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First Build, Advice Appreciated!

Richie
By Richie
in New Builds and Planning
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1. Budget & Location

Budget is somewhere below €1500, or about US$1900. Keep in mind, I'm in Ireland so delivery cost may come into play, I won't be able to order from NewEgg etc, so Amazon.uk may be the best choice for me.

2. Aim

This is really just my first build, and I basically want to move away from consoles so gaming should be a big point! I do a small amount of video editing, encoding etc but I'm pretty sure any gaming build will be able to handle it, and it just needs to be generally very fast! I need quite a bit of storage for movies and games! It's gonna be in my bedroom, so aesthetics are... VERY important! haha I will eventually water-cool this rig fully, so any advice on things best to avoid would be appreciated, but just a note, the water-cooling is not a priority, its really just for the experience!

3. Monitors

Will be running a 1080p Samsung, but may get a couple of 23" 1080p monitors in the long run to either replace or work with the bigger Samsung! Another note, I would like to run everything thought my av receiver and stereo, but if I'm better off, I can run an optical sound from the computer to the av receiver and a hdmi from the video card to the monitor.

4. Peripherals

I've got a pretty basic wireless keyboard and mouse, and would like to upgrade to a better mouse, with a priory of being very usable outside of games as well. I wouldn't mind upgrading the keyboard, but its less of a priority! I will probably end up using the new wired keyboard/mouse for gaming/if I'm sitting at my desk, and keep my current ( wireless ) keyboard mouse for sitting on the sofa etc

5. Why are you upgrading?

I'm currently just on a laptop and console, and really just want to put together my first build! Better gaming, cooler looking, and its gonna be fun to make!

6. Rough parts list

This is what I've put together so far, just wondering if its balanced, any input you guys have etc! Since I've never done this before I'm going get the system up and running, then change little aesthetic things, changing fans, adding custom cables/sleeving etc, but any advice on stuff like that would be appreciated now!

CPU: i5-3570k (I want to overclock, and it just seemed like its worth getting a decent processor!)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007RUZKK6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007RUZKK6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007RUZKK6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

GPU: Sapphire 7870/7870 xt? (Seems to be a pretty decent graphics card, I'm thinking about the sapphire because it looks cool and it isn't crazy expensive. I've heard mixed reviews on the XT, seems some people are having trouble? Others saying its a better card)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AX2ONI0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AX2ONI0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AX2ONI0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

Motherboard: P8Z77-v Deluxe (This is probably the component that I'm the most unsure about, I don't know if I'll benefit from any of the additional features on the deluxe board, and its pretty expensive for this build! the obvious competitor for it at this price is the Sabertooth, but I don't love the features or look, but I'd be happy if someone could convince me otherwise!

I may end up with a raid set up in the long run, although I'm not sure how necessary that is, given that i have a 256gb Samsung 840 Pro SSD and its more than likely all I'll be using HHDs for is storing films and tv shows, and the SSD to speed up all my programs!)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007KZQE5I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007KZQE5I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007KZQE5I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance 2x4 (not much to say here, cool looking well priced decent RAM (I think?!)) [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004CRSM4I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004CRSM4I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004CRSM4I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256gb (already owned so I don't have much interest in replacing it! Its almost new!)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (I will more than likely add another one of these in the long run, as I've a lot of files!)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006H32Q3S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006H32Q3S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006H32Q3S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

CPU COOLER: Corsiar H100i (As i said, in the long run I will probably move to full water cooling, all depends on money over the next couple of years as I'm in college!)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009ZN2NH6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3K5HHD3KZXXBZ]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009ZN2NH6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3K5HHD3KZXXBZ[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009ZN2NH6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3K5HHD3KZXXBZ]

CASE: Crosair 600t Special Edition White (This part is almost non-debatable, I LOVE this case, seems expandable, and the plan i have for water cooling only takes a tiny amount of modding)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004O0PAKW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004O0PAKW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004O0PAKW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

PSU: Corsair... something! ( I'm totally lost here... I want to be able to expand into a crossfire setup in the long run (if the issues are ever sorted!) i was looking at a TX850, then a TX850M, then an AX860 which is fully modular! HELP!! How much power do I need, how much expand-ability, modular/non modular!? I'd love to get an AX, and add some individually sleeved cables! But yano, money...)

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AO0YRMI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AO0YRMI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AO0YRMI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005DGEP2K/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1V6Z2X9I7KSQG]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005DGEP2K/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1V6Z2X9I7KSQG[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005DGEP2K/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1V6Z2X9I7KSQG]

OS: Windows 8 (again this is a pretty fixed option, the OEM build is about €130 or $170 online from what I can see, and I'd like to avoid torrenting it illegally! I like support and updates etc... and yano, who would ever download something illegal?! Also, Windows blue? Do I care? )

[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009HI3WOC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009HI3WOC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE[/url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009HI3WOC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE]

So like I said, advice, input, criticism all welcome!

Ps, in retrospect I should have made sure it was OK to post links in this forum, but i couldn't find info so... If any mods are reading, very sorry if its not allowed, I'm new...

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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :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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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

I meant 660 ti, damn auto correct will be the death of me :P

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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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

Not cool, almost had a heart attack!

Yeh that's what I've read, but there seems to be a pretty big performance jump between the 660 and 7870? and some people seem to be saying there may be some sort of software fix which could improve the situation? In all fairness I prefer the Nvidia cards, but a 660ti seems to be more expensive than the 7870! and I'll check out the strider now!

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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

haha i know i know!

do you think modular is worth it? oh wow the silverstone is not an attractive PSU! haha

Do you think I'd get away with 700W?

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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

Most definitely! Even a 650w would still have tones of headroom for overclocking ;)

The Silverstone it quite nice in person

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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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

Yeh i found some better pictures, I'm not so shocked anymore! :P but the drop from AX to TX series more than covers the jump from 7870 to 660ti, and I still love it haha
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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

Go for the 660 ti and tx series then, the tx is still a good psu

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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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

will do bud cheers! any views on the motherboard?
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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

Oh god! The deluxe is a nice board but way more than you need. Pro tip: don't buy a motherboard that cost more than your CPU. An MSI mpower would be a nice board, it's a great overclocker and is really clean looking with a kit of g.skill sniper memory ;)

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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Sorry bro, links to any website on the forum are extremely frowned upon and is a banable offence... LOL just kidding :P

Unfortunately there are many frame latency issues with crossfiring amd gpu's and if you're looking to go with a multi GPU configuration in the future then I'd suggest looking at the 660 or 660 to in the similar price bracket as the 7870 and to go with a slightly less overpowered PSU to save a little money from going with the green camp, the silverstone strider 700w is really good, fully modular and 80 plus silver!

Welcome to the dark side :3

haha embarrassingly true i hadn't even noticed that.. :P
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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

Well that is insanely helpful!! That's a really handy site, I'll look into all the parts etc now, but looks good! Thanks!

The main reason I was going for a 660ti was mostly so I could sli later, without worrying about all these frame issues everyone's going on about with amd! and obviously given how much cheaper a 660ti is I would be able to do it a lot sooner? I'm painfully aware that I might fall into the trap of "planning" to do an sli "later", and then never getting around to it, or waiting so long, a single gpu option might be better!

Just a random question, if you're running two cards in Sli or Crossfire, should you overclock them to the same level, ie the lower of the two cards or do you just go for the highest clocks?

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

Glad it helped. :)

I believe a lot of the stuttering issues with crossfire setups have been addressed by RaedonPro, which is a 3rd party program which gives dynamic v-sync. Tomshardware talked about it a couple of months ago, so I'd recommend looking into it:

http://www.radeonpro.info/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,3329-11.html

Cards like the GTX670 or 680 would be good choices too, though price/performance and overclocking potencial tend to be worse. I don't think the difference between the two are that different (stuttering has always been an issue with dual-card setups), but they are definitely viable options. I wouldn't recommend the 660 Ti though, the limited memory bandwidth really suffers with SLI, especially with higher resolutions.

As for overclocking, I believe memory clocks have to be the same, but the core clock can differ. Not sure how much they can differ, but I would expect larger differences in clock rates would lead to more stuttering as the cards start to go out of sync.

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

Yeah, I suspect a fix will materialize, because it doesn't sound like Nvidia have done much on the hardware side to fix it in the first place!

Is there anything wrong with the XFX DD 7970? Looks way cooler and Amazon have it for the same price as the Asus one!

I'll look more into it if it comes up, I was just curious!

Another off topic question, but do you know if a 4 pin motherboard header like the ones on the p8z77 and loads of other boards can control 3 pin fans like the SP120s? reduced voltage etc!

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

As far as I know, all XFX HD7970's are voltage locked, so you'll be rather limited when it comes to overclocking. Not too much of an issue for a minor overclock though, so that's your choice really.

As for fan control, the 600T has an integrated controller, which seems to work well for case fans. The Gigabyte board also allows for manual fan control within the BIOS, but I don't think the Biostar board does.

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

The delivery from Aria is about £30 for cpu, I may end up having to go to amazon after all, since there's is free! Whyyyy am I so far away!
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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

I presume the gigbyte one is ok? pretty much the same price!
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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

Wow, didn't know amazon offered free shipping to Ireland. In that case, I suppose it's not too bad of a choice to order exclusively off them either.

Though yeah, the gigabyte board would work fine. Most boards tend to offer similar features since most of the stuff are on the chipset and CPU, so it really doesn't matter too much unless you need a specific feature. In this case I've mainly recommended the two because of the power delivery, but otherwise it's really not that much different to everything else you can find anyways.

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A €1500 gaming build with only a GTX660 Ti? I'm sure you can easily fit a 7970 in there with some tweaking. Gaming doesn't really benefit from too much CPU overclocking given most titles are GPU-bottlenecked, so I really wouldn't bother with spending so much on cooling solutions, especially with future upgrades in mind. Anyways...

First things first, I'd recommend considering other sellers other than amazon too. It's not that they are bad, but you can find a number of better deals if you look around. After a bit of searching, www.ebuyer.com and www.aria.co.uk allow shipping to Ireland for a small fee, so that's worth keeping in mind. With that in mind, here's a build I'd recommend:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PLmK (using this because hyperlinks are a pain to deal with using this forum, but you can get to the website pages if you click on the components)

£1060 off the three sites (power supply is £4 cheaper off dabs, but you can get it off aria too), with plenty left over to cover the shipping costs.

Major change is that I've dropped the motherboard and cooler by a significant amount. This is mainly as a 4.0-4.2ghz overclock should be plenty for a setup like that, which the components I put should be capable of doing. Motherboard may seem cheap, but the VRM is actually comparable, if not better to the Sabertooth. It should have all the features that you need too, otherwise I'd recommend getting expansion cards for it (wifi, etc). It's worth noting that the GA-Z77X-D3H is also a decent choice too, it doesn't have as good of a vrm but it's a more polished board overall in terms of the UEFI and overclocking features (it may also suit your needs better if aesthetics is of large importance). Both are decent, so it's more of a preference in terms of which to get. Cooler should suffice for your needs, I honestly see no reason to purchase a £100 cooler if you may upgrade to water later on anyways.

Also, it's usually not worth investing in a motherboard, because it becomes outdated with the socket. For a system with a custom loop, I'd recommend boards like the UP5 or the MPower, but if you are upgrading several years in the future, you'll probably be replacing it anyways. That's the main reason why I've downgraded it so much in comparison, unused features will just be wasted.

Graphics card has been upgraded to a HD7970, which should yield a massive performance increase in games over a 660Ti/7870XT. I've opted for the Asus DCII card because it's the cheapest card with an unlocked voltage from what I can see, since i presume you will be doing some GPU overclocking too. Also, RAM is the cheapest heatsinked 8GB kit I could find, it doesn't really matter what you go with.

I've put in an XFX power supply, which I would strongly recommend over the Corsair TX. The unit internally is actually identical to the newer Corsair AX860, so although it's more expensive, it's significantly more reliable overall. I would expect it to easily last for years, which I why I've opted for an 850w unit to account for potencial dual-card setups and watercooling.

Lastly, while I would definitely recommend getting a decent set of peripherals, I haven't looked into them enough to give any recommendations. The build is around ~£120 under-budget though, so you still have plenty to get a decent keyboard and mouse.

Only on "Super Saver" products, and they've pretty competitive delivery anyway!
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