Hello, and first, I'm sorry if it's not proper to just jump out and ask for help without first scouring many of the other posts. I'm just getting frustrated to some degree with the overwhelming choices available for PC components any more. The last time I did a build, it didn't seem that difficult to make decisions, maybe it's age, or lack of staying on top of things. I'll give a quick background as to where I am, and what I hope to accomplish. I also just realized this is a massive wall of text, and again I apologize if it's not appropriate for this board.
Currently I have a decent running PC using an Intel Core2 Quad Q9300 CPU. Though I can't say the thing is a slouch, it is approaching 4 years old. I've gone through a couple of motherboards, and in the process have retained my legacy DDR2 memory which has to be getting on 6 years old at this point. Not only is it challenging finding LGA775 boards, let alone ones that support DDR2, the system is starting to show its age, especially when working on my work laptop which as a Sandy Bridge i7. I've also updated the graphics card about a year ago to the GeForce GTX 560ti Superclocked from EVGA, and updated the PSU to a Thermaltake 850w, and a Corsair case I simply love for the ease of hidden cable management.
So that's the system I have. I want to use what I can, or rather what makes sense to re-use to "future proof" for a little while anyway. I'm not a power PC enthusiast, however, I'm also someone who feels it better to buy good, powerful products for the long haul as opposed to economical short term band-aids. I do find myself usually looking at the more expensive items also, because I figure, I don't know what all that stuff is, but I'm sure by buying the top model, I'll never feel like, ohhh I wish I had purchased that instead. However, I can say that I probably don't use everthing my current system offers. That's where I'm hoping you good folks could possibly help. Over the past week, I've done a fair share of newegg research, and I think I'm at a point where I have a few questions about my decisions before buying. And one big one about technology.
CPU: Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) Kingston Hyper-X DDR3-1600
So, those are the first parts of this process. I'm looking at the 3770-K mainly for it's overall benchmark scores, even before over clocking. Overclocking however isn't something I've done much with before, however from what I've gathered, this is a pretty straight forward process with the ASUS UEFI. I'm not looking to super cool this thing, just push it a little further. I hear 4.2 isn't that hard to achieve with a good fan. Please tell me if I'm an idiot for wanting to do this with little experience, or hey guy, just stick with the 3770 and call it good.
The Motherboard decision is from trusting ASUS as a brand. I've had their boards in the past, and never felt anything was lacking. However, I currently have a cheap Gigabyte that was a hold over after my last one died to a bad PSU and it hasn't caused any problems either. I know the Motherboard is on the expensive end, but I like the fact that it has a plethora of I/O, including a lot of USB3, HDMi, etc. I'm hoping using this, I can keep my 560ti (more on this later) for a while yet, using the VirtueMVP software as a tool to output my discrete graphics through the HDMi on the Motherboard. Or, is that a terribly bad idea as well? Will I lose performance doing this? Am I understanding the Lucid technology properly here? They also talk about this chip in between the 2 PCIe 3.0 slots helping with bandwidth for the PCI lanes as well. This get's into an SLi question I'll ask in a bit. This feature is only available on their Deluxe board, I can't see it in the marketing on their site, but it's references in several videos referring to it. I could be just getting swallowed by all the marketing hype. I do want good sound quality as well. It doesn't have to be ultra high end, but I don't want it to suck. I fell like if they offered a full size ROG board for the Z77 chipset, that would probably be more along the lines of what I am after. However, all they have available at the moment is the GENE in mATX format.
This leads into upgrading the memory. DDR3 right, simple. 16GB sounds like a decent number without being resonable. Ok, I hit search and there's still 233 choices. From what I can tell, and please, let me know if I'm wrong, there's very little gained from overclocking the memory? The Z77 and the i7 will support up to 1600, so I'll narrow my results by that. I'm still looking at a huge variety of choices. After looking at a lot of "cool looking" RAM, and a lot of marketing hype, I made the simple decision again to go with a brand I trust, Kingston. They offer one configuration of 4x4GB RAM, that made that process actually simple. However, I see a lot of people using G Skill and Patriot in their builds. Are there advantages? Is it looks? I want reliable, I don't think I want to OC the RAM. Does 4x4GB offer any differences over 2x8GB? Someone told me keeping each DIMM smaller means faster latency, is that true, or a line of BS that I swallowed?
Finally we get into some of the areas I have real questions with. Graphics. I currently have a 560ti Superclocked, that I was quite happy with when I bought it a year ago. I'm thinking I buy an SLi board and just pick up a second one of these in the $250 range. However, am I loosing anything by not getting one of the 670's, besides double the cost? Is PCIe3 going to give me a noticeable gain? Someone suggested I just run the card as is, and see if I even need a second 560ti. I'm not afraid to pick up a second one of these cards, or a 670 if I feel I will confidently see noticeable differences. But I don't want or just blatantly waste my money either for negligible gains. I also don't want to pick up a second 560ti and see that a single 670 would rock that setup. This, besides the processor is or can definitely be one of the more defining and cost intensive parts of this build.
Finally, I get into storage. I know hands down I want to take full advantage of SSD. This leads a little again into the ASUS Deluxe Board and SSD Caching. Now I haven't done all my research here, and this would be an area where direction would be appreciated also. I was planning on running a 120 or a 240 SSD as my Boot Drive with my OS and my applications. I have a pretty decent 1TD drive I keep all my data on. How does SSD Caching fit into this. Does it allow for faster access to the mechanical drive only? Do I need to have a dedicated SSD to support this? Or is this simply for people using a large mechanical drive, with their OS installed on it to cache everything? I'll do my research, but it's one of the more defining elements apparently of the Deluxe board from ASUS allowing you over the 64GB limitation? They also talk about it freeing up SATA3 ports for RAID. I've never run anything in raid ever. I have enough 500GB hard drives laying around to do it probably if I wanted. Is this something I should be looking at for home use? I always associated RAID with Enterprise environments.
I appreciate any advice anyone has to offer me. Again, I'm not afraid to spend money on something that's worth it. I just don't want to waste money on something completely worthless or beyond overkill. I used to feel pretty confident in my buying decisions when it came to building computers for myself and friends. But oh, how 5 to 6 years can make a difference. And I apologize for the massive wall of text.
Currently I have a decent running PC using an Intel Core2 Quad Q9300 CPU. Though I can't say the thing is a slouch, it is approaching 4 years old. I've gone through a couple of motherboards, and in the process have retained my legacy DDR2 memory which has to be getting on 6 years old at this point. Not only is it challenging finding LGA775 boards, let alone ones that support DDR2, the system is starting to show its age, especially when working on my work laptop which as a Sandy Bridge i7. I've also updated the graphics card about a year ago to the GeForce GTX 560ti Superclocked from EVGA, and updated the PSU to a Thermaltake 850w, and a Corsair case I simply love for the ease of hidden cable management.
So that's the system I have. I want to use what I can, or rather what makes sense to re-use to "future proof" for a little while anyway. I'm not a power PC enthusiast, however, I'm also someone who feels it better to buy good, powerful products for the long haul as opposed to economical short term band-aids. I do find myself usually looking at the more expensive items also, because I figure, I don't know what all that stuff is, but I'm sure by buying the top model, I'll never feel like, ohhh I wish I had purchased that instead. However, I can say that I probably don't use everthing my current system offers. That's where I'm hoping you good folks could possibly help. Over the past week, I've done a fair share of newegg research, and I think I'm at a point where I have a few questions about my decisions before buying. And one big one about technology.
CPU: Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) Kingston Hyper-X DDR3-1600
So, those are the first parts of this process. I'm looking at the 3770-K mainly for it's overall benchmark scores, even before over clocking. Overclocking however isn't something I've done much with before, however from what I've gathered, this is a pretty straight forward process with the ASUS UEFI. I'm not looking to super cool this thing, just push it a little further. I hear 4.2 isn't that hard to achieve with a good fan. Please tell me if I'm an idiot for wanting to do this with little experience, or hey guy, just stick with the 3770 and call it good.
The Motherboard decision is from trusting ASUS as a brand. I've had their boards in the past, and never felt anything was lacking. However, I currently have a cheap Gigabyte that was a hold over after my last one died to a bad PSU and it hasn't caused any problems either. I know the Motherboard is on the expensive end, but I like the fact that it has a plethora of I/O, including a lot of USB3, HDMi, etc. I'm hoping using this, I can keep my 560ti (more on this later) for a while yet, using the VirtueMVP software as a tool to output my discrete graphics through the HDMi on the Motherboard. Or, is that a terribly bad idea as well? Will I lose performance doing this? Am I understanding the Lucid technology properly here? They also talk about this chip in between the 2 PCIe 3.0 slots helping with bandwidth for the PCI lanes as well. This get's into an SLi question I'll ask in a bit. This feature is only available on their Deluxe board, I can't see it in the marketing on their site, but it's references in several videos referring to it. I could be just getting swallowed by all the marketing hype. I do want good sound quality as well. It doesn't have to be ultra high end, but I don't want it to suck. I fell like if they offered a full size ROG board for the Z77 chipset, that would probably be more along the lines of what I am after. However, all they have available at the moment is the GENE in mATX format.
This leads into upgrading the memory. DDR3 right, simple. 16GB sounds like a decent number without being resonable. Ok, I hit search and there's still 233 choices. From what I can tell, and please, let me know if I'm wrong, there's very little gained from overclocking the memory? The Z77 and the i7 will support up to 1600, so I'll narrow my results by that. I'm still looking at a huge variety of choices. After looking at a lot of "cool looking" RAM, and a lot of marketing hype, I made the simple decision again to go with a brand I trust, Kingston. They offer one configuration of 4x4GB RAM, that made that process actually simple. However, I see a lot of people using G Skill and Patriot in their builds. Are there advantages? Is it looks? I want reliable, I don't think I want to OC the RAM. Does 4x4GB offer any differences over 2x8GB? Someone told me keeping each DIMM smaller means faster latency, is that true, or a line of BS that I swallowed?
Finally we get into some of the areas I have real questions with. Graphics. I currently have a 560ti Superclocked, that I was quite happy with when I bought it a year ago. I'm thinking I buy an SLi board and just pick up a second one of these in the $250 range. However, am I loosing anything by not getting one of the 670's, besides double the cost? Is PCIe3 going to give me a noticeable gain? Someone suggested I just run the card as is, and see if I even need a second 560ti. I'm not afraid to pick up a second one of these cards, or a 670 if I feel I will confidently see noticeable differences. But I don't want or just blatantly waste my money either for negligible gains. I also don't want to pick up a second 560ti and see that a single 670 would rock that setup. This, besides the processor is or can definitely be one of the more defining and cost intensive parts of this build.
Finally, I get into storage. I know hands down I want to take full advantage of SSD. This leads a little again into the ASUS Deluxe Board and SSD Caching. Now I haven't done all my research here, and this would be an area where direction would be appreciated also. I was planning on running a 120 or a 240 SSD as my Boot Drive with my OS and my applications. I have a pretty decent 1TD drive I keep all my data on. How does SSD Caching fit into this. Does it allow for faster access to the mechanical drive only? Do I need to have a dedicated SSD to support this? Or is this simply for people using a large mechanical drive, with their OS installed on it to cache everything? I'll do my research, but it's one of the more defining elements apparently of the Deluxe board from ASUS allowing you over the 64GB limitation? They also talk about it freeing up SATA3 ports for RAID. I've never run anything in raid ever. I have enough 500GB hard drives laying around to do it probably if I wanted. Is this something I should be looking at for home use? I always associated RAID with Enterprise environments.
I appreciate any advice anyone has to offer me. Again, I'm not afraid to spend money on something that's worth it. I just don't want to waste money on something completely worthless or beyond overkill. I used to feel pretty confident in my buying decisions when it came to building computers for myself and friends. But oh, how 5 to 6 years can make a difference. And I apologize for the massive wall of text.
