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I love this site, I seriously do. I was, how to put it, ignorant, yeah, ignorant, before I found this place.

I've built a number of systems in my time, but honestly beyond "motherboard supports this kind of memory and that kind of processor and this expansion slot" I never paid any attention to compatibility between components (which may explain why some of them have been less than stable).

With my latest build, and the awesome system guides on tech report, I'm trying to pay more attention to how everything works together. I used an amalgam of some of the builds, and I was wondering if anyone would like to have a look over it and let me know if I'm being stupid or should be using something different? I'm also trying to find a decent CPU cooler without going to the trouble of rolling my own liquid cooling. I'm trying to build something relatively quiet, but that can perform under modern gaming loads (plus I'm also a developer, but compiling is no big thing these days). Also, power. I have no idea how much power I'll need, or how to tell, so any advice I can get around that would be fantastic.

So, onto the build:

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX670 2GB 02G-P4-2670-KR
SSD: Corsair Force Series 3 240GB
HDD: 2 x 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green (will be running in a RAID mirror)
Optical: Some kind of Blu-Ray burner, don't know that it really matters which one.
Sound: Asus Xonar DX
Case: Corsair Graphite 600T White
PSU: This one I'm not sure about, for the above reasons, but I'm thinking something modular just to keep things flowing nicely for cooling, and given energy prices over here in Australia preferably a gold 80 plus certification.

So, all up so far this is looking to cost about AUD$1900, so with PSU and cooling my budget it looking to be about AUD$2400 (it's so much more expensive thanks to the Not In America tax).

Do you need an aftermarket cooler? Intel retail coolers have been great for years. It could be a considerable savings. That being said, I love my Corsair H-series cooler.

As for PSU, I'd shoot for something in the 500-650w. I like to get the most efficient psu from a name-brand. Is there a website you are using in Aus that we could look around for you?

Recommendation: If you don't care about overclocking, stick with the stock cooler and get a 3570 instead of the 3570K (saves a little money and turns on a couple of virtualization features IIRC).

If you do care about overclocking, then stick with the 3570K and TR has been recommending the Corsair H80 as a cooler in recent guides. I've heard good & bad things about the closed-loop water coolers, but that is a start.

TheEmrys wrote:

Is there a website you are using in Aus that we could look around for you?

This.

As for your build, it looks decent. I would choose a Seasonic PSU first but if you are on a tight budget, Corsair and Antec are worthy alternatives that usually cost a little less.
550W will be more than adequate for that system. Make it a 650W if you plan to add another GTX670 in the near future.

Skaarjj wrote:

I love this site, I seriously do.

Welcome to the Tech Report!

Skaarjj wrote:

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K

How about a CPU cooler like the AUD$36 Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo?

Skaarjj wrote:

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600

Consider 2x8 GiB of PC3-14900 (DDR3-1866), PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600) or PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333) that runs at 1.5V with CAS 9 latency. The power savings are small, but you'll have room to add even more memory in the future.

Skaarjj wrote:

Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX670 2GB 02G-P4-2670-KR
SSD: Corsair Force Series 3 240GB

How about an AUD$225 256 GB Samsung 830?

Skaarjj wrote:

HDD: 2 x 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green (will be running in a RAID mirror)
Optical: Some kind of Blu-Ray burner, don't know that it really matters which one.

My LG burner is a little quieter than my LiteOn. Both work fine.

Skaarjj wrote:

Sound: Asus Xonar DX
Case: Corsair Graphite 600T White
PSU: This one I'm not sure about, for the above reasons, but I'm thinking something modular just to keep things flowing nicely for cooling, and given energy prices over here in Australia preferably a gold 80 plus certification.

How's the availability of SeaSonic PSUs on your side of the planet?'

TheEmrys wrote:

Is there a website you are using in Aus that we could look around for you?

Here's an Australian price search engine:
http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/sea ... 830&spos=3

Thanks for all your replies

I would have replied earlier myself, except I had to sleep

JustAnEngineer wrote:

How about a CPU cooler like the AUD$36 Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo?

I like the look of that, but may go for the AUD$49 CoolerMaster Hyper 612. It might be overkill, but cooling down here in the Australian Swamplands is difficult to achieve.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Consider 2x8 GiB of PC3-14900 (DDR3-1866), PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600) or PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333) that runs at 1.5V with CAS 9 latency. The power savings are small, but you'll have room to add even more memory in the future

Great idea. I'll do that.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

How about an AUD$225 256 GB Samsung 830?

Aside from the extra 16GB of storage, is there a benefit to the Samsung over the Corsair? The Corsair over here retails for AUD$189, which is more attractive to me at the moment.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

How's the availability of SeaSonic PSUs on your side of the planet?'

Availability of Seasonic PSUs is good, I think? I was considering the Seasonic X-760 80Plus Gold 760W for AUD$225. It's a mite more power than I seem to need, but it's modular, has a 80Plus Gold certification, and gives me room to grow.

chuckula wrote:

Recommendation: If you don't care about overclocking, stick with the stock cooler and get a 3570 instead of the 3570K (saves a little money and turns on a couple of virtualization features IIRC).

I'll look into this. I can't say that I entirely understand the differences between them, however.

As for a site to use over here, as JustAnEngineer pointed out, http://www.staticice.com.au is the best of the aggregate search engines for hardware in Australia, but my order is most likely going to be coming from http://www.pccasegear.com. I took an initial quote from them to several box stores and other websites, and none of them were able to beat it. It also seems to be the best source for enthusiast gear.

Skaarjj wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

How about an AUD$225 256 GB Samsung 830?

Aside from the extra 16GB of storage, is there a benefit to the Samsung over the Corsair? The Corsair over here retails for AUD$189, which is more attractive to me at the moment.

The Samsung drive is faster.
http://techreport.com/review/22401/sams ... tate-drive

Dont overlook the 240GB Agility 3 for $175. That and the Force 3 will perform exactly the same, and Sandforce reliability isn't an issue anymore. Benchmark-speaking the Samsung 830 is one of the best SSDs out there at the moment, however, I am not convinced you would notice any difference between it and a Force3/Agility3, let alone a difference worth an extra 28% in cost.

Intel Sany Bridge / Ivy Bridge processors are overclocked by means of changing the CPU multiplier now. Gone are the days of FSB overclocking. Unfortunately, this means that Intel can easily limit which SKUs can be overclocked by locking their CPU multipliers (you can't increase them). Any non-K Intel processor cannot be overclocked, but they do provide some virtualization features that may be useful to some. If you're not interested in overclocking, the i5-3470 will save you $35 from the i5-3570K with very little performance penalty.

Use a Power Supply Calculator to determine your PSU needs.

Whilst it seems wrong to recommend the slower disk, I'm with dpete27 on this. The user-experience between different SSDs is virtually nonexistant so get the one that offers the best cost/GB

You might see significant differences in benchmarks, but a 550MB/s Vertex3 feels much the same in use as a 300MB/s Kingston V200+. As long as the controller can offer at least 20MB/s on 4K reads/writes, you are unlikely to notice the difference.

To put it in context, a good, 10K RPM mechanical disk will struggle to get 400KB/s on 4K reads, and this is what sucks about using them for your OS which has tens of thousands of tiny files to reference;

Even something dirt-cheap like a Crucial V4 (which sucks on paper) will still be absolutely fine in day-to-day use because it is fifty times faster than a mechanical disk for small files. It doesn't matter if it's fifty times faster, or 100 times faster, the point is that something else becomes the bottleneck once you install an SSD, so the SSD itself rarely matters that much.