What cooler do you have? Trying to find the guide I used but can't see it anywhere. Pretty much was increase LLC to 50%, increase voltage to 1.25 ish and increase multiplier to x44 (Hyper 212 EVO atm, so not a massive OC). I haven't fine tuned it yet, just wanted it stable enough to bench some games.

[Kailee]

What cooler do you have? Trying to find the guide I used but can't see it anywhere. Pretty much was increase LLC to 50%, increase voltage to 1.25 ish and increase multiplier to x44 (Hyper 212 EVO atm, so not a massive OC). I haven't fine tuned it yet, just wanted it stable enough to bench some games.

Noctua D14

[zeal5050]

Why are you stuck with them? Are you not in a position where you can present a proposal explaining why it would be more beneficial to use another retailer? If you're not, then it's understandable, and it is their money, not yours. If you have a more significant presence in the company and can suggest an alternative, however, you should.

I assume that they have a business account because they do not have an IT/compatibility department, and therefore do not have a tech or otherwise trusted individual to purchase and assemble hardware for them. Is this the case?

All of this may be irrelevant, as you may be in a time crunch or otherwise without wiggle room, but if it's something that can make your company's spending more efficient, there's no reason not to try—especially if it makes you look good.

I'm not really in a position to tell them where to buy parts. Although, tigerdirect does have a "price match" policy and I will mention that I found the prices to be quite high in comparison to other retailers.

I did a little bit of research on the IPS vs TN panels. It would appear that the TN panels are still superior when it comes to response time. I will be doing quite a bit of video editing and gaming, so this worries me a bit. The Samsung uses "PLS" technology, which, according to their marketing team, provides far superior viewing angles over traditional monitors. I also came across this similarly priced Dell U2410. It has low response time, 1920 x 1200res, and IPS panel. So, on paper it's quite confusing. I will try to see these monitors in person before I make a final decision.

[hey]

The dell IPS monitors are good, though quite expensive. If you're not paying for it though, and can't get anything better, go for it.

[Devolver]

A buddy of mine is looking for a heavy gaming pc, but doesn't want to really put any effort into looking for each part separately, so I happened to stumble on this bundle here in his price range. What kind of gaming performance can you expect from this?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...606&CatId=4910

[Arkanna]

A buddy of mine is looking for a heavy gaming pc, but doesn't want to really put any effort into looking for each part separately, so I happened to stumble on this bundle here in his price range. What kind of gaming performance can you expect from this?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...606&CatId=4910

Reasonably good performance in today's games, assuming resolution of 1920x1200 or lower. The bundle includes a GTX 560Ti card which was a mid-tier card in the last generation.

[Jojimbo]

A buddy of mine is looking for a heavy gaming pc, but doesn't want to really put any effort into looking for each part separately, so I happened to stumble on this bundle here in his price range. What kind of gaming performance can you expect from this?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...606&CatId=4910

He's ok with building it himself but cba picking components, wut

The parts in that hit and miss, mid tier GPU, potentially crappy to passable PSU,. MB is so-so but many people don't like MSI boards and I tbh I've never seen 1333MHz 1.5v RAM that is 9-9-9-27 (not that I look at 1333 sticks a lot)

I don't like these bundles, they rarely save large amount of money and almost always include some crappy components in them

EDIT:: Just about better everything, http://pcpartpicker.com/p/br3n, includes CPU cooler but similar price to td.com. Could get a GPU with better cooler (like this or this) that'll OC more but that one is cheap and includes DiRT 3/Showdown

[Devolver]

He's ok with building it himself but cba picking components, wut

Yeah he's not all that bright. I tried to suggest the build from a few pages back that you mocked up for me, but for some reason he doesn't want to buy everything separate. He's just odd like that (he's new to this too like me, so I'm still trying to talk him into just buying separate).

I've pushed my build back a bit for me to make sure I have the funds to swing it. For the most part I'm sold on the Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB (because of the easy OC'ing), but I keep seeing pretty glowing reviews for EVGA cards in general. Any reason for me to jump ship to an EVGA card?

[Jojimbo]

EVGA only make nVidia cards, and currently nVidia doesn't have a card out that competes with the 7800 series (hence why only 7900 and 7700 saw a price drop). They are a nice company in terms of warranty/CS though

[zeal5050]

After reading some reviews and checking out some of the hardware in-store, I've made some changes. Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Original Build:

Spoiler: show

• CASE: Corsair Vengeance Series C70 High Airflow Mid-Tower Case ATX 3X5.25 6X3.5INT 2XUSB3.0 No PS White = $144.99
  
  CPU: Intel Core i7 2700K Quad Core Unlocked Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 3.5GHZ Sandy Bridge 8MB = $319.99
  
  MOBO: ASUS P8Z77 WS ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 CrossFireX SLI 4PCI-E16 SATA3 DVI USB3.0 Motherboard = $344.99
  
  GFX: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW 1006MHZ 2GB 6.2GHZ GDDR5 SLI 2xDVI HDMI DP HDCP PCI-E DirectX 11 Video Card = $469.99
  
  MEM: Corsair XMS3 Dominator DHX+ 32GB 4X8GB DDR3-1600 CL10-10-10-27 XMP Quad Channel Memory Kit = $299.02
  
  SSD: OCZ Agility 3 240GB 2.5IN SATA3 SandForce SF-2281 SSD Solid State Disk Flash Drive = $179.99
  
  HDD: x2 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM = $229.98
  
  PWR SUPPLY: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850 CMPSU-850AX 850W ATX Fully Modular 80PLUS Gold Power Supply = $199.99
  
  MONITOR: x2 Dell Ultrasharp U2410 24IN Widescreen LCD Monitor IPS 1920X1200 6MS 80000:1 DVI-D HDMI DisplayPort = $1,078.00
  
  KEYBOARD: Filco Majestouch 2 Cherry MX Brown Switch 87 Key Mechanical Keyboard Black = $139.99
  
  TOTAL: 3,406.93
  

[oblit]

If you are going with a Sandy Bridge CPU then you might as well go with a Sandy Bridge board. Get a good P67 or Z68 instead of the Z77. But if Ivy Bridge features are important to you then you would want to reconsider the 3770K with the Z77.

[zeal5050]

Thanks for pointing this out. I honestly don't know very much about the difference between the Sandy/Ivy Bridge generations. The lower power consumption of the Ivy Bridge seems appealing. Is there a considerable heat difference between the two? Guess I have some more reading to do!

[oblit]

You're welcome, there were reviews that showed the 3770K was running warmer than the 2600K/2700K and the 2600K/2700K would overclock better than the 3770K. I used to own both 2600K and 2700K and I was able to overclock them to 4.8Ghz without a problem. The only advantage of the Ivy Bridge is it will allow you to take advantage of the PCIE 3.0, Lucid Virtu MVP and the non-3rd party USB 3.0. If none of those are important then I would just go with the cheaper platform. Have you considered 3930K? I can see you are already spending a lot of money, might as well go all out lol. 3930K is like 50% faster than 2700K. It runs hotter but 6 physical cores (12 cores with HT) will do that. Get a board with 8 DIMM slots and use 8x4GB memory instead if you are going for the 32GB. Will save you some money.

I'm very happy with my 3930K.

[hey]

3930K is like 50% faster than 2700K.

Well that's just not true. The difference is significantly less, even in highly thread applications. At best it's about 20-30% faster. And single thread performances is about the same either way. The 3930k is great if you spend a lot of time with programs using more than 4 threads, but otherwise it's a huge waste of money.

Ivy bridge is runs hotter than sandy, but it can also take a lot more heat. Performance is more or less the same either way.

Also, the agility 3 uses asynchronous nand. Find something that uses synchronous. That's not where you want to save money.

[bluefan]

I concur with oblit. My 3930k has been beasting for months now overclocked at 4.8Ghz. Granted I am using liquid cooling, but just invest in a solid after market heat sink and fan.

And like oblit said, if you're going with the 32GB of RAM, do it with 4 sticks instead of 8. I did 8x4GB sticks for the first few weeks of my build and it would crash on me from gaming a couple hours. Unless you have a well ventilated case, that 8 RAM sticks that close together in 2 pairs of 4 will give you problems. And it'll save you money, be less stressful on your motherboard and if you overclock, better chance at a higher clock.

[Fairy-Killer]

You're welcome, there were reviews that showed the 3770K was running warmer than the 2600K/2700K and the 2600K/2700K would overclock better than the 3770K. I used to own both 2600K and 2700K and I was able to overclock them to 4.8Ghz without a problem. The only advantage of the Ivy Bridge is it will allow you to take advantage of the PCIE 3.0, Lucid Virtu MVP and the non-3rd party USB 3.0. If none of those are important then I would just go with the cheaper platform. Have you considered 3930K? I can see you are already spending a lot of money, might as well go all out lol. 3930K is like 50% faster than 2700K. It runs hotter but 6 physical cores (12 cores with HT) will do that. Get a board with 8 DIMM slots and use 8x4GB memory instead if you are going for the 32GB. Will save you some money.

I'm very happy with my 3930K.

Don't forget that a lower overclock on an Ivy is equivalent to a higher overclock on Sandy. But yeah, 3930k is quite a chip, and if you can spend the money, I'd grab it. Also, Lucid Virtu MVP ran like crap for me with a 3570k, Extreme4 Z77, and HD 7970. It would spike my FPS up when it didn't need it (60+ higher) but keep the average on everything else lower. So it basically added a few more fps when you add in the outliers, but actually lowered it when you take them out. It probably works differently for other people but meh.

[Kailee]

And as for monitors you should look into Yamakasi Catleap Q270. It's the only 100Hz+ IPS monitor and overclockable to 124Hz and they only run for $400 apiece. And they`re 27 inches.

[oblit]

Well that's just not true. The difference is significantly less, even in highly thread applications. At best it's about 20-30% faster. And single thread performances is about the same either way. The 3930k is great if you spend a lot of time with programs using more than 4 threads, but otherwise it's a huge waste of money.

Ivy bridge is runs hotter than sandy, but it can also take a lot more heat. Performance is more or less the same either way.

Also, the agility 3 uses asynchronous nand. Find something that uses synchronous. That's not where you want to save money.

My 2700K @4.6Ghz scored 8.83 on Cinebench. My 3930K @4.6Ghz scored 13.44. I don't know how else you would test CPU speed but Cinebench tells me my 3930K is 50% better than my 2700K. We all have our own ways of testing processor speed, just have to find one way to back up your claims lol.

[zeal5050]

And as for monitors you should look into Yamakasi Catleap Q270. It's the only 100Hz+ IPS monitor and overclockable to 124Hz and they only run for $400 apiece. And they`re 27 inches.

I actually had considered these. Unfortunately, they are not available at my retailer, and they seem to have a poor reputation for quality control. Dead pixels and what-not.

As far as the 3930K goes, I'm definitely interested. Could you guys recommend a motherboard to pair with it? My only stipulation is that it must be purchased from Tigerdirect.ca. I saw this bundle, seems decent but I have no idea what fan/heat sinks I should be looking at.

Sound and excessive heat is a concern of mine. It's one of those catch-22 situations, I want high-end gaming in a quiet and cool package. If such a thing exists lol. I know my choice of case will greatly effect this, and I think the Corsair C70 has a good balance between airflow and stock dB rating. I'd like to be sure the components I put in the case won't add too much noise.

[oblit]

Get no other than Asus Rampage IV Extreme! My PC is a beast but it runs completely silent even when gaming. And runs cool too! I just had to carefully select the hardware. People always comment on how quiet it is when I invite people over to pick up their builds.

Edit: My PC is two away from my head, I'm using the Silverstone FT02 chassis, really quiet case. it has positive airflow and good dust filters., no dust gets in. I was using an Asus Matrix GTX 580 for 4 months and when I sold it the buyer asked me if it was new because there was no spec of dust on it. The case also has sound dampening material all over it. I think the most important part is the 90 degree orientation. It helps blower style GPUs release the hot air from the rear exhaust because heat naturally rises and exhaust is facing up.

I'm using Scythe GT AP-15s for my rad fans. They are the best 120mm fans out there. They used to run 30 bucks each when Japan got hit with earthquake and tsunami. The fans were out of stock everywhere but now you can get them as cheap as $9.99.