Advice on a new computer

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on a new comp and could use some advice. First off, I don’t want to build my own. This is what I’ve come up with so far configured from iBuyPower for a little over $1900:

Case: Apevia X-Cruiser 2 Mid-Tower Case
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-2600K 3.40 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155
Cooling Fan: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan
Motherboard: [CrossFireX/SLI] GigaByte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3
Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Dual GPU SLI 3GB
Power Supply: 850 Watts - Thermaltake TR2 RX Modular 80 Plus PSU
Hard Drive: 120GB Corsair Force Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 550MB/s Read & 510MB/s Write
Data Hard Drive: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
Optical Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium

Does anyone know where I could get a better computer for around that price (Not building it from scratch). Would you advise that I swap out any of these components for something else? I assume all the components will work together if the site let me build it this way. I noticed options for Intel smart response technology hard drives, which is pretty new to me. Would something like that be better than above? Any advice/suggestions are appreciated.

2

What are you planning to do with this computer?

3

shrug it doesn’t cost much less to BYO, so if you’re getting a warranty for that system it’s not a bad price for the specs.

Other than making sure you get the 64-bit Windows 7, I might suggest upping the RAM to 16 GiB. 8 is probably fine but RAM is so cheap, why not?

I haven’t any experience with them. if your boot/program drive is an SSD, then I’m not sure I would worry about it. I have a 256 GiB SSD boot/program drive, and a 1 TiB platter hard drive for data ‘n’ shit. Works fine for me.

4

Gaming mostly.

5

Looks fine, I’d dump the liquid cooling though. A decent heat sink (heck, even the stock sink isn’t all that bad) on that processor will keep it cool enough. For the graphics, I know it is a sort of toss up, but If you really want SLI, I’d go SLI with two discrete graphics cards, rather then a dual GPU card. The Z68 motherboard itself should have a separate video output powered directly from the CPU, which runs pretty good for a second monitor, leaving the dedicated graphics card(s) available to concentrate on the main one.

I most definitely WOULD add into that mix though, at least a 64GB SSD, and would rather see a 128 or 256 GB one (larger is faster in most SSD’s). The Z68 chipset allows a form of RAID for the primary drive allowing the SSD to act as up to a 64GB cache. It makes a huge difference.

6

Some of that went over my head. For graphics cards, it looks like for a bit cheaper I could get two 570’s instead of the 590. Tom’s hardware benchmarks seem to score higher with the dual 570’s. Does that sound like the better choice? I only plan to have a single monitor.

I did have a 120 gb SSD above. Is the 64Gb cache that you are referring to the same as the Intel smart response technology that I was asking about? The site offers up to 64 gb SSD storage for what they refer to as Intel smart response technology. Is that setup better than having a standard 120 GB SSD? I think the advantage is that it tries to optimize the SSD storage automatically without needing to install the programs that you want to speed up on the SSD? I would assume that it would be slower than running something stored on a dedicated SSD, but overall it would improve the performance of everything on the standard hard drive? Is it possible to use 64 gbs of the 120 gb SSD I plan to buy for this caching and then use the other 50+ GBS to permanantly install Windows on? Sorry for all the questions, I’ve only used regular hard drives previously so it is all new to me.

7

That 590 is overkill on any display device 1080p or below.

Unless you are rocking a 2560x1440 or larger display (or multiple displays) I’d go with a single card solution.

Maybe a single GTX 580 (the 3 Gig version) and maybe down the road pick up another one for SLI.

Single card solutions are much more “fire and forget”. With SLI systems 1 out of 3 times a new game comes out, you’re going to have one card idling until a new SLI profile comes out.

8

Check out http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/. I’m looking at upgrading and these guys have good prices.

9

I actually bought my last computer from them. I got a good deal and no complaints. They seem to be extremely similar but iBuyPower was very slightly cheaper for the same config this time around.

I’m still trying to figure out if I should go with a 64 gb intel smart response SSD or a conventional 120 gb SSD.

10

Edit: wrong thread.

11

What kind of games are you thinking of playing? I’m inclined to agree with Kinthalis, that with a single monitor at 1920X1200 or below, you should be good with a single high-end card for any games on the market, unless you are running at very high resolutions. While you may be able to push 20-75% higher framerates with an SLI config, with most games you’re talking about a degree of overhead, not visible differences in framerate. And SLI/Crossfire setups can sometimes encounter issues with newer games, until driver updates/game patches can be delivered.

Other than that, the only suggestions I can offer are these:

PSU - If you stick with two 590s, you will need more than an 850W PSU. According to Tom’s VGA charts, a single 590 draws just shy of 400W - and that’s GPU-only draw, not total system draw. Double that, and then add at least another 125W for the rest of the system, and you see what I mean. Taking into account PSU efficiency and capacitor aging, you want to go with at least a 1000W PSU, if not a 1200W PSU. Which raises the question I touched on above - do you really want to suck down all that juice for the sake of a mostly superfluous increase in framerate?

Case - I’ve had several systems in Apevia cases, and the cases have all been sub-par - sharp edges, poor HDD placement, and shoddy, plasticky exterior fit and finish. I’d suggest an NZXT, or better yet an Antec or Coolermaster if you want a more understated design. I’ve got three systems in CoolerMaster cases, and they’ve all been rock-solid, with great ventilation and great setups for liquid, with ample grommets and mount points for radiators. I’ve also got another system in an NZXT Source 210, and I quite like it as well - it’s pure white, with black trim, and it is a different, unique look.

Also, for kicks, I’d spec out the same parts on www.newegg.com to see how much you’re paying for the assembly.

12

I’ll second this. Fancy cooling is only worth it if you want to overclock, and the stock cooler will be just fine in any decently-ventilated case. IF you have a very nicely overclockable setup (motherboard, cpu, and memory all selected for the purpose) you can get a decent performance boost with better cooling and overclocking everything to the limit. Practically speaking, high-end watercooling isn’t that much better than a $30ish heatpipe cooler – that extra $100 worth of cooling gear might only give you an extra few percent overclock.

13

First off, a correction - I thought that the OP had specced out two 590s based on the description of “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Dual GPU SLI 3GB”. On review, I’m not sure if this is the case or not - so my suggestions on GPUs/PSUs should be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ll third this - you’ll only see an incremental performance increase with CPU overclocking, and with diminishing returns, since you’re reducing the expected lifespan of your CPU/mobo/RAM due to the excessive voltages and timings.

I’d also ask, and I don’t mean this as an insult - what experience do you have overclocking? It can be a bit tricky to balance all the factors - while there are some good utilities that take some of the guesswork out, they tend to err on the conservative side, and to really wring every cycle out of your system, you need to mess around in the BIOS with CPU voltages/clock cycles/steppings, RAM voltages/timings, etc. I rarely mess with it these days because I just don’t see the benefits I’d like to from it. It makes sense when you overclock a value part, like a $100 AMD or a low-end Core i3, but when you have a CPU that’s already at the top of the heap, you’re gaining small percentage points of performance overhead rather than seeing real-world results.

If you won’t be overclocking, I’d shave a few bucks off and go with the i7-2600 vanilla CPU instead of the “K” model (which really only lets you overclock, but otherwise gives identical performance), and a good heatpipe cooler rather than liquid.

14

Well that’s the thing.

First the K series sandy birdge are super easy to over clock. Second they can reach speeds of 5 Ghz on AIR cooling.

That is not an insignificant improvement.

15

I agree that the K processors make overclocking much easier - that’s definitely the whole value proposition for the K series. Admittedly, I haven’t had any experience with the K series, and for very CPU-intensive tasks, it can certainly be worth it - media transcoding, 3D rendering, heavy-duty number crunching, etc.

However, for gaming, where the CPU ceases to be a significant bottleneck at around the Core i5 CPUs, overclocking only serves to produce a superfluous framerate increase - take a look at Anandtech’s extensive gaming benchmarks: CPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2025: CPU Rankings | Tom's Hardware.

Hell, the $85 Pentium G850 I put in an HTPC recently has around 90% of the total performance of the $300 i7-2600 in many games, all other things being equal. If I’m already getting 90FPS, should I go to the trouble of overclocking (assuming I could on my CPU) to get an extra 10-20FPS that I won’t notice?

While it is a matter of taste, I guess, I say put that money toward a bigger SSD, or a better case, or something that will have a material impact on overall utility.

16

That a i5-2500k overclocked to 4.8GHz isn’t worth it over an i3-2100 (or whatever) 'cause you aren’t CPU-bound in any of the game from last year is a dumb way to go about buying your PC. The i5-2500k is the best value on the market today, even if it’s overkill for the games of today. It won’t be for the games of tomorrow and then you can just drop in a new GPU instead of replacing everything. It’s a CPU with legs. If you’re spending anything over $1000, you’re making a mistake omitting a 2500k.

17

Definitely change out the DVD drive for a blu-ray R/W - given the total cost it should be a gimme.

18

I agree that the 2500 is an excellent value, and if you’re one to overclock, by all means, get the K series. But don’t expect to notice any performance advantage in most games for a couple years, vs not overclocking.

Personally, I’ve always been more of a value builder - I try to look at what will give me real world performance/usability rather than merely theoretical gains. Of course, I do a lot of upgrading as parts come down in price, but I like to tinker.

That’s why I say it’s a matter of taste - some folks prefer bleeding edge, some folks prefer to spend their money where they’ll notice the difference. Each choice has its merits, but I wouldn’t call any one option “dumb”.

19

I’m not really one to upgrade a computer as it ages, I’d rather set it and forget it. Probably because I am lazy and I also like buying a new computer every 3 years. It’s also nice to be able to donate a still decent computer to my friend. I don’t mind dropping 2k on a computer since I use it so much and I make enough to be able to do that comfortably.

I did mean a single 590, but it looks like that’s not the best idea. I’m still leaning towards the 570 SLI as it is cheaper and seemingly more powerful than the 590. A 580 now and then another later is a sound strategy, but they don’t look amazingly better that the 570’s which are very cheap now.

I haven’t overclocked before, but I may with the 2600k once I study up a bit more. The liquid cooling is just one of those deals the site promotes, it is really only 20 bucks more than the stock fan.
I think I’m going to go with a 60 gb ssd used as a smart cache as opposed to a standard 120 gb ssd. It may not be as fast but I like the idea of not having to worry about putting certain programs on the SSD and swapping them out when I run out of space.

I did decide on the 16 gb ram as well since it’s not a ton extra.

20

All good so far. You might want to go for 16 GB so you can be confident you have a matching set. BTW 16 GB is the maximum for W7 Home Premium.

I wouldn’t go for this. AMD are about to bring out their 7xxx series cards. Get a single card - a 3 GB GTX 580 if you want to go Nvidia - and upgrade from there. Multiple GPU solutions can also suffer from an issue called micro-stutter.

I find SSDs expensive and over-rated, but then I leave my PC on 24/7.