Greetings!

I'm new to the site - it's been 9 years since I did my last PC build. For work I've been editing in Final Cut for several years, so it's been strictly Macs for a while. Now I'm a stay-at-home dad and recently I've been rediscovering the joys of PC gaming with some friends every Thursday evening. Unfortunately my MacBook is the low-powered anchor that prevents our group from playing higher-end games. Since I've been enjoying those Thursday evenings so much, my wife has OK'd a $2000 budget from our savings for a new gaming rig.

When playing solo, I enjoy atmospheric games like STALKER, so low noise levels are important to me to help keep the mood. Also, I value stability and longevity, so I plan on buying top-tier components, but NOT doing any overclocking or Crossfire/SLI. Just one GPU (most likely a GTX 580), the 3770K i7 Ivy Bridge when it comes out (more efficient than Sandy Bridge, and the "E" series seems like overkill), and a 256 GB SSD (seems to be the "sweet spot" right now for size/price).

That's just the background. My real question for this forum has to do specifically with my selection of case and PSU. After reading reviews, I think I'm pretty well sold on the Antec P183 case. I like the look and the separate chambers, it's well reviewed, and it would seem to work fine for a non-overclocked, single GPU system like what I'm trying to build.

Ah, but which PSU?

An online power requirement calculator put my needs around 550W based on the outline above. With some headroom, it seemed like the SeaSonic X650 would be ideal. Aside from it being highly efficient and quiet, the neat freak in me also liked the completely modular cable system.

But then I wondered how well it would work in the P183, which - although it supports traditional PSUs - really seems designed to work with Antec's proprietary PSUs like the CP-850 that pass air straight through.

The CP-850 would fit better in the P183 in the sense that it's designed to work in that type of a chamber. But it is way more wattage than I need, it's older and less efficient, and the cabling is a lot more unwieldy than it would be with the SeaSonic.

I can see pros and cons to either one. Can anyone say whether the standoff in the bottom of the P183 allows traditional PSUs with bottom-mounted fans to pull in enough air to stay cool? In the pictures it just looks restrictive, but it seems that people do it . . .

Thoughts?

Many thanks in advance!

I've used a Seasonic S12-500 in a Lia Li V2100 with very similar mounting (bottom standoff ~3cm) with no problems at all.
The Seasonic X series is semi-passive, the fan stays off with low loads. In idle that should make the X-series more quiet than the Antec unit. The Seasonic also has higher effieciency, with rising energy prices it might pay for itself (depending how much you pay for power, for me that's a given).

The GTX580 is very power hungry card (drawing ~250W in games) and the replacement is right around the corner, signified by price drops of the 580 just this week. AMD's 7950 is about as fast as the 580 and needs 160W in games and very little in idle. The only advantage nVidia has over AMD is 3D monitor support. If you don't use it, go for AMD.
The GTX680 might change that, but until the 22nd or 23rd when it comes out that's just speculation.
Hyperthreading is the only feature separating the 3770K from the 3570K (I know, +100MHz and +2MB but that makes absolutely no difference in games). The 3570K can be overclocked just like the 3770K and will save ~100$ which are much better spend on a faster graphic card in a gaming pc(i.e. 7950->7970).

IMO, AMD/ATI video drivers suck. I got suckered into switching from Nvidia to AMD on my last build, but never again.

Hm . . . I do have to admit that research online has given me the sense that avoiding AMD's drivers is justification for going with Nvidia. The "Hardware Confusion 2009" article over at Tweakguides.com laid out a case for that. The article is two years old, but the author has continued to use Nvidia cards since then.

However, boost's concern about the high wattage of the 580 might cause me to consider a lesser model from the same line (5xx series Nvidia).

I feel more confident that the SeaSonic would be a fine match with the P183, which was my biggest question. Anybody else like to weigh in on that point?

Thanks!

I have the P183 case with Seasonic X-660 PSU and it works perfectly. There is absolutely no problem running a standard PSU with P183. By putting the PSU at the bottom, it doesn't need anywhere near as much airflow as it would at the top. Putting an extra case fan in the lower chamber is easy if needed, but I did not do it. I turned my PSU upside down, so the fan is at the top, but of course, the fan rarely even runs. My thinking was also that hot air rising from the PSU could escape more easily out the top of the PSU if the fan vent faced up since the fan is not usually running.


$2000 seems like way more than needed unless you are buying a bunch of software.

Unfortunately most of nVidia's 5XX series are very power hungry.
But as I said the 6XX series will come out soon (rumors point to 22. or 23.), 5 series already had price cuts.
I will wait till these come out before I buy a new card.

Thanks, m0002a - that's exactly the kind of detail I was hoping for!  I've reworked the config a little bit, here's the shopping list so far:

$350     Intel Ivy Bridge 3770K Know this is a bit more than I need, but at least it's not an "E" series chip, which seems to double the price for no real gaming performance boost.

$250      ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe Gen 3.  Seems to be the best ASUS socket 1155 motherboard without jumping to their more expensive extreme gamer line.

$150      16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM

$350      256GB SSD (not sure of brand yet, Intel or Crucial, need to research, but 256GB seems to be good price/size sweet spot)

$275       Antec P183 case, ordered from EndPCNoise with preinstalled Acoustipack insulation and two Nexus case fans

$150        SeaSonic X750 Gold PSU

$225       Nvidia GTX 560    Unsure of which manufacturer, but the 560 is half the price of the 580, with relatively small drop in performance.  Also runs at 170W as opposed to 220W for the 580, so seems like a good value for a box trying to balance performance with quiet.

TOTAL COST:  $1750

Here is what I have (built about 10 months ago):

Antec P183 Case with Acoustipack (installed myself) - about $200 total for both
Intel 2500K CPU - Got it for $175 on-sale at MicroCenter. Just noticed that MicroCenter has it on-sale right now for $180.
XIGMATEK Aegir SD128264 CPU heatsink - $60 - not easy to install on my mb.
Asus Sabertooth P67 - $220. I would not recommend this board as I (and many others) still have "sleep" problems. Not sure about other Asus boards.
Intel 510 SSD (120 GB Sata III) - use for C Drive only - $250
WD 1.5 TB Green Drive - about $75
Seasonic X-660 PSU $150
MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC Video - Had to RMA after 6 months, new one also has problems with Google Earth (haven't tried any high end games on new card). $180 - will go back to Nvidia from now on.
8 GB of Corsair 1600 RAM - $130
Scythe case fans (2) - $30 total
DVD - $25

I probably had mail-in rebates of about $35-40 total for video and memory, but don't recall exactly.

Other than video problems, and sleep problem, great system and extremely fast.

Intel is materially more reliable than the others. See:
viewtopic.php?p=555937#p555937

That thread is super-helpful, thanks! I've also heard that Intel has one of the best SSD warranties out there at 5 years. Is that true and are they alone among manufactures in offering that kind of coverage?

I've had a P183 with a CP850 for a few years now (pretty much since they were released), and haven't been able to fault the PSU at all. It's very quiet, efficient enough (if not up to the standards of the new Gold/Platinum boxes), pretty cheap for what it is, and the mostly-modular cables are no more or less annoying than my old Corsair PSU. The cable lengths are pretty much spot on for the P183, with little in the way of hiding really required. Plus you can never have too much wattage, just too little .

Unfortunately, the CP850 isn't as cheap as it used to be, it seems - back when I got mine, it was a really good deal for that capacity of PSU. Probably just as well going for a gold/platinum PSU if it's only a case of $20-$30 more.

Thanks so much to everyone for their advice, this has been a great help.

So Intel's warranty is indeed 5 years, making them an easy choice for SSD. I'm still not sure which PSU to go with (Antec or SeaSonic) but after Mentawl's endorsement, it looks like I can't really go wrong with either one. I might go with the SeaSonic because I can't see myself doing Crossfire or SLI in the near future, and 750 watts should cover almost any single GPU system I can imagine building into this case.

Last question!

I've Settled on the Nvidia GTX 560 for my graphics card. It's at a good price/performance spit now, and draws much less power than the 570 or 580. A number of reviews say the Gainward Phantom is the quietest version of the GTX 560, but I'm in the States, and it's not available here. There are some etailers in other countries that sell this card through eBay, however.

So I'm wondering A) how much harder is it going to be to get support if the manufacturer is in another country?, and B) is there anything I would have to tweak or adjust on the card itself in order for it to work on U.S. wall current?

Does anyone know if Gainward offers support in English?

All of the internal components of your PC use voltage from your PSU, which is 12V, or 5V, or 3.3 V, etc, DC voltage. Your PSU is switchable (on the rear of the PSU) between 120/240 for the AC voltage to the wall plug.

OK - so no hardware issues with using an imported card. Now I just need an opinion or two on whether I'd be shooting myself in the foot from a warranty/support standpoint by ordering a card from Germany. Anyone have any positive or negative experiences with Gainward? If their support department responds well to email requests, then it might be worth a little bit of a risk to get their card. Thoughts?

They have in the past distributed video cards in the US. Not sure why they don't anymore.

I would send them an email and ask about warranty support for items purchased from Germany retailer and shipped to US. They may not want to pay return shipping to US if you RMA'ed it, and you would have to pay shipping cost to send to Germany (or wherever their warranty return location is). Of course, warranty terms may be different in Germany, so check on that also.

After doing some research, it appears that Gainward "may" be sold under PALIT brand name in the US (but I am not certifying that). Although not carried by NewEgg, I did see some PALIT cards on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Geforce-256-bit-E ... 698&sr=1-2

Palit is the parent company of Gainward, but their products are not the same. However, there is a Palit graphic card with basically the same cooler as on the Phantom cards from Gainward; this one.

That Palit card does look very similar - only problem is that none of the etailers listed on Palit's site actually seem to carry it!

I *did* find both the Palit Twin Light Turbo ($320) AND the Gainward Phantom ($270) on Amazon UK, however. That feels a little safer than a small German etailers selling through eBay. Given that my buying options are similar, I think I'll save the $50 and go with Gainward's 560 instead of Palit's 560 TI.

A 750w PSU is absolute overkill for your specs. I run a GTX560 and an i5-2500k on an Enermax 500w PSU and I still feel it's overpowered. I would've liked something around 400w for it, but it's getting almost impossible to find PSUs in that wattage.

If you're waiting for Ivy Bridge anyways, you will likely want to rethink the GTX 560 once nVidia rolls out their new line-up.

-
PS: AMD driver bashing is so lame. I've been alternating between AMD (ATI) and nVidia for 10 years, depending on bangs and bucks and never had any problems either way.

I don't know what the problem is, but there is definitely a problem with my system (Intel 2500K with Asus 1155 motherboard). When searching on the Internet for a solution, a lot of other people have complained about AMD video loosing sych and going black (with a message appearing that synch has been lost) and then restoring synch.

I would probably not hesitate using AMD video if using AMD processor and chipset, but not sure about the newest Intel ones.

The drivers for my 7750 wouldn't install without completely reinstalling Windows. They earned themselves another decade of scorn from me over that.

I don't doubt that. I found one website that said the way to fix my problem (same problem as encountered by "some" others who run Windows 7 64 bit with AMD cards on newer Intel mb) is to completely remove the old drivers before installing new ones, but that involved manually deleting stuff from the Windows Registry. Inexcusable IMO.

I actually went through that entire process several times and still got the mysterious "missing ini file" message. After spending two days trolling forums and trying every solution given, I reinstalled Windows. I only relented in my old refusal to touch ATI/AMD because they got to 28nm before nVidia, but I wish I'd just waited. Never again. I've been hearing that their drivers are "better now" for a decade and a half.

It would make a lot more sense to spend $120 less on the CPU (3570K), and more on the graphics card.
You'd get better gaming performance, no doubt. In general, Hyperthreading doesn't make any sense in gaming anyway:
http://www.overclock.net/t/671977/hyper ... g-in-games

In short:

It makes the CPU run hotter though.


Too bad the new Nvidia cards haven't showed up yet, the 560 Ti draws much more power than the 7850.

Among the quieter 560's:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Pali ... bo/26.html (yeah, hard to find..)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS ... II/26.html

A very good point. Part of the reason I was waiting for the Ivy Bridge procs was because of the lower power consumption. Since I'm waiting a month for those anyway, I'm waiting by default on the video card purchase as well, so there might be some more 600 series cards out by then. We'll see. Mats, I will definitely consider dropping down a notch on the proc so I can go up a notch on the graphics card - thanks!

Following up on the hyperthreading article you linked to, here's another question that occurred to me regarding RAM:

Gaming is the primary use for this machine. Let's say I've settled on a definite amount of RAM (there are lots of articles with advice on that). But I haven't come across specific advice on how to split the RAM up. If I'm using an Ivy Bridge i7, and an ASUS motherboard with dual channel and 4 RAM sockets, then is it better for gaming to get a given quantity of RAM split across two DIMMs or four? Better to divide 8 GB into 4x2GB chips, or 2x4GB chips (leaving two sockets empty).

I'm edging well out of silent PC advice here - I promise I'll stop soon, but everyone has been extremely helpful.

2 x 4 GB is the logical choice for your motherboard.
Using all the four slots from start only makes sense in socket 2011 boards, since they have four channel RAM.

2 pieces of 4GB modules makes more sense also because you can add another 2 later.

Having 4 pieces of 2GB modules would be just plain stupid, as they all would need to be replaced to get 16GB later.

No need to be rude. The question wasn't meant to be tied to a specific quantity of RAM - it's more about whether there's any benefit in a gaming environment to filling those third and fourth slots. I gave a quantity of 8GB but it could just as easily have been 16GB, asking if it was better to split that into 2 x 8GB chips or 4 x 4GB chips. At a certain point price becomes the deciding factor. But if I know whether current and near-future games will (or will not) see a big performance boost from RAM in the third and fourth slots of a dual-channel motherboard, then I'll know whether or not I should divert part of my budget to getting more RAM, and maybe go a notch down on the processor or HD.

As to the first point (adding more chips later), I've always been inclined to get my RAM in one batch, from the same manufacturer, at the same time, to help ensure stability and consistent timings. I have no hard evidence that you're really risking stability if you do mix RAM batches, it just always felt like best practices.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice, help and patience - I think I've got enough info and opinions to get me going!