$1500-$1800 GAMING build! Quiet!

[Herbaltylenol]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: This week. Tomorrow even.

BUDGET RANGE: $1500-$1800 CANADIAN

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: GAMING. GAMING. GAMING

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: DVD Drive, Windows 7

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: www.canadacomputers.com, www.ncix.com, www.newegg.ca

OVERCLOCKING: Yes to OC, no to CF/SLI.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1200

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Quiet + CANADIAN + able to OC good + NO CF EVER.

HDD: Samsung F3 Spinpoint 500 GB ($70 after tax...I can get Seagate 7200.12 for $45 after tax and everything. Worth it for extra quiet + performance?)

CPU: i5-750

HSF: Scythe Mugen 2 For quietness.

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 Can this get me to 3.8-4.0ghz (it's not the UD3R)? Or is the Asus P7P55 LX better? Or how about Asus P7P55D-E better? 5% chance of me ever CFing...would like to reduce price where possible (obviously)

Case: Antec P183

PSU: Antec CP-850

RAM: Gskill ECO CL7 DD3 1600 or Gskill Ripjaw CL7 DDR3 1600 or Gskill Ripjaw CL7 DDR3 1600 what's the diff? Eco seems better due to low voltage requirement.

GPU: Which of these 5870s?

Monitor: Asus 25.5"

NOTE: Getting most parts from Canadacomputers cause I'll be able to get a discount! How does it look? Namely out of the list of 5870s + the mobo choice?

[JamieG]

GPU: Which of these 5870s?

The Sapphire 5870 Vapor-X would be my choice. There is a thread about this card somewhere around the forums. I seem to have lucked out with my 5870 Vapor-X and got a card with a fan that idles at lower rpm than most. The model number listed at that site indicates that the card is the Rev 2 blue PCB model.

For the P183, if you are looking for a very quiet system, you should consider some aftermarket fans to replace the stock Tri-Cools. Scythe and Nexus make good fans.

[Herbaltylenol]

GPU: Which of these 5870s?

The Sapphire 5870 Vapor-X would be my choice. There is a thread about this card somewhere around the forums. I seem to have lucked out with my 5870 Vapor-X and got a card with a fan that idles at lower rpm than most. The model number listed at that site indicates that the card is the Rev 2 blue PCB model.

For the P183, if you are looking for a very quiet system, you should consider some aftermarket fans to replace the stock Tri-Cools. Scythe and Nexus make good fans.

Hey, thanks for your reply! Indeed, I'm thinking Vapor-X... is the Rev2 blue PCB model good then?

And yes, I do have a list of potential fans for the P183. But I want to actually hear the Tricools first, and if they do suck, I'll swap fans.

How's everything else?

[Herbaltylenol]

Sorry posting again...

But I'm worried about the CP-850. It does seem overkill, and since it won't be near peak wattage, won't that reduce efficiency a lot?

It's reviews as silent though

[protellect]

It seems kinda silly to overclock when you're going to be bottlenecked by the other components [HDD] you're not spending as much money on.

Unless you just like the thrill of it.

As for the component recommendations, I'm partial to high end corsair power supplies myself, they are over-engineered and I've had great luck with them, and usually are very quiet.

I'd recommend their hx620, cx650 or cx750 supplies.
The latter should give you room to add a second 5870 if you wanted it.

I'm also consistently partial to ASUS motherboards. I used to like gigabyte boards, but had some issues with the onboard NIC. Though note that the onboard NIC on the ASUS motherboards is the same maker [realtek?].

Finally, I've also had significant luck with G.SKILL RAM. I think the GSKILL Ripjaw's have heatsinks, and the ECO ones don't. The ECO probably has those EPP profiles to default to the stock/recommended speed/voltage/timings. The Ripjaws might have additional EPP profiles that utilize higher voltages.

As for the hard drive, consider buying a couple for RAID0 or RAID10, or adding some SSD for your favorite games. You're going to notice a significant speed increase from SSD or RAID0 over overclocking and potentially making your already fast system unstable.

Even adding a second 500GB drive just for games will give you a noticeable speed increase.

Antec P183 is a very nice case to build in. I've built about 20 computers in the Antec Solo, and I like it a bit better, but the P183 will take your very long graphics card much better.

Video cards? I'm partial to XFX. The ASUS cards look like the reference card, so I'd recommend that.

Honestly, I'd say save the 100$+ and go for a 5850. Add a second one later when you want more performance. Be sure to get a power supply with enough PEG connectors.

I haven't found any games that my 5850 + stock i7-860 doesn't conquer at 2560x1600 [running a 30" HP, and for games 2x1TB blacks in RAID0]

[Herbaltylenol]

Hey thanks for the reply!

The Samsung (or the Seagate) does not bottleneck anything I've read numerous reviews on the harddrives, CPU, and general OCing. Almost everyone that OCs a i5-750 can get near 4.0 Ghz, which is good enough for me. I'll be satisfied with 3.8 Ghz

The Corsair PSUs, while really good, don't give much value when compared to the Antec CP-850. Take a look at http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... 4&reid=142

It's one of the best PSUs they've rated...and it's really cheap for its wattage.

I'm still not quite sure about the Mobo yet Just seems like I'm forking over $15 more for an Asus with SATA6/USB3.

Not quite sure what you mean about the RAM. Let's say the ECO series does have EPP profiles for speed/timings/voltage, what's bad about it?
Here's 2 reviews for the ECO saying they are quite good
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews ... _eco/6.htm
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha ... iew-5.html

They don't have tall heatspreaders either...but if anyone can tell my a reason to not go with the ECO, I'll definitely just get the Ripjaws...but so far $5 more low profile + low voltage RAM seems the way to go.

Definitely not getting more than 1 HDD or an SSD. For gaming, I'm reading they only help with load times, and I'd rather just wait till the market is more saturated before I get them.

I also want the XFX But that store only has Asus/Sapphire/HIS/Powercolor/Gigabyte...and if the discount comes through, I think paying $50-60 less for an Asus or Sapphire is worth it over lifetime warranty.

I don't see myself Crossfiring...only if in 3-4 years the 5870 is like $50, then I'll CF.

Thanks again, will still appreciate more responses!

[Herbaltylenol]

Bump, any more feedback/advice?

[loimlo]

Are you going to use this system to browse the web or type words? If so, I suggest you swapping a few case fans in P183 for better ones like Scythe, Nexus etc. Tricools are relatively loud in a very quiet system.

[protellect]

The Samsung (or the Seagate) does not bottleneck anything

Everything you're going to be doing with your computer : loading games, loading your web browser, loading into windows is all going to be bottlenecked at HDD read/write/access times.

You're always waiting for your hard drive to do things.

Everything else you have there won't be bottlenecked by CPU power [unless you're compressing video] or GPU [and there isn't much that a 5870 doesn't get 60fps on]

The antec looks like a nice supply. I've just been very happy/had a lot of success with corsair supplies. I've used 20 or so of them at work with no problems. It doest have a comparable 5 year warranty, but 4 12v rails vs a single 12v rail, sort of a choose your poison.

As for the memory, I'm not saying one type of ram is better than the other, just explaining the differences, since you asked in your original post

what's the diff? Eco seems better due to low voltage requirement.

Hope your build goes well. ^^

[MikeC]

P183 + CP850 is a good combo. Not the most efficient around (it's not 80+ gold) but pretty good and very quiet, v good value. Quieter than any of the Corsairs... tho the fan in the Antec can sometimes tick at slow speed -- whether you can hear it or not over the video card fan. At idle, your system will probably pull under 100W... but at load you're probably >300W.

I agree that the HDD will be the #1 bottleneck. You might consider adding a 30~80gb SSD (depending on your needs) as the OS drive, save the HDD for data storage only. (forget RAID, imo, it's just a PITA, less reliable than a single drive + backup in most cases, and doesn't give enough performance boost. Also, noisier.)

Avoid dual video cards like the plague if you want optimum energy efficiency. A single high end video card usually beats 2 mid-cards in performance with less power, noise and heat.

[ntavlas]

I have to agree with everyone else who recommends an ssd unless you are using another computer for web browsing and productivity. Even so, it can considerably shorten booting/loading times.


I would also consider the hd5850. Slightly less heat and noise compared to the 5870 and should run recent games well @1900x1200.

Finally, the cp650 might be a better match to the power profile of your planned build while still giving you the advantages of it`s bigger brother.

[davidrees]

I have to agree with everyone else who recommends an ssd unless you are using another computer for web browsing and productivity. Even so, it can considerably shorten booting/loading times.


I would also consider the hd5850. Slightly less heat and noise compared to the 5870 and should run recent games well @1900x1200.

Finally, the cp650 might be a better match to the power profile of your planned build while still giving you the advantages of it`s bigger brother.

SSDs are nice, but modern games are quite expansive and getting enough SSD space for a serious gamer would be expensive.

Also, as nice as a 5850 is, it is not overkill and may feel underpowered for modern FPS games like Bad Company 2.

If you are a serious gamer, a 5870 is still not overkill and with your budget, you should seriously consider a 5970.

I have a 4870X2 which is somewhere between those those two cards performance wise (only without DX11) and there are plenty of games that tax my card (BC2, Just Cause 2).


The card you choose is up to you, but I personally would not buy the Vapor X series as from what I have read, there are not exactly quiet, just less noisy.

You might consider buying a regular card and using the cost difference to add an aftermarket cooling solution to the card. That is what I did on my 4870X2 - I got the Arctic Cooling HSF and they have one out or nearly out for all the high end 5000 cards.

I don't really care for the Antec 180 series cases - I don't like the looks but a lot of people seem to love them. You can build a reasonably quiet gaming system in almost any good case by using only high quality fans and cooling systems and isolating vibration and resonance. I think you will get better results using that method than you will from relying on a "special" case to reduce the noise of standard components.

But ultimately, it's up to you and a lot of gamers think anything less than a jet engine is "quiet" where as a lot of people on here are irritated by the faintest whoosh of slightly too many fan RPMs and the softest seek noise of a suspended, quiet mode hard drive has driven others to extreme lengths.

What ever you do, please post your selection and your subjective experience.

Good luck.

[MikeC]

Finally, the cp650 might be a better match to the power profile of your planned build while still giving you the advantages of it`s bigger brother.

No such beast. only 850 and 1000 in this series. The 850 gets to 83% efficiency at only a little over 100W and reaches a high of around 85% at ~300W, so it's not a bad match at all.