How about a critique before I pull the trigger on this.
My biggest questions are on the motherboard and graphics card.
I want to be able to run multiple displays. Other than that just play some mmo's and general multi-tasking.
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Case: Thermaltake V3 Black Mid-Tower Case [-65]
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K 3.30 GHz 6M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155 (All Venom OC Certified)
Cooling Fan: XtremeGear Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Single Standard 120MM Fan)
Motherboard: * [CrossFireX/SLI] GigaByte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 Intel P67 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2x SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe x1 & 2 PCI [B3 Stepping] [+69]
Memory: 8GB (2GBx4) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module (Corsair or Major Brand)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1.2GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+200] (EVGA Superclocked [+10])
Power Supply Upgrade: * 750 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-750TX 80 Plus Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready [+87]
Hard Drive: 80 GB Intel X25-M 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk [+132] (Single Hard Drive)
Data Hard Drive: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+93] (Single Hard Drive)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-B123L 12X BLU-RAY Player & DVDRW Combo [+58] (BLACK COLOR)
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium [+104] (64-bit Edition)
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This system comes in at $1403 which is right around what I want to spend. Going through cyberpower for the bill me later option.
I am not agianst spending more for worthwhile upgrades.
thanks in advance.
Comments
for the video card i would say go for 560 its better then a 470
looks like a fine system to me, the only possible change I see would be getting a GFX card from the 500 series insted of the 400.
Is there some reason why you don't want to build your own? That gives you a lot more flexibility, and can get you better parts for cheaper.
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It looks like Cyber Power PC charges stupid prices for memory upgrades. If you really want 8 GB, you could save a fair bit of money by getting the cheapest option they offer, and then when it arrives, yank it out and put something like this in instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424
Or if you want a heatspreader, try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226095
That will probably get you something nicer (2 modules rather than four, 1.5 V instead of a likely 1.65 V) and save you $40 or so in the process.
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The GeForce GTX 470 is a bad card. Don't buy it. It's too noisy, runs too hot, and is too prone to failure. If that's your desired level of performance, then save some money and get a much nicer Radeon HD 6870 instead. Actually, they've got a pretty good special deal on a Radeon HD 6850, it seems. The usual best value card in the $200-$300 price range is the Radeon HD 6950 1 GB, which they mysteriously don't offer.
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The Corsair TX750 is a nice power supply. It's also overkill for your needs. You might as well save $10 to get the Corsair TX650, which is also overkill for your needs.
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From the motherboard and cooler, I'm guessing that you're going to overclock the processor. If that's what you have in mind, then go ahead. It looks like you're not paying them to do it for you, but that's fine, as a K-series unlocked multiplier processor is easy to overclock yourself.
Agree with Mafia and Loke. I sorta thought you were overshooting a bit for your usage until I saw your graphics card. Then again, graphics cards are super easy to replace so if you're thinking you want to spend the $1400 now and you can always upgrade the card in a year then I'd say pull the trigger.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
thanks for the advice guys.
I switched to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB 16X PCIe Video Card. and the power supply to the tx650.
Also took your advice on the RAM, Quizzical, and went with thier cheapest option and will upgrade myself. You think I should go with the 1333 instead of 1600 (F.Y.I. I have no real clue what those numbers mean)
The reason I am going with cyberpower is the abiltiy to bill me later (lots of overtime comeing up) so I can get the system now and pay later. My curent system is having problems playing rift.
Oh and I do plan on Overclocking but not through cyberpower cause they charge like $100 and I read its easy to do.
What's your current system? It's conceivable that you'd be better off just upgrading that.
Also, what monitor resolution are you using? There's no sense in paying extra for 2 GB of video memory and then using it on a 1920x1080 or smaller monitor. Even the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1 GB usually isn't a good value for the money, as the Radeon HD 6950 1 GB is faster, cheaper, uses less power, has a better feature set, and will probably get more performance improvements from future drivers. Cyber Power PC mysteriously doesn't offer the 1 GB version of the 6950, so I guess if you want to buy from them, you have to choose from among what they do offer. A 2 GB version of the same card that performs exactly like the 1 GB version while being more expensive would be worse value yet.
It looks like they've got a special deal on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1 GB, so that would be a sensible card at their prices.
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The Sandy Bridge memory controller doesn't officially support 1600 MHz memory, but only up to 1333 MHz. Realistically, you can overclock the memory controller and it will work just fine, especially with two modules rather than four. You'd rather have 1600 MHz than 1333 MHz memory, but it's only a slight difference. If it were an extra $5, I'd pay it, but for an extra $20, I'd save the money.
And for $217 over the cheapest memory option to get two 4 GB 1600 MHz modules from Cyber Power PC directly, that's a ridiculous waste of money. Actually, it looks like 1600 MHz DDR3 has come down in price a bit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345
Note the promo code that ends today.
uhh.. i wouldnt say that.. but its not worth the 100$ either.
its not about dificulty rather awarness and common sense because you can potentialy damage your components ,but nothing a good guide from a respected OC site wouldnt have tutorials for.
do an extensive research beforehand though and good luck.
Keep in mind that nVidia cards can't do multi-display (more than 2) unless you SLI more than one of them. AMD cards are the only cards that can drive multiple displays from a single card.
My recommendation on overclocking a Core i5 2500K is, don't do it until you run into a program where you'd see some benefit from having the processor run faster.
If you do overclock it, then go into the BIOS, turn off turbo boost, and adjust the multiplier and voltage as desired. The highest multiplier that you can get stable at 1.2 V or so should be safe. Higher voltages tend to allow higher clock speeds, but also increase the risk of frying the processor. Where to set the voltage depends on how badly you want the processor to survive. If you set it to 1.4 V, for example, it will probably run fine for quite a while, but you should assume that you'll fry it eventually--years if you're lucky, months if you're considerably less lucky.
Basically what I'd do is to set the voltage where you want it, and then turn the multiplier up one increment at a time. Run Prime95 for several minutes to see if it's stable and the temperatures are safe, and if so, then turn the multiplier up another notch. As soon as Prime95 crashes the system or otherwise returns errors, turn the multiplier back down, as you've gone too far and it isn't stable. Once you think you've found the optimal multiplier, let Prime95 run for several hours and see if it turns up any errors. If not, then you can leave it at that multiplier, or maybe set the multiplier back down by 1 for stability.
It also depends on how many monitors you want to run. Nvidia's modern cards can mostly do two, as Ridelynn said. Most Radeon HD 6000 series cards can do six from a single card, though it takes some special hardware to pull that off. Some simple adapters should make it pretty easy to do four from a single card in the Radeon HD 6000 series, though.
And then, of course, it depends on how you want to use the monitors. If you want to spread a game across three (or more) monitors, then skip the Nvidia cards entirely and get a Radeon HD 6950 2 GB. The extra video memory is important for that high of resolutions. AMD's Eyefinity is vastly better than Nvidia Surround, mainly because Eyefinity is properly supported in hardware, while Nvidia Surround is hacked together through software to make hardware do what it wasn't meant to do. If you just want a game on one monitor and some other program on a different monitor, any modern card can do that just fine.
current system is an inspairon 530 with a 8600gt and 2.20 ghz dual core and 2gigs RAM. It gets about 30 fps in game tops (useally around 20) and while running the game cannot do anything eles. It sounds like a small airplan when running the game. I just had to replace the PSU in it yesterday.
my res is 1680x1050 but I do wannna go multiple monitors (soon) and Ridelynn just posted that only ATI can do more than 2 displays with a single card
If you had to chose from thier GPU list which way would you go?
Its not so much that I'm set on buying from cyber but they do make it convenient.
and thanks agian for the help
Yeah, replacement and not upgrade makes sense in your case.
If you want to do three monitor Eyefinity, then a Radeon HD 6950 2 GB or a Radeon HD 6970 2GB are the only good options. Three monitors means you need three times the video power to run them well. Also note that all three monitors must be the same resolution. You'll also need an adapter like this for the third monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814998050
Exactly what adapter you need depends on what monitor ports the video card and monitors you use have. Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series cards can only run two monitors off of the VGA, DVI, and HDMI ports added together, and everything else has to use DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort. If you want to plug a DVI or HDMI monitor into a DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort monitor port, it will have to use an active adapter.
My current build is as follows:
ASUS PCI Express Mother board
6 GBs of Corsair Dominator 1600 MHZ DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GTX 285 w/ 2 GB of on-board DDR3
Intel i7 3.2 Quad-Core Processor
1 Terabyte Hard Drive
Liquid Cooling System
Killer NIC Networking Card
Oh yeah, and a 1000 Watt Power Supply
That's all the pertinent stuff, anyway. The rest is just add-on.
Cheers!
Alright think i'm set.
went with the Radeon HD 6970 2GB and gonna order the 8gig 1600 RAM for $89 on new egg.
Thanks a bunch guys.
This is the machine being built for my now by: https://www.pugetsystems.com/
This is the machine being built for my now by: https://www.pugetsystems.com/
This system will be front-ended by;
ViewSonic X Series VX2739WM 27" 1ms HDMI Full HD 1080p Widescreen LCD Monitor w/ 4 port USB-hub300 cd/m2 DC 100,000:1(1200:1)
Asus P8P67 Pro REV 3.0 Intel Core i7 QUAD CORE 2600K 3.4GHz 95W Overclocked to Between 4.4 and 4.9... Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB) 2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB SLI Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/sAsus 24x DVD-RW Lightscribe SATA (black) Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish) PAntec CP-850 850W Power Supply Puget Hydro CL2 Liquid Cooling System 1155/6 AdTuniq TX-4 Thermal Compound Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1Asus P8P67 Pro REV 3.0
Intel Core i7 QUAD CORE 2600K 3.4GHz 95W Overclocked to Between 4.4/4.9 Depending on stability testing.
Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB SLI
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/s
Asus 24x DVD-RW Lightscribe SATA (black)
Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish)
PAntec CP-850 850W Power Supply
Puget Hydro CL2 Liquid Cooling System 1155/6
AdTuniq TX-4 Thermal Compound
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1
Now if $1400.00 is what you want to spend I think you've got a fairly nice machine there and should not have any trouble running most current and near release games very nicely.
GPU - The GeForce GTX 470 is a work horse but if you could find the cash for a 560 ti it's leaps and bounds about the 460 in performance for price ratio. You could easily drop 2G of that ram and throw the money into a 560. 8GB on that system is probably a bit overkill.
CPU - Would be nice to bump up to i7 versus the i5 but with the over clock on both it makes them a real value.
Overall your looking pretkkk
This system will be front-ended by;
ViewSonic X Series VX2739WM 27" 1ms HDMI Full HD 1080p Widescreen LCD Monitor w/ 4 port USB-hub300 cd/m2 DC 100,000:1(1200:1)
Intel Core i7 QUAD CORE 2600K 3.4GHz 95W Overclocked to Between 4.4/4.9 Depending on stability testing.
Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB SLI
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/s
Asus 24x DVD-RW Lightscribe SATA (black)
Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish)
Antec CP-850 850W Power Supply
Puget Hydro CL2 Liquid Cooling System 1155/6
AdTuniq TX-4 Thermal Compound
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1
Now if $1400.00 is what you want to spend I think you've got a fairly nice machine there and should not have any trouble running most current and near release games very nicely.
GPU - The GeForce GTX 470 is a work horse but if you could find the cash for a 560 ti it's leaps and bounds above the 460 in performance for price ratio. You could easily drop 2G of that ram and throw the money into a 560. 8GB on that system is probably a bit overkill.
CPU - Would be nice to bump up to i7 versus the i5 but with the over clock possible on both it makes them a real value.
Overall your looking pretty good.
Asus P8P67 Pro REV 3.0
Intel Core i7 QUAD CORE 2600K 3.4GHz 95W Overclocked to Between 4.4 and 4.9...
Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB SLI
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/s
Asus 24x DVD-RW Lightscribe SATA (black)
Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish)
PAntec CP-850 850W Power Supply
Puget Hydro CL2 Liquid Cooling System 1155/6
AdTuniq TX-4 Thermal Compound
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1
Asus P8P67 Pro REV 3.0
Intel Core i7 QUAD CORE 2600K 3.4GHz 95W Overclocked to Between 4.4 and 4.9...
Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB SLI
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/s
Asus 24x DVD-RW Lightscribe SATA (black)
Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish)
PAntec CP-850 850W Power Supply
Puget Hydro CL2 Liquid Cooling System 1155/6
AdTuniq TX-4 Thermal Compound
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
And that's why it will still be sluggish. Good frame rates, but it will make you sit there and wait whenever you try to do anything.
Quizz,
First thanks for catching that. I cut and pasted from yesterdays build. That was the original drive. The actually replacement is;
Western Digital Caviar Black 1.0TB SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache.
This is a 2 Platter drive by the way. Better Density. Faster Read/Write with less power requirement and heat output.
Thanks again for pointing that out.
Edit: Yes I know there are better. I am trying to maintain a buget though
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
That will be fast for a hard drive, but fast for a hard drive isn't actually fast at all. The real fix is a good solid state drive.
I thought $1400 seemed low for that build for what Puget Systems charges. So I went to their site and filled in the parts you listed, and it came to $2241. That's quite a difference from $1400. And $2241 for a computer without a solid state drive is crazy.
Well sure solid state would be the best but that would really be an enthusiast drive and/or if I was saving money build it myself could fit it in. I'm not that hard core. Oh man if my setup was $1400 I would be very happy The $1400 was what the OP was looking to spend if I remember correctly. I mentioned it in context of what he was getting.
Mine does in fact sit around $2241. It's pretty expensive for sure but since I'm not building it myself this go around I want to ensure that it's done right. I think these guys are good to go in that dept.
They don't just put everything in and turn it on/off, install the OS and out the door. For me that means higher costs.
I also do not have the technical skill nor the equipment/software to do the kind of testing they do. They're cusomer reviews are very impressive as well.
EDIT: You are correct though, it's expensive. The short version is if you don't have the time, patience or expertise to build a system like this and test it like they do, like myself, I'm fored to pay extra to get what I want. I'm ok with that. Mostly becuase I have to be
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"