Time for another build.

[Brew_WY]

Well the wife is about done with school and wants to get back to a desktop. She primarily plays Sims3 and typical internet usage. I figured I would give her my current tower (in my sig) and build myself a new one. So This is what I am currently looking at for a build:

Case: Cooler Master HAF X

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth Z77

CPU: Intel i7 Ivy Bridge 3.5

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB DDR3 1866

SSD: Samsung 250GB

HDD: WD Blue 1TB

GPU: ASUS GTX 660 Ti

PSU: Corsair TX series 750W

Heat Sink: Noctua 120/140mm

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit

I am open to some suggestions if you see where I am making an error or can improve on the system. I tend to prefer ASUS over other manufacturers, just because I have had very good reliability out of their products. My biggest question is with running the nVidia GPU. I have always ran ATI Radeon in the past, but I thought I might try something different. Anyways I look forward to hearing some comments and critiques.

Cheers,

Brew

 

[PP Mguire]

Well, I'll say that's way overkill for Sims 3 rofl.

First thing I'm going to say is, if all you do is game a 3770k is overkill and if you don't plan on doing heavy overclocking the Sabertooth is also huge waste of money. A 3570k is more than plenty for anything.
On top of that, there is no reason to have RAM faster than 1600MHz.

I understand you prefer Asus, but I personally would get an ASRock Extreme 3 Z77, and use the money saved to grab an eVGA GTX 670. For gaming, GPU horsepower is more important than CPU by a long shot. Unless you plan on going SLI later on 750w is pretty overkill too.

My next series of things would be the drive choices. You want the faster WD Black over the Blue, and either the 840pro or the 830.

 

[Bregadon]

Like PP Mguire said the 3570k will do anything you ask it too and is a lot cheaper. I personally would get a Corsair Hydro i series water cooler instead of that big Noctua heat sink
You can easily run the system off of a 500-600w psu, just get a quality one.

 

[Brew_WY]

Alright here is my question I am not a hardware expert by any means. Would I be loosing any performance by going with the DDR3 1866 versus the DDR3 1600? I haven't made up my mind on going to SLI, but I like to keep my options open thus I chose the 750w PSU. I will also switch to a WD Black, as that is what I am running on this system.

 

[PP Mguire]

No you wouldn't. There are no real world gains to any RAM speeds faster than 1600 due to memory bandwidth already being so high.

 

[Bregadon]

Alright here is my question I am not a hardware expert by any means. Would I be loosing any performance by going with the DDR3 1866 versus the DDR3 1600? I haven't made up my mind on going to SLI, but I like to keep my options open thus I chose the 750w PSU. I will also switch to a WD Black, as that is what I am running on this system.

You can always buy a lower watt psu now then when you decide to go sli buy a bigger one and then sell your old one. It's never hard to sell PC parts.

 

[Brew_WY]

So with a little more review, I only see about $250 difference in the suggestions mentioned which doesn't matter a whole lot. I have always been intrigued by water cooling, but I have never been able to convince myself to go there when air cooling has always worked for me. So the changes I have made to my build are listed below.

HDD: WD Black 1TB

GPU: ASUS GTX 670

I appreciate the time you guys took to look at my build. I overbuild everything so I can always keep my options open. Thanks.

Cheers.

Brew

 

[PP Mguire]

That card has an 80% chance of sag once you put it in due to the cooler.

 

[Brew_WY]

That card has an 80% chance of sag once you put it in due to the cooler.

The case I am looking at comes with a VGA Bracket to support the video card. I assume that is what you are reffering to. I thought that would be sufficient support for it. I have no prior experience with either this case or the card though. I will be going to the i5 to save a $100 to put toward the 840pro SSD. Probably swap to the PC1600 version of the same RAM, only saves about $11 though.

 

[PP Mguire]

If it has a VGA bracket for support then no worries there mate. My DirectCU2 580 had serious sag and a friends 670 has sag too. One member on here claims no sag but his card is fairly new still. That is why I mentioned something.

You can get the 1866, but getting anything to run over 1600 can be a headache sometimes. For instance, I could run 1866 and 2133 easily on my old 2500k setup, yet this 3960X will not do 1866 without a fight. I'm guessing board, but point remains. Up to you though, as I'm dead serious on there being no real world gains over the speeds.