New Gaming Rig + HTPC

[mfenn]

Both of those cost too much for what they are IMHO. Check out the $130 GA-Z77-D3H.

 

[Cymera]

Both of those cost too much for what they are IMHO. Check out the $130 GA-Z77-D3H.

I'll check that out, I've always been an Asus MB guy, but I'm not opposed to trying something new.

Also, I've read somewhere that over time, either the PSU becomes less efficient or components require more power (as you can imagine, I'm not well versed on this). Is it possible that using this machine for 3-4 years, 650w may be insufficient down the road?

Thanks!

 

[Ken g6]

Some PSUs become less able to provide the same power over time. But I can give you a simple answer in this case: If either the XFX or the Seasonic couldn't function that long at their original specs, they wouldn't provide a 5-year warranty! (XFX provides a 5-year warranty in Canada, while for some strange reason Seasonic only does so in the USA.)

 

[mfenn]

Some PSUs become less able to provide the same power over time. But I can give you a simple answer in this case: If either the XFX or the Seasonic couldn't function that long at their original specs, they wouldn't provide a 5-year warranty! (XFX provides a 5-year warranty in Canada, while for some strange reason Seasonic only does so in the USA.)

I agree. Also, even a GTX 680 system has plenty of headroom in a 650W power supply.

 

[Cymera]

Perfect! Thanks for the clarification!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Both of those cost too much for what they are IMHO. Check out the $130 GA-Z77-D3H.

WTF? Those images on Newegg aren't zoomable now? I'm annoyed by that. I cannot tell if that is a TPM module header, or a USB 3.0 front-panel header on the board.

Edit: Figured it out. The black header is the TPM, the blue header near the ATX24 connector is a USB3.0 front-panel header.

WTF don't all Z77 boards support SLI, as well as CF?

 

[Cymera]

Does anyone know if WD Caviar Green drives are 5400 or 7200rpm? I can't seem to find that information on the WD site.

 

[lehtv]

Green drives are 5400RPM.

 

[Cymera]

Green drives are 5400RPM.

Thanks!

Is there a significant difference between the Hitachi Deskstar HD32000 IDK/7K 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM SATA and the Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" SATA3 6Gb/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache?

They both have 7200rpm, but the HD32 is relatively in stock and $150, while the 7K30 is only in stock at Newegg.ca, where it is $200.

 

[lehtv]

HD32000 is an older drive. The 7K3000 has more cache and it should perform better.

However if you're looking for a 2TB drive, this is the best bang for buck: Seagate ST2000DM001 $110 from CanadaComputers

 

[Cymera]

HD32000 is an older drive. The 7K3000 has more cache and it should perform better.

However if you're looking for a 2TB drive, this is the best bang for buck: Seagate ST2000DM001 $110 from CanadaComputers

Thanks!

As for the Seagate, they seem to have a higher failure rate (according to Newegg reviews - about 50% of the reviews for that drive are DOAs), and I've had a few bad experiences with Seagate as well. I'm sure most of their drives are fine, but I'm likely going to stick with either Hitachi or WD.

 

[mfenn]

WTF don't all Z77 boards support SLI, as well as CF?

They are all technically capable of both. However, the mobo manufacturer has to pay a license fee to Nvidia to enable SLI whereas Crossfire is free. It's not unusual to have lower-end boards omit the license to save costs. They are likely never going to be used in a dual-GPU situation anyway.

 

[piasabird]

I saw some oddities on Intel Z77 motherboards. First some motherboards ended in K and Intel was claiming they were designed with the k processors in mind; i.e. 2500k. They also mentioned some items only applied to the 3rd generation i5/i7 processors.

RAM:
"1.5V DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs with gold plated contacts, with the option to raise the voltage to support higher performance DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs.

1.35V Low Voltage DDR3 DIMMs (JEDEC specification)

Two independent memory channels with interleaved mode support
Unbuffered, single-sided, or double-sided DIMMs with the following restriction: Does not support double-sided x16 DIMMs.
32 GB maximum total system memory (with 4 Gb memory technology). Minimum recommended total system memory: 1 GB
Non-ECC DIMMs
Serial Presence Detect
DDR3 1600 MHz, DDR3 1333 MHz, and DDR3 1066 MHz SDRAM DIMMs. DDR3 1600 MHz DIMMs are only supported by 3rd generation Intel Core processor family processors.
XMP version 1.3 performance profile support for memory speeds up to 1600 MHz "

So Intel was claiming that they have interleave support for their RAM. Basically you could use 3 sticks of RAM of the same size and it would work in an interleave fashion which might be similar to triple channel RAM. On some of their motherboards they specifically stated they supported both SLI and Crossfire also. Obviously have to have 2 X16 or X8 slots.

I imagine the motherboards with all the bells and whistles are they higher costing motherboards. I was kind of wandering about the "1.35V Low Voltage DDR3 DIMMs (JEDEC specification)"? Then they also explained you could increase the voltage on the 1.5v RAM but did not say what a top limit would be.

I found all of this quite odd for Intel Motherboards, that tend to be very sticky when it comes to keeping to the exact specifications.

Lower Voltage DDR3L RAM.
http://www.jedec.org/news/pressrele...anticipated-ddr3l-low-voltage-memory-standard

Does RAM really use that much power anyway?

 

[Cymera]

Ok, so I seem to be back to square one with the HDDs - I cannot seem to find a 2TB 7200 RPM under 200. Is that just the price I have to live with these days?

 

[mfenn]

Ok, so I seem to be back to square one with the HDDs - I cannot seem to find a 2TB 7200 RPM under 200. Is that just the price I have to live with these days?

Move to America? :awe:

 

[Cymera]

Move to America? :awe:

That one is a similar price here, but it has just about as many 1 stars as it does 5, that's a lot of DOAs. Is there not a reliability difference between WD/Hitachi and Seagate in your experience?

 

[Cymera]

Although I'd still like your thoughts on the HDDs (see above), I was wondering if I should check out the Intel 330 120GB?

It seems from an initial glance that it would perform better than an m4 at the same price. Are they equally reliable (I suppose you can only tell me that about the Intel based on their past performance as this is a new series)? I would still lean toward the m4 based on what I've heard, but the Intel 330 looks to be faster.

Thoughts?

 

[mfenn]

That one is a similar price here, but it has just about as many 1 stars as it does 5, that's a lot of DOAs. Is there not a reliability difference between WD/Hitachi and Seagate in your experience?

There may be a difference, but none of us are privy to enough data to make a truly statistically significant conclusion. My own experience (run about 1500 drives at work) is that there's not a significant difference in reliability, certainly not one that's noticeable at the level of a single consumer. That's not to say that you can't get a bad drive, but I don't think the brand has too much to do with it.

Although I'd still like your thoughts on the HDDs (see above), I was wondering if I should check out the Intel 330 120GB?

It seems from an initial glance that it would perform better than an m4 at the same price. Are they equally reliable (I suppose you can only tell me that about the Intel based on their past performance as this is a new series)? I would still lean toward the m4 based on what I've heard, but the Intel 330 looks to be faster.

Thoughts?

The 330 is basically a Sandforce with Intel's custom firmware. Neither the 330 or its cousin the 520 have been out long enough to tell us whether or not Intel managed to get the bugs out, but Intel does to a heck of a lot more validation than any of the other Sandforce vendors.

I can't definitely say anything about real-world performance until we see some reviews. I'd imagine that the 330 is roughly in the same league as the M4 because the M4 holds up well against other Sandforce drives. There are too many different ways to measure IOPS and throughput to trust that all manufacturers are going to do it the exact same way.

 

[Cymera]

Thanks, I'll think on the HDDs, and will probably stick to the M4 for the SSD Thanks as always for your patience in helping me <3

 

[piasabird]

What good is a bunch of USB headers? Then you need some kind of interface like 5.5" Bay Panel with USB ports on it. I never understood why the case manufacturers think 2 USB plugs is enough on the front of the case? I think the biggest item that you could take advantage of with USB 3.0 would be an external Backup Drive or something like that. The problem is you might want to plug that 3.0 externel drive into a 2.0 device to access the drive like for video files on a HDTV.

 

[piasabird]

I would not buy any motherboards until people start really testing them and reporting the errors.

 

[Cymera]

It is ordered! I've decided to go with the following for my machine, thank you for all the advice! I will be picking up the components and building it within a week!

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LE
CPU: i7 3770K
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 680
PSU: Seasonic X-760 Fully Modular 80PLUS Gold 760W PSU
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series DDR3 1600MHz (PC3-12800) 16GB (4x4GB)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Six Heatpipe Dual Radiator CPU Cooler
Case: Coolermaster HAF X
SSD : Crucial m4 128GB
HDDs: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA3 7200RPM 64M Cache
Sound card: Asus Xonar DS (already have it)

I picked up an MK320 Wireless Mouse & Keyboard and a MediaGate W7 remote for the soon-to-be HTPC (current rig).

Also, I splurged on a Benq XL2420T 120Hz monitor, its been nice having it as my primary and my Asus as a secondary

Thanks everyone! I'll probably post again once everything is assembled :wub:

 

[mfenn]

Looks nice, where did you find an Ivy Bridge in stock? You went overboard on the CPU, GPU, PSU, RAM, HSF, and HDDs IMHO, but I'm not too interested in beating dead horses.

 

[Cymera]

I'm getting my parts through Canada Computers, and while I was in working out a discount with the store manager (since I'm ordering two computers, some HTPC peripherals, and a high end monitor, all totaling ~5k), IVB literally just came in the store. I immediately put two 3770K's away.

I realize I didn't necessarily 'need' the parts that I got, but for a couple, I thought some of the benefits would be worth it in the 'long' term (i.e. HT, extra wattage in case I decide to ever go Multi-GPU, extra RAM for heavy multi-tasking). If I was on a tighter budget I wouldn't have gone for a lot of those components

Thanks for all your help mfenn, your advice was always very insightful and helpful! :wub:

 

[mfenn]

Glad to help!

I noticed that right after I posted, I got an email from Newegg saying that Ivy Bridge was in stock for them as well. I guess you'll be first out of the gate if you can pick it up locally.