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So, after the failure of my older system I used as a backup gaming computer for guests/server/Linux mess around box, I have decided it's high time to upgrade my main machine and relegate this one to the former's duties.

With that in mind, I'd like to first state the objectives of this machine:

1) Gaming. Currently it's on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor, but I plan on trying to get a 24" 1920x1200 monitor at some point down the road.
Currently Play SC2, BF3, SWTOR, World of Tanks, Company of Heroes, Skyrim, Napolean:TW, among others.
2) Quietness. I really don't want to hear the ROAR of fans. I already get annoyed at the noise emanating from my Sonata III when my 4870 goes full bore.
3) Virtual Machines. For Linux varieties, possibly Haiku at some point, and older versions of Windows to run old games like Diablo 1, X-Wing, etc.
4) Coding. Fairly easy to accomplish.
5) General Productivity. Also fairly easy to accomplish.

The parts will be purchased from either Newegg or Microcenter, whichever has a cheaper price.

With that in mind, I've got a few ideas already for some parts.

Processor: Core i7-3770. $260 from Microcenter
Since I don't plan on doing any hardcore overclocking on this machine, I don't especially need a -K type. Plus the virtualization extensions would be nice. i7 for hyperthreading.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. $120 at Newegg
I like Gigabyte motherboards, I guess? It's also not too expensive, and standard ATX size for roominess.

Memory: Nothing picked out here, but I would like to get 2x8GB for 16GB. Leaves room for expansion, but also gives me an apparent excess of RAM. Perhaps something like this?

Video Card: I'm not quite sure what to do here. I don't especially want to spend more than $300 on a video card. However, I would like to be able to play at close to max settings or max settings on games for at least a couple years, at 1920x1200. Right now I'm thinking 7870, but it's a little expensive and a 7950 is only like $50 more, but a much better performer. I do think it would be possible for me to hold off until June or July to purchase the video card and just use my 4870 temporarily, while waiting for the GTX 660/670 to be released to possible drop the 7870 price down. I do like Lifetime warranties, though.

Storage:
Cheap DVD+/-RW that I'll get from Microcenter. ($20ish)

SSD: Not sure about this one either. I haven't particularly been paying all that much attention to the SSD segment. I do know that the Samsung 830 series seems to have made an impression the the TR staff, having been included in the last system guide. Perhaps one of those at 128GB for a main drive?

Mass Storage: I was thinking either a 750GB Caviar Black or 750GB Caviar Blue. The Blacks are typically faster, but slightly more expensive. I don't think I'd need 1TB of storage for Games, music, etc. This machine gets by with a 640GB Caviar Blue that still has a couple hundred gigs free, so I doubt it'd made that much of a difference.

Case/PSU:
Another one I'm not sure on. This is mostly where I'd like to pick up on quietness. I do know that I really, really want a modular PSU for this build.

Welp, that's all I've got. I'd really love opinions on my existing selections and suggestions on parts to choose for this build.

Thanks guys/gals!

i'd go for the i5 3570K only $189 and then get a better board and overclock.

if you are going to get your cpu at microcenter, you can also get the gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H for only $139 http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0386359 it's much better board

it says $199 but, that's not the combo price.

you can see the combo price here on page 27 of their catalog here http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/95f7a97d#/95f7a97d/1

CampinCarl wrote:

I have decided it's high time to upgrade my main machine

Whee!

CampinCarl wrote:

Currently it's on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor, but I plan on trying to get a 24" 1920x1200 monitor at some point down the road.

Why wait?

CampinCarl wrote:

Processor: Core i7-3770

Agreed. This is the strongest Ivy Bridge processor for your virtualization.

CampinCarl wrote:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. $120 at Newegg
I like Gigabyte motherboards, I guess? It's also not too expensive, and standard ATX size for roominess.

Would Micro-ATX be sufficient? Do you need legacy PCI slots for anything, or are all of your add-in cards modern PCIe cards?

CampinCarl wrote:

Memory: Nothing picked out here, but I would like to get 2x8GB for 16GB. Leaves room for expansion, but also gives me an apparent excess of RAM. Perhaps something like this?

That seems fine. The selection of 8 GiB DIMMs available at Newegg has grown dramatically in recent weeks. I just got a set of these.

CampinCarl wrote:

Right now I'm thinking 7870, but it's a little expensive and a 7950 is only like $50 more, but a much better performer.

I'd select the Radeon HD7950 or HD7850 over the HD7870 for that reason.

CampinCarl wrote:

Storage: Cheap DVD+/-RW that I'll get from Microcenter. ($20ish)

Have you considered Blu-ray?

CampinCarl wrote:

SSD: Samsung 830 series 128GB for a main drive?

That's a good choice.

CampinCarl wrote:

Mass Storage: I was thinking either a 750GB Caviar Black or 750GB Caviar Blue.

I'll suggest the 1 TB Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 instead. It's faster than the Caviar Blue and cooler and quieter than the Caviar Black. It's recently been as low as $90 at the 'egg (with discount code). It was $50-60 last summer before the flood in Thailand.

CampinCarl wrote:

Case/PSU: Another one I'm not sure on. This is mostly where I'd like to pick up on quietness. I do know that I really, really want a modular PSU for this build.

Have you looked at the Antec P183 or the NZXT H2?

I'll echo JAE's comments, and just add Fractal Design's Define R3 to the running for the case. Quieter than the H2, and smaller than the P183, but any of those cases would be great. Hell, if you can live with mATX (and that really should be easy to do), you can look at getting something smaller, or something neater like Silverstone's Fortress FT-03.

Gigabyte's UEFI is definetly lacking. If you're looking for a motherboard at that low of a price point you might want to look at an AsRock Z77 Extreme4 or Extreme4-m. First thing you want to make sure is that its got all the functionality you're looking for (the Extreme4 is more feature rich than the baseline G3H). Asus is king, their UEFI is the best, fan controls are the best, more features and better software, but their boards are also more expensive.

The Samsung 830 is a very good SSD. Top performer when you average everything up. Keep in mind though that while numbers and graphs may make one SSD look "better" than another, ANY SSD will blow a mechanical hdd out of the water. Night and day difference. The 830 is currently going for $170, I've seen it closer to $150. The Intel 520 is a Sandforce drive that is also right at the top as far as performance and is at the same price vicinity as the Samsung 830. Intel spent over a year validating the 520 before bringing it to retail in order to make it "rock solid reliable." Many people will agree with this, whether that statement is worth the price premium over the next two Sandforce drives I'm about to mention is your call. Other Sandforce drives that offer the same performance as the Intel 520 are the Vertex 3 for $125 or Corsair Force GT (currently at $150 w/ no mail in rebate currently but does get into the $130 range often). I would NOT hesitate to buy either of those. (I already have a Vertex 3 for 8 months with no problems whatsoever) These two drives got a bad rap because of the "sandforce bug" which was fixed in October 2011ish. While it may be bad practice to work out the kinks after a product has gone on the market, everything seems to have calmed down since then.

I still think we'll see AMD bring the 78xx series GPU's down in price by at least $50 once Nvidia rounds out their lineup. We've already seen some price cuts following the GTX 680 launch to make their 7950 and 7970 more cometitive with the GTX 680. Once the GTX 670 (and 660...hopefully before the world ends) come out I expect to see AMD adjust pricing on their 78xx cards.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Currently it's on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor, but I plan on trying to get a 24" 1920x1200 monitor at some point down the road.

Why wait?

Mostly because it will cut into my budget for the actual computer.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Processor: Core i7-3770

Agreed. This is the strongest Ivy Bridge processor for your virtualization.

At least I got one thing right

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. $120 at Newegg
I like Gigabyte motherboards, I guess? It's also not too expensive, and standard ATX size for roominess.

Would Micro-ATX be sufficient? Do you need legacy PCI slots for anything, or are all of your add-in cards modern PCIe cards?

I don't think I have any legacy PCI add-in cards laying around. But I'll have to check.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Memory: Nothing picked out here, but I would like to get 2x8GB for 16GB. Leaves room for expansion, but also gives me an apparent excess of RAM. Perhaps something like this?

That seems fine. The selection of 8 GiB DIMMs available at Newegg has grown dramatically in recent weeks. I just got a set of these.

Guess that makes two!

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Right now I'm thinking 7870, but it's a little expensive and a 7950 is only like $50 more, but a much better performer.

I'd select the Radeon HD7950 or HD7850 over the HD7870 for that reason.

Yeah this is the main sticking point for the build.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Storage: Cheap DVD+/-RW that I'll get from Microcenter. ($20ish)

Have you considered Blu-ray?

I have thought about it, but I think I'll save the Blu-Ray drive for a future HTPC build someways down the line.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

SSD: Samsung 830 series 128GB for a main drive?

That's a good choice.

Three! lol

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Mass Storage: I was thinking either a 750GB Caviar Black or 750GB Caviar Blue.

I'll suggest the 1 TB Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 instead. It's faster than the Caviar Blue and cooler and quieter than the Caviar Black. It's recently been as low as $90 at the 'egg (with discount code). It was $50-60 last summer before the flood in Thailand.

Yeah it's one of those things where I wish I had just purchased some last year before then when they were super cheap. But I'll swap it to the Samsung as you suggest. Sounds like a good combo.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

Case/PSU: Another one I'm not sure on. This is mostly where I'd like to pick up on quietness. I do know that I really, really want a modular PSU for this build.

Have you looked at the Antec P183 or the NZXT H2?

I looked at both of those, but I'm curious as to whether the P183 is any better than the P280. The P280 seems to be significantly cheaper (about $50!) and appears to be about the same. I also had looked at the H2, but I really like the sideways mounted drive bays that my Sonata III has and would like to keep with that style unless someone has something really compelling.

DPete27 wrote:

I still think we'll see AMD bring the 78xx series GPU's down in price by at least $50 once Nvidia rounds out their lineup. We've already seen some price cuts following the GTX 680 launch to make their 7950 and 7970 more cometitive with the GTX 680. Once the GTX 670 (and 660...hopefully before the world ends) come out I expect to see AMD adjust pricing on their 78xx cards.

Does anyone have any idea when this will happen? I've heard anything from late Q2 to late Q3 (End of May to End of August-ish timeframe).

I think you might want to get a GTX 670 like tomorrow

yogibbear wrote:

I think you might want to get a GTX 670 like tomorrow

Haha well at least the review NDA has lifted. There's nothing listed on Newegg yet, though. Hopefully this will at least push the price cuts for the 7870, etc. but $400 is way too steep for me.

Edit: Kind of disappointed to not see the 7870 included in TR's review. Hopefully they do another review in a week or two that does tests at 2560x1600 and 1920x1200. I'd like to see the frametime results that TR uses for that comparison.

Yes, but the GTX 670 is showing better performance than the 7950 at the same price point. Like I said, the GTX 660 should drop into 78xx territory and then you should be able to get a 7850 for $200 which is where I would shoot if I were you (or Nvidia equivalent). The $200 price point is a good place to be.

Nobody has chimed in on the power supply front so I will throw in my 2c.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151099

Its modular, 80+ Gold, it's not overkill in regards to wattage and it's covered by a 5 year warranty.

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151098 could also be another option.

I didn't do the math on the budget, but the last thing you want to penny pinch in any/$1200 upgrade is the one part that rules them all.

DPete27 wrote:

Yes, but the GTX 670 is showing better performance than the 7950 at the same price point. Like I said, the GTX 660 should drop into 78xx territory and then you should be able to get a 7850 for $200 which is where I would shoot if I were you (or Nvidia equivalent). The $200 price point is a good place to be.

Well, I'm hoping the 7870 will come down and be a good price/perf combo around $250. But yeah. I don't know if the 670 will push the 7870 price down too much. Though looking at the Anandtech review for the 670, it might force the prices for the 7970 and 7950 down more, which might force the 7870/7850 down anyway. We'll see. No 670s on the shelves yet.

Hallucin8 wrote:

Nobody has chimed in on the power supply front so I will throw in my 2c.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151099

Its modular, 80+ Gold, it's not overkill in regards to wattage and it's covered by a 5 year warranty.

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151098 could also be another option.

Well, I think the fanless one might be a good idea for my HTPC project that is down the line, but I don't know if the wattage will be strong enough to give good efficiency. I know that typically efficiency is highest around 50-65% of full load. That 560W one might be good, I know they also have a 520W Modular one that is only about $80 or $90, also 80+ Bronze.

My HD6950''s and 2500k at 4.8GHz drew 500w at max load- that's Furmark and Prime95- so I'd say that a 460w unit would actually be overkill for a single GPU system, especially with a PSU that nice.

Hallucin8 wrote:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151099
Its modular, 80+ Gold, it's not overkill in regards to wattage and it's covered by a 5 year warranty.
http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151098 could also be another option.

$83 -12 code "EMCNEJN33" Antec Earthwatts Green EA-650 (54A @ +12V)
It's not modular, but it delivers plenty of power from a quiet 80+ bronze PSU for half the price of the SeaSonic PSUs linked above.

My thoughts on PSU are kind of leaning towards http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151093. It's not too expensive (sorry, but for this build, I don't need that much silence). It is modular, and it's from a good brand (seasonic). Basically, I just would rather have the $50 towards the video card or something else than a completely silent PSU, which is almost never the noisiest component anyway. But I must admit, that PSU is very, very nice. It'll find a great home in an HTPC down the line...

Edit: Ignore this. The M12II is not available at Microcenter, which is where I will probably be buying a lot of this stuff from this weekend (minus Graphics card probably). They DO have an OCZ ModXStream 600W for $75 which seems like a steal to me. Anyone got an opinion on this?

So here's something I didn't think about: CPU Cooler. Are the stock Ivy Bridge ones better than the ones that shipped with my E8400? Because I know this one produces a bit of a racket. What are some good but not expensive (sub-$50 unless someone can do some serious convincing) CPU coolers that run quiet?

CampinCarl wrote:

So here's something I didn't think about: CPU Cooler. Are the stock Ivy Bridge ones better than the ones that shipped with my E8400? Because I know this one produces a bit of a racket. What are some good but not expensive (sub-$50 unless someone can do some serious convincing) CPU coolers that run quiet?

Most will point you towards the Hyper 212 Evo.

Okay so, after all the input and also looking at Newegg stock vs. Microcenter stock, here's what I have so far:

Processor: Intel Core i7 3770 $260 Microcenter
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H $120 Newegg
RAM: CORSAIR 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1333 $100 Newegg
CPU Cooler COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO $35 Newegg
SSD: Samsung 830 128GB $170 Newegg
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $110 Newegg
Case: Antec P280 $115 Microcenter
PSU: OCZ ModXStream 600W $75 Microcenter ($50 after MIR)

I've left out a video card for now. I'll either use the IG on the i7 or grab my 8600GTS from my dead machine for now. Waiting to see what kind of price drops there are from the GTX 670 release. Definitely not spending more then $300 on the video card, though. So, that's it so far. Anyone have any improvements they can think of? I appreciate everyone's help so far. This will all be purchased either tonight (Newegg stuff) or tomorrow when I head back to Columbus for Mother's Day from Microcenter.

CampinCarl wrote:

SSD: Samsung 830 128GB $170 Newegg

BuyDig has it for $125+tax. If you want to go with NewEgg, use the coupon code EMCNEJJ38 for $10 off.

Did you check out the combination deals available on those components at Newegg?

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Did you check out the combination deals available on those components at Newegg?

Actually, no, I hadn't. But I'll do that now.

Edit: I checked them all; none had anything worthwhile. The Hyper 212 gives you a bit off of a Gigabyte Sniper G1 but that's a really expensive motherboard, and also really ugly.

Okay, so, the new computer is together. It is still missing the Spinpoint F3 that I'll be ordering from Newegg on Monday, and the video card that I'm waiting for price drops on. At some point I'll write up a 'lengthy' review of the system, but some first thoughts:

1) I should have installed the CPU cooler LAST. Holy hell that made things difficult. Even though the case itself is very spacious, the top of the system became very difficult to maneuver in with it in place. Trying to get the 4-pin ATX power cable and the 4-pin molex connector into the fan power header were extremely difficult and obnoxious.

2) This is my first PSU with modular cabling. And in the end, it hasn't saved me too much work, sadly. The major problems I ran into in this build trying to rout cables? The fact that these cables needed to be another 3-4 inches longer to effectively rout behind the motherboard tray. In a shorter case this probably wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but it was definitely an issue here.

3) The CPU cooler's mounting bracket is, frankly, pretty obnoxious. Trying to get the bracket to mount into the cooler itself (for which there is one unthreaded push-pin-screw thing, that doesn't work!) was a real pain, and my finger still hurt from it (that was last night).

4) Seeing 8 activity charts in Task Manager is very...exciting. I had to change my pants the first time I saw it.

5) 16GB of RAM feels great. I'm still downloading BF3; but when I think that extra RAM will help soooo much. I just checked TaskMon, and I'm already using 4 GB apparently. Windows Modules Installer (Windows Updates, I'm assuming?) is using about 1.4GB of that.

6) The SSD makes everything go SO fast. Boot time, from power-on to Login screen is about 11 seconds. I'll check it again after I finish installing all the drivers and windows updates. Windows installed in less time than it took me to shower (I have no idea exactly how short of a time, since I was, you know, in the shower).

I should also note that I ended up deciding to just buy everything from Microcenter. So I changed my motherboard (and after getting everything setup, I really wish I had sprung for a more expensive motherboard, I really do) to a Gigabyte Z77-DS3H. The back panel is very spartan. I have a sound card (Xonar DX), so the lack of 5.1 onboard sound is not a big deal for me. The placement of the PCI-Express slots is abysmal; I automatically lose 1 x1 slot for having a dual-slot card, and the other x1 slot is immediately below that so my sound card is now riding the fan on my 4870. So we'll see how that goes; I need to figure out if I can put the video card in the bottom x16 slot and actually have x16 bandwidth or if the bottom slot is only x4 or something.

Microcenter's options on RAM at 2x8GB DDR3 are limited; I ended up spending $130 on some Crucial Ballistix stuff (that JAE linked to earlier), as it was their cheapest option.

I also felt pretty stupid because I forgot to grab a DVD drive while there. Whoops. So I had to snatch the one out of my now-old computer to install Windows.

Edit: Just ordered a Lite-On DVD Burner (I find them all rubbish in certain ways, but I have Lite-On drives that date back 10+ years that are still kicking, so I'll stick with them), and the 1TB Spinpoint F3 from Newegg. Spinpoint was down to $90! Pretty good deal; not as good as it was a year and a half ago or so, but still not too shabby. Much better than the $110 or more I was thinking I would have to spend.

Since you are getting youCPU at microcenter i am pretty sure you get 50$ off on a motherboard also,so instead of a stand alone SSD get a motherboard with a tiny smart Cache 20gb ssd that lives on the motherboard.
That will save you a good bit of money and you will get a better board with the discount,and lack of purchasing a SSD.
Then you have more budget for a vid card.
good Luck

vargis14 wrote:

Since you are getting youCPU at microcenter i am pretty sure you get 50$ off on a motherboard also,so instead of a stand alone SSD get a motherboard with a tiny smart Cache 20gb ssd that lives on the motherboard.
That will save you a good bit of money and you will get a better board with the discount,and lack of purchasing a SSD.
Then you have more budget for a vid card.
good Luck

Actually, they didn't have a combo deal for an i7-3770 and a motherboard. It's too bad, I was hoping they did They had some for the i5-3570k though, I believe.

Benchmark update: Ran HD Tune Pro trial on a sequential read test (write not available) after getting a lot of stuff set up.
Results for Samsung 830 128GB SSD:
Min/Max/Avg Transfer Rate: 381.7/441.3/397.6 MB/s
Average access time: .082
Burst Rate: 274.1 MB/s
CPU Usage 2.8%

Though the access latency pattern shows a lot different than what TR gets for the 830. Possibly because mine is not freshly zeroed? It's definitely more spikey.

just chiming in saying diablo 1 works on win 7 x64, ive got it and hellfire expansion installed with no problems, updates and all

Your complaints for the motherboard are valid, but I think you'll find that you don't need any more.

MicroCenter tends to stick to deals that are attractive to DIY'ers, which the 3770 non-K really isn't; but that doesn't make getting stuff from them bad!

FYI, CampinCarl. BF3 is a 32-bit application so it will only use up to 2GiB of memory by default unless it has "Large Address Space Aware" tagged enabled on the executable. The tag will allow BF use up to 3GiB of memory in 32bit OS or 4GiB in a 64bit OS.

You can grab this tool to enable Large Address Space on your games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showt ... p?t=112556

Otherwise, it sounds like you are enjoying your new build.

Airmantharp wrote:

Your complaints for the motherboard are valid, but I think you'll find that you don't need any more.

MicroCenter tends to stick to deals that are attractive to DIY'ers, which the 3770 non-K really isn't; but that doesn't make getting stuff from them bad!

Yeah. But $50 less for the 3770 is worth it anyway.

Krogoth wrote:

FYI, CampinCarl. BF3 is a 32-bit application so it will only use up to 2GiB of memory by default unless it has "Large Address Space Aware" tagged enabled on the executable. The tag will allow BF use up to 3GiB of memory in 32bit OS or 4GiB in a 64bit OS.

You can grab this tool to enable Large Address Space on your games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showt ... p?t=112556

Otherwise, it sounds like you are enjoying your new build.

Ooo, that's nice. Thanks! I was getting ready to do research on this today; that program is super handy! I dunno if BF3 will take effective use of the extra RAM, but hopefully it will. The nice thing is that it can already actually use 2GiB of RAM instead of being forced down to like 1.7 or so because I had only 4 on my last machine.


Now it's just a waiting game to see how long it will take for the 7870 to fall below $300. If the late-year rumors are true for the arrival of the GTX 660 Ti, I might have to either poney up the extra cash for a 670 or settle on a 7850. But I don't want to do either of those things.

So, I've been running BF3 in Large Address-Aware=True mode for a while now, and I do not believe that it actually works for BF3. I'm running it on the 'High' preset, and memory usage for the process hovers around 1.6-1.8GB.

So does anyone know if TR plans on publishing a review of the 670 vs 7950 at more sane resolutions (1920x1200)? I'm trying to decide which of those to get. Considering I hope for this machine to last me 3 years or so, I think the extra $125 investment now will get me that once I upgrade my monitor to 1920x1200, whereas I fear the 7850 will fall short of that goal. Am I just being silly? Would the 7850 give me the longevity I desire?

Both cards are pushing 50fps+ in 99% of the frames (25fps average) rendered with a triple monitor setup (5760 x 1200) using Ultra quality settings. That's pretty darn smooth, but if you bring it down to 1920 x 1200 and Ultra quality, the average jumps up to 60fps or more depending on AA used. You're talking about $400 GPUs here, they're going to remain enjoyably playable for a loooong time.

The 7850 at those same 1920 x 1200 settings averages 40fps with Ultra quality settings. Unless you absolutely have to play with quality settings maxed out, you can knock down to "High" quality and probably push over 50fps which is smooth. Now consider that the 7850 only costs $250 as opposed to $400 so the 7850's usable lifespan only needs to be a little over half as long as a GTX670 or 7950 to break even.