Looking for advice on high end Ivy Bridge build

Thinking about getting a new high end Ivy Bridge computer, mainly for heavy gameing. I am not a hardcore OCer, but will be doing moderate OCing, that results in a nice boost, and at the same time a stable gameing rig.
I have found most of the parts parts, but I am open for suggestions and tips.
I am getting good prices from one store, so I am limited to buy what they have, cannot buy all that is on the market.
I was planning to get a Sandy Bridge build about 16 months ago or so , but never got around to doing so for practical reasons.

Components:
Case: Corsair Obsidian 550D Midi Tower, with extra Corsair AF140 Quiet Edition 140mm fan on the side door (Corsair Carbide 500R was an option, but is no longer in available in store)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K

Cooler: Corsair H100 Hydro

MB: ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE (or the more expensive ASUS Maximus V Extreme, but guess it is overkill for moderate OCing?..)

Disk: Samsung SSD 830 Series 256GB (or Crucial M4 512GB, which is only about 50% more expensive...)

RAM: HyperX Blu 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM@ 1.5v (Kit of 2) XMP, or HyperX T1 16GB 2133MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM @ 1.6v (G-Skill/Mushkin etc is not an option in store, options are: Corsair, Crucial and Kingston)

PSU: Corsair HX 1050W PSU, 80 PLUS® Gold, ATX 12V V2.31, Modular

GFX: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz 3GB GDDR5PCI-Express 3.0, "VAPOR-X GHz Edition" (or the more costly Toxic GHz 6GB version)

OS: Win7 64bit Ultimate/Enterprise

A few questions:
- Any good reason to change the included fans for the Hydro cooler (I am not extremely sensitive to noise)?
- If I just do moderate OCing (need a 100% stable rig), is the Maximus Extreme overkill? Do I have any use/need of it, or its extra features?
- Any comments on the 256GB Samsung disk vs the 2 times as large 512GB Crucial disk? The Crucial disk is only about 50% more expensive then the Samsung disk. The 256GB Samsung vs the 256GB Crucial, the Samsung is the best, but unsure if the 512GB Crucial is faster then the 256GB Samsung. Reason for comparing these 2 is due to the price for the 2 times larger Crucial is only about 50% more then the newer Samsung.
- I am VERY unsure about the ram. I have selected this one because of the low price, good name and color that match the mobo. As I am not going to do hardcore OCing, I am not sure what really is needed. Any advice here is VERY much appreciated!
- You guys know of any other very good silent/cool 3rd part GFX card comming shortly with the new 7970 GHz Edition that is worth waiting for?
- I do not have to buy right now, so is there any good reason to hold off a few months? Anything worth waiting for in the very near future?

Any feedback would be nice...

Edit:
Changed the RAM.
Edit 2:
Changed to a new PSU that will soon be in store.
Edit 3:
Changed to the ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE mobo.

jarle

3570k is good enough for gaming but 3770k is worth it for multithreaded work
a $150 mb would probably be just as good
unless you intend to run three 7970 a 1kw psu may be a bit over the top
ram will do the job buying a faster kit will just improve cpu performance a bit particularly at overclocks beyond 4.4ghz
no time like the present

Thanks for fast reply!

I am going for the 3770 to be a bit more 'future-proof', my current rig is 5 years old (changed gfx card 3 times I think it is), so I do not change often.
The 1050 PSU is just a little more expensive then for example a 850 watt PSU, so I see no reason not to go for the 1050, and again a little more 'future-proof'.

jarle

A 1KW PSU will only be more future proof if you plan on buying another two GPU's. A 850W PSU easily pulls two high-end cards. There are PCI-E specifications, which have been the same for years, to which the mfg's roundabout abide. That said, GPU's won't be using a lot more next generation.
PSU-wise you're also looking at efficiency. If you don't usually load a PSU to about the most efficient level (iirc. ~80%), it's wasting power, which in the end costs you more (if you pay the bills, that is).

You can't really go wrong on RAM. If you're not in it for crazy overclocks but just want reasonable performance, any RAM will do. Difference for gaming between 1600 CL9 and 2400 CL9 is maybe 1-2%; costs? A bit more than 1-2%. This money is, for gaming, always better invested in GPU > CPU > SSD (performance-wise).

For moderate overclocking, just about any motherboard will do.

Whether you want a 256GB or 512GB SSD is up to your budget really. Usually people only put OS + Programs + Quick start apps (like games) on there. I'm currently rather satistifed with a 128GB, altough I can imagine 256GB being more useful. Storage? Conventional HDD's.

Regarding the GPU, you can buy a normal edition with a decent cooler now and overclock it to the same speeds.

Like dasa said, there's no better time than now to buy, stuff gets released too quick to wait for a price drop or better-performing material.

Cooler: Corsair H100 Hydro
Be sure to use the pre-applied TIM, great stuff!

MB: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT (or the more expensive ASUS Maximus V Extreme, but guess it is overkill for moderate OCing?..)
Unless Thunderbolt is a requirement: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

Disk: Samsung SSD 830 Series 256GB (or Crucial M4 512GB, which is only about 50% more expensive...)The more space the better. And get an HDD to back up to.

PSU: Corsair HX 1050W PSU ATX 80 Plus Silver, Modular
A little reserve power is a good thing. Not as much strain on the PSU itself and you're ready for upgrades or more components.

GFX: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz 3GB GDDR5PCI-Express 3.0, "VAPOR-X GHz Edition" (or the more costly Toxic GHz 6GB version)
Prefer EVGA nVidia GTX680 - fewer driver issues and tons of OC overhead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Allubz

You can't really go wrong on RAM. If you're not in it for crazy overclocks but just want reasonable performance, any RAM will do. Difference for gaming between 1600 CL9 and 2400 CL9 is maybe 1-2%; costs? A bit more than 1-2%. This money is, for gaming, always better invested in GPU > CPU > SSD (performance-wise).

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i wont argue that there is better ways to get bang for your buck than ram but you might be surprised at the difference it cam make
as the cpu gets overclocked it becomes starved for memory bandwidth unless you increase its speed and you may see 5-10% performance gain in cpu limited games which is worth ~200+mhz extra on the cpu
most games dont need the extra cpu performance at the moment and show next to no difference in tests being all but completely gpu bottlenecked or just run 100-200+fps like in this xbit article
Choosing the Best DDR3 SDRAM for Ivy Bridge http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...3_4.html#sect0
but then in something like arma2 where it can be limited to ~30fps by the cpu at high view distances things may get a bit more interesting

Thanks for all the replies, keep em comming. :)

I am pretty sure I will change the ram, will be going for the new series from Kingston, as long as they arent for some reason bad in real life/tests.
http://www.bjorn3d.com/news/kingston...ge-processors/
I am thinking of the:
HyperX Blu 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM@ 1.5v (Kit of 2) XMP
or the:
HyperX T1 16GB 2133MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM @ 1.6v

As far as I can see these are 'made for Ivy Bridge', even spesially tested on the P8Z77-V Deluxe.

jarle

@dasa, an interesting comparison indeed with an IB @ 4.5GHz. My question would be whether the same performance results can be noted when running higher resolutions. Nevertheless, interesting read, and concluding it's easy to say (for who didn't know) that clockrate outperforms latencies on Ivy Bridge (and it's recent predecessors).

@JH_man, that said, looking at the two RAM kits you're coining, they're close in terms of latencies, but the T1 set obviously has a much higher clockrate, hence it will perform better; better pick if the prices are roughly equal.

With regard to the GPU options, I'm not sure if 6GB will bring anything to the table. Typically, the double-RAM cards don't really bring much more performance (even at high resolutions). Maybe if you're running 3+ Eyefinity / Surround it'd be interesting. As OS-Wiz suggested, you can also look for a quality GTX680, shouldn't disappoint either.

unless you plan on going multi card id save money on the mobo. i went with a Z77 Extreme4 and waiting on it to show up today. I'm rebuilding my water loop and going to run this one on water too... my 780i has gotten 100% flaky at 3.6Ghz after multiple years at 3.6 @1.54v i recently went down to 3.2 at 1.3v IIRC and its still flakey

i5-3550K
ASRock Z77 Extrem4
8GB of the low profile awesome SAMSUNG ram...

Games hardly scale with ram speed over 1866Mhz, nor timings... True that other apps can benefit from the extra bandwith created. I find the conclusion of the Xbit article totally wrong as they don't specify at what speeds the scaling with ram bandwith comes close to a halt for games. While sandy was perfectly fine at 1333Mhz with games, Ivy scales a little bit up to 1866Mhz ( but not the 20-30% claimed in the forementioned article, that's completely ridicilous ) Then it is all more for benchers and tweakers.

Secondly why not buy one off the low voltage dimms, most clock up nicely to 2133-2400mhz with moderate voltages and they cost close to nothing.

Thread here : http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...or-SFF-builds.

For gaming 4-4.5Ghz is more than sufficient ( if even needed ). FYI atm testing a friends PC with an AMD 1090T (stock), 8Gb and a GTX680 GPU. To be honest I can't tell the difference in BF3 and Dirt 3 between my i7-3770K at 4700Mhz, GTX680 and 16Gb of 2400C9 ram at 1920 x 1080 high detail setting. Only the game loading is faster on my setup due to the present SSD. Once in game I can't tell or feel the difference :D

Even a "so called" slow SSD is great. Running an 512GB Octane review sample and it's plenty fast... not the most brilliant drive in the tests, but it eats my Raptors for breakfast.

You can build a PC with an insane price tag. However if you will feel the performance difference between a lower specced one is another thing.

Don't waste money on overrated specifications ! I know this is extremesystems, but your PC setup is for gaming purposes, not setting a new 3Dmark06 record.

Those Samsung dimms are not available in the store. And I have checked the prices for value dimms, and if I add up 4 of them, they add up to just as much as I have to pay for the Kingston HyperX Blu 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM@ 1.5v (Kit of 2).
So I see no point in going for 'low price' value dimms. It looks like the only ram sticks that is expensive these days are the ones that are targeted for extreme OCers, the rest, even the these new Kingston ones are 'cheap', at least here in Norway.

jarle

About PSU, I prefer Corsair AX Series or Seasonic X/P Series. X and P are fully modular and the P Series are 80 Platinum certified.

For cooling stuff, I prefer fully customized liquid cooling as you can read it in the liquid cooling sub forum for choosing the best parts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Games hardly scale with ram speed over 1866Mhz, nor timings...
For gaming 4-4.5Ghz is more than sufficient ( if even needed ). FYI atm testing a friends PC with an AMD 1090T (stock), 8Gb and a GTX680 GPU. To be honest I can't tell the difference in BF3 and Dirt 3 between my i7-3770K at 4700Mhz

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there isnt enough reviews that tested with overclocked cpus to be so sure of that in fact xbit is the only one i have found so far
it would be nice to see a review done with some heavily cpu limited games and a wider range of cpu clock speeds
like i said above most games are gpu limited console ports where you may not notice difference between a athlon x4 or a 3770k@5ghz unless you benchmark them but there is exceptions like arma 2 or if you mod\tweak a console port like fallout\skyrim to increase the view distance

I always test OC'ed and have found not much FPS gain worth even considering a 2133 kit. CPU clockspeeds of modern quadcore CPUs matter a bit when going multi GPU. In a single GPU configuration there's again close to no scaling in FPS in most games with increased CPU speed. There are ofcourse a few exceptions to the previous rule and you have to test at realistic resolutions with sufficient detail level selected. Eg the Far Cry 2 benchmark scales massively with ram speed or even CPU speed, but it's not a reference anymore for current games...

They are takeing their sweet time to release the new 'AMD' 7890 GHz Ed cards...
Only seen info about the 2 upcomming Sapphire cards.

About AMD vs nVidia cards; I have had AMD cards for many years now (before that nVidia and others, like VooDoo :) ), and I have had little or no problems. Also gotten used to the AMD config. And the 7970 cards are in many cases better then more expensive nVidia cards.
But, if people here got good points for going for nVidia instead, please let me know. Custom more silent and cooler coolers is a must, I do no want a jumbojet in my PC hehe

jarle