Advice on a few components..

MakeNine

Hello,

I'm building a gaming desktop (1st time) and I'm thinking of something along these lines:

Coolermaster HAF 922
MSI or Gigabyte Z68 motherboard
i5 2500k 3.3Ghz
MSI GTX560T

i HAWK
8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz
Coolermaster Silent Pro M700 Watt

1) I'm not familiar with the different intel chipsets for motherboards, is the Z68 a good choice? Are MSI or Gigabyte motherboards good quality? If not please recommend any other model.

2) I like the MSI GTX560Ti HAWK because it's already OCed and according to reviews has a good cooling system. Is this a good choice or should I go for a 570 instead? I know the 600 series will be released in not too long so maybe I'm better off holding out with the GTX560?

3) I'm not sure about the memory, I want 8GB but which frequency is the best?

4) Is the PSU a good model? I don't know anything about each different make and model, and is 700W enough for a possible SLI?

Feel free to recommend anything else, thanks in advance

Serephucus

I have that very PSU and it's excellent. Very good value for what you get.

Memory frequency doesn't really matter. Just get something reliable. (Corsair is good, though can be overpriced. Have a look at G.Skill too.)

560Ti is a good card, don't hold your breathe for the 600 series. Q2 '12 earliest. Whether you should get a 570 depends on your monitor, what games you play, and what settings you want to play them at.

Z68 vs. P67, Z68 gives you all P67 features plus SRT, AVX and that's about it. (Google helps here), it lets you use Intel's IGP, basically. I'd tend to go with Gigabyte or ASUS, personally. I haven't had the best experiences with MSI products, though I'm sure that's just personal bias more than anything.

The basics of it are sound though. Just wander around Google and read up a bit on P67/Z68 and you should be good to make final choices.

klub44

Serephucus wrote: »

Z68 vs. P67, Z68 gives you all P67 features plus SRT, AVX and that's about it. (Google helps here), it lets you use Intel's IGP, basically. I'd tend to go with Gigabyte or ASUS, personally. I haven't had the best experiences with MSI products, though I'm sure that's just personal bias more than anything.

New asrocks are kicking ass, as well I was serching for new mobo from a month and extreme4 gen3 on z68 chipset is my pick

MakeNine

Thanks for the info. I'm hearing lots of good stuff about ASRock but I never heard of them before so I'm a bit wary.

I did some reading into the different chipsets so I'd go for a Z68 even though I'll probably never use the integrated graphics. However the not so distant release of Panther Point/Ivy Bridge is making me hesitate a lot

klub44

MakeNine wrote: »

Thanks for the info. I'm hearing lots of good stuff about ASRock but I never heard of them before so I'm a bit wary.

I did some reading into the different chipsets so I'd go for a Z68 even though I'll probably never use the integrated graphics. However the not so distant release of Panther Point/Ivy Bridge is making me hesitate a lot

intel said that z68&p67 will be working with ivy bridge, so I'll go for z68 as a newest construction. other thing I want to use is intel smart response tech, wich I think is only z68 feature. other thing that convinced me to asrock is that they have mounting holes for lga775 coolers also, that will save me 60e on new waterblock

Monotype

I think that Asrock and MSI have some of the best boards for this generation. Asrock are a spinoff from Asus.
If you get a Gen3 board such as that recommended by klub44, you should be able to use the new 1155 processors. Socket 2011 is likely to be expensive given that it's replacing 1366.

If you're in no hurry, then by all means wait but if you want a system now, there'll always be new tech around the corner.

MakeNine

I have to say, that ASrock motherboard looks good, but it's 40e more than the MSI/Gigabyte models I was considering. I see there's an Extreme3 Gen3 model at 116e, would that still be a good choice? I don't think I'll ever need a quad-SLI setup (or afford one haha)

I've been reading more about Ivy Bridge, and apparently the main improvements are in energy efficiency and integrated graphics, performance isn't increased enough to justify the wait (only 4 to 6% for equivalent frequency, and I don't really need a monster CPU anyway)

klub44

Different betwen extreme3 and extereme4 are
4 SATA3 vs 2
1 displayport connection on Extreme 4
Different LAN controller
2 vs 0 USB3.0 internal ports
1 more Pci-e on Ex4
And a sexy full black PCB