Building new PC - need advice

[starkey817]

OK thanks ya'll I'll go with one of those then! My last question concerning this build (I hope) relate to the graphics card and the case.

 

I'm going with the GTX 560Ti but its been so long since I've bought a graphics card that I noticed there are a ton of brands that all sell the same card... so should I go with ASUS or maybe EVGA?

 

Also what are some good case brands? I'm gonna go with a full tower case if that makes a difference...

[EtherealN]

I'd say both ASUS and EVGA are both good brands that make quality products, though I haven't had experience of EVGA products personally since my old 7800. Very happy about my ASUS 560Ti. I think MSI also has some quality versions.

 

For cases, depends a lot on your budget for the case. Cooler Master has products that I like as far as balancing features and price.

[celticcoho]

MSI if you ever want dual cards, They are masters at it, Jim

[cichlidfan]

For cases, depends a lot on your budget for the case. Cooler Master has products that I like as far as balancing features and price.

 

I definately agree about having good luck with ASUS cards.

 

Coolermaster has some great cases, in a range of prices, and to top it off great customer service. Quick story...

 

I have a Gladiator 600 I think it is called and after about 8 or 10 months I wanted to add another disk drive but could not find the rails, for the no-tools mount. I called them and told them that I needed one set of rail but really thought the set had been missing from the beginning. They asked how long I had it and when told replied that it was under warranty and what was my address, they would send them out right away. Less than a week later I get five sets of rails in the mail.

 

Gotta love it.

[bengo]

Okay guys,

I'm in for an upgrade of my 3,5 year-old sytem.

I've got following items on my list. I'm sure there are faster items on the market, but I'm already overbudget a little, and I'm not looking for the "latest and greatest", just a good stabil system to run DCS for the next few years.

As I'm not a hardcore hardware follower, please point out any big mistakes that I might be facing when using following parts :

The 5870 from current sytem gets recycled.

-I7 2600K

-Asus P8P67pro

-8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance

-Corsair H70 cooling

-OCZ agility 3 120GB SSD

 

Thanks

[EtherealN]

If you're on a budget and going slightly over, consider switching your processor to i5 2500K. You lose 2MB of L3 cache (no biggie) and the hyperthreading (not used by DCS), and go down from 3.4 to 3.3GHz stock clock (no biggie). But price goes down to 2/3. I would not expect the difference in performance between the i5 2500K and the i7 2600K in DCS to be human-noticeable (possible exception being if you require many background tasks). They both generally overclock to about the same level, as well.

 

What PSU do you have?

 

Also, be aware that the H70 is LOUD. It can be made a lot quieter by purchasing aftermarket 12cm fans (two of those, possibly some Zalman's which is what I use on my computer door, would cost ~30-40 euro).

Edited May 29, 2011 by EtherealN

[bengo]

Thanks for the feedback, EtherealN. PSU is an XFX 750W.

[EtherealN]

Not personally familiar with that unit, but I checked ut up real quick and it looks fairly good.

 

If you intend to re-use optical media, doublecheck whether it's an IDE or SATA you have. Many new motherboards no longer have the IDE connector.

[bengo]

Fortunately that all is already on SATA-standard.

[bengo]

Also, be aware that the H70 is LOUD. It can be made a lot quieter by purchasing aftermarket 12cm fans (two of those, possibly some Zalman's which is what I use on my computer door, would cost ~30-40 euro).

 

What other options are there ?

Does a "normal" cooler cut it ? What are you using ?

[EtherealN]

I use the H70. :D

 

It really is a very effective kit, but it is loud. I personally don't mind though, so I haven't replaced the standard fans yet, though I have been thinking about it. (Though my chassis is a CoolerMaster HAF 932, so there's no sound isolation whatsoever on that one. A more traditional chassis won't suffer as badly.)

 

There are "regular" air cooling assemblies that do as good a job with cooling your CPU (the Noctua 14-something is an example of a superb kit), but due to the size of the assemblies you might want to doublecheck the measurents inside your case as well as the clearance to the memory sticks. Zalman also has some good CPU coolers for the 1155 platform (note: the measurements of 1155 is identical to 1156 as far as coolers go, so if a cooling assembly lists that it supports 1156 you'll be fine).

[Druid_]

If you have the time and don't mind a little challenge then try building your own watercooling set up. I've done a couple now and I've enjoyed the experience. Although I did it to overclock my main reason was because I hated having a vacuum cleaner wirrring next to me. My current set up has the Double Radiator & fans external to the case with a couple of quiet large CFM fans. Can hardly hear it. When I upgrade my graphics card I'll WC that & it will be almost silent (peace at last, until the kids come home that is).

 

As far as the H50,H70 goes, a great easy WC solution but there are plenty of MOds out there for this kit also, just depends if you want to get into modding (its not as hard as you think & there's mountains of advice online in overclocking forums).

 

Whatever road you choose, I'm sure you'll be happy with the i7-2500k/2600k.

[RSharpe]

A well designed heatsink and good fans can outperform sealed off-the-shelf water cooling units. All the water does it take the heat from the CPU to a cooling surface. Whether you have a radiator or a heat sink, and whether that heat is transmitted by water tubes or heat pipes, heat still going to be cooled in the same way... pushing cool air over a cooling surface.

 

Heatsink coolers like those high end designs by Noctua and Thermalright can cool better, more efficiently, and quieter than those consumer water cooling kits. They're often packaged with better fans too. Noctuas are constantly silent. The difference can be something like 25db.

Edited May 30, 2011 by RSharpe

[sobek]

All the water does it take the heat from the CPU to a cooling surface. Whether you have a radiator or a heat sink, and whether that heat is transmitted by water tubes or heat pipes, heat still going to be cooled in the same way... pushing cool air over a cooling surface.

 

Yes, but the water allows for heat transport over longer distances, enabling you to use large radiators which can in turn provide better heat transfer at lower volumes and the use of cooler air that has not previously been pre-heated by the graphics card :)

[EtherealN]

Also, radiators are designed differently than your typical heatsink assembly, allowing a greater surface area.

 

In the case of my H70, I have it set up the "standard" way whereby it has a push/pull configuration sucking air directly from outside the case. That said, the main advantage IMO is a clean configuration around the CPU socket - the RAM DIMMs now get cool outside air directly fed by two 12cm Zalman fans instead of either being blocked by a massive heatsink assembly or being given hot CPU exhaust air.

 

In the end though, the difference performance-wise between top-line air and the sealed WC kits is minimal. The difference you would be most interested in come from other things, such as space concerns or airflow.

[Druid_]

Ivy Bridge delayed 'til next year :(

see here

[starkey817]

I am just about ready to purchase everything I need for this build just want to get some feedback on two last concerns...

 

1) Do I need some sort of thermal paste for my CPU (i5 2500k) to help cool it better, I havin't decided if I will be overclocking seeing as how I have never done it before. However, I figure there are plenty of guides that can aid me in that.

 

2) The case I chose is a CoolerMaster Haf 932 that goes for about $150 but I noticed it has no filters on the fans... is this a big issue? Should I spend the extra $50 and get one that does have fan filters?

[sobek]

1) Do I need some sort of thermal paste for my CPU (i5 2500k) to help cool it better, I havin't decided if I will be overclocking seeing as how I have never done it before. However, I figure there are plenty of guides that can aid me in that.

 

That depends on whether the cooler you use has preapplied thermal paste on it. There absolutely HAS to be thermal paste between the cooler and the CPU, whether it is applied by the factory or by you shouldn't make a difference. Again, this is NOT optional for better performance, thermal paste is necessary for the cooler to work properly. The ramifications are probably that your CPU could end up fried.

Edited June 1, 2011 by sobek

[Druid_]

Use a good thermal paste. There are several makes and some perform better than others, cash spent on a good paste is money well spent imho. I use artic silver but OCZ has this one which looks good. Silver based compounds perform best.

 

regarding filters, not especially necessary if you don't mind giving the insides of your PC a blow out once or twice a year (depends how dusty the area around your PC is and how long you use your PC for). Filters will always restrict airflow so I don't use them.

 

BTW the HAF932 looks like a great case. If you spend wisely on a good case it will last you for many upgrading years.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Druid_

[starkey817]

Ok thanks sobek and Druid! I actually have some arctic silver from my last build, which I never ended up using, at least 5 years ago so I should still be able to use that right (I'm assuming that stuff doesn't expire haha)? What about these heatsinks that attach to the CPU that I've noticed a lot of people on these forums have in their systems? Is that a better way to go or.....?

 

By the way here is everything I have decided to purchase for this new PC, I'm hoping this will handle both DCS sims on high settings (especially with the heat blur effect which looks fantastic):

 

CASE: Cooler Master HAF X

MOBO: ASUS Sabertooth P67 (REV 3.0) SATA 6 Gb/s

PSU: Corsair HX Series 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI ready 80 PLUS SILVER

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K SB 3.3GHz

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1866MHz

GPU: ASUS ENGTX560 TI DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP ready (was a bit confused with this, but it should work right?)

HDD: WD Caviar Black 1 TB 7200rpm SATA 6.0Gb/s

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium - 64 bit

Edited June 1, 2011 by starkey817

[Druid_]

Yep, that should do you nicely. Especially when you overclock that i5-2500K.

[Rahvin]

My advice regardng CPU cooler: Scythe Yasya.

Extremely cheap, silent, powerful, customizaable, compatible and easy to install.

Absolutely cannot go wrong with it. (Unless you plan to move your computer a lot, where some say the pushpins might not hold up. I moved my computer though, and never had a problem.

It's just ridiculously good.

[Bolt-1]

Ok thanks sobek and Druid! I actually have some arctic silver from my last build, which I never ended up using, at least 5 years ago so I should still be able to use that right (I'm assuming that stuff doesn't expire haha)? What about these heatsinks that attach to the CPU that I've noticed a lot of people on these forums have in their systems? Is that a better way to go or.....?

 

By the way here is everything I have decided to purchase for this new PC, I'm hoping this will handle both DCS sims on high settings (especially with the heat blur effect which looks fantastic):

 

CASE: Cooler Master HAF X

MOBO: ASUS Sabertooth P67 (REV 3.0) SATA 6 Gb/s

PSU: Corsair HX Series 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI ready 80 PLUS SILVER

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K SB 3.3GHz

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1866MHz

GPU: ASUS ENGTX560 TI DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP ready (was a bit confused with this, but it should work right?)

HDD: WD Caviar Black 1 TB 7200rpm SATA 6.0Gb/s

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium - 64 bit

 

Take a look in my sig. Also Ethereal's. You should have no problem running the games with great stable frame rates. With all options maxed out as I do. With the exception of the SSD i use. Our comp specs. are pretty damn close. Your really gonna enjoy what you put together for the sims.

[starkey817]

Okiedoke everything has been ordered off Newegg, just gotta wait for it to arrive... probably going to have a difficult time sleeping now haha! Just wanna say thank you one more time for all the input/feedback by everyone on this thread, never would have been able to figure this out without ya'll! Looking forward to beginning dcs flight operations next week (probably going to result in my grades suffering in my currently enrolled summer courses haha)! =D

 

-Dakota

Edited June 2, 2011 by starkey817

[EtherealN]

Thing to note about the Cooler Master HAF cases: they do almost nothing to limit sound. They do have rubber feet, and the HDD trays have rubber inserts, but the door and other surfaces are so perforated that you'll hear all fans inside as if there was nothing there at all. If this bothers you, look for something else.

 

If it doesn't bother you, I don't really know any case to recommend that can compete with the HAFs on airflow. Mine will literally move paper on my desk through all the air it's able to suck...