# Looking for some advice on this build



## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

Trying to finalizemy decision on my first build. This is what I have come up with. I'mjust hoping some more experienced builders could point out any fatal flaws I have made in my decision making process. Any tips would be appreciated. I want to go with a good 3 monitor setup capable of handling some gaming and photoeditting and a reasonable speed.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

I should also ask if anyone knows for sure if this video card will safely fit in the midtower case I'm looking at. As far as I can tell, everything should be fine, but in my research on Google, there have been a few other people creep up asking, who were met with some skepticism. Yet I never really found a solid answer..


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## JustaTinkerer (Jan 7, 2012)

Missing optical drive


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

JustaTinkerer said:


> Missing optical drive



Ahhya, I have one already from my old computer, thus I never really thought about adding one in this list. Its just an old HP Pavillion I was going to pull it out of, but I figured that should suffice. Or should I pitch the few extra bucks and get a new one?

Do you think my choice of compenents is alright?


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## JustaTinkerer (Jan 7, 2012)

The CM scout is a close fit but it will go, read, 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/305146-15-6950-storm-scout

Depends, its a good build, everything will fit together, looks good to me, its hard to tell someone else a lot of this is personal preference.

I have the Vertex + 60gig I would advise getting a bigger SSD on buy two of them and raid0 them, 60 gig OS drive is hard to live with.

OH just noticed....I dont know if the CPU fan will fit, someone else might be able to tell ya


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

JustaTinkerer said:


> The CM scout is a close fit but it will go, read,
> 
> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/305146-15-6950-storm-scout
> 
> Depends, its a good build, everything will fit together, looks good to me, its hard to tell someone else a lot of this is personal preference.



I'm a little iffy over this card fitting business. From what I can see the GPU I'm looking at measures 29cm (11.4 inches) where the case says it's max is 10.5 inches. That doesn't add up to me. I don't see any mention of a 6870 in that link, just the 6950. Everything I can find seems to be a split on whether or notit will fit. Half say yes, half say no. SHould i just get a full tower?


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

On the SSD. I didn't even really think I would need one when I first started looking into this, but I repeatedly see them recommended for caching. Is the 60gb not going to beenough for this? I don't really intend on storing anything on it.

Edit: The more I look at this, the more I don'tthink that my GPU is going to fit in this case. Any recommendations for a single card capable of running 3 simultaneous monitors? (with Eyefinity?) that would have an appropriate length for this case? I'll have to go back to searching somemore I guess. As for the CPU fan, I havent got a clue, I just assumed it should be alright. Appears to have 16.1cm in height.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

webmaster said:


> I want to go with a good 3 monitor setup capable of handling some gaming and photoeditting and a reasonable speed.



You probably will need to think about your GPU decision if you want to do some 3 monitor gaming because a single 6870 is just not going to cut it at decent framerates unless you use 1680x1050 monitors.
What about picking a 2500k and with what you save purchase a better GPU?
If you do photoediting you won't need HT THAT much especially because it's 2D and the highest strain I've seen on my CPU was with Genuine Fractals plugin for Photoshop for a upscaling job.
Things change if you are going to do some rendering but you didn't mention it.

Also it's so sad to see that mechanical drives cost THAT much, sigh.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

I think I'm just going to grab a CM Storm Sniper case instead, and that should offer me tons of space for GPU and CPU fan. About $50 extra, but that's alright.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

radrok said:


> You probably will need to think about your GPU decision if you want to do some 3 monitor gaming because a single 6870 is just not going to cut it at decent framerates unless you use 1680x1050 monitors.
> What about picking a 2500k and with what you save purchase a better GPU?
> If you do photoediting you won't need HT THAT much especially because it's 2D and the highest strain I've seen on my CPU was with Genuine Fractals plugin for Photoshop for a upscaling job.
> Things change if you are going to do some rendering but you didn't mention it.
> ...



What would you recommend as a better option for my GPU? I'm on a $2000 budget excluding monitors which I already have picke dout down at Staples. I'm still a good shot under $200 on the totalbuild, so I can afford to go as far as another couple hundred on a GPU if it's really a must. But hey, the more I save, the more I can blow on games at a later time.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

I strongly recommend, if you can wait, to see at which price point the 7950 places or even the 7800 series would be a best bang for your money right now but I think the latter will come in more than a month or so.
Otherwise a 6950 2GB is a strong GPU and will let you play in eyefinity although you need to sacrifice some eyecandy.
I honestly can't say anything about Nvidia on tri monitor gaming because when I had the 480s I didn't test them so I don't know if it's painless as eyefinity is.

Do you really need a 2TB HDD? This is one of the worst times to purchase a high capacity mechanical drive due to the Thailand flooding, prices have come down but they are still high.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

I don't particularly need the 2tb harddrive as I had 3 1.5TB externals. I just figured lots of room for play would be nice. It's hardly a neccesity though.

As for time, I don't really have it. I need to get a computer together in the next couple of weeks.


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## BrooksyX (Jan 7, 2012)

Better ssd than the Vertex IMHO:
SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 2.5" 64GB SATA II...


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

For roughly $50 more I could go with this GPU instead http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=292642&CatId=7005

What exactly do you mean by "sacrifice some eyecandy"?


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

BrooksyX said:


> Better ssd than the Vertex IMHO:
> SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 2.5" 64GB SATA II...



Only $10 more than the Vertex through TigerDirect, so I could manage that too if you think it's that much better.

Chaning to the Storm Sniper case, the Samsung SSD, and the 6950 only puts me up about $110 over my original build plans, and everything should fit in the case comfortably I believe. 

That's not too bad. I'll see if anyne else has any suggestions before making a final decision. Thanks for the tips, keep em coming.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

The Samsung 830 is SATA III so you get faster Read/Write etc than the Vertex 2 so if you can go with that one don't hesitate.




webmaster said:


> What exactly do you mean by "sacrifice some eyecandy"?



It depends on which games we talk about but on newer titles you'll need to lower your textures and forget high AA samples to get good framerates.
It all boils down on the resolution you are going to play, is it 1920x1080 (5870x1080) or 1680x1050 (5040x1050) ? If it is the latter then you can probably play at higher details.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

radrok said:


> It depends on which games we talk about but on newer titles you'll need to lower your textures and forget high AA samples to get good framerates.
> It all boils down on the resolution you are going to play, is it 1920x1080 (5870x1080) or 1680x1050 (5040x1050), if it is the latter then you can probably play at higher details.



Ahh, I think I'll be safe then. Thanks  I'll gof or the Samsung. 

This puts me right around $1850, which is still $150 under budget. So I'm sitting alright budgetwise if this winds up as my finalized choice.


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## Crap Daddy (Jan 7, 2012)

I'd say get a better board, crossfire capable at x8x8 ASUS or ASRock, if you'll have the system on a SSD get a cheaper and smaller HDD, a Corsair TX850 non-modular - same price as what you picked - and get 2x6950. Eyefinity is not going to work good on that mid-end card you picked.


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## BrooksyX (Jan 7, 2012)

webmaster said:


> Only $10 more than the Vertex through TigerDirect, so I could manage that too if you think it's that much better.



They are good drives, I have 2 of them in raid 0 plus its $10 cheaper upfront which is a plus. I havent dealt with OCZ MIR rebates but I never included rebates in my purchase price I just think of them as hopefully Ill get a nice little bonus and buy some beer or a cheap part with it 6-8 weeks later.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> I'd say get a better board, crossfire capable at x8x8 ASUS or ASRock, if you'll have the system on a SSD get a cheaper and smaller HDD, a Corsair TX850 non-modular - same price as what you picked - and get 2x6950. Eyefinity is not going to work good on that mid-end card you picked.



He'd be better off picking a 7970 if he's willing to spend that money on GPUs


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## Proph3t (Jan 7, 2012)

little bit cheaper for the ram  http://www.frys.com/product/6487402?site=frysecampaign


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## Crap Daddy (Jan 7, 2012)

Yes but he can't wait and 2x6950 are cheaper than one 7970.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> I'd say get a better board, crossfire capable at x8x8 ASUS or ASRock, if you'll have the system on a SSD get a cheaper and smaller HDD, a Corsair TX850 non-modular - same price as what you picked - and get 2x6950. Eyefinity is not going to work good on that mid-end card you picked.



Any time I start trying to figure out a build I always went with a bigger PSU and  everyone is always screaming at me "You don't need that big as power supply!". So now I go for the smaller unit, and I'm going to get the exact opposite, lol. What do I really need to power this unit? If 850W is necessary, I'll go for it. Does it really make a difference? I always figured why not aim high and have a little extra, but after a thorough smashing voer that point of view I opted for a smaller unit. 


Going for 2 6950s is just getting out of my budget. I'm not going to be doing a ton of gaming. I mostly stick to my console for that. As far as PC gaming I'm mostly in it for RTS and maybe some Diablo 3 come the time. I don't need a crusher of a GPU. More than anything I want desktop real estate. If I need to spend more to get one card that runs well, that's fine. But I'm not looking at spending $600+ on GPUs here.

As for the motherboard. If I choose not to go for dual GPUs, do I really need to make a change?


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

Proph3t said:


> little bit cheaper for the ram  http://www.frys.com/product/6487402?site=frysecampaign



If it's not a Canadian supplier it makes no difference to me. I'm not prepared to wait as up to a couple months for stuff to get through the border. Ordering stuff out of the states is a damn headache. If I wanted to wait forever I could probably shave at least a couple hundred off ordering all this through NewEgg.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> Yes but he can't wait and 2x6950 are cheaper than one 7970.



Isn't the 7970 going to officially launch in 2 days? 9th of January, I think he could wait 2-3 days. Now naturally I didn't count the retail disponibility but I think it's not going to vanish at the price it's being sold.



			
				webmaster said:
			
		

> As for the motherboard. If I choose not to go for dual GPUs, do I really need to make a change?



No you don't, but you will not be able to upgrade later either unless you change mobo.


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## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2012)

radrok said:


> *Isn't the 7970 going to officially launch in 2 days? 9th of January*



No it was pushed back til FEB.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

Isn't that for the 7950?

EDIT:
Here it is http://www.techpowerup.com/157898/Radeon-HD-7950-Launch-Delayed-to-February.html

and the 7970 still is 9 Jan 



> On the 22nd of December 2011, AMD launched its Radeon HD 7970, announcing that the cards will be available in the retail channels by 9th January, 2012



http://www.techpowerup.com/158042/Retail-Radeon-HD-7970-FOB-Price-Cut-to-$475-From-$525.html


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## Crap Daddy (Jan 7, 2012)

webmaster said:


> Any time I start trying to figure out a build I always went with a bigger PSU and everyone is always screaming at me "You don't need that big as power supply!". So now I go for the smaller unit, and I'm going to get the exact opposite, lol. What do I really need to power this unit? If 850W is necessary, I'll go for it. Does it really make a difference? I always figured why not aim high and have a little extra, but after a thorough smashing voer that point of view I opted for a smaller unit



I was saying the 850 *if* you go crossfire. For your initial setup the 550 is enough. I assume you plan to overclock. For reasonable OC - up to 4.5 - 4.6 - a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSF would be enough and it's at half price from what you chose. If you don't want to spend on Crossfire then get the 6970, best card from AMD now at around 300$.


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## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2012)

radrok said:


> Isn't that for the 7950?



Your right, I just looked back on the news


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

radrok said:


> Isn't the 7970 going to officially launch in 2 days? 9th of January, I think he could wait 2-3 days. Now naturally I didn't count the retail disponibility but I think it's not going to vanish at the price it's being sold.
> 
> 
> 
> No you don't, but you will not be able to upgrade later either unless you change mobo.



I can wait a couple days to see what it comes out at, but I'm thinking $500+, probably $600 easily for a single card judging by what I've read. That's pushing me up out of budget pretty quick like.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> I was saying the 850 *if* you go crossfire. For your initial setup the 550 is enough. I assume you plan to overclock. For reasonable OC - up to 4.5 - 4.6 - a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSF would be enough and it's at half price from what you chose. If you don't want to spend on Crossfire then get the 6970, best card from AMD now at around 300$.



Well, int he future I could always make the move, but in that case I would still haveto consider a different motherboard to allow for the upgrades right? ASUS Maximus IV seems like it leaves alot of room to build, but that's jumping me up a couple hundreds bucks more too.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

webmaster said:


> I can wait a couple days to see what it comes out at, but I'm thinking $500+, probably $600 easily for a single card judging by what I've read. That's pushing me up out of budget pretty quick like.



I think you can shave some off the CPU cooler like Crap Daddy said, the HDD and the CPU to 2500K from 2600K

Also if you let me use that term, the 7970 will POUND a 3 monitor configuration, literally


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## Crap Daddy (Jan 7, 2012)

You don't have to aim at Maximus. There's plenty of good boards that can do x8x8. But as the 7000 series is coming out slowly I doubt that you will find in six-ten months time another 6000 series card to crossfire later. What I'm saying is you have to decide, either get 2 6950 which will cost you around 480-500 and will be slightly better than the new 7970 at at least 550$ with a crossfire capable board and a more powerful PSU, either get the best card AMD has to offer right now which is the 6970 at around 350$ and call it a day.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

I'm just for a moment considering blowing my budget up by about $500 here. Hypothetically speaking, my budget could go well above $2000, it's just a matter of what I want to spend, and what I can best make of my money. I've got about $12k I'm looking at spending on furniture and other stuff right now. Reallistically I could do this, if I say, cut an end table out of my budget or something too.  

Would something more along these lines be a healthy rig for today's market? Or am I just blowing money at this point?


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

The maximus is utterly overkill, the only gains you'd have with that are features you wouldn't use because it's aimed at extreme overclocking and you are going with air cooling.
What about this one? http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=743633&CatId=7212
MSI is pretty good
Dual 6970 is good but I repeat, a single 7970 will beat them in performance and in price, it is proven that the 7970 is severely underclocked and you can overclock it by a good amount on stock cooling without any risk because the default voltage is enough to reach atleast 1050 MHz on core.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

You could change the CPU cooler too, all in one coolers are very good
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7335485&CatId=798

Sorry for double post, I meant to edit


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## Crap Daddy (Jan 7, 2012)

You forgot to put the case in. Yes, it's more than a healthy rig. You tend to jump from one side to the other. I said 2 6950 would be good price/perf wise. Now if you want to spend 700$ worth of GPU it's your call. The 7970 at 550$ seems more reasonable at this point. There are many good mobos - look for Z68 chipset rather than P67 - between the 100$ Giga and the Maximus at 340$. It's up to you.


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## mediasorcerer (Jan 7, 2012)

Z68-1155 is more future proof and has more features as far as im aware, go for a closed loop all in one-liquid radiator cpu cooler, hardly  any more $$$ than but better at cooling [and room too sometimes], wait and get the 7 series.[just my 2 bits already]
this is the system i have and i just love it, does all i need and more.


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

I was under the impression that the P67 and Z68 were virtually identical aside from the Z68's onboard caching. From what I'd read, the P67 is supposedly plenty if I have an ssd for caching. No?


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## webmaster (Jan 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> You forgot to put the case in. Yes, it's more than a healthy rig. You tend to jump from one side to the other. I said 2 6950 would be good price/perf wise. Now if you want to spend 700$ worth of GPU it's your call. The 7970 at 550$ seems more reasonable at this point. There are many good mobos - look for Z68 chipset rather than P67 - between the 100$ Giga and the Maximus at 340$. It's up to you.



TigerDirect doesn't carry the StormSniper, but I a going to order it from ISTExpress. So ya, going with the CM Storm Sniper case I think. Should offer me tons of space to work with.


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## radrok (Jan 7, 2012)

With z68 you have SRT caching and onboard GPU support (which you won't use). But since there is no heavy price difference between the two, just pick z68


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## webmaster (Jan 8, 2012)

Alright. I think have pretty much finalized my parts list decisions. One final request for a look over to make sure there's no fatal incompabilities I may be missing. Suggestions for changes are still welcome, but I think I'm pretty settled here. Excluded is the case fromt his list, which I ordered from ISTExpress, Getting a CM Storm Sniper, and already have a used optical drive.


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## radrok (Jan 8, 2012)

Pretty solid build, let me remark one thing, tomorrow the 7970 is out and you'd want to purchase that one for the same price as 6950 crossfire 
It is THAT good, really


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## webmaster (Jan 8, 2012)

Well, I'll holdf out until tomorrow and see what I can track a 7970 down for. It shouldn't have any compatability issues with the rest of my hardware selections? I was down at the local computer shop yesterday and asked if they'd be getting any in, and the tech there gave me some big spiel about how it sounds good, but that I'd have to change a bunch of my hardware just to get the real benefits out of having it anyways. I dunno either way.


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## radrok (Jan 8, 2012)

You mean compatibility with Pcie 3.0? That's not a big deal especially because todays GPUs do not saturate  Pcie 2.0 @ 16x so that's not a problem and PCIe is backwards compatible so if you put a 3.0 card in a 2.1/2.0 slot the link will be dialed down 
To give you the certainty of Pcie 3.0 we should wait for Ivy Bridge tests


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## mediasorcerer (Jan 8, 2012)

Thats the same card i have[gpu] its quite a good card too, mine runs easily at 900-1350 and has bios switch too,looks good to me your config, although a 7970 would be nice too tho.


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## webmaster (Jan 9, 2012)

Well, I'll see what happens and where I can maybe order a 7970 tomorrow, but if I can't get one on order in the next couple days for a decent price, I'm just going to go with the parts I have planned now. Need to get something together soon.


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## webmaster (Jan 9, 2012)

Well, the prices aren't too bad, but stuff's already selling out like crazy. I read some different reviews and managed to snag an XFX 7970 DD Black Edition from NCIX. I think that just about seals the deal on most of my questions. I'll place the rest of my orders tomorrow when I figure out between TigerDirect, NewEgg.ca, and NCIX who has the best prices on the parts I want.Thanks for the help guys.


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## INSTG8R (Jan 9, 2012)

webmaster said:


> Well, the prices aren't too bad, but stuff's already selling out like crazy. I read some different reviews and managed to snag an XFX 7970 DD Black Edition from NCIX. I think that just about seals the deal on most of my questions. I'll place the rest of my orders tomorrow when I figure out between TigerDirect, NewEgg.ca, and NCIX who has the best prices on the parts I want.Thanks for the help guys.



Well you most definitely have the GFX solved in a big way. Killer Card!


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## radrok (Jan 9, 2012)

Man, I am glad my whining about GFX made you wait  Now enjoy that 7970!


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## webmaster (Jan 9, 2012)

everything on order, should be hereby end of the week! Thanks for the help everyone.


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## OOZMAN (Jan 9, 2012)

Ahh well I guess it's too late, but did you consider getting the z68 chipset to use intel smart response with your ssd? Sorry I didn't read the whole thread.


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## webmaster (Jan 9, 2012)

OOZMAN said:


> Ahh well I guess it's too late, but did you consider getting the z68 chipset to use intel smart response with your ssd? Sorry I didn't read the whole thread.



Ya, I went with the MSI Z68A-GD80 B3


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