Opinions On Gaming Build

[Oreth]

Hey All!

Considering picking up this build at a decent price, just wondering what everyone thought of the specs? Good / Bad? Would it be a good buy for the forseable future for gaming? Only thing that stands out to me is the PSU being a low wattage but im not as up to date with PC parts and current builds. Honest opinions please.

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/6736/perf1.jpg

CPU - Intel core i5 750 2.66Ghz

MOBO - Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R

RAM - Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz 2x2GB

GFX - Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 DirectX® 11

HD - Seagate Barracuda 500GB

HD - Samsung 120GB HDD

DVD - SAMSUNG SH-S223C 22x DVD±RW

Cooling - NZXT Sentry 2 Touchscreen Fan Controller

Cooling - CoolIT ECO Advanced Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler

PSU - Corsair VX 450W psu

Case - NZXT M59 Classic case

Fans - 4x120mm Case Fans (2 blue led)

OS - Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Temps for cpu according to Everest 5.50.21 is 18 degrees at idle, less than half than with original HSF. Seller says it has not been oc'd but it's waiting to be! 4Ghz will be easily attainable according to him.

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/1638/sys2.jpg

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/3285/sys1.jpg

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/613/sys3.jpg


Thanks for any help!

[Hyan]

I'd get at least 500W PSU, possibly even more.

My build is similar to yours except I have i3-530 CPU and 450W wasn't enough iirc. I wouldn't go cheap with the PSU since it can affect other parts if it breaks/doesn't work.

The rest looks good.. to me.

[Oreth]

This is already built, its only 2 months old the seller has been running fine which is odd to me considering the low PSU. Im not sure why he went that low to begin with.

Does anyone know if SLi/Crossfire is possible with that MOBO? Would SLi/Crossfire offer more performance gaming wise? If i was going that route i know id definately need more PSU.

[Jojimbo]

The second PCI-E slot runs at x4 according to Gigabyte's website.

[firion]

yep going to need more power for OCing/multi GPU setup. specs on newegg says your mobo is crossfire ready.http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...n82e1681312840



Did you benchmark XIV yet? was going to get i5 rig with a video card in that range.

[Jojimbo]

I can't see that mobo on newegg, and none of their other P55 mobo's work for CF (all have 1 PCI-E x16 or have a second that runs a x~8 )

[Oreth]

The second PCI-E slot runs at x4 according to Gigabyte's website.

Hmmm do you have a link? Does that mean the second cards performance wouldnt be as good or that overall it wouldnt run as well?

yep going to need more power for OCing/multi GPU setup. specs on newegg says your mobo is crossfire ready.http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...n82e1681312840

Did you benchmark XIV yet? was going to get i5 rig with a video card in that range.

Havnt yet but i can request the seller to, im not sure im 100% committed to buying yet i wanted to make sure it was a decent buy first.

Even for OCing the CPU id need another PSU?

[Oreth]

I can't see that mobo on newegg, and none of their other P55 mobo's work for CF (all have 1 PCI-E x16 or have a second that runs a x~8 )

So wait now that MOBO isnt compatible with CF?

[Jojimbo]

You could CF it, but the second card would be running slower and it wouldn't be worthwhile (2x PCI-E x16 slots isn't enough if only one of them runs at x16).

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3162#sp

1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) (The PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
3. 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
4. 4 x PCI slots

[Knyghtmayre]

That build does look pretty solid and it is ready to be OC'd (liquid CPU cooler!), or would be, if it had a PSU that could handle it. 450w is pushing the bare minimum for the system imo. So you'd have to replace the PSU if you wanted to OC, so that's about ~$70-$100 tacked onto the cost of the PC. Just how much is he trying to get for this build?

[Oreth]

Well its based in Ireland where we dont get the good deals like you guys do over in the US like on Komplett.

He is looking for €900.00 which works out at about $1,160.00 without a monitor but ill pick that up myself.

Ill probably offer €800.00 ($1,030.00) for this machine. Ive priced the parts up and they cost €1240.00 ($1,597.00) USD new which is probably mad money for you guys considering you can probably get all these parts from New Egg for about $900 or less haha. This does include a legit copy for Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit included in the price because its included on the machine..

This is what he had to say about the PSU

As for the PSU, the 450W is 80% efficient and made by Corsair, google that and you will be pleased by the reults.

As for 450W being low..

This system, at 90% peak load, pulls 221W.

With the CPU overclocked to 3.6GHz, which hasn't been done, it draws 246W (not sure how he knows the load when it hasnt been done).

Check here for a proper valuation of power supply needs.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
http://thermaltake.outervision.com/

At 50% load it draws 91W.

This system was built to be energy efficient and extremely powerful.

Everything you need to know about PSUs
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/181/1

As for games, i have played GTA4 Resident Evil 5 Bad Company 2 Metro 2011 Dragon Age Origins and all Call of Duty's all on full, no lags.

Does the above make sense? seem ok?

Also in relation to the CPU cooler being a water cooler im a noob at this does that mean i need a tub of water outside the machine fed to a tube going to the CPU?

[fishstix]

I dont have experience with watercooling, but I think it should be a closed system? You'll have to maintain it every once in a while, changing out the liquid and whatnot. 18 degrees on idle is pretty awesome lol. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think OCing would require that big of a difference in the PSU. While in general, people's concerns about a weak PSU are valid, Corsair is a top quality brand. The ATI 5000 series actually uses less power than the previous series and nvidia. I suppose there's a "better safe than sorry" factor, in which case, it's not hard to replace a PSU. You'd definitely want to get a bigger one if you're planning to crossfire though.

[Oreth]

You think the 450W should be ok to take the CPU up to 3.6 GHz + if i wanted too though? I dont think ill be doing Crossfire with this anyways i think the single will see me through for a while just wanted to know if it was a possibility.

How much of a performance increase would you expect by overclocking anyways? Iv never actually done it but the machines i have had over the years im sure they where capable of it at some point, just something i havnt done or looked into.

Ye i imagined there would be some upkeep required for a water cooler i wasnt sure if it was internal or not though because that sounds dangerous as it is haha. I figured a pipe would be coming out the pack into a small tub or container with water. Not familiar with this stuff at all.

[Knyghtmayre]

The PSU calc (very same one he linked) puts that system at 436w@90% load which is DANGEROUSLY close to the 450w PSU. This is assuming you OC'd it to [email protected]~ and not further. Crossfiring another 5770 adds about 60w, which would even still be very close to 500w.

Edit: At that price, I'm wondering if it would even be an option to get someone in the states to build you a PC with Newegg/TD prices and then pay for the international shipping <_< I bet you'd still come out on top lol D;

[Oreth]

Yea i looked into that before it really works out very expensive.

The weight & size of the parts worked out at about $400.00 i think and that wasnt declaring a value, id then get hit with customs. I might be able to order the more expensive parts such as the MOBO/CPU/GFX and see how much shipping on them would be.

[Knyghtmayre]

I priced everything on Newegg just now and came up with this...
http://i31.tinypic.com/20sgmr7.png

Worked out to $866.24 after MIRs. Also note that the above has some upgrades over what you're looking at in the OP:

• 1.5TB of storage instead of 620GB
• Vapor version of the 5770
• USB3, Sata3, and SLI ready motherboard
• SLI Ready OCZ 600w PSU

If it really costs more than $250 to ship something that is approx. 20x20x12" and 30lbs, then I guess your best bet is to just get what you're looking at? I kept the CPU and Case the same as the one you're looking at, but I don't know if you care specifically for them or if you just wanted something in that ballpark.

[Oreth]

Is that including the Case and everthing listed?

If so thats a great price... Wonder how much customs would stick on it before it got to my house.

[Knyghtmayre]

Editted earlier post because somehow I didn't select a CPU <_< But yeah...

[Crowort]

The 55 chipset can only ever do x8 crossfire at most by design which makes it only about 5-10% slower than if it could do x16.

That mobo can only run the 2nd slot at X4 which would limit crossfiring a lot I believe. So yes it wouldn't be worth crossfiring on it. Your best option if you bought the system and needed more power from your gpu would be to sell the 5770 and upgrade it.

People are overly worried about the wattage of PSU, while important it isn't the only factor. That is a good PSU and will happy power that system. If you did want to go with crossfire (not a good idea imo) or get a more powerful GPU then I'd say this would need upgrading.

That cpu cooler is basically like a h50, it is a sealed unit. You can't / don't replace the liquid.

[Crowort]

Did you benchmark XIV yet? was going to get i5 rig with a video card in that range.

I have a system pretty much like this, and unoverclocked it gets about 4.5k on XIV benchmark.