Two builds (I'm special like that)

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Pyotr

New Member
Hihi. As usual, more text than required from me. Sorry in advance. :p
Might actually order me some parts and build a computer this week (hooray!).
So far, I have a good monitor and a case (NZXT Phantom; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146068 ) that should be good to build in according to review.

I have also made up my mind sort of when it comes to most parts, which is progress for me. Note that I will link the newegg link IF I can find it, and I will also list the price (roughly since I'm too lazy to convert exact amounts from Swedish currency) in Euro. If you're American and convert them to USD and think they are high, yeah. Welcome to socialist Sweden, where we get taxed up our behinds.... but free healthcare! Probably won't be an issue in general unless you're super picky about the prices I get. ;)

Base of the beast
PSU: Corsair HX 650W, 99 euro
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX670 2GB, 360 euro
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB, 78 euro
SSD: Samsung 830 128GB, 99 euro
RAM: Corsair XMS3 Vengeance 8GB (4x2), 60 euro (you don't have these on Newegg? Shame!)
CPU cooling (will probably come in handy to be honest): Noctua NH-U9B SE2, 47.5 euro

All these things I'm fairly certain about. Might get a TX instead of HX PSU for example, but shouldn't need to change anything major about the list.

Motherboards
The thing that has been keeping me sleepless however, is the CPU. AMD or Intel, all that stuff. At least I have it nailed down to the i5 3570K on Intel's side, and pretty much damn anything when it comes to AMD. The only thing that seems to differ is number of cores.. :p
I won't ask you cool people to make up my mind, unless you really want to, I can do that myself eventually. And it's not a super big deal if it turns out slightly wrong. But if you feel like you can make a good point for either side, go ahead.

In any case, whichever I pick I will need a motherboard. So here are some options within my budget:

AMD
Asus M5A97
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
I guess the 970XA would be in my budget too, but I won't overdo it with links..

Intel
MSI Z77A-G43
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H

Bonus question
Also, if I were to pick AMD in the end, should I just go for the FX-8120 and overclock it, since it's about the same price as the other FX CPUs except 8150? Or maybe the cooling I picked isn't enough for that?

Goal
The things I will use this computer for is games, games, some games and pretty much nothing at all besides games. Except maybe do some livestreaming of... games. This machine should do it just great, right?
Whichever CPU I get I will probably do some MINOR overclocking. Will the motherboards handle it?

So there you have it. :D Any recommendations, warnings, suggestions, experiences, would love to hear it.
 
All right, you got a good base going. Here are some recommendations:

For the SSD, any one of these are just as good, but much cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211602
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211596
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148529
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Newegg does have the XMS3!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...01459 600006069&IsNodeId=1&name=8GB (2 x 4GB)

For the CPU, you'll have an argument here. Intel is faster per core, and the 3570k is the one to get. But I have a AMD 6100 with a 670 and it maxes all my games out. So the argument is always there for both sides.

The 8120 is a great choice. It is really cheap for what it does. But games won't use all those cores, so that's why I went with the 6100.

For the motherboard, MSI and Gigabyte are good brands. I'd stay away from Asus, they have a tendency to arrive dead. I have had the Gigabyte 970A and its a great board.
 
My brother loves his Crucial m4 SSD.. But are those things stable? Wouldn't want to lose my OS just like that one day.

And sadly, can't use Newegg for price comparison, but I'll see if I find them over here. :)

Edit: Checked prices, and the one I listed is "only" 10 euro (12.2880 USD) more expensive than the cheapest 120+GB SSD over here. For once, we don't have absolutely crap prices. :D I'm guessing it might be because Samsung are kind of big here and there is a lot of supply of them.
 
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Ah, not cheaper here, sadly. x) 110 euro compared to the Samsung I linked at 99. Not a huuuge difference, but at least something I can save some money on. :)
 
The cheapest m4 is 105 euro. What bugs me about the m4 is the write speed. Completely irrelevant, I know. But the Samsung has twice of that and most others have the same write speed as read speed.* And it's more expensive.

*According to the site I will buy from
 
Oh darn, look at that. I picked the good one for once. :D

Totally bummed out about the lack of opinions about the other pieces though. I assume claptoman knows what he's talking about so maybe I should just stick to those parts and decide on the CPU ASAP?
 
The other stuff you've got is all good. If you were to pick the AMD processor, get the 8120 and overclock the heck out of it, yes, with that cooler. With the Noctua cooler you'd easily get 4.4 or 4.5GHz out of the 8120 I reckon. The 8120 is unlocked so overclocking is as easy as changing a few numbers.
 
Schweet. :o Might not NEED those cores for games right now, but when games start supporting 8 "real" cores, guess who will stand there laughing like a maniac. :D
But which motherboard is preferable?

I also figured out why the Samsung was so cheap for me. It's on a sale this week.. x) Same with the graphics card. The latter by 15 euro and the SSD by about 10.
 
Those boards are both good, Gigabyte tends to have better customer support though, so I'd take the GB, but I have an ASUS board right now and I've had several prior to this one and I've never had an issue.
 
Very specific question: If I buy any kind of CPU for this build (IF...) do I get some third party thermal paste or can I run and overclock with the one applied to the cooler I linked? It's not expensive or anything, just good to know which works.
 
Well I used the thermal paste which was pre-applied on the heatsink, cos I'm a cheap kinda guy and can't afford any proper thermal paste, but it's probably best to use some proper thermal paste such as Arctic Silver 5 or something. You'd get the best overclock that way and if you use good thermal paste you'll get good temps too.
 
All right, with the FX-8120 and Gigabyte motherboard, I'm at 980 euro (not converting for you Americanios right now, sorry :p) which is WAY in my budget. :D Seriously considering clicking the order button, but my brother is trying to convince me of low profile RAM sticks. x) Will the ones I linked fit with the motherboard and the fan?
 
I'm a Brit. :P I just linked you to an American site. ;)

Umm... well that cooler is massive (the Noctua) so fitting 4 DIMMs would be a challenge, but you've only planned to get 2x4GB, and 2x4GB would fit fine if you position the sticks as far away from the cooler as possible but still in a dual-channel configuration. If you plan on upgrading to 16GB any time soon, then it may be worth either getting low-profile RAM or taking a look at another cooler. Corsair make some good all-in-one water coolers which are meant to be pretty good, Antec make some too. However, if you're planning on sticking with 2x4GB for a while, I'd say leave it.
 
Yeah, but Newegg is good to show parts at least. :p Besides, I only used Newegg in my first post.
I actually considered ordering from the UK, but shipping was almost higher than the part costs.

Good you brought that up.. I have seen some of the water coolers you are talking about (specifically the H60, but not sure that was Corsair). How are they for cooling, really? I have seen both negative and positive comments about them. And the CPU cooler I linked has gotten pretty good reviews. At the same time, something like the H60 is pretty cheap, just a bit more than the Noctua.

On the other hand, I see no reason to go above 8GB right now.
 
You're right about not needing more than 8GB. I have 16GB now (guess I should put my specs back in my signature) and it's nice but probably overkill for most things. 8GB will serve you well for another few years definitely, and by the time you need more, 16GB will cost what 8GB costs today I reckon.

I don't know an awful lot about Corsair's water coolers, but I've heard good and bad things about them too. Apparently sometimes they can be quite noisy (H100 especially), but I think the H50, H60 and H70 units are fine. As far as cooling goes, they're very good because it's liquid cooling. You would get a very good overclock with an 8120 and say an H60, maybe better than the Noctua, but if better than probably not much better at all. I'd say if it's not much expensive then it may be a good option for you. Especially if you do upgrade in the future for whatever reason.
 
Hm, probably won't put in water cooling after all. At least not yet. Struggling to find GOOD low profile memory. Seems I can't find the Corsair Vengeance anywhere. :p
Thinking G.Skill instead. Either their Sniper or their Ares. But that would mean I would have to order from more than one site and that's complicated. Are G.Skill any good at all?
 
Yeah G.Skill are great! I'm using RipJaws-X 1600MHz from G.Skill now. Excellent memory!

You can get low profile Vengeance RAM, and G.Skill make low profile stuff too. If you give me a link to the site where you're buying all this from I'll see if I can find anything for you. :)
 
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