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[scogoth]

$2000 build?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-sandy-bridge-build-a-pc-overclocking,2876.html

Doesn't include a screen, keyboard or mouse and the case is a little basic but otherwise good starting point for people looking at a high end sandy bridge build.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

RMA time, woo

Should I do it through the store I brought it from (Tigerdirect.com) or the manufactuerer (Asus)?

Which would take the shortest? Which would allow me to keep my current one than have me send them the broken one once I get the new one (I remember that happened to me before)?

 

[Trojita]

Dell U2410
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-8277

I'm assuming there might soon be a U2411, since there is already a U2711 and U3011.

If you want to go cheaper, you can also go with the 23" models. I said I thought they had a lower contrast ratio, but I can't find any confirmation on that. The only info I've found so far is that the 24" is more expensive because of a slightly faster response, a 12-bit video processor (less banding), a 16:10 resolution (1920*1200 as opposed to 1080p), and more input options.

Here's the 23" model:

Dell U2311H
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9270

Wow, that's cheap.

I have the 2408wfp. I love it. I wish it was a true IPS monitor though. I got it when it was $600 on "sale". I don't notice much input lag.

 

[Q8D3vil]

from guru3d
is t his even real

really need to see some reviews

 

[Corky]

So in the end the 590 succumbed to the TDP and turned out as 570 sli? And preliminary reports point to the card costing abit more than the 6990 aswell.

 

[Johnny2Bags]

So in the end the 590 succumbed to the TDP and turned out as 570 sli? And preliminary reports point to the card costing abit more than the 6990 aswell.

That's what it looks like hey? Sad because it won't beat ATI if that's the case. And the price point will be divisive as well

... and to be honest with you I really think AMD turned a corner with the new preview drivers... if those are a taste of things to come I'm very content with them over Nvidia.

 

[RiverBed]

The gtx 590 is supposed to come out today, so why are there no benchmarks yet?

 

[deathberry]

I can't say much but here's a little tidbit:

3DMark 11 (P)
GTX 590 = 8677
HD 6990 = 9081

In all other benchmarks it's a tossup. Unigine, Metro, Lost Planet 2 the GTX 590 is better. In Just Cause 2, AvP, SC2 the HD 6990 is better.

HD 6990 is $700 and GTX 590 is....$850. Embargo lifts 24th March.

EDIT: slightly larger than GTX 580 (i.e smaller than HD 6990) and as quiet (or quieter) than GTX 580.

 

[RiverBed]

Thanks for the info. Wiki says the launch is today (22nd). So it was pushed to the 24th?
If that's the case, is it really that much of a problem to release reviews and benchmarks a couple of days before launch?

I just want to know if it will pull a 6990 or really have two 580s? the 6990 is disappointing not an SLI of the best ATI cards. I am worried the same will be the case with the 590 (being 570 SLI or something)

 

[Corky]

I can't say much but here's a little tidbit:

3DMark 11 (P)
GTX 590 = 8677
HD 6990 = 9081

In all other benchmarks it's a tossup. Unigine, Metro, Lost Planet 2 the GTX 590 is better. In Just Cause 2, AvP, SC2 the HD 6990 is better.

HD 6990 is $700 and GTX 590 is....$850. Embargo lifts 24th March.

EDIT: slightly larger than GTX 580 (i.e smaller than HD 6990) and as quiet (or quieter) than GTX 580.

thanks alot mate.

 

[DeadRockstar]

I can't say much but here's a little tidbit:

3DMark 11 (P)
GTX 590 = 8677
HD 6990 = 9081

In all other benchmarks it's a tossup. Unigine, Metro, Lost Planet 2 the GTX 590 is better. In Just Cause 2, AvP, SC2 the HD 6990 is better.

HD 6990 is $700 and GTX 590 is....$850. Embargo lifts 24th March.

EDIT: slightly larger than GTX 580 (i.e smaller than HD 6990) and as quiet (or quieter) than GTX 580.

Well the size and noise are nice, but the price makes it totally irrelevant.

 

[deathberry]

Thanks for the info. Wiki says the launch is today (22nd). So it was pushed to the 24th?
If that's the case, is it really that much of a problem to release reviews and benchmarks a couple of days before launch?

I just want to know if it will pull a 6990 or really have two 580s? the 6990 is disappointing not an SLI of the best ATI cards. I am worried the same will be the case with the 590 (being 570 SLI or something)

The GTX 590 is, in fact, two GTX 570s on a single PCB.

And, sadly, embargo dates must be strictly adhered to from big companies like Nvidia, AMD, etc.

 

[RiverBed]

Aaaahhh......

If that is true, and ATI couldn't do it either, it has to be a manufacturing limitation that they couldn't use two top of the line cards for these new editions. Guess heat was too problematic...

I really wanted TWO top of the line cards. Ah, guess I'll settle down for a 580 for the next four years. I am told both SLI and two cards on one PCB solutions don't scale as well as one might think anyway. Besides, even if the 590 turns out to be two 580s, it'll probably be crazy expensive anyway. I am actually merely interested in the tech behind it right now.

Well, that settles it: I'll be getting a 580+ a Sandy Bridge i5 set up as soon as I settle in my new place in a few of weeks.

 

[TheExodu5]

http://www.tested.com/how-to-build-a-future-proof-1500-pc/47-319/

That's the best video I've seen on building a PC. Laid back and explains everything in detail.

That GTX 570 is so nice. Three slot cooler...drool.

 

[sk3tch]

I believe MSI Afterburner will do just that.

Thank you, as always.

As I said previously, I completed my build. Specs are here. Just used OC Genie to get the i5 2500K to 4.2 GHz. Unlocked the shaders only on my MSI R6950, plus OC'd to 870 MHz GPU clock. Temps/stability on both are good (thanks to help from Hazaro to assure me all is well ).

I took my time as ASilva suggested and I think I put together a pretty solid build. I got a little lazy with the cable management under the mobo...but I may clean that up when my Xonar DG soundcard arrives later this week.


(click to enlarge)

BFBC2 looks awesome in 1080p/120hz on my Acer GD235hz.

 

[Corky]

Welp

 

[kurtrussell]

Hullo Gaffers!

Maybe some of you more PC orientated fellas could help me out with my new build. I wanted to build a silent yet powerful-ish box and settled on the following:

Low power 3 core Athlon 64 2.2ghz (45w)
2 x passively cooled Geforce 450 (SLI)
460W Passive power supply (efficency at 98% so can support the low power cpu and cards in SLI)
8GB Corsair heatsinked RAM
120GB Corsair F-120 SSD
Windows 7 64 bit running Nvidia V267.59 drivers

The CPU uses a huge scythe samurai III fan which is tilted to point towards the back of the machine to assist in heat exhaustion. I also mounted a fractal design 14 inch silent fan at the front to push air in.

Avg CPU temp - 36 degrees C
Avg MB temp - 27 degrees C

I am not convinced that I am getting as much perfomance out of this setup as I should be.

3D Mark '06 gives me a score of about 10500 with SLI disabled, and 11500 with SLI enabled - does this indicate a CPU bottleneck?

3D Mark '11 just displays a bunch of red dots when I run it and eventually crashes out on the third benchmark. Temperatures are not indicating overheating...

I can run Crysis in 8xQ antialiasing with everything turned up to very high at a decent (smooth) framerate. At 16XQ antialiasing with everything set to very high, it's juddery but not bad enough to not be playable. (These are both fullscreen at 1920 x 1080) I didn't bother checking out FPS for these things at the moment as I like to judge by what I consider acceptable, rather than what the numbers say

My gaffers question - assuming I saw no artifacts / issues at all when running Crysis maxxed out, does this indicate the red dot problem in 3D Mark 11 is more likely to be driver related? Also, is this roughly representative of the performance that I could expect from this setup?

Ta!

 

[iNvid02]

if anyone has lost some data (e.g. hard drive crapped out or accidentally deleted something, or in my case both of my drive MFT's got corrupt) then you should get a program called getdataback. It has 2 versions for NTFS and FAT and works like magic.

Tried quite a few different things but it was the only one that recovered everything

 

[DodgyGeezerFella]

Should I do it through the store I brought it from (Tigerdirect.com) or the manufactuerer (Asus)?

Which would take the shortest? Which would allow me to keep my current one than have me send them the broken one once I get the new one (I remember that happened to me before)?

Tigerdirect i would have thought (i usually go through where i bought it from in the UK rather than the manufacturer, infact many demand you do go through where you bought it from).

 

[TheExodu5]

Welp

Those Warhead numbers seem very off. Even though I'm not a fan of SLI at this point, the second GTX 570 in my system pretty much doubles my Crysis framerate. Both Crysis and Metro have near perfect scaling.

Also, I'm not sure if it was due to SLI or not, but yesterday I was having stuttering at 60fps in Crysis in some parts (

Spoiler

the ship at the end

). Anyways, I played through the full game at DX10, Very High, 1080p, 4x AA, without a hitch. It was 60fps 90% of the time. Only the final confrontation gave me a little bit of trouble.

If I were buying a single card right now, that triple slot Asus GTX 570 looks so nice. I don't think I could resist that.

 

[Hixx]

Yeah, it would be a waste of money to buy into LGA775 these days, it's 2 generations old now. If you're looking for something in the $200 range which is where the Phenom II X6 1055T lives, then you should really consider a Core i5-2500K for like $225, it annihilates the 1055T for $180 on every benchmark at stock and then you OC the 2500K to 4.5ghz and you're literally around 50-75% greater performance than the 1055T. AMD is simply not in the same performance galaxy as Intel right now, especially after a good OC, and they won't be until (maybe) when Bulldozer arrives this summer. Buying into Sandy Bridge instead of Phenom II gives you more headroom for the future and a computer that will last you a lot longer before you need to upgrade again.

As for my trusty Q6600, it is now the heart and soul of my recently-built media center PC. Kentsfield will never die, it will just be used for other things. I'm using Core i7-950 (Bloomfield) in my main gaming box these days.

core i5 with motherboard would set me back about £210.
1055 with motherboard would be about £180.

Both out of my price range right now, will have to see how they're priced in about 6 months. Cheers for the help anyway.

 

[rocK`]

Just ordered this for my i7 2600k, was the only mobo I liked in stock:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/SABERTOOTH/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Thoughts?

So, the first order fell through but the next one looks legit from Amazon, so it looks like this will be my board of choice for my i7 2600k.

Any good ideas on GPU? I will not get another ATI card, I'm looking at EVGA's gtx 570, does it SLI well?

 

[hiryu]

Pfffft! That's not a Monitor! THIS IS A MONITOR! *In Crocodile Dundee voice*

Actually I sold it a long time ago, using a 23 inch Samsung now

Hah, I have that monitor and a 24 inch dell beside it. I do think about downsizing sometimes but I use the monitor for my PS3 and 360 sometimes too.

 

[n0n44m]

+1 for the (32")TV-as-a-monitor crowd here

hooked up through my HDMI Yamaha receiver together with cabletv and my ps3
not the greatest image quality in the world (sensitive to banding) but 1080p is fine for gaming/office stuff and the size makes up for the cons

---

for anyone in the Netherlands looking for a new card, Alternate is having some anniversary sale with a 6950 2 gb for €179 ... *sooo tempting*

 

[mrklaw]

+1 for the (32")TV-as-a-monitor crowd here

pfft. 40" HDTV here..

..which is almost unusable as a computer, but great for games. I can't get a good balance on text size and icons etc. Sit close and its fine, but fucks with my eyes. Sit back and its comfortable but I can't read anything.

Plus something is wrong with that font smoothing thing, making internet text (eg gaf) look really odd. Can't seem to get it just right. Might be TV forced sharpening.

 

[n0n44m]

pfft. 40" HDTV here..

..which is almost unusable as a computer, but great for games. I can't get a good balance on text size and icons etc. Sit close and its fine, but fucks with my eyes. Sit back and its comfortable but I can't read anything.

Plus something is wrong with that font smoothing thing, making internet text (eg gaf) look really odd. Can't seem to get it just right. Might be TV forced sharpening.

my Samsung has a PC-mode which I really need to enable for text. Benefit is that it has less lag just like gaming mode, con is less image settings and the banding. Had it for almost 2 years now, still loving it.

I wouldn't want anything larger than a 32" inch though ...

 

[sk3tch]

I don't know how you guys can use such large monitors for gaming...at least if you're an online multiplayer FPS player. 23"-24" is the sweet spot for being able to quick react to what's going on on the screen (you can see everything without having to move your head too much). Plus a lot of those TVs/etc. you're using (instead of monitors) probably have horrible response time. No worries if you're not an FPS gamer..but if you are and you are having problems - give a smaller/better monitor a try. Look at www.digitalversus.com for competitive gaming-oriented monitor reviews.

I used to play on my 50" plasma but one I switched to a 23" Acer H233H my 360 BFBC2 scores improved markedly.

 

[nataku]

So it looks like this is what I'll end up getting. Anyone know how tall the CPU cooler is? I want to make sure I have plenty of room to get that cooler in the case. I ran into a problem a few years ago of a cooler I picked barely fitting in the case I choose and don't want to deal with that again.

Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium Grey ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
MSI P67A-G45 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Powe
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel

I'll be re-using my current GTX 460 1GB and 1TB HDD. I'm not gonna get a SSD because I can't afford one. I'll be waiting until they hit $1 per GB, whenever that actually happens. I've been considering dropping to a 650W PSU as well because I'm guessing I don't really need a 750W, but you guys know more than I do.

 

[Shambles]

Should I do it through the store I brought it from (Tigerdirect.com) or the manufactuerer (Asus)?

Which would take the shortest? Which would allow me to keep my current one than have me send them the broken one once I get the new one (I remember that happened to me before)?

If you have to end up shipping it out either way I usually go with the manufacturer. It will end up being faster and they usually end up being more reliable. If you go through TD they'll just end up shipping it to Asus which adds an extra step. I don't know what their policy is though if you ship it to TD as a return if they'll just swap it out and send the same thing back, or if they'll try to charge you shipping back etc... You'll have to check out their page. Advanced shipping is something you'll have to check company by company, usually retailers only offer it if you end up paying their bullcrap 'insurance' charge at checkout. I know Asus did advanced shipping for the faulty SB motherboards but that could have been a one time thing. You'll have to talk to them.

 

[TheExodu5]

I don't know how you guys can use such large monitors for gaming...at least if you're an online multiplayer FPS player. 23"-24" is the sweet spot for being able to quick react to what's going on on the screen (you can see everything without having to move your head too much). Plus a lot of those TVs/etc. you're using (instead of monitors) probably have horrible response time. No worries if you're not an FPS gamer..but if you are and you are having problems - give a smaller/better monitor a try. Look at www.digitalversus.com for competitive gaming-oriented monitor reviews.

I used to play on my 50" plasma but one I switched to a 23" Acer H233H my 360 BFBC2 scores improved markedly.

My peripheral vision works fine, and I can comfortably aim my eyes at any corner of my 32" screen without having to move my head.

If I were still into competitive gaming, I'd go with a 24" TN panel for another reason: response times. No IPS monitor or HDTV is suitable for hardcore competitive play. That being said, I care more about immersion than I do about having a competitive edge. A 32" at 2' is pretty equivalent to a 50" at 4-5', or a projector at 10-12'. It's like having my own home theater experience at my desk.

I could never go back to anything smaller. The difference in immersion is astounding. Also, a good 32" 1080p TV only costs $400. That's so cheap for a large display that will obliterate any TN panel on the market in terms of IQ.

The response times on some TVs aren't too bad...some Panasonic models actually match 60Hz TN panels, and my Sony is around 30ms. This is roughly equivalent to the lag you'd get turning on Vsync in your games. Again, not suitable for competitive play, but 99% of people won't notice or care. Most people don't even notice the input lag Vsync introduces.

 

[TheExodu5]

pfft. 40" HDTV here..

..which is almost unusable as a computer, but great for games. I can't get a good balance on text size and icons etc. Sit close and its fine, but fucks with my eyes. Sit back and its comfortable but I can't read anything.

Plus something is wrong with that font smoothing thing, making internet text (eg gaf) look really odd. Can't seem to get it just right. Might be TV forced sharpening.

Some HDTVs don't deal well with PCs. A friend of mine uses a Panasonic plasma and the text had a white halo around it. Looks awful.

My Sony is decent. Text looks fine, though not not quite 100% sharp. To get a perfect display, you need a TV that correctly displays 4:4:4. Not completely sure what it means, but it has to do with how colored pixels line up when they're displayed in the pixel matrix.

It took a decent amount of research before I settled on my Sony. LG and Panasonic were the runners up with their IPS panels and perfect 4:4:4, but in the end, the Sony ended up looking better to me due to the much deeper blacks and improved contrast of its PVA panel. I paid that cost in slightly higher response times, slightly blurrier text (but really, it's hard to tell), and worse viewing angles (which still exhibit no color shift from where I view the screen).

edit: typing all this on an iPhone sucks. :|

 

[mclaren777]

A question for software nerds...

I have my OS on an SSD and my games (Steam and otherwise) on a physical HDD. The SSD recently died and I now have the replacement. And while my games (Steam and otherwise) still work fine, all of the OS hooks (Start > type steam = nothing) are gone now. I can't even see those games listed in the Add/Remove Programs utility.

So what is my best course of action? Can I repair those OS hooks? Should I just manually create shortcuts and ignore the problem altogether? Re-install everything? Something else entirely?

 

[mkenyon]

Welp

Notice the resolution on those figures? Dual-gpu will always do better on higher resolutions.

So it looks like this is what I'll end up getting. Anyone know how tall the CPU cooler is? I want to make sure I have plenty of room to get that cooler in the case. I ran into a problem a few years ago of a cooler I picked barely fitting in the case I choose and don't want to deal with that again.

Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium Grey ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
MSI P67A-G45 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Powe
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel

I'll be re-using my current GTX 460 1GB and 1TB HDD. I'm not gonna get a SSD because I can't afford one. I'll be waiting until they hit $1 per GB, whenever that actually happens. I've been considering dropping to a 650W PSU as well because I'm guessing I don't really need a 750W, but you guys know more than I do.

Looks good, you'll have plenty of room for that cooler. Yes, going down to a 650w will do you well.

Just so happens there is a 650w modular PSU on sale for $104.99 on newegg today.

 

[Shambles]

A question for software nerds...

I have my OS on an SSD and my games (Steam and otherwise) on a physical HDD. The SSD recently died and I now have the replacement. And while my games (Steam and otherwise) still work fine, all of the OS hooks (Start > type steam = nothing) are gone now. I can't even see those games listed in the Add/Remove Programs utility.

So what is my best course of action? Can I repair those OS hooks? Should I just manually create shortcuts and ignore the problem altogether? Re-install everything? Something else entirely?

If you point steam to that installation directory again you should be able to "install game" from your steam list. It will look like it might be trying to download it again but the progress bar is just to verify contents. Will still take a minute or two per title but at least you know everything will work fine. I haven't had to try a redirect like you but I have copied games over a LAN connection from friends and then officially 'installed' it on my machine so I assume it would work the same way for your situation.

 

[Schlep]

I'll be re-using my current GTX 460 1GB and 1TB HDD. I'm not gonna get a SSD because I can't afford one. I'll be waiting until they hit $1 per GB, whenever that actually happens. I've been considering dropping to a 650W PSU as well because I'm guessing I don't really need a 750W, but you guys know more than I do.

I run the same setup with an ASUS mobo and +4GB RAM +64GB SSD on this 600w supply.

I'd say that 600-650 should be OK if you're not looking to overclock. If you want to OC and then throw a power hungry card in there, I think you'll start to see issues.

 

[mkenyon]

I run the same setup with an ASUS mobo and +4GB RAM +64GB SSD on this 600w supply.

I'd say that 600-650 should be OK if you're not looking to overclock. If you want to OC and then throw a power hungry card in there, I think you'll start to see issues.

I haven't seen a single card system with a total draw above 600w, OC or not.

 

[iNvid02]

A question for software nerds...

I have my OS on an SSD and my games (Steam and otherwise) on a physical HDD. The SSD recently died and I now have the replacement. And while my games (Steam and otherwise) still work fine, all of the OS hooks (Start > type steam = nothing) are gone now. I can't even see those games listed in the Add/Remove Programs utility.

So what is my best course of action? Can I repair those OS hooks? Should I just manually create shortcuts and ignore the problem altogether? Re-install everything? Something else entirely?

i cant help you but i have the exact same setup, would be good to know what to do if something like this happens

 

[The Elite]

I'm running my new PC on my 47" Samsung TV. I won't be home for a day so I can't post pics but I could use a few pointers for making the text easier to read. I have the whole thing running at 1080p and, as you can imagine, the text is small but the contrast of it against the white background is also off.

Any tips?

 

[Schlep]

I haven't seen a single card system with a total draw above 600w, OC or not.

I was looking at this.

 

[Shambles]

There were some pretty terrible thermal designs around the GTX 480 era. I would look at that as the exception not the norm. Keep in mind these aren't just overclocked cards but over volted cards as well. Relevant if that's what you're looking to do but most people don't overvolt their GPU.

 

[mkenyon]

I'm running my new PC on my 47" Samsung TV. I won't be home for a day so I can't post pics but I could use a few pointers for making the text easier to read. I have the whole thing running at 1080p and, as you can imagine, the text is small but the contrast of it against the white background is also off.

Any tips?

You can go into your display settings and increase the size of everything. I have to do the same thing for my HTPC.

Alternatively, if it's just for 'net browsing, you can hold down the ctrl button and use your scroll wheel to increase and decrease the size of webpages.

 

[Corky]

Ok

So I've made the following adjustments :

* stepped down from 570 SLI to 580, and future SLI when needed
* slightly more powerful PSU, for the eventual 580 sli
* switched the asus p67 deluxe to the MSI P67A-GD65 because of stock shortages
* no asus sonar DX in store, long deliverytime so I'll buy one "later"
*all in all the adjustments saves me 475$

( and again, SSD will be bought in a couple of months / holidayseason instead.)

Any last words before I push the order button?

 

[RiverBed]

Speaking of TVs in place of monitors: I REALLY want to do that. Any negatives to that at all? I know for one thing you have to manually turn off the TV. But what else?

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

Ok

So I've made the following adjustments :

* stepped down from 570 SLI to 580, and future SLI when needed
* slightly more powerful PSU, for the eventual 580 sli
* switched the asus p67 deluxe to the MSI P67A-GD65 because of stock shortages
* no asus sonar DX in store, long deliverytime so I'll buy one "later"
*all in all the adjustments saves me 475$

( and again, SSD will be bought in a couple of months / holidayseason instead.)

Any last words before I push the order button?

I love you.

 

[Corky]

I love you.

Well, that's as good as confirmations get!

Now comes the scary part, hitting the place purchase button.

 

[TheExodu5]

Ok

So I've made the following adjustments :

* stepped down from 570 SLI to 580, and future SLI when needed
* slightly more powerful PSU, for the eventual 580 sli
* switched the asus p67 deluxe to the MSI P67A-GD65 because of stock shortages
* no asus sonar DX in store, long deliverytime so I'll buy one "later"
*all in all the adjustments saves me 475$

( and again, SSD will be bought in a couple of months / holidayseason instead.)

Any last words before I push the order button?

Looks perfect to me. Do you already have a copy of Windows?

I like that you went with a non stock cooler. Should hopefully be a lot quieter than the stock fan.

If you were not going SLI at all, you could also check out the Asus DirectCu II version. It's a triple slot solution but it's damned sexy and apparently very quiet.

 

[Corky]

Looks perfect to me. Do you already have a copy of Windows?

I like that you went with a non stock cooler. Should hopefully be a lot quieter than the stock fan.
If you were not going SLI at all, you could also check out the Asus DirectCu II version. It's a triple slot solution but it's damned sexy and apparently very quiet.

Cheers mate, you were actually the reason I went with 580 since I've read you write on more than one occasion that " if I could do it again I'd go for single gpu "

Yeah I've got access to free ( see : student ) w7 via the engineeringfaculty, and I saved my Dell u2311h screen from my last build.

Here goes!

edit : yeah I saw that Asus card, it looked might fine. Jeff from GB built a rig with that one right? That video they had.

But yeah I thought it would be too much with 2 triple slot gpus for the Fractal R3

 

[TheExodu5]

Cheers mate, you were actually the reason I went with 580 since I've read you write on more than one occasion that " if I could do it again I'd go for single gpu "

Yeah I've got access to free ( see : student ) w7 via the engineeringfaculty, and I saved my Dell u2311h screen from my last build.

Here goes!

edit : yeah I saw that Asus card, it looked might fine. Jeff from GB built a rig with that one right? That video they had.

But yeah I thought it would be too much with 2 triple slot gpus for the Fractal R3

You'd need a special motherboard and case to fit two of those, since they'd probably need to be 4 slots apart.

I'm tempted to sell my GTX 570s and get that GTX 580. Hmmmmm.

That Asus under load is less than 30dB. Holy shit.

 

[mkenyon]

Ok

So I've made the following adjustments :

* stepped down from 570 SLI to 580, and future SLI when needed
* slightly more powerful PSU, for the eventual 580 sli
* switched the asus p67 deluxe to the MSI P67A-GD65 because of stock shortages
* no asus sonar DX in store, long deliverytime so I'll buy one "later"
*all in all the adjustments saves me 475$

( and again, SSD will be bought in a couple of months / holidayseason instead.)

Any last words before I push the order button?

Mechanical keyboard!!!! No reason to skimp there if you're dumping this kind of money on a build. It will change your whole experience.

Still think you should buy a 6950 or 570, put the money in the bank and upgrade the vid card when necessary.

 

[scogoth]

So it looks like this is what I'll end up getting. Anyone know how tall the CPU cooler is? I want to make sure I have plenty of room to get that cooler in the case. I ran into a problem a few years ago of a cooler I picked barely fitting in the case I choose and don't want to deal with that again.

Spl1nter just got that cooler and its fairly tall. It barely fits in a mid-tower case, but it does fit and its an excellent cooler.