First of all, I will do alot more research than just matching compnents before I assemble my own system, but for now I'd like to make sure that these basics will work together:

Motherboard

My current MoBo is standard ATX, so this Asus should fit in my case.

CPU

Memory

I picked out a Creative Fatality PCIe card and some Artic Silver compound, but those aren't as crucial to the compatability question. I also plan to stick with my current GPU for now (GTX 470) and PSU (1,000 W about 1 year old).

My employer offers up to $1,000 interest-free loans for employee personal PC purchases on a 10 month-or-less repayment plan, so I'm trying to get the best bang for my bucks. Any additional advice concerning the quality of the components is welcome. Any advice to save my money for a rainy day is futile - I gots the fever again, mommy!

First class CPU and MB. Cheap slow memory -- Intel needs fast excellent memory (AMD gets by on less as CAS is important to AMD). The CPU and MB want 8GB of 1600 or faster memory (which is cheap -- $75).




One of Many Acceptable Memories -- 1.5V for i7

Intel Certified Memory $80

What Allen says about the memory. Get this instead. Cheap and super fast. Faster memory will give you much more leeway if you are going to OC. It's easy to run memory a little slower than it's spec and sometimes very hard to run it faster than spec, which is something you have to take into consideration if you are OC due to limited memory multipliers. Like my board only has 3, 4, 5 and auto for the memory multi. I have to run my memory at 3. 4 and 5 are too fast.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...1-468-_-Product

That CPU is more expensive because it has hyperthreading. You can get the other unlocked multi CPU K processor for around 210. I saw it the other day at Fry's for $179.

I would also think about an aftermarket CPU cooler since it's ten times easier to install the CPU, then the cooler, then put it in the case rather than try to put in a better cooler later. The factory cooler is a very good paperweight.

Allen and Speedbump,
Thanks for the memories . . . er, memory tips. That is definitely the one thing I will change in my lineup. As far as after-market CPU cooling, I've never had need of it because I don't overclock. But if you still recommend it for default running speeds, what are some good solutions?

I've never had a problem with the stock CPU cooler on any CPU, even ones I've OC'd over the years to a modest amount. Well, a couple of times I've had wires get themselves caught in the fan on one or another.
Oh, and I live in FL and it's not cool here, ever.



The Jedi Master

If you are not OC, then use the stock cooler. The stock cooler uses those cheesy spring loaded plastic clips. Most of the good aftermarket coolers are heavier and have a back plate that goes on the back of the mobo and the sink is held on with real bolts and nuts. That's why it's easier to put on an aftermarket cooler before setting the mobo into the case. My case has a cutout on the mobo tray though that lets you access the back of the mobo where the CPU is so it's fairly easy to add an aftermarket cooler later.

I tried two heavy duty air coolers and water cooling (cost me roughly $30, $70, and $280 stock). In my tests, the two air coolers worked the same within a couple degrees -- and in test reports were rated within a couple degrees of the best one could do with air. The Water cooler was 10C cooler BUT did not improve overclocking. So, I recommend air cooling.

Thing is that $30 delivered cooler (COOLER MASTER Hyper 212) is so incredibly popular (because it did so much for so little $$$) that its price has been raised to $50 delivered. Not such a bargain anymore. I added an extra fan for push-pull -- useful to get 5C lower temperatures -- the fan clips are in the box.

COOLER MASTER H212

If money is no object, I have this one and its slightly better (I added some money for an extra fan to go push-pull had to ask for the extra clips):

Thermalright Venomous RT

A lot of coolers SAY they are wonderful -- but they are not. So, buyer beware. A good source for cooler tests is:

Silent PC Review

Being "cost conscious (even though I spend a lot), I can't say the above are the best for the dollar. I can say you probably won't find anything significantly cooler -- for air cooling. Too bad too many of us liked the H212 and pushed its price up little-by-little over the last 6 months (it was $40 a couple weeks or so ago).

Sure looks like the H212 is a great deal; if I were to OC a little I'd definitely consider this model.

Do you use any programs that will explicitly benefit from hyperthreading? If not, I'll second going with the I5 2500K. With the I7 2600k, you're paying ~$100/50% more for hyperthreading, and 100mhz higher stock clock speed. Just my take, that's $100 to put towards a GPU, a lot of beer, etc, any of which will likely be more benefit to you than hyperthreading.

* And if you do decide to overclock, both chips on average hit the same ceiling.

Okay Speedbump, Dick Dastardly, and anyone else who says so - I must agree with switching to the Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz. My loan is applied for and all I have is time to wait while it goes through several bureaucratic steps and hopefully approved. In the meantime I'd love to hear more ideas like the above ones so I can fine tune my shopping list.

Question: Is G. Skill a reputable brand? This is the first I've heard of it.

yes g. Skill is a reputable brand.. I was going to go with the gskil basically I have the same setup as you but have the z68 pro board and an i5 2500k save the 100 bucks and get a kick ass vid card..

I bought some mushkin brand memory for my setup got 12gb..I had bought 4gb originally but ran into running out of memory and jusy went for 8gb more for a total of 12gb should not have any memory problems know..

I would say 8gb if you have win7 64 bit would be a good base..

perhaps I missed it but what video card and psu do you have or going to buy??

My last 3 or 4 memory purchases have been GSKILL. So far, so good. They do seem to be a few dollars cheaper, yet sport the same technology, same volts, same CAS as more expensive brands -- I like that.

Truth is, memory prices are very competitive now. 8GB is the new minimum for a system -- partly because 8GB is so cheap. 16GB can lower performance microscopically if the system never uses the extra 8GB -- at least on older AMD systems.

You have to buy now. But, FWIW, a new memory process node is coming out during the summer (parts already being made). Prices are said to be competitive and performance much better (I hope that means lower CAS numbers). FWIW for others looking for high-performance memory between now and Fall.

I recommend a high-end single GPU vs CrossFireX or SLI -- for use with a single monitor. Get a card with at least 2GB of memory -- some games need it -- I notice RoF does. Both CrossFireX and SLI use "alternate frame rendering". This makes framerates smoother. However, it is not really faster in the sense of reacting to what's on the screen because two frames are rendered at once -- while some control inputs depend on the last frame rendered (hmmmm.... not such a clear explanation).

On the other hand, triple monitor Eyefinity is really worth it to a serious gamer or someone who uses their computer for business and needs several windows open. CrossFireX makes sense for Eyefinity. Nvidia allows 3 monitors with SLI, but that's an afterthought in the drivers -- AMD/ATI Eyefinity is built into the cards and explicitly supported by newer games.

Eyefinity only requires one AMD/ATI card -- seems like all the mid-level and up ATI cards support Eyefinity. But, Eyefinity needs horsepower for the best experience on the graphically intensive games. So, one might move to CrossFireX at some point. Yes, I'm an AMD/ATI fan. However, depending on one's intended uses, Eyefinity really does make sense these days. Something more to do with that extra money you save

P.S. Last thing about potential graphics cards. Being faster in terms of FPS only matters in narrow cases where games run slower than 20FPS -- and arguably never matter when games run above 60FPS (as many do). So two cards that are within 10 percent of each other in FPS (even 20 percent) will perform visually the same -- except maybe in that narrow band between 10FPS and 20FPS. Selecting between GPUs should be based on things other than FPS -- if the FPS test numbers are close. Sometimes that last 10-20 percent in FPS adds a lot to a card's price.

On that basis, factory overclocked cards are rarely worth the extra $$$. Their real value lies in having better quieter cooling -- not in FPS.

I'll be adding this thread to my "watch list" since I'll be upgrading my mobo/cpu/memory this year.

@Nephilim, I was thinking about sticking with my GTX480, but after looking at the savings by switching to the i5 2500 CPU, I decided to get a GPU as well:

ASUS GPU

My PSU is still relatively new (about 1 year old) and is 1000 Watts, so I'll not worry about it now.

By the way, are there any tips for first-time PC assemblers? Rookie mistakes you might have run into or commonly heard about? It will be my first time starting more or less from scratch. As far as bios settings, I will likely go with a default template except for disabling the on-board sound - I'm more worried about the physical installation of the hardware.

chiming in late,

But yeah, echo the memory things....

G.Skill and Corsair have both been good to me.

Also, new Egg is having July 4th Sale:
New Egg Independence Day Sale EMAIL AD

Apparently, excellent graphics card (in keeping with the CPU and MB expense) -- less noisy due to non-reference fans (hopefully), has 1.5GB memory. Occupies 3 slots which probably is OK; however, if you plan to use a sound card or other cards, its worth checking the MB layout to assure it allows for your extra card or two.

Seems like you have a real good plan

I've got a stock overclocked 570. It was considerably cheaper for only a slight reduction in performance over a 580.

Besides, I upgrade my video card roughly on an annual basis, but I only upgrade my CPU every other year, so I thought it better to get the 2600k because it will last longer. Todays $500 video card is next years' $250 card.

That reminds me, I've got my old C2D setup to sell off, a 3.3GHz CPU with a mobo and 4GB of DDR2 left over after my i7 upgrade. Surprisingly, the C2D is going new today for not much different than I paid for it.



The Jedi Master

Just some tips on building a computer. Get a nice big case with good airflow. Spending over 100 dollars on a case is a waste of money. Get one of the newer ones like mine that has the PSU in the bottom of the case where it is isolated. It sucks air in from under the case and exhausts it out the back so it adds little to heat the case. My case came with a 120mm sucking air in at the bottom front, a 120mm blowing out the back and a 140mm on top exhausting right out the top. You are going to need a big case with that big vid card.

Install the CPU, fan/heatsink and memory into the mobo and then install the mobo. Much easier. Also get a case that has a cutout so you can access the back of the mobo where the heatsink mounts.

Things to not scrimp on are the PSU and memory or you will regret it later. Get a mobo that has lots of native SATA ports. Not one that has an add on chip to get more ports as those add on chips are not as fast and require separate drivers.

Get a good name brand mobo like a ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA. Don't bother with ECS or Biostar boards.

Faster memory will give you a lot more leeway when overclocking since memory can be down clocked easily, but not OC easily. Memory dividers can only help you so much so don't buy slow bargain memory.

Jedi Master, good call on the vid card. I went ahead and changed to a 570. I'm still juggling things around until I (hopefully) get the loan but I doubt I'll bump that CPU back up to an i7 because I'm currently hovering at around $1,100 which is a little above the loan amount. Also, the price of RAM increased overnight.

Yippee ki-yayyy, loan approved and order submitted. Here is the final list of what I ordered:
................................................................................
ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL (I'm actually getting a total of 16 GB)

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K (Jedi Master, I gave in)

EVGA 012-P3-1577-KR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) HD DoubleShot 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ...

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
.......................................................................................
Thanks everybody for the advice thus far!

Minor update. I added an aftermarket CPU cooler recommended on this thread:

Cooler

And also a small SSD. The motherboard I'm getting has a feature that allows it to use an SSD as a cache for the main hard drive:



SSD

Nice!

I use my SSD for the OS and basic programs and tools. It`s nice seeing Win7 booting to login within 15 seconds....

Wow, I don't think I'll get that kind of performance. I'm only getting a small SSD to meet the requirements of that feature of my motherboard. I guess the SSD will just be a secondary drive to be controlled by the Smart Response Technology. I'll wait until the SSDs are more affordable before getting a big one and installing Windows/programs to it.

Yup,

when building the system below, I first planned to use the SSD for the OS and FSX, but then it must have a least 128 GB (FSX and stuff is around 50 GB right now), so I dropped the idea, because they are too expensive for my taste. Maybe with my next sysem in 2 to 3 years.

Kilosierra, do you run your CPU overclocked all the time or just for certain applications?

All the time.

But not really. The cool thing about Sandy Bridge is, you define the multiplier of the Turbo mode when you have a k model. But the Turbo only kicks in, when the applications (read games) demands heavy load on the CPU. CPU-Z says, while I`m writing this, the CPU is doodling along with 1,6 GHz. The 4,5 GHz is only reached in FSX f.e.. You can actually hear it, if you stress the CPU with f.e Prime, `cause the CPU Fan revs up. Clever engineering, as it saves energy, too.

Search on youtube, there are some good vids on how to OC Asus Boards. It`s really easy.

Greets

Karsten

I still have to mess with the OC settings for my CPU, haven't touched it yet.

While an SSD might boot faster, I really don't think it's necessary. My boot time is well under 30 seconds, but I've never actually timed it. Maybe I'll do it tonight just to see! I do have my PC password-protected, so should I time to the password screen or to login assuming I can type REALLY fast?



The Jedi Master

If you have a SB CPU, go for it, if I manage it, it`s really easy... You just have to set the multiplier, in my case I raised it from 34 to 45, viola, 4,5 Ghz in Turbo mode instead of 3,2 Ghz. Temps are around 60°C when stressing the CPU with Prime. That said, I have a non-stock CPU air cooler.

As for the SSD, it`s the time to the login-screen popping up. For the fun of it, I had the OS installed on both the SSD and the HD. With the HD, it was around 45 seconds.

Surplus, I turn the PC off more often, as it is turned on so fast. Saves on the electricity bill.


Do i really need it?. No. Is it fun? For sure. And btw. looding times of every program on the SSD are really fast. Opening Word, Excel and such is just BAM. Would love to see the performance of FSX on a SSD, reports say it`s really great, no more stuttering because of textures loading.

Well, tonight I play my last games on my current PC. Tomorrow morning I begin the new installation. I've never had a computer this up-to-date before. I look forward to at least a year with what I just got and maybe another 1.5 to 2 additional years with GPU upgrades.

BTW, I looked at the stock CPU cooler and the Coolermaster H212 side by side . . . I had no idea how huge an aftermarket cooler could be!

Yeah, be certain with the mounting as you don't want it pulling off the CPU due to its own weight and the thing then overheating! You don't take your PC on trips or anything so you shouldn't have to worry about motion dislodging it once you get it in place.



The Jedi Master

Well, it's all assembled and running. The CPU is hovering at around 48 degrees at normal clock speed (3.4 GHz).

The only problem I've run into so far is trying to set up my SSD with that Smart Response Technology. I installed the SSD into a SATA port. According to the Mobo manual it says to intall the Smart Response Technology software which I did. Then it says to run it and click on the "Accelerate" icon . . . except I don't have one. The SSD shows up in the interface but I don't have all the options to play with that the manual says I should by clicking the "Accelerate" icon. The manual says nothing about changing any bios settings so I didn't touch that. Any ideas?

Is that Temps under load or idle, if idle it`s a tad high IMO, mine is around 30°C on idle, around 50°C when playing FSX and around 60°C when stressing it with Prime (read 100% load on all cores).

As for your SSD, sorry can`t help you there. To be honest, I first learned in this thread about this technology. Does the software come with the Mobo? Best bet would then to contact/search Asus support.

Edit:

just did a quick Google search, seems four things needed for it to work:

1. SATA Controller set up to RAID-Mode in BIOS
2. OS installed in RAID-Mode
3. No partition for system recovery on the system
4. Intel Rapid Storage Technology Software must at least be version 10.5


Seems you need a little Google search, as said article I got that from is in German.

Thanks KiloSierra, I did some more reading in the meantime and I obviously misunderstood what I saw and read about this technology. I won't worry about it for now.

So you are giving up on it? Why?

Oh no, I'm going to continue to research until I find a solution. I meant that I will not worry too much about it.

I also took to heart your mention of your CPU running temp and decided to look into that as well. My case is kind of cramped so I decided to attach a second fan to the other side of the cooler (it was designed for it). So far the temps are dropping some to around 38 on average.

FWIW -- as you may already know this.

Correct application of the thermal compound between the heat sink and CPU is important to performance. Generally, folks apply too thick a coating. Rather, one should look on line for application instructions -- for one's thermal compound.

I use Arctic Silver. For it, in a nutshell, first wipe thermal compound on both the heat sink and CPU and then wipe all of it off using something that does not leave lint behind. All that will be left is a nearly invisible fog or film -- leave the compound in the gaps in the Coolermaster heatsink -- but wipe it level. Then, put a small/tiny drop of thermal compound in the center of the CPU and press the cooler directly down onto the drop. Move the heat sink back and forth just slightly to slowly spread the compound from the center out. Eventually, as the system runs, the compound will flow outwards in a very thin film.

But, don't use these instructions -- find them on line. I don't want to mislead.

Anyhow, correct application can make a few degrees of difference.

Also, I've noticed that folks with Intel CPUs report higher temperatures than AMD CPUs -- don't know why as Intel has low design power.

It is an art to getting the TIM between the CPU and the sink perfect. Mine idles around 40C but it's OC from 2.6Ghz to 3.9Ghz.

By the way, here is something I will try tonight to see if I can get somewhere with my Intel Smart Response Technology problem.

Everywhere I've looked I noticed that I was supposed to have set my SATA port to RAID before installing Windows. Then I was simply supposed to install that Smart Response Software and it would make the "Accelerate" tab available for configuring my SSD as a HHD cache. Well, I wasn't so sure I felt like reinstalling Windows 7 again - then I found this:

Well, so far so good. I was able to enable RAID while Win 7 was already installed. For me it was the registry entry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesIastorV

that I had to change to 0 (I backed up the registry first).

I then uninstalled the Rapid Storage Technology software.

I rebooted and in the bios enabled RAID.

Windows started up this time (instead of crashing to BSOD like it did before and instantly rebooting again).

Once in Windows I had to wait while new devices were recognized and drivers installed, then Windows restarted yet again.

Back to Windows and reinstalling the Rapid Storage Technology software, then . . . yes, restart.

Once back in Windows I started up the Rapid Storage Technology software and lo and behold, there was the elusive "Accelerate" tab.

Okay, I activated the magic acceleration just so, if for no other reason, I can tell myself that the extra $80 for the SSD were worth it. Seriously though, I will let you all know if there is any perceived difference in overall system performance. If you want actual numerical data, there are some charts out there based on testing data.

How do you like it? Just bought myself a similar setup, 2600K, P8Z68-Pro, 580GTX and an SSD. I was just going to use the SSD for windows and a few games (got the 128 gb version).

Glad you asked because I was just going to make another report. In short, I love it.

Earlier I asked about the CPU's safe operating temperatures and it was pointed out that it should be idling at about 35 degrees celsius with a good after-market cooler, not in the mid 40s like mine was. Since this is my first time building a system, I was afraid I might have messed up installing the after-market CPU heatsink. As it turns out, my case is not up to the task of providing sufficient airflow and exhaust. Last night I took the side cover of the case off and the CPU idled consistently at an average of 35 degrees.