TR Forums

After close to 3 1/2 years of my last build (Penryn-based), I've decided to upgrade to Ivy Bridge now.

My usage patterns include a lot of browsing, Folding, and a little gaming (should be ready for the upcoming Euro Truck Simulator 2 [SCSSoft.com], but no specs released yet).

Here's what I've planned for so far. Feel free to provide your own suggestions / recommendations / deals.

1. Processor - Intel i5-3570k - $363 (including motherboard - just purchased from Microcenter)
2. Motherboard - Asus P8Z77-V
3. Heatsink - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo - $30 (purchased from NCIX US)
4. RAM - Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3 1600 - $93 (purchased from NCIX US)
5. Graphics card - (thinking of holding off on this purchase till the mid-range cards from Nvidia arrive. Currently, considering the AMD Radeon HD 7850)
6. Solid-state drive - Crucial m4 128 GB - $110 (purchased from Buy.com)
7. Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - $97 (purchased from Newegg)
8. Case fans - Noiseblocker BlackSilentFan 120 mm PWM (to replace my 120mm Antec Tri Cool. Purchased from SVC.com) - $17 x 2

9. Hard disk - Not needed (Have a Seagate 120 GB and, Western Digital 640 GB and 1 TB hard disks)
10. Case and power supply - Not really needed (Already have an Antec Sonata III and a new Seasonic M12II 520. However, the cable management features in new cases from Fractal Design, NZXT interest me)
11. Sound card - Not needed (Have an ASUS Xonar DG PCI card)
12. Monitor - Not needed (Have an HP LP2475W 24" monitor)
13. Keyboard, mouse - Not needed (Keeping the Logitech combo from the last build)

Update - Components purchased after this thread was created marked in brown.

Thanks to all TR gerbils in advance.

P.S. - If anyone is interested in my current system components (noted in sig), please send me a PM.

Those look like very solid choices to me.

I would not bother moving the 120 GB Barracuda 7200.7 drive from the old PC. You could get a new 2 TB version for $110.

Your existing case should accept the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo. Some cases cannot accommodate the height of a 120mm tower cooler. Something like the GeminII S524 can work in that situation (though it has its own clearance problems with super-tall RAM heatsinks). The end of the Newegg TV video shows the Hyper 212 side-by-side with the GeminII S524.

If you want to spend more, I've always done well with Thermalright coolers.

Pretty solid build plan.

integer wrote:

1. Processor - Intel i5-3570k - $362.23 (including motherboard - just purchased from Microcenter)
2. Motherboard - Asus P8Z77-V
5. Graphics card - (thinking of holding off on this purchase till the mid-range cards from Nvidia arrive. Currently, considering the AMD Radeon HD 7850)

You already bought the motherboard+CPU? Now it is a race against time. Waiting for the video card to come down in price while this stuff sits there doing nothing is just bad. Get a temporary card or use an existing one for now.

integer wrote:

4. RAM - Corsair Vengeance or G-Skill Ares 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3 1600 - $55 or $45 (had no problems with the Corsair in my last build. G-Skill's colour goes better with this motherboard.)

With RAM so cheap I would suggest thinking about 2x8GiB.

Wow, responses from both JustAnEngineer and Flying Fox. Thank you!

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I would not bother moving the 120 GB Barracuda 7200.7 drive from the old PC. You could get a new 2 TB version for $110.

Yes, I agree. I've already moved stuff out of that hard disk. It will be moving out of the case shortly.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

If you want to spend more, I've always done well with Thermalright coolers.

Thanks. Am also looking at Noctua, though still debating if my usage patterns with mild overclocking require a ~$70 heatsink.

Flying Fox wrote:

Waiting for the video card to come down in price while this stuff sits there doing nothing is just bad. Get a temporary card or use an existing one for now.

I have the Radeon HD 5850 which I plan to use till then.

Flying Fox wrote:

With RAM so cheap I would suggest thinking about 2x8GiB.

Am evaluating this suggestion. There is a better RAM selection for 4x4, compared to 2x8. Any disadvantages?

With 8 GiB DIMMs, your motherboard could hold up to 32 GiB of memory. Note that Windows 7 Home Premium only supports up to 16 GiB. If you want to use more, you'll have to get the Professional or Ultimate versions. You could find it easier to achieve the most extreme overclock with two DIMMs than with four. I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

The down-side is that the higher-density DIMMs are about 40% more expensive for 16 GiB of PC3-12800 at 9-9-9-24 and 1.5 V. That particular kit is out of stock at Newegg, but you could find it at other etailers.

Your Radeon HD5850 should still perform tolerably in most games at 1920x1200 if you decide to wait until Fall to upgrade. You may occasionally find yourself running with just 2X AA to maintain frame rates.

Microcenter has the CM hyper 212 + for 19.99 on sale.

I was there just this sat.Picked up a Gateway slim tower with H61 sandy bridge @2.4ghz celeron 4gb ram 500gb HD for 209$!!!
Needed to replace my old am2 1.5ghz dual core zino HTPC.
Picked up a low profile silent HIS 6450 for 44$ was goin to return it if the HD2000 IGP was good enough...but it was a little flaky.

Its a speed demon surfs web and everything HTPC wise i think almost as fast as my 2600k rig.
Best 260 dollar pc i ever used.

See the Newegg TV video for the differences between the Hyper 212 Evo and the older Hyper 212 Plus.

Off-topic: HTPC discussion split to a new topic.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

You could find it easier to achieve the most extreme overclock with two DIMMs than with four. I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

Thanks for detailing that out. Am not aiming for an extreme overclock here, so you're right.

vargis14 wrote:

Microcenter has the CM hyper 212 + for 19.99 on sale.

It appears to be $19.99 after rebate now. Not really interested in dealing with rebates.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

See the Newegg TV video for the differences between the Hyper 212 Evo and the older Hyper 212 Plus.

Thanks JustAnEngineer. The only major difference appears to be in the heatpipe contact area. FrostyTech thinks it helps in more efficient cooling.

Am planning to replace the Antec Tricool 120 mm fan in the case with a PWM fan. The case also has a mount for another 120 mm at the front of the case.

Looking for fan recommendations. The Scythe SY1225SL12LM-P or Scythe SY1225SL12HPVC-V seem to look fine to me. Any thoughts?

integer wrote:

Am planning to replace the Antec Tricool 120 mm fan in the case with a PWM fan. The case also has a mount for another 120 mm at the front of the case.

Looking for fan recommendations. The Scythe SY1225SL12LM-P or Scythe SY1225SL12HPVC-V seem to look fine to me. Any thoughts?

The first one does not do PWM. I have Scythe's old S-FLEX series and they are great. Haven't had a need to buy new fans yet so I can't say for sure.

Flying Fox wrote:

integer wrote:

Am planning to replace the Antec Tricool 120 mm fan in the case with a PWM fan. The case also has a mount for another 120 mm at the front of the case.

Looking for fan recommendations. The Scythe SY1225SL12LM-P or Scythe SY1225SL12HPVC-V seem to look fine to me. Any thoughts?

The first one does not do PWM. I have Scythe's old S-FLEX series and they are great. Haven't had a need to buy new fans yet so I can't say for sure.

Scythe's website lists it as a PWM fan, though. If the website has incorrect information, will go with the other fan.

Side note - The various Noctua fan reviews are too tempting. They are slightly pricier at around $25 though.

The fan in Newegg's photo has the small 4-pin PWM connector.

Should be a fun weekend.

Well. the build is complete finally and am posting from the new machine.

Here are some thoughts (similar to CampinCarl's post)

1. The instructions on the Hyper 212 Evo are poorly written.

2. My graphics card didn't like the new intake fan encroaching on its territory. Thought of moving the graphics card to the x8 slot. Finally, ended up adding the fan to the Hyper 212 Evo. It has two fans now (push-pull).

3. Thanks to Tom's, TR, and a lot of other hardware forums, it seems every build problem has already been faced and can be resolved with a simple Google search. My searches include - Is it ok for the Hyper 212 heatsink to move after installation (it is ok if it moves a little bit), difference between PCI-e x16 vs v8 (a few frames per second, at best), difference between SATA 6 Gbps vs 3 Gbps cables (no such thing really), CPU LED lights up and system shuts off (see next).

4. When I first turned the system on, the CPU LED came on (red) and then it powered down. After reading different forum posts about bad processor or motherboard, it seems the problem was that the 8-pin EATX 12 V power plug was not connected. The user guide noted that under 'Do not forget...', but I still managed to.

5. Received a CPU fan speed error with multiple beeps. It seems the Cooler Master fan was spinning under 600 RPM. Changed the minimum limit in the UEFI and this was resolved.

6. As CampinCarl noted, adding the SSD makes a lot of difference. My power on to login screen was a little longer (is there a way to make the whole POST process faster), but everything else was snappy after that.

7. 4 fans running at full speed is very loud. After tweaking Q-Fan and Fan Xpert 2, the fans are barely audible now. Fan Xpert 2 cannot independently control the two CPU fans, so I might connect one of them to a Chassis Fan connector.

8. The system started at a temperature of 37 C. Never seen such low temperatures before!

9. Still trying to understand overclocking. Tried the UEFI OC Tuner and AI Tuner, but unable to get the max out of stock voltage. AI Tuner increased the voltage from around 1.014 V to 1.070 V and increased CPU frequency by a couple hundred MHz. Manually increasing multipliers past 40, with stock voltage is resulting in BSODs. Need to do more reading here.

10. Memtest 86+ ran overnight (~8 hrs). No errors reported. Brief stress tests are fine at stock. Need to perform them after overclocking.

Pictures coming soon.

integer wrote:

Well. the build is complete finally and am posting from the new machine.

Congratulations! Enjoy your new hardware.

integer wrote:

1. The instructions on the Hyper 212 Evo are poorly written.
5. Received a CPU fan speed error with multiple beeps. It seems the Cooler Master fan was spinning under 600 RPM. Changed the minimum limit in the UEFI and this was resolved.

The instructions aren't great, but the diagrams are good. I found that the fan on the GeminII-S524 would start out around 480 rpm before settling in at about 520 rpm to keep the i5-3570K cool. I lowered the UEFI's fan monitoring alarm from 600 rpm to 400 rpm and it's good.