Hoping to save a few Quid and/or improve this build!

Sound of Silence

Hey there!

I was hoping some of you guys could help me better improve this build by helping me choose some better (or cheaper) alternatives to the Components I've chosen. This build will be primarily used for gaming.

I'm hoping to keep the cost under €1000. Also, I already have a Graphics Card (GTX 570), so I don't have to worry about that.

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-2500k|€200.96
ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Sockel 1155|€131.57
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3|€45.73
Cooler Master HAF Mini 922M|€86.28
Antec Truepower New 750W blue LED|€120.47
SEAGATE Barracuda Green 1,5TB|€82.77
Corsair Hydro Series H80|€85.80
Optical Drive Generic|12.67
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM|€188.70
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit|€86.76
Total|€1041.71

Thanks in advance for any help

Procrastastudy

Reasoning for the H80 and extreme 4? Seems a few quid could be saved there.

Improvements:

3570K - New Tech, better in the long term with PCI-e 3.0
Carbide 500R - better air flow (probably) certainly looks less 'boy racer'

Eboggles

Sound of Silence wrote: »

Hey there!

I was hoping some of you guys could help me better improve this build by helping me choose some better (or cheaper) alternatives to the Components I've chosen. This build will be primarily used for gaming.

I'm hoping to keep the cost under €1000. Also, I already have a Graphics Card (GTX 570), so I don't have to worry about that.

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-2500k|€200.96
ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Sockel 1155|€131.57
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3|€45.73
Cooler Master HAF Mini 922M|€86.28
Antec Truepower New 750W blue LED|€120.47
SEAGATE Barracuda Green 1,5TB|€82.77
Corsair Hydro Series H80|€85.80
Optical Drive Generic|12.67
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM|€188.70
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit|€86.76
Total|€1041.71

Thanks in advance for any help

A 750 watt hard drive? What? Get a 550 watt Super Flower Amazon.

Ditch the H80 for a Thermalright Macho, it's not worth the €50 premium.

That's not a brilliant case for the price, if you want to spend €85 on a case you should pick up a Corsair 400R or 500R, or even a Fractal R3 if you want a bit of sound-proofing.

You don't have an SSD in there, so I presume you're going to be booting from the green drive? I wouldn't do that, your system would be pretty slow at booting up anything. With the savings from changing the PSU and cooler, you could pick up a 64GB Samsung 830 SSD.

Also, maybe swap the CPU for a 3570k and the motherboard for a Z77 Pro3? It means you can't SLI/Crossfire but that's not a big deal, one stronger card is always better than two weaker ones.

Also, drop the RAM to a generic 8GB kit. Saves a bit of money and there's negligible performance difference.

By the way, that DVD drive can't burn discs. Might as well just spend an extra €6 and get one that can.

I think that's everything...

Procrastastudy

Didn't even see that PSU thats mental money!

Skylinehead

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€215.78
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€36.44
Corsair Carbide Series 500R White, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€95.84
LiteOn iHAS122-18 schwarz SATA|€18.43
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM|€188.70
Samsung SSD 830 128GB SATA 6GB's Paper Box|€102.55
Thermalright True Spirit 120|€23.67
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€60.67
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€90.77
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.06
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€82.79
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€986.69

CPU is similiar except Ivy Bridge.
Lowered the motherboard, no SLI so if you want that get the other one
RAM is cheaper
Lovely case for a little more
Cheaper PSU that will handle the 570.
DVDRW drive as opposed to DVDROM
Same monitor
Added an SSD
Lowered HDD capacity to fit SSD in (you won't regret this)

If you're a student you can get Windows off softwareforstudents for cheaper, if you're lucky you can get it off Dreamspark for free - this could allow you to get the Extreme4 motherboard and a better PSU to get another 570 down the road.

Sound of Silence

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

Didn't even see that PSU thats mental money!

I have the same PSU in my other build. I chose it based solely on it's good reviews, as well as it's reliability.

I wouldn't know a great deal about PSU's, but I'm definitely looking for at least a 650-700w supply so that I can throw a new GFX card in, perhaps even crossfire.

Any ideas of a good and reasonably priced PSU? I remember seeing the XFX Pro 750W, but I wasn't whether it was good or not. It's being sold for 82.97

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=42451&agid=1630

Procrastastudy

I have a 1000W monster sitting in my machine - wasn't until I cam across this forum I realised I was wasting my money. Have a look at Monotypes sig I think he has all the links.

To my mind unless you are going 3 or 4 way SLI or using a bazzilion HDDs this should be grand:

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/600+-+700+Watts/24479/Super-Flower+Amazon+80Plus+650W.article

Sound of Silence

Skylinehead wrote: »

CPU is similiar except Ivy Bridge.
Lowered the motherboard, no SLI so if you want that get the other one
RAM is cheaper
Lovely case for a little more
Cheaper PSU that will handle the 570.
DVDRW drive as opposed to DVDROM
Same monitor
Added an SSD
Lowered HDD capacity to fit SSD in (you won't regret this)

If you're a student you can get Windows off softwareforstudents for cheaper, if you're lucky you can get it off Dreamspark for free - this could allow you to get the Extreme4 motherboard and a better PSU to get another 570 down the road.

I really liked the case, and I'll definitely go with that! I actually have a HAF922 at the house, and I have to admit that it's a great case; but I may as well mix it up a little with the Corsair.

I'll also go with the Ivybridge CPU. For the sake of 15 Euros, I may as well make the leap to the new Generation of Intel CPU's.

Also, I've always seemed to overlook SSD's. I'll definitely have to throw one in.

Procrastastudy

Get an SSD Stuck Skyrim across on mine last night (thanks for the links to that steam mover app lads) like night and day!

Sound of Silence

As far as the CPU Heatsink goes, I'm looking for one that will be more than capable of maintaining an overclock of around 4Ghz at a reasonable temperature. I personally have a Thermaltake Frio that can do the job whilst keeping the temps around 60c. It is, however, a curse to install.

Would the Thermalright True Spirit be up to the task?

Procrastastudy

4Ghz on a 3570 isnt really an over clock. It does 3.8 on Turbo anyway.

I have a Coolermaster V8, not exactly top tier cooling. My 3570 sits at 4.3Ghz under-volted. I dont really recall but I don't think it goes above in Prime95 60C

challengemaster

Sound of Silence wrote: »

As far as the CPU Heatsink goes, I'm looking for one that will be more than capable of maintaining an overclock of around 4Ghz at a reasonable temperature. I personally have a Thermaltake Frio that can do the job whilst keeping the temps around 60c. It is, however, a curse to install.

Would the Thermalright True Spirit be up to the task?

To make it worth your while overclocking you should easily be able to get 4.3-4.6Ghz, with very reasonable temps on most coolers. It's only if you were pushing towards the 5Ghz mark you'd need to be looking at something like a H100 due to increased temps from adding extra voltage to keep it stable.

A Thermalright Macho for an extra €10 is regarded a better cooler

Skylinehead

challengemaster wrote: »

To make it worth your while overclocking you should easily be able to get 4.3-4.6Ghz, with very reasonable temps on most coolers. It's only if you were pushing towards the 5Ghz mark you'd need to be looking at something like a H100 due to increased temps from adding extra voltage to keep it stable.

A Thermalright Macho for an extra €10 is regarded a better cooler

It's horrible to install though, and given his previous comments on the Frio the True Spirit should be a bit better.