Building a new computer- advice please :)

Yuhfhrh · 11-20-2011, 05:54 PM #1

This is my first time posting here, so hi! I'm making a list of parts for my first computer and I'm starting to narrow it down (budget $1600 or less) :

CPU: Intel i5 2500k (Going for overclock of 4.5ghz+)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68
Graphics: GeForce GTX 460 *WHDI Edition* (No clue about overclocking this thing)
Ram: 16 GB (4X4GB) Corsair 1600mhz (Going for overclock of 1833mhz?)

Basically I want to make sure I can run gc/wii games as close to perfect as possible. 1080p on my monitor or wirelessly to my hdtv. Smile

Will I be able to play games at full speed with this? Is my gpu going to bottleneck my cpu? I have seen how beautiful that graphics card works with hdmi through the air but I don't know how good of a card it actually is. I'm open to reccomendations and if you need more information go ahead and ask. Thanks in advance!

**NaturalViolence** · 11-20-2011, 07:33 PM #2

It's a great setup but you left out a lot of parts which we should take a look at.
Power supply:
Aftermarket cooling for the cpu:
Hard drive or SSD:
Chassis:

Yuhfhrh · (This post was last modified: 11-21-2011, 05:44 AM by Yuhfhrh.)

(11-20-2011, 07:33 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: It's a great setup but you left out a lot of parts which we should take a look at.
Power supply:
Aftermarket cooling for the cpu:
Hard drive or SSD:
Chassis:

I was looking at:
Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX750 (750 Watts)
Corsair Hydro Series H40 Liquid CPU Cooler (Not sure if this is what I need exactly)
Crucial 256GB ssd and Western Digital (2TB) (7200 RPM, 64MB Cache, SATA 6.0Gb/s)
Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid Tower

Couldn't figure out how to edit my post so sorry for double post >.<

I read your profile and went to your website NaturalViolence, and I think I'll follow your little guide for setting this baby up lol

**NaturalViolence** · (This post was last modified: 11-21-2011, 02:40 PM by NaturalViolence.)

Those are all very good parts, excessive in fact. The only thing I would change is swapping out the H40 for a good air cooler like the noctua NH-D14.

You could cut your costs dramatically if you wanted to but it's up to you.

Things you could do to make it cheaper that you probably wouldn't miss:
Get rid of the SSD, cut the HDD down to 1TB, get a cheaper cooler master midtower case, get a 550w or 650w PSU, and get 8GB of ram instead of 16GB.

I would definitely drop the PSU down to at least 650w, you don't need anywhere near 750w. In fact you would actually be fine with 550w. Having 16GB of ram and a 2TB HDD are also currently useless (especially with current HDD prices). These changes I would definitely make even if you do have the money because they seem wasteful to me.

The corsair carbide is an excellent case but you don't NEED it, any decent case will do. This is up to you though.

The SSD will give you a significant overall improvement in the response times and performance of your system, however they are very expensive, especially a 256GB. This is up to you though. If you do decide to buy the SSD please read up on proper SSD maintenance, take care of it.

Quote:(Going for overclock of 1833mhz?)

Don't bother, you won't gain anything from it.

Yuhfhrh · 11-21-2011, 07:47 PM #5

(11-21-2011, 02:39 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: Those are all very good parts, excessive in fact. The only thing I would change is swapping out the H40 for a good air cooler like the noctua NH-D14.

You could cut your costs dramatically if you wanted to but it's up to you.

Things you could do to make it cheaper that you probably wouldn't miss:
Get rid of the SSD, cut the HDD down to 1TB, get a cheaper cooler master midtower case, get a 550w or 650w PSU, and get 8GB of ram instead of 16GB.

I would definitely drop the PSU down to at least 650w, you don't need anywhere near 750w. In fact you would actually be fine with 550w. Having 16GB of ram and a 2TB HDD are also currently useless (especially with current HDD prices). These changes I would definitely make even if you do have the money because they seem wasteful to me.

The corsair carbide is an excellent case but you don't NEED it, any decent case will do. This is up to you though.

The SSD will give you a significant overall improvement in the response times and performance of your system, however they are very expensive, especially a 256GB. This is up to you though. If you do decide to buy the SSD please read up on proper SSD maintenance, take care of it.

Quote:(Going for overclock of 1833mhz?)

Don't bother, you won't gain anything from it.

Thank you for the detailed advice! I bought the motherboard, cpu, case, and power supply today. I bought the 750w (before I got to read this post) because I was afraid of not having enough power.

Do you have a good link to how to maintain an ssd properly? If not I'll just google lol

I LOVE the case so far looks amazing. Tomorrow I am going to go return the 750w and get a 600/650W

I'm still gonna get the ssd tho Smile

but downgrade to a 750gb hdd

**NaturalViolence** · 11-22-2011, 04:13 AM #6

Quote:Do you have a good link to how to maintain an ssd properly? If not I'll just google lol

Google it and also make sure to read through the manufacturer product forums for advice: http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/bd-p/ssd
READ THE STICKIES IN THE FORUM AND THE MANUAL THAT COMES WITH THE PRODUCT!

Quote:I LOVE the case so far looks amazing. Tomorrow I am going to go return the 750w and get a 600/650W

I'm still gonna get the ssd tho but downgrade to a 750gb hdd

Good choice. Normally I would have told you to get the 2TB model but the flooding in Taiwan has tripled HDD prices these last few months, 2TB drives have become ridiculously expensive.

Yuhfhrh · 11-22-2011, 08:09 AM #7

(11-22-2011, 04:13 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote:
Quote:Do you have a good link to how to maintain an ssd properly? If not I'll just google lol

Google it and also make sure to read through the manufacturer product forums for advice: http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/bd-p/ssd
READ THE STICKIES IN THE FORUM AND THE MANUAL THAT COMES WITH THE PRODUCT!

Quote:I LOVE the case so far looks amazing. Tomorrow I am going to go return the 750w and get a 600/650W

I'm still gonna get the ssd tho but downgrade to a 750gb hdd

Good choice. Normally I would have told you to get the 2TB model but the flooding in Taiwan has tripled HDD prices these last few months, 2TB drives have become ridiculously expensive.

Thank you very much for your help! It means a lot!

obscured · 11-22-2011, 09:08 AM #8

16gb of memory? haha thats a lot. pretty sure you don't need that much. myself is hard pressed to surpass 4gbs of usage. i highly doublt those sticks will oc that easy. i would just get 8gb versions with the timings and clock you want.

Yuhfhrh · 11-22-2011, 03:00 PM #9

(11-22-2011, 09:08 AM)obscured Wrote: 16gb of memory? haha thats a lot. pretty sure you don't need that much. myself is hard pressed to surpass 4gbs of usage. i highly doublt those sticks will oc that easy. i would just get 8gb versions with the timings and clock you want.

Yeah that's the noob in me shining through. I have learned so much about computers these past few days its overwhelming lol

**Runo** · 11-24-2011, 10:28 AM **#10**

(11-22-2011, 09:08 AM)obscured Wrote: 16gb of memory? haha thats a lot. pretty sure you don't need that much. myself is hard pressed to surpass 4gbs of usage. i highly doublt those sticks will oc that easy. i would just get 8gb versions with the timings and clock you want.

Only thing so far that could use all the 3.5GB I let the program use of my 4GB was video editing in After Effects and Premiere. Gaming would never EVER use that much, at least not for the coming years.