Advice on building my first Desktop

qwertyasdfg · Oct 9, 2011

Evening All,

I've started choosing bits and bobs for my first build and was just after some advice and opinions on what I should and should not go for?

1. Case Wise, I'm looking at the cooler master silencio rc-550 @ £65
2. PSU - coolmaster GX-650 @ £52
3. Cooler - corsair hydro series h60 @ £50
4. Processor - i5-2500k @ £168 or the i7-2600k @ £240
5. Motherboard - gigabit ga-z68p-ds3 @ £76 or the asus p8z68-v lx @ £80
6. Graphics Card - EVGA GeForce GTX 560 @ £140
7. RAM - corsair vengenance 8gb 1866Mhz @ £45
8. SSD - OCZ 120GB vertex plus series 2.5" @ £100
9. Hard Drive - 2tb samsung spinpoint @ £55
10. Blu-ray writer?????? LG, Pioneer, Sony

The computer is going to be used by my Niece for her photography and graphic design projects, then by Me for gaming and finally by my Brother for business.

What do you guys reckon? Not too sure on what processor, motherboard or cd/dvd/blu-ray reader/writer to go for and any further advice and suggestions would be much appreciated and welcomed.

Thanks in advance for your time, help and advice.

little_pob · Oct 9, 2011

Might be worth throwing in a graphics tablet for your niece. Wacom are the most well known brand, but there are offerings from Trust and others.

If you intend to use the feature, the automatic setup for Intel Smart Response Technology on the Gigabyte board sounds like a great addition. However, to my mind, the board is "missing" USB3.

With the graphics card I assume it's a GTX 560Ti 1GB? If not you might be better off with a GTX 460, or HD 6870 1GB and overclocking it.

For what it's worth, the cost to performance does not favour DDR3 1866 over DDR3 1600.

£100 is a very good price for a 120GB SATA 3Gb/s SSD. However, as both mobos you've spec'ed support them, have you considered a SATA 6Gb/s for £20-30 more? The read/write speeds are almost double.

From experience of the 5400RPM Samsung 2TB F4EG, you'll get noticeable performance drop off when multitasking. When multitasking I was either downloading to the drive, playing music from the drive and moving 0.8-1.5GB files to an external, or downloading to the drive and playing back video from the drive. In the first instance the speed at which files transferred was impeded, in the second I was getting noticeable stutter in the video play back. I've since swapped it out for a 7200RPM drive that runs without issue.

Spectre · Oct 9, 2011

Second HDD might be useful for backup images since there will be several users, more to go wrong.

qwertyasdfg · Oct 9, 2011

Thanks for your input pal, will look into the tablet thing!

With regards to a mobo, what would you reccommend??

The GFX card is EVGA GeForce GTX 560 850MHz 1GB PCI-Express 2.0 x16 HDMI SuperClocked EVGA GeForce GTX 560 850MHz 1GB PCI-Express 2.0 x16 HDMI SuperClocked (01G-P3-1461-KR) - dabs.com

Noted your advice on the RAM, will go for the ddr3 1600 instead.

Your also right about the SSD drive, if I guna go down that route, why not do it right!! I've seen the OCZ agility 3 series 120GB SATA III for £120 or maybe the corsair CCSD-f120gb3-bk force series 3 for £130.

With regards to the HD, i think I'm guna drop down to 2 1TB 7200RPM HD's seems to be cheaper than getting one 2TB one and also covers any issue's that may arise with multiple users as Spectre mentioned.

What do you guys reckon about the processor and the blu-ray writer? Any suggestions??

Thanks again for your input, time and help!

little_pob said:
Might be worth throwing in a graphics tablet for your niece. Wacom are the most well known brand, but there are offerings from Trust and others.

If you intend to use the feature, the automatic setup for Intel Smart Response Technology on the Gigabyte board sounds like a great addition. However, to my mind, the board is "missing" USB3.

With the graphics card I assume it's a GTX 560Ti 1GB? If not you might be better off with a GTX 460, or HD 6870 1GB and overclocking it.

For what it's worth, the cost to performance does not favour DDR3 1866 over DDR3 1600.

£100 is a very good price for a 120GB SATA 3Gb/s SSD. However, as both mobos you've spec'ed support them, have you considered a SATA 6Gb/s for £20-30 more? The read/write speeds are almost double.

From experience of the 5400RPM Samsung 2TB F4EG, you'll get noticeable performance drop off when multitasking. When multitasking I was either downloading to the drive, playing music from the drive and moving 0.8-1.5GB files to an external, or downloading to the drive and playing back video from the drive. In the first instance the speed at which files transferred was impeded, in the second I was getting noticeable stutter in the video play back. I've since swapped it out for a 7200RPM drive that runs without issue.

little_pob · Oct 9, 2011

Either of the 2 motherboards you've picked will do you well. It boils down to which has the feature set you want. If you like the sound of the "EZ Smart Response" that the Gigabyte board is offering, but want some future-proofing in the form of USB3, have a look at the GA-Z86XP-UD3R. You will lose the mSATA dock though.

I hadn't realised the GTX 560 had gotten to a similar price point as the GTX 460. Unless you want to shell out the extra £30+ for a 560Ti, keep the graphics card you spec'ed in.

The 2500K and 2600K are both excellent CPUs. Both have great gaming and overclocking reputations. Choice is ultimately down to your budget.

Blu-ray R/RE discs are still too expensive for my pocket, but the price of the writers are now roughly what I paid for my first BD/HD-DVD combo reader! Going off the rep for their DVD writers I think I'd be more inclined to go for a Pioneer...

qwertyasdfg · Oct 9, 2011

Once again, thank you very much for your input, I couldn't find the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3R anywhere but I found the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 and the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P, the only difference I found in the "P" version, is that it cost more and did not have mSATA or am I missing something here??

little_pob said:
Either of the 2 motherboards you've picked will do you well. It boils down to which has the feature set you want. If you like the sound of the "EZ Smart Response" that the Gigabyte board is offering, but want some future-proofing in the form of USB3, have a look at the GA-Z86XP-UD3R. You will lose the mSATA dock though.

I hadn't realised the GTX 560 had gotten to a similar price point as the GTX 460. Unless you want to shell out the extra £30+ for a 560Ti, keep the graphics card you spec'ed in.

The 2500K and 2600K are both excellent CPUs. Both have great gaming and overclocking reputations. Choice is ultimately down to your budget.

Blu-ray R/RE discs are still too expensive for my pocket, but the price of the writers are now roughly what I paid for my first BD/HD-DVD combo reader! Going off the rep for their DVD writers I think I'd be more inclined to go for a Pioneer...

little_pob · Oct 10, 2011

qwertyasdfg said:
Once again, thank you very much for your input, I couldn't find the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3R anywhere but I found the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 and the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P, the only difference I found in the "P" version, is that it cost more and did not have mSATA or am I missing something here??

D'oh! The GA-Z86XP-UD3R is listed on the Gigabyte website, but I didn't think to check it was actually available as the Z86 chipset is only a few months old.

Both the GA-Z68XP-UD3 and GA-Z68XP-UD3P motherboards have USB3. The only physical difference seems to be the mSATA connection on the UD3. From the price difference, I'd assume the UD3P is a premium model, so it may have a more advanced BIOS/UEFI.

qwertyasdfg · Oct 10, 2011

Here's what I've ended up getting so far:-

gigabit GA-Z68XP-UD3 @ £105 from box
coolmaster silenco rc-550 case @ £63 from ebuyer
corsair hydro series h60 @ £50 from dabs
corsair vengenance 8gb 1600Mhz @ £45 from dabs
corsair 120gb force series 3 SSD @ £130 from ebuyer
corsair cx 600 PSU @ £50 from dabs
2x Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive @ £82 from ebuyer

Processor, GFX card and blu ray writer yet to purchase.

Anyone seen the i5 2500k cheaper than £165 including VAT and delivery from a reputable supplier online??

Advice on building my first Desktop

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