First Build, How is it?

[Dim]

http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/w3bc I know you wanted the 7970' date=' however that Twin Frozer III 7950 has a 7970 PCB (bigger VRMS, same ram modules etc), therefore you can literally overclock it to 7970 speeds, and it is, for all intensive purposes, a 7970.[/quote'] Not overclocked though, the core speed is much lower (lower even than a stock 7850 it would seem). Your build looks fine but, honestly, if he originally asked for an SSD, I'd give him an SSD. They are better and if he is efficient, he won't fill a 120 too quickly.

Could you really add an SSD to that build though? I can't really see where else you could cut. Possibly the motherboard? At the end of the day, the SSD is a luxury, not a necessity.

A terabyte of storage as opposed to 120GB is a luxury too.

Taking $70 for the HDD and adding $30, bam, 120GB SSD.

His original build didn't have an HDD, so it's safe to assume he doesn't need the storage at this time; perhaps he has an external hard drive.

[Dim]

http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/w3bc I know you wanted the 7970' date=' however that Twin Frozer III 7950 has a 7970 PCB (bigger VRMS, same ram modules etc), therefore you can literally overclock it to 7970 speeds, and it is, for all intensive purposes, a 7970.[/quote'] Not overclocked though, the core speed is much lower (lower even than a stock 7850 it would seem). Your build looks fine but, honestly, if he originally asked for an SSD, I'd give him an SSD. They are better and if he is efficient, he won't fill a 120 too quickly.

Could you really add an SSD to that build though? I can't really see where else you could cut. Possibly the motherboard? At the end of the day, the SSD is a luxury, not a necessity.

A terabyte of storage as opposed to 120GB is a luxury too.

Taking $70 for the HDD and adding $30, bam, 120GB SSD.

His original build didn't have an HDD, so it's safe to assume he doesn't need the storage at this time; perhaps he has an external hard drive.

[Chameleon]

Something I'm noticing is you're seriously neglecting some components for other ones. This is pretty normal for your first build especially when excitement kicks in, but you have to take control and not buy a GPU that is 2-3x the price of your CPU or you will just hurt your cause.

We can build you a good gaming machine for $900 that will play most anything you want.

DIM posted a nice build but the only thing I see that is kind of strange is no one is adding mechanical hard drives.....128GB will not last very long once you load up the kind of games you will be wanting to max out and all your programs. Typical game is generally between 8-12GB(A lot of mine are 14+)....

I'm just saying your machine could use a mechanical hard drive....even if you give up the SSD. Windows will easily eat 40, then you will go installing a bunch of your normal applications and you'll probably hit between 45-50GB usage at first and likely 60 down the road easily. Then you start loading up games and possibly movies and you're out of luck :3

edit - Hold on, I didn't notice there were 3 pages...kind of snuck up on me. Let me review them before you guys yell at me xD

edit 2 - I stand by my statement. I would still go with a mechanical hard drive....

[Dave :)]

http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/w3bc I know you wanted the 7970' date=' however that Twin Frozer III 7950 has a 7970 PCB (bigger VRMS, same ram modules etc), therefore you can literally overclock it to 7970 speeds, and it is, for all intensive purposes, a 7970.[/quote'] Not overclocked though, the core speed is much lower (lower even than a stock 7850 it would seem). Your build looks fine but, honestly, if he originally asked for an SSD, I'd give him an SSD. They are better and if he is efficient, he won't fill a 120 too quickly.

Could you really add an SSD to that build though? I can't really see where else you could cut. Possibly the motherboard? At the end of the day, the SSD is a luxury, not a necessity.

A terabyte of storage as opposed to 120GB is a luxury too. Taking $70 for the HDD and adding $30' date=' bam, 120GB SSD. His original build didn't have an HDD, so it's safe to assume he doesn't need the storage at this time; perhaps he has an external hard drive.[/quote']

If OP doesn't require mass storage then fair enough; i was under the assumption he required mass storage aswell. Have to wait to get all he specifications :)

[orangecat]

Looks good but don't listen to anyone telling you AMD is crap or you need lower speed ram or anything its all fine I own a Intel CPU so I'm not biased.

[Chris Barry]

i think that that computer would bottle neak but never used AMD CPU's

[BCreation]

Don't quote me on this, but the CPU you have chosen might bottleneck your 7970. I saw a video of a guy running a 1090T with dual GTX 570s. He was getting about 50 frames in Crysis. Once he changed to a 2500K, his frames jumped up to 90 in the same game, with the same settings. It turned out that his CPU was bottlenecking his two GPUs.

[TheEpicCanadian]

Something I'm noticing is you're seriously neglecting some components for other ones. This is pretty normal for your first build especially when excitement kicks in, but you have to take control and not buy a GPU that is 2-3x the price of your CPU or you will just hurt your cause.

We can build you a good gaming machine for $900 that will play most anything you want.

DIM posted a nice build but the only thing I see that is kind of strange is no one is adding mechanical hard drives.....128GB will not last very long once you load up the kind of games you will be wanting to max out and all your programs. Typical game is generally between 8-12GB(A lot of mine are 14+)....

I'm just saying your machine could use a mechanical hard drive....even if you give up the SSD. Windows will easily eat 40, then you will go installing a bunch of your normal applications and you'll probably hit between 45-50GB usage at first and likely 60 down the road easily. Then you start loading up games and possibly movies and you're out of luck :3

edit - Hold on, I didn't notice there were 3 pages...kind of snuck up on me. Let me review them before you guys yell at me xD

edit 2 - I stand by my statement. I would still go with a mechanical hard drive....

I have an old one i'm going to use. It's 1tb, should be fine.

[TheEpicCanadian]

This is the current build:

-i5 3570k CPU

-MSI Z77A-G41 Mobo

-OCZ Vertex 4 128gb SSD

-Gigabyte Radeon 7950 3gb video card

-Rosewill blackhawk case

-Corsair Profesional 650w 80 plus bronze PSU

Total cost is: $906.10

[Glenwing]

Looks good. If you're not planning on adding a second card, you can drop down to a 550W PSU and save some there. Depending on how many games you have and if you have a music library etc. you might run out of storage with a 128GB SSD. If you need more you can always add a mechanical drive later though. Not necessarily an issue you need to think about right away.

[slow64]

The TR2 600w isn't particularly great from what I've seen, I would recommend spending a bit more on a Corsair CX600 V2 or an XFX Core Edition 650w.

Also if this rig is for gaming, I would recommend going for an i5 as others have said, going with a FX6300 would be nearing a CPU bottleneck. For slightly more, an i5 3330P and ASRock H77M would work pretty well (without the aftermarket cooling in that case, since the 3330P is locked).

locked? can't you still overclock the fsb...?

[slow64]

More cores doesn't equal more powerful. The intel option will still out-perform the AMD right now in every way that doesn't use hyperthreading, which is almost everything. Multitasking will be better with a i5/i3.

ah man cmon we all know that intel has better performance than amd.. but still if you compare a 3770k with an 8350fx there isnt much difference in performance, but the 3770k cost 130€ more ... i still say if you want the best performing cpu go with intel. if you dont have money to afford it amd will work just fine too.

[slow64]

you accualy dont need to change here much. amd works fine for the price.. ingame (battledield3) you wont fell much of a difference in fps (id say 10fps more on intel maybe 15...)

-you can overclock the 6300 to 4,5GHz EASY! my friend did it.. and it could go even higher(with a better cooler). and amd is cheaper for what? 90$? that's alot here... 90$ more for a little more performance just isnt worth it for me

-the motherboard is great (at least it works great for me have my cpu OCed for 1GHz just with the fsb..)

-as far a PSU goes i wouldn't wanna go cheap on it... i had problems with mine after a few years, random restarts and power cut offs

-memory for a 64bit system its a little better (as far as my experience goes) if you have more that 4Gb.. still more than 8gigs is overkill for gaming

-as an ssd i'd recommend you a samsung 840 PRO or just a 830.

-for graphics i dont have experience with a 7970 or 7950 they are both fine graphics and for overclocking as far as i know the chip is the same.. the graphics cards are just sorted out. the better performing get a 70 on the end and the worse get a 50(some 7850's might overclock more than some 7870? i'm not sure on this but..). i'd go with a 7850 here probably

-as far as cases go its youre preference... if it looks awsome to you and it has all you need.. then you should take it

[christoi]

The TR2 600w isn't particularly great from what I've seen, I would recommend spending a bit more on a Corsair CX600 V2 or an XFX Core Edition 650w.

Also if this rig is for gaming, I would recommend going for an i5 as others have said, going with a FX6300 would be nearing a CPU bottleneck. For slightly more, an i5 3330P and ASRock H77M would work pretty well (without the aftermarket cooling in that case, since the 3330P is locked).

You mean the BCLK? I don't think you can adjust the FSB with Z77 at all.

Overclocking with a "locked" unit like the 3330P is possible by adjusting the BCLK, however that also adjusts various other things in the PCH, usually causing various stability issues. I would highly recommend against even touching it.

[slow64]

I got the 8gb of ram because I am also going to be rendering videos

If you are going to render videos, you might as well get the 6300. Or the 8350 if you can!

I would still say get 4GB of RAM and just add another 4GB kit when you -can-. It's only like $20, if you find you need it, you can get it!

ahh and yeah i'd certenly go radher with a 8350fx than an 3570. the cost is the same... and amd would winn here

[christoi]

This is the current build: -i5 3570k CPU -MSI Z77A-G41 Mobo -OCZ Vertex 4 128gb SSD -Gigabyte Radeon 7950 3gb video card -Rosewill blackhawk case -Corsair Profesional 650w 80 plus bronze PSU Total cost is: $906.10

It's not a large issue if you don't plan on heavy overclocking, but the Z77A-G41 only has a 4+1+1 phase design which isn't particularly ideal. If it's just a light overclock then it'll be fine, but if you plan on adding a high-end aftermarket cooler in the future, you may struggle to add for voltage.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Gigabyte 7950's are voltage locked, this Sapphire card would probably be a better choice.

[slow64]

This is the current build:

-i5 3570k CPU

-MSI Z77A-G41 Mobo

-OCZ Vertex 4 128gb SSD

-Gigabyte Radeon 7950 3gb video card

-Rosewill blackhawk case

-Corsair Profesional 650w 80 plus bronze PSU

Total cost is: $906.10

just in case you missed. the i5 3570k cost the same as an amd 8350fx ... and in this case amd would destroy the 3570

edit:

if you buy an amd with the m5a97 feel free to pm me if you need any help with overclocking it :)

[slow64]

The 3570k can go on some CRAZY bundle deal sales that are definitely worth the money. I got a bundle deal for $300.

What'd you get?

Here's the price of the 3570k at a store by my house.

shipping is somtimes so expensive that it's just not worth it..

[slow64]

This is the current build: -i5 3570k CPU -MSI Z77A-G41 Mobo -OCZ Vertex 4 128gb SSD -Gigabyte Radeon 7950 3gb video card -Rosewill blackhawk case -Corsair Profesional 650w 80 plus bronze PSU Total cost is: $906.10

It's not a large issue if you don't plan on heavy overclocking, but the Z77A-G41 only has a 4+1+1 phase design which isn't particularly ideal. If it's just a light overclock then it'll be fine, but if you plan on adding a high-end aftermarket cooler in the future, you may struggle to add for voltage.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Gigabyte 7950's are voltage locked, this Sapphire card would probably be a better choice.

my experience with shapfire(had 2 cards) = bad quality they all died after a year . my friend has an 7870oc edition and i told him to not buy shapfire. well he has. and now he has blackscreening because of some wrong capacitors in the back of the pcb... and if the voltage is locked you can still do a voltmod on the card still i cant say anything bad for the 7950 from shapfire because i didnt had it in my hads yet

[Gavin]

I just typed out a MASSIVE response, and accidentally right before I could post hit the back button.... GONE. I want to cry now.

Anyways, I know you said you didn't want to change your graphics card or your case, but I wanted to see what I could do with your budget. Here's what I came up with.

http://pcpartpicker.com/b/zxs

Intel 3570k

Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Evo

MSI Z77-G41

XFX 7950

2x4GB Kingston 1600Mhz Ram

128GB Vertex4 SSD

Corsair 200r

XFX 550W 80+ Bronze PSU

I chose the 3570k. For your budget, I would not recommend anything else. The FX6300 is okay, but you can do better than that here.

MSI Z77-G41, because it works and it's cheap.

The Hyper 212+ is a very good CPU cooler for the money, and you can probably pull off a significant overclock with it. IMO, I personally don't recommend anything in between the Hyper 212+ and NHD-14 because I just don't think they're worth it. You either get an NHD-14/Phantek/SilverArrow/H80/h100/x40/x60/etc, or if you cant afford it, get a Hyper 212+. I guess you can call that silly, but that's what I think, lol.

I chose the XFX 7950 over your 7970, it is $80 less, you still get the 3 free games, and it's very very very simular in performance. Much better for the money.

8GB of kingston 1600mhz Ram, tbh, you wont save much getting 1333 mhz or 4GB(Which I dont even recommend), so you might as well getting 8GB of 1600mhz.

I chose the Vertex 4 because I have one my self and it's pretty good. It's a bit newer and faster, but TBH you *probably* wont notice it too much.

I picked the Corsair 200r for the case. I really hope you're open minded to changing your case, because this is a bit cheaper and it's amazing how many features this has. It's only $60 + $10 shipping, with plenty of airflow, great cable management, h100 support, internal usb 3 header, black interior, black cables, etc... You never see all these things together on a $60 case.

Also, I chose the XFX 550W 80+ bronze PSU. Only $60, and XFXs PSUs are made by Seasonic, which are some of the most high quality PSUs there are.

________

Also, first post.

[slow64]

I just typed out a MASSIVE response, and accidentally right before I could post hit the back button.... GONE. I want to cry now.

Anyways, I know you said you didn't want to change your graphics card or your case, but I wanted to see what I could do with your budget. Here's what I came up with.

http://pcpartpicker.com/b/zxs

Intel 3570k

Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Evo

MSI Z77-G41

XFX 7950

2x4GB Kingston 1600Mhz Ram

128GB Vertex4 SSD

Corsair 200r

XFX 550W 80+ Bronze PSU

I chose the 3570k. For your budget, I would not recommend anything else. The FX6300 is okay, but you can do better than that here.

MSI Z77-G41, because it works and it's cheap.

The Hyper 212+ is a very good CPU cooler for the money, and you can probably pull off a significant overclock with it. IMO, I personally don't recommend anything in between the Hyper 212+ and NHD-14 because I just don't think they're worth it. You either get an NHD-14/Phantek/SilverArrow/H80/h100/x40/x60/etc, or if you cant afford it, get a Hyper 212+. I guess you can call that silly, but that's what I think, lol.

I chose the XFX 7950 over your 7970, it is $80 less, you still get the 3 free games, and it's very very very simular in performance. Much better for the money.

8GB of kingston 1600mhz Ram, tbh, you wont save much getting 1333 mhz or 4GB(Which I dont even recommend), so you might as well getting 8GB of 1600mhz.

I chose the Vertex 4 because I have one my self and it's pretty good. It's a bit newer and faster, but TBH you *probably* wont notice it too much.

I picked the Corsair 200r for the case. I really hope you're open minded to changing your case, because this is a bit cheaper and it's amazing how many features this has. It's only $60 + $10 shipping, with plenty of airflow, great cable management, h100 support, internal usb 3 header, black interior, black cables, etc... You never see all these things together on a $60 case.

Also, I chose the XFX 550W 80+ bronze PSU. Only $60, and XFXs PSUs are made by Seasonic, which are some of the most high quality PSUs there are.

________

Also, first post.

why not a 8350fx? it cost the same... i know i sound now probably like a amd fanboy but realy... 8 core 4ghz stock, oced to 5ghz... aint that better than a 3570k? at least for the same price? edit: the 8350fx is on some sites cheaper than a 3570...

[Dim]

I got the 8gb of ram because I am also going to be rendering videos

If you are going to render videos, you might as well get the 6300. Or the 8350 if you can!

I would still say get 4GB of RAM and just add another 4GB kit when you -can-. It's only like $20, if you find you need it, you can get it!

The 8350 is known to have similar performance in gaming to the 3570K and similar rendering performance as the 3770K. It just runs hotter and doesn't OC as well.

[TheEpicCanadian]

I just typed out a MASSIVE response, and accidentally right before I could post hit the back button.... GONE. I want to cry now.

Anyways, I know you said you didn't want to change your graphics card or your case, but I wanted to see what I could do with your budget. Here's what I came up with.

http://pcpartpicker.com/b/zxs

Intel 3570k

Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Evo

MSI Z77-G41

XFX 7950

2x4GB Kingston 1600Mhz Ram

128GB Vertex4 SSD

Corsair 200r

XFX 550W 80+ Bronze PSU

I chose the 3570k. For your budget, I would not recommend anything else. The FX6300 is okay, but you can do better than that here.

MSI Z77-G41, because it works and it's cheap.

The Hyper 212+ is a very good CPU cooler for the money, and you can probably pull off a significant overclock with it. IMO, I personally don't recommend anything in between the Hyper 212+ and NHD-14 because I just don't think they're worth it. You either get an NHD-14/Phantek/SilverArrow/H80/h100/x40/x60/etc, or if you cant afford it, get a Hyper 212+. I guess you can call that silly, but that's what I think, lol.

I chose the XFX 7950 over your 7970, it is $80 less, you still get the 3 free games, and it's very very very simular in performance. Much better for the money.

8GB of kingston 1600mhz Ram, tbh, you wont save much getting 1333 mhz or 4GB(Which I dont even recommend), so you might as well getting 8GB of 1600mhz.

I chose the Vertex 4 because I have one my self and it's pretty good. It's a bit newer and faster, but TBH you *probably* wont notice it too much.

I picked the Corsair 200r for the case. I really hope you're open minded to changing your case, because this is a bit cheaper and it's amazing how many features this has. It's only $60 + $10 shipping, with plenty of airflow, great cable management, h100 support, internal usb 3 header, black interior, black cables, etc... You never see all these things together on a $60 case.

Also, I chose the XFX 550W 80+ bronze PSU. Only $60, and XFXs PSUs are made by Seasonic, which are some of the most high quality PSUs there are.

________

Also, first post.

I... I love it. It's perfect. Thank you so much.