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Advice on computer rebuild


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I presently have a system I built about 4-5 years ago and it is in need of an upgrade.

Parts presently in the system are:

 

Case - Antec 900

Motherboard - Abit IP35 - Pro

Memory - Brand unknown 4 Gbyte

Video Card - NVidea GEForce 8800GTS

CPU - Intel E7200 Core 2 Duo

Primary HD - Western Digital Raptor 150Gbyte

Secondary HD - Western Digital Caviar 640 Gbyte

OS - Windows 7 retail

CPU cooling fan - Zerotherm BTF80

 

Will keep the case and secondary HD, and replace the rest with the following

 

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4

Memory - 16 Gbyte Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM

Video Card - EVGA super clocked GEForce GTX 660 Ti

CPU - Intel core I5-3570K ivy bridge 3.4 Ghz

Primary - Adata 256 GByte SSD

OS - Upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate

CPU cooling fan - Zalman 92mm CPU cooler

 

These are not written in stone and would like to run them by some others more experienced than I. I appreciate any feedback given and will answer questions if any. Thanks.

 

garmick

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Suggest replacing mobo with Asrock Extreme3, more reliable.

For RAM try and get Samsung, it overclocks better. 8GB is enough, but no harm in taking 16 if it's 2x8. Do not buy 4x4.

 

Why do you need W7 ultimate? Waste of money if you ask me.

 

Fan - anything 92mm is a waste of 3570K. Get Thermalright Macho HR-02 or NZXT Havik 140 or Zalman CNPS-10X performa, mb 11X.

SSD - you don't even give the model, can't tell anything. I suggest Plextor M5S or M3 or Crucial M4 or Corsair Neutron.

All in order of preference.

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Sounds pretty good for the most part. The only thing I'd change for sure the RAM and OS. 16GB sounds boss to have, but the problem is it's next to impossible utilize even half that, unfortunately. I personally have 12GB of 1333MHz RAM and run Windows Vista which most claim is a RAM hog, which I entirely disagree with, but I still never get near the 8GB I wanted in the first place, let alone 12.

 

What I would look into is instead of 16GB, if you halfed it to 8, you could either simply save that cash for something else, or you can even get faster RAM for the same or possibly even less and still save money. The faster speed isn't, from what I've read, a huge leap in performance, but it is still a slight boost and either way, it will help out more than having more GB. Your motherboard you picked supports up to 1600MHz, by the way.

 

As for Windows 7 Ultimate, Ultimate isn't worth the money most the time. Check out this chart on good old Wikipedia:

 

Windows 7 Comparison

 

If you'll be using the features in Ultimate, then I'd say yeah, but other than those, Professional is the highest I'd upgrade to and you'd save a good bit of money there too. Of course, there's also Windows 8 which is dirt cheap (about time it's priced decently), and you'd be totally up to date and it does have a lot of good new features, especially under the hood improvements. Not that Windows 7 is going away anytime soon, but just somethin' to think about maybe. You can bypass all the Metro crap as well with several different options, and the same applies for getting a start menu back. Google Classic Shell, Vistart, StartIsBack, or just Windows 8 Start Menu. There are a lot of options out there, and the ones I listed are actively being developed too. There isn't much word on how all Bethesda games do on it yet, but gaming and other tasks have been benchmarked as being almost the same, with Windows 8 being slightly, and I mean very slightly, slower in a few. But it just came out, drivers should improve. It's a shame Windows 7 is still so much at most locations even though 8 is reasonably priced. But I'd do research on that for yourself, you might still be able to download Windows 8 and test it out also. Legally of course, MS offered it. Enough of my rambling, hope this helped in some way.

Edited by AxlRocks
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Suggest replacing mobo with Asrock Extreme3, more reliable.

For RAM try and get Samsung, it overclocks better. 8GB is enough, but no harm in taking 16 if it's 2x8. Do not buy 4x4.

 

Why do you need W7 ultimate? Waste of money if you ask me.

 

Fan - anything 92mm is a waste of 3570K. Get Thermalright Macho HR-02 or NZXT Havik 140 or Zalman CNPS-10X performa, mb 11X.

SSD - you don't even give the model, can't tell anything. I suggest Plextor M5S or M3 or Crucial M4 or Corsair Neutron.

All in order of preference.

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Thanks for the reply. Will check on mobo and most everyone seems to think 8 GByte ram is enough so will probably go that way. As far as W7 Ultimate, what I really wanted was an upgrade to Windows 7 Pro, but didn't see it in Newegg's stock. Will keep on checking as that is not that important . I still have W7 home retail and can install that. Will take advise on fan and get a Zalman 10X performa. The SSD is an ADATA SX900 256GB SSD, and it looked like a good deal.

 

garmick

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The Video Card doesn't have a very good cooler, there are far better ones available.

Open for suggestions.

 

Asus

Gigabyte

MSI

 

all very good cards from very good manufacturers. Asus's is the highest out of the box clock, though they are all so close that you probably wouldnt even notice. Though i hear Asus's cards can run a bit hotter/louder. Gigabyte's cooler has been notoriously good, esp on the newest 600/7000 series, achieving cool Temps and low sound. and MSIs is just as good, the Twin Frozr cooler they use has been good for several generations, and this one is no exception. feel free to do some research if you want, but any of these three will be a great choice. even when one card runs hotter we are talking a few degrees C, nothing major, same with audio. usually within a few decibels of each other and performance as well. within a few FPS of each other. all three choices are good.

Edited by hoofhearted4
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R7950 windforce

or

R7950 Vapor-X

And you get 3x games with it.

 

Overclocking beasts. If the reference clocks are 800mhz, my windforce is clocked 45% higher than that (1150mhz). And the temps are only around 64C even with the killer OC.

BTW, with 12.11 drivers the 7950 wins 660ti in raw gaming power.

 

EDIT: And the memory... the difference with 2133mhz and 1333mhz is minimal, you really dont need to OC RAM if you arent hunting for new OC records. Iirc difference in games is 1-2fps.

Edited by kalikka
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