Computer Build Help - Kind of Urgent

[lunertexcosmo]

Those of you who follow the tech + gaming stuff on here may have seen my earlier posts about my new PC I’m building. I’m ordering my parts tonight but I have a problem that I really didn’t think about until now. It’s failure rates. It’s my first build so I’m sort of new with this. When I go on Newegg I see what appears to be nice GPU or mobo, then I start reading some of the reviews and everything goes to hell For a 4-5 component, there’s always a bunch of good reviews right? Then there’s this nice, decent-sized pocket of crappy reviews. Each one talks about DOA parts and RMA’s from the manufacturers etc, etc,. They talk about things like artifacting with GPU’s and all sorts of errors with mobo’s. It’s frustrating. I’m not sure if these people are unlucky, stupid or both. I’ve put together what I think is a nice PC. It’s got an EVGA GTX 570, Intel Core i7 2600k, 8 gigs or RAM, and what appears to be a nice mobo from Asus. So can anyone shine some light on this? Do parts always have a nice niche of bad reviews?

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($289.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V LX ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($48.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 570 1.25GB Video Card ($267.55 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Phantom (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($134.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Cooler Master 700W ATX12V Power Supply ($73.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS424-98 DVD/CD Writer ($29.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Other: ASUS PCE-N53 Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Adapter
Total: $1155.43

[amf66]

Go with current gen parts instead of last gen ones for your CPU, graphics card, motherboard, and power supply. They’ll be faster, cooler, and use less power than what you’ve got right now.

For the power supply the two year warranty concerns me. That indicates poor quality, regardless of the good reviews. Go with at least an 80 plus and a three year warranty, like the Corsair TX650 v2.

You can save $10 on the optical drive by going with this Asus one.

I can find some better parts for around the same price for you. Namely a 7870 for the graphics card, an ivy bridge processor (probably a 3570K), and a Z77 motherboard. Tell me what you think.

[lunertexcosmo]

@amf66

Go with current gen parts instead of last gen ones for your CPU, graphics card, motherboard, and power supply. They’ll be faster, cooler, and use less power than what you’ve got right now.

For the power supply the two year warranty concerns me. That indicates poor quality, regardless of the good reviews. Go with at least an 80 plus and a three year warranty, like the Corsair TX650 v2.

You can save $10 on the optical drive by going with this Asus one.

I can find some better parts for around the same price for you. Namely a 7870 for the graphics card, an ivy bridge processor (probably a 3570K), and a Z77 motherboard. Tell me what you think.

OK, so on the 7870, which brand of that should I buy. I’m thinking that they might be a little more cost effective than Nvidia. But I’m still kind of an Nvidia guy to be honest

And the Ivy Bridge CPU’s how much of a difference is there in the i5 and the i7? I’ve heard people go back and forth on this but what I know is that I do a lot of video editing and am planning to do some gaming. Will the i5 work for that or should I spring for the i7?

Also, what are some good motherboard brands. I like Asus for their BIOS and their “Q connector” but I’m still a little confused about which brand would be the best.

And about the optical drive, I’m really trying to find something non-OEM so it will come with all the cables I need.

Lastly, even when I look at the 7870’s, there’s still quite a few reviews and complaints. Is this just something that always happens when you buy parts? Because they’re pretty much on every single version of the 7870 as well as the 570.

[amf66]

For all my cards I’ve used Sapphire and XFX without any problems. Gigabyte is also good. There aren’t any bad brands, but I recommend these three since I’ve used them and they’ve worked. As far as Nvidia and AMD go, pick whichever one gives you the best performance for your budget. In this case it’s AMD, and since they both deliver regular driver updates either is fine.

Clock for clock ivy bridge is about 10% faster than a sandy bridge CPU like the 2600K you picked out. The difference between the i5 and the i7 parts is i7 parts support hyper threading. What this means is you’ll get eight threads out of a quad core i7 and four threads out of a quad core i5. In a nutshell it doubles your threads. For gaming there won’t be any difference, but for productivity and video editing go for an i7. The 3770K or 3770 i7 is the best choice for you. The K means it is unlocked for overclocking. If you know you’ll never overclock get the 3770 and save some money.

Motherboards? I always hate this question because there is no good answer when it comes to brands. In the $100 and up price range there is no “bad” brand. Asus, Gigabyte, and ASrock probably have the best BIOS’s but there isn’t much else when it comes to differentiation. When deciding on a motherboard get one with at least two PCI-e slots that can do x8/x8 when you have two cards so you have room for crossfire or SLI. I’d also look at the number of USB ports they have, how many fan headers they’ve got, and the number of SATA 3 ports. Fan headers are a good thing to have since your fans will run at full speed if you don’t have a controller for them. Plugging them into the motherboard is the easiest answer although you can buy fan controllers.

The Q connectors that come with Asus boards make the build a tiny bit easier. Unless you can’t read a manual or look at the board they’re unnecessary and shoudln’d be a deciding point. Any board with at least four eggs on Newegg will suit you fine as long as it has enough PCI-e slots and USB ports. Make sure it has a USB 3.0 header onboard.

Just noticed this: your case doesn’t have USB 3.0 support on the front panel. I’d recommend the Phantom 410 because of this. It’s a tiny bit smaller, cheaper, and looks just as good. You won’t miss the extra space.

For the optical drive? The Phantom and the Phantom 410 are both toolless and all motherboards come with at least two SATA cables. You won’t need the screws and SATA cable that comes with a non-OEM optical drive. Save the money and go OEM.

I see you’re concerned about the reviews. Every part on Newegg or any other site will have its share of RMAs and DOAs. That’s inevitable. In my four builds I haven’t had any problems with my parts. You probably won’t either. Don’t worry about it since it’s par for the course and there’s nothing you can do about it. At the worst you’ll send it back to Newegg. They’re pretty quick with RMAs within their 30 day warranty.

[lunertexcosmo]

@amf66

For all my cards I’ve used Sapphire and XFX without any problems. Gigabyte is also good. There aren’t any bad brands, but I recommend these three since I’ve used them and they’ve worked. As far as Nvidia and AMD go, pick whichever one gives you the best performance for your budget. In this case it’s AMD, and since they both deliver regular driver updates either is fine.

Clock for clock ivy bridge is about 10% faster than a sandy bridge CPU like the 2600K you picked out. The difference between the i5 and the i7 parts is i7 parts support hyper threading. What this means is you’ll get eight threads out of a quad core i7 and four threads out of a quad core i5. In a nutshell it doubles your threads. For gaming there won’t be any difference, but for productivity and video editing go for an i7. The 3770K or 3770 i7 is the best choice for you. The K means it is unlocked for overclocking. If you know you’ll never overclock get the 3770 and save some money.

Motherboards? I always hate this question because there is no good answer when it comes to brands. In the $100 and up price range there is no “bad” brand. Asus, Gigabyte, and ASrock probably have the best BIOS’s but there isn’t much else when it comes to differentiation. When deciding on a motherboard get one with at least two PCI-e slots that can do x8/x8 when you have two cards so you have room for crossfire or SLI. I’d also look at the number of USB ports they have, how many fan headers they’ve got, and the number of SATA 3 ports. Fan headers are a good thing to have since your fans will run at full speed if you don’t have a controller for them. Plugging them into the motherboard is the easiest answer although you can buy fan controllers.

The Q connectors that come with Asus boards make the build a tiny bit easier. Unless you can’t read a manual or look at the board they’re unnecessary and shoudln’d be a deciding point. Any board with at least four eggs on Newegg will suit you fine as long as it has enough PCI-e slots and USB ports. Make sure it has a USB 3.0 header onboard.

Just noticed this: your case doesn’t have USB 3.0 support on the front panel. I’d recommend the Phantom 410 because of this. It’s a tiny bit smaller, cheaper, and looks just as good. You won’t miss the extra space.

For the optical drive? The Phantom and the Phantom 410 are both toolless and all motherboards come with at least two SATA cables. You won’t need the screws and SATA cable that comes with a non-OEM optical drive. Save the money and go OEM.

I see you’re concerned about the reviews. Every part on Newegg or any other site will have its share of RMAs and DOAs. That’s inevitable. In my four builds I haven’t had any problems with my parts. You probably won’t either. Don’t worry about it since it’s par for the course and there’s nothing you can do about it. At the worst you’ll send it back to Newegg. They’re pretty quick with RMAs within their 30 day warranty.

Okay, for graphics, what about this?

And one thing I noticed about the AMD GPU’s, there seems to be an actual AMD card made by AMD themselves that they use to advertise and give to reviewers. So are they just like something they use in-house and don’t sell to the general public?

[amf66]

In the future try not to quote giant posts like mine. It won’t make you any friends, especially here.

That looks like a good card. This MSI one is a bit cheaper if you want to save some money. They’re essentially the same. At this point looks are probably the deciding factor.

You’re talking about reference cards. Both Nvidia and AMD design a reference cooler and PCB for their mid to high end cards. The first cards using a new GPU are all reference - all the different graphics cards companies use the reference design at first. Later on they branch out with their own coolers and PCBs. Here’s a reference 7870 made by PowerColor.

[lunertexcosmo]

Thanks for all your help. And sorry about quoting that big post. Don’t know why I did that Anyways, I’m going with the Sapphire card since it seems like most people like Sapphire. And it also seems like pretty much everything has a crop of bad reviews unless it’s something like the 690 GPU so I’m not too worried about something going wrong. And if something does, then I guess I’ll just RMA

[Source]

If it were me, I’d drop the DVD/CD Burner and go with a Blu-Ray Burner. For a few dollars more your system is more than capable of playing BD movies (provided you get a sw player). This makes it a true media center.

[amf66]

Source is right. If you play blurays you can use VLC to play them for free on your computer. As I always use my TV I never think about this.

Also: make sure to get a Z77 motherboard. Not a P67 one.