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Sekonda
By Sekonda
in New Builds and Planning
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Location: UK (GBP)

Budget: ~£1500

Why / Reason: Better gaming experience + future proofing

Info:

I've spec'd him the following, his only requirement was that it was priced in and around £1500 and that it must include a Cosmos 2.

The prices come from Amazon UK. I know that some parts might be cheaper elsewhere but as a Prime Customer the next day delivery is free for me from Amazon, so half the stuff that might be cheaper are only slightly cheaper by a few pounds.

Some parts have been selected purely for aesthetics like the motherboard and case.

Parts List:

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K (£245.94)

Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z77 (£177.12)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 (£64.90)

Memory: Corsair 16GB 1600MHz Vengeance Kit (£97.85)

GPU: 2x Club 3D 2GB 7870 Joker (£171.62 each)

SSD: Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB (£179.59)

PSU: Corsair TX750V2 (£84.89)

Case: CM Cosmos 2 (£263.00)

HDD: Going to re-use a 2TB Drive from his current PC. IIRC it's a Western Digital Green.

DVD: Same as above, re-using it.

Cost: £1,456.54 inc Postage & Packaging.

Adding a 2/3TB Drive + DVD Drive bumps the price up about about £100. Which is just over his budget.

Final

Any thoughts or feedback?

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I think this will look nice - the sabertooth with the noctua cooler. I wouldn't go with the Cosmos, personally - seems too big for the amount of hardware. I was going to suggest increasing the GPU, and backing off the CPU and power supply, but just noticed you intend to purchase two 7870s...

Now my only suggestion is to fix the links in the post to make it easier to read, they're not displaying properly for me

Cheers,

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First off - I would recommend you go for the 3570k versus the 3770k - it has been shown the extra cores/threads are not making a huge difference. Then with a mild overclock on the 3570k, you can really boost the performance. So that will save you a bit of money.

Second - SSD - I would recommend doing for the Samsung Pro, Intel or the OCZ Vector for performance.

Instead of getting two 7870's go for a single 7900 series card. Always recommend going for the better single GPU rather then a Xfire or SLI setup of lower cards.

Is there a reason going for the Sabertooth? I just don't like the whole armor thing, and it is an expensive board. I love the MSI boards, like a Z77 GD65 which is a great board.

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I wouldn't go with the Cosmos' date=' personally - seems too big for the amount of hardware.[/quote'] I've already said. I think the Cosmos 2's tagline is Go Hard or Go Home...
Now my only suggestion is to fix the links in the post to make it easier to read' date=' they're not displaying properly for me Cheers, [/quote'] Fixed. Thanks for the heads up.

First off - I would recommend you go for the 3570k versus the 3770k - it has been shown the extra cores/threads are not making a huge difference. Then with a mild overclock on the 3570k' date=' you can really boost the performance. [/quote']

I picked the i7 more as a future proof. The extra threads might not be used too much today, but in a few years time surely they would serve a better purpose.

Second - SSD - I would recommend doing for the Samsung Pro' date=' Intel or the OCZ Vector for performance.[/quote']

Looking into these. Thanks

Edit: Swapped for a Samsung 840 Pro as it's the same price.

Instead of getting two 7870's go for a single 7900 series card. Always recommend going for the better single GPU rather then a Xfire or SLI setup of lower cards.

These joker cards were picked with this comment in mind. A single Joker performs more like a 7930/7950 according to TinyTomLogan's video.

Is there a reason going for the Sabertooth? I just don't like the whole armor thing' date=' and it is an expensive board. I love the MSI boards, like a Z77 GD65 which is a great board. [/quote']

Sabertooth was picked because it looks good. The other board I had in mind was the MSI Z77 GD65, I use it on my own machine.

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I personally agree with all the reasoning behind the part selections and the parts themselves, just make sure you overclock the 7870's otherwise you won't unleash the 7950 within ;)

export PS1='\[\033[1;30m\]┌╼ \[\033[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[1;30m\] ╾╼ \[\033[0;34m\]\w\[\033[0;36m\]\n\[\033[1;30m\]└╼ \[\033[1;37m\]'


"All your threads are belong to /dev/null"


| 80's Terminal Keyboard Conversion | $5 Graphics Card Silence Mod Tutorial | 485KH/s R9 270X | The Smallest Ethernet Cable | Ass Pennies | My Screenfetch |

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Just as a note, the i7-3770K is not something I'd suggest for future-proofing. While it may seem like a good idea, that games down the road may start being more highly threaded, lack of thread optimization isn't really the reason the i5 and i7 perform the same. Even on games like Battlefield 3 where it has been shown to make use of 6 cores, the i5 and i7 still perform the same (while the 6-core i7s pull ahead). This is because the i7's extra four cores are just virtual cores; thus it's not just about supporting more threads, but supporting hyper-threading as a technology. Hyper-threading has been around since the Pentium 4 days and I still can't name a single game that can take advantage of it, mostly due to the way games utilize CPU resources making it hard for hyper-threading to be useful. So even if games start making use of 8 or even 12 threads they'd still perform equally as well on an i5 as an i7 until they start supporting hyper-threading. Which doesn't seem like it will happen.

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Just as a note, the i7-3770K is not something I'd suggest for future-proofing. While it may seem like a good idea, that games down the road may start being more highly threaded, lack of thread optimization isn't really the reason the i5 and i7 perform the same. Even on games like Battlefield 3 where it has been shown to make use of 6 cores, the i5 and i7 still perform the same (while the 6-core i7s pull ahead). This is because the i7's extra four cores are just virtual cores; thus it's not just about supporting more threads, but supporting hyper-threading as a technology. Hyper-threading has been around since the Pentium 4 days and I still can't name a single game that can take advantage of it, mostly due to the way games utilize CPU resources making it hard for hyper-threading to be useful. So even if games start making use of 8 or even 12 threads they'd still perform equally as well on an i5 as an i7 until they start supporting hyper-threading. Which doesn't seem like it will happen.
Sick tip, I'll cache that one :3

export PS1='\[\033[1;30m\]┌╼ \[\033[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[1;30m\] ╾╼ \[\033[0;34m\]\w\[\033[0;36m\]\n\[\033[1;30m\]└╼ \[\033[1;37m\]'


"All your threads are belong to /dev/null"


| 80's Terminal Keyboard Conversion | $5 Graphics Card Silence Mod Tutorial | 485KH/s R9 270X | The Smallest Ethernet Cable | Ass Pennies | My Screenfetch |

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make sure you overclock the 7870's otherwise you won't unleash the 7950 within ;)

Don't sorry, it'll all get OC'd ;)

Just as a note' date=' the i7-3770K ...[/quote']

That's given me something to think about now. However he's already ordered by now (Rossk01 ^^ is him).

I got him to swap the Cosmos 2 for a Corsair 600T White which saved him some money and delivery times.

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make sure you overclock the 7870's otherwise you won't unleash the 7950 within ;)

Don't sorry, it'll all get OC'd ;)

Just as a note' date=' the i7-3770K ...[/quote']

That's given me something to think about now. However he's already ordered by now (Rossk01 ^^ is him).

I got him to swap the Cosmos 2 for a Corsair 600T White which saved him some money and delivery times.

yeah, the box the cosmos 2 comes in is the size of a small house whereas the case isn't all that big

export PS1='\[\033[1;30m\]┌╼ \[\033[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[1;30m\] ╾╼ \[\033[0;34m\]\w\[\033[0;36m\]\n\[\033[1;30m\]└╼ \[\033[1;37m\]'


"All your threads are belong to /dev/null"


| 80's Terminal Keyboard Conversion | $5 Graphics Card Silence Mod Tutorial | 485KH/s R9 270X | The Smallest Ethernet Cable | Ass Pennies | My Screenfetch |

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Bump :)
I hope you enjoy your new rig ;)

export PS1='\[\033[1;30m\]┌╼ \[\033[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[1;30m\] ╾╼ \[\033[0;34m\]\w\[\033[0;36m\]\n\[\033[1;30m\]└╼ \[\033[1;37m\]'


"All your threads are belong to /dev/null"


| 80's Terminal Keyboard Conversion | $5 Graphics Card Silence Mod Tutorial | 485KH/s R9 270X | The Smallest Ethernet Cable | Ass Pennies | My Screenfetch |

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make sure you overclock the 7870's otherwise you won't unleash the 7950 within ;)

Don't sorry, it'll all get OC'd ;)

Just as a note' date=' the i7-3770K ...[/quote']

That's given me something to think about now. However he's already ordered by now (Rossk01 ^^ is him).

I got him to swap the Cosmos 2 for a Corsair 600T White which saved him some money and delivery times.

yeah' date=' the box the cosmos 2 comes in is the size of a small house whereas the case isn't all that big[/quote']

Tell me about it, would never air-dropped in and then a crane into his room.

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