Building a new PC, thoughts/advice...

[Thor]

So to celebrate my new jobby in Iceland, I am finally upgrading my old 9600 quad core AMD 8gig ram with a 480 gtx to something significantly better.

Now please bear in mind I'm in Iceland so I'm limited a bit to what selections I have in regards to say cases, and of course in pricing. If anyone is extra keen my purchases are likely coming from either att.is or tolvutek.is (click vefverslun).

Here's what I'm thinking, I'll eventually get another 480 gtx to dual SLI on this system, but for now I would like to upgrade my case, and in that vein I'm still wavering between a full tower and a mini tower. Coolermaster is my favorite choice so far. I've also looked at some Thermaltake towers.

I'm going intel for the first time in a decade, and I'm going a step down from top of the line, so i7 2600k 3.4ghz sounds like the way to go. With the p67 mobo being important I'm taking the Asus P8 P67.

Anyhow pictures/links. (if you're curious 10,000kr is about $90 CAD)

CASE CoolerMaster HAF 922 Gaming


CPU Intel i7 2600k 3.4 GHZ


Mobo Asus P8P67 B3.1

Now as for these 3 I'm certainly keen if anyone has thoughts on a better match considering what I have available to me in Iceland.

For my DDR3 Ram, this is where I really am not as sure where to go, I can get very cheap Kingston RAM DDR3 1333mhz. Is it worth it for me in this system to go with some nicer 1600 corsairs to look at overclocking? I mean this will be a pretty crazy system upgrade for me, so is it worth paying all the extra money for the nicer RAM or am I fine to stick with good ole Kingston which I get at cost+10%?

Well thats all I can think of for now, I'm going to consider a new power supply as well, I paid for a pretty generic 700W one when I got to Iceland and I'm keen on a modular supply that has a much higher reliability to it as well.

[Thor]

OH yeah I'm adding a 120GB Corsair Solid State, for my Op system and the games I play currently, that will be including my current 1.5 TB Sata and a likely new 1.5 to 2TB additional drive I'm going to add to my system. I hold backups for my whole family's digital photos, since they are all blissfully unaware just how close they are all to losing all their digital pictures for good.

[Thor]

Oh and in case anyone is even more keen, the PSU's are here:

http://www.att.is/index.php?cPath=41_34

Again, not sure yet on my power needs but 800w should be fine, unless I'm missing something here. Suggestions on any of those in the list would be appreciated, PSU are not my strong suit.

[Hack&Lube]

-edit double post

[Hack&Lube]

Both Corsair and Coolermaster are good choices for PSU. Corsair has more cache in general with PC builders but the Coolermaster SilentPro series has good ratings from http://www.jonnyguru.com/ who is probably the best authority on PSU reviews on the web.

I own both a Coolermaster M700 and a Corsair TX850M.

The important part in both of those is the "M". I would never buy a non-modular power supply again because of the hassle and mess of all the extra cabling. Modular is the way to go.

I really don't like the case that you have chosen but one man's art is another man's garbage

The i7 2600K is a good choice for CPU if you have the P67. In any case, the 2600K is unlocked so it should turbo/overclock itself more than 3.4GHz.

[Icon]

Nice rig.

/jealous

[Ethaniel]

Just almost finished my new Rig.
Core i7 2600K 3.4 Ghz
Asus P8Z68-V Pro
G.Skill 8GB DDR3 Ripjaw 1600 Ram
Nvidia GTX 580 Direct CUII 1538 Vid Card
1000W Modular Corsair Power Supply
Noctua CPU Fan and Thermal Compound

I have overclocked the CPU to run at 4428 Mhz (still running below 40C Idle)
and the Video card has been overclocked to a 2.1 Ghz Card Idle at 42C
I have very good cooling in the PC, but works wonderfully

Still want to get a 120GB SSD
New Case
New HD
New DVD Rom (my fan is clicking!)
and eventually another 580 GTX to SLI

[photon]

Nice overclock, I still haven't gotten around to overclocking mine.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by photon

Nice overclock, I still haven't gotten around to overclocking mine.

With Sandy Bridge, there's nothing really for you to do. Just ensure you have good cooling, and then go into the bios and unrestrict the maximum multiplier and the CPU will just turbo itself to the point where it thinks it has gone as far as it can go and that's it.

[Thor]

Anyone want to chime in on the question I have regarding RAM quality?

[photon]

For RAM I think I read an article on Sandy Bridge where it showed the real world benefits of high frequency RAM is pretty much non-existent, so the suggestion was to go with something good quality but don't worry about overclocking it.

[photon]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/s...he-best-ddr3/8

Here's the article I was thinking of.

[Hack&Lube]

Basically at this point, any ram you get will be fine and will practically make no noticeable difference. 1333MHz is actually fine but 1600MHz is not much more expensive either. Don't worry about timings or how fancy the heatspreaders look, etc.

I actually have some plain old (no heatsinks) 1333MHz server ram I found in a box at work in my Sandy Bridge system.