Global Conflict

Calloutman wrote:Is there any danger in OCing? I know in the past it would reduce the life expectancy of your system...

Also is the turbo boost feature enabled on the non-k version?

Yes I belive its availabe for all Sandy Bridge CPUS.
Life expectancy really depends on the chip some may last longer than 3 years others may not. Also heat also factors into that.

Here solution if scrared of OCing

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/01/19/intel ... insurance/
Im not sure how exactly it works but from what I read its has 3 year warranty. So if were to burnout my chip prior to 3 years I get new chip.

This is my next iteration, I seem to have an annoying (and expensive) habit of continually raising my price ceiling

I was unhappy about being unable to crossfire, hence the new motherboard. With the new motherboard I thought it's only an extra £15 to get the k version of the CPU...

I also realised that my current desktop HDD from my old desktop (years ago) is far too small so I added a 1TB HDD, and I don't really need a 250gb SSD, 120gb should suffice for the OS and the occasional game. I also tacked on a case fan.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£164.94 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£101.98 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£36.23 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.97 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£59.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.18 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case Fan: Cooler Master Megaflow 110.0 CFM 200mm Fan (£9.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£54.98 @ Novatech)
Total: £534.24
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 02:03 GMT+0000)

Calloutman wrote:This is my next iteration, I seem to have an annoying (and expensive) habit of continually raising my price ceiling

I was unhappy about being unable to crossfire, hence the new motherboard. With the new motherboard I thought it's only an extra £15 to get the k version of the CPU...

I also realised that my current desktop HDD from my old desktop (years ago) is far too small, and I don't really need a 250gb SSD, 120gb should suffice for the OS and the occasional game. I also tacked on a case fan.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£164.94 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£101.98 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£36.23 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.97 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£59.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.18 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case Fan: Cooler Master Megaflow 110.0 CFM 200mm Fan (£9.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£54.98 @ Novatech)
Total: £534.24
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 02:03 GMT+0000)

I maybe wrong but I dont think 600 watts is going to suffice for SLI/Crossfire option if going down that route

wizekraker wrote:

Calloutman wrote:This is my next iteration, I seem to have an annoying (and expensive) habit of continually raising my price ceiling

...

I maybe wrong but I dont think 600 watts is going to suffice for SLI/Crossfire option if going down that route

My thoughts were I should crossfire the card I'm getting now (HD6870) at some point. Now that I've checked the power consumption under load... I think you could be right... What's an extra £13 lol.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£164.94 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£101.98 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£36.23 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.97 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£52.98 @ Ebuyer)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.18 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case Fan: Cooler Master Megaflow 110.0 CFM 200mm Fan (£9.75 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£67.90 @ Dabs)
Total: £540.38
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 02:22 GMT+0000)

Looks good to me only thing missing is DVD ROM. I assume that you have previous DVD ROM that compatible with you mobo and power-supply?

wizekraker wrote:Looks good to me only thing missing is DVD ROM. I assume that you have previous DVD ROM that compatible with you mobo and power-supply?

Erm, well I have one so I'll see if it works before I buy another. I'm not sure if it is compatible or not.

600w is more than enough for 2 6870s, even 500w would be enough, though sort of pushing it.
You don't need a DVD drive these days, just install Windows from USB

TheYonderGod wrote:600w is more than enough for 2 6870s, even 500w would be enough, though sort of pushing it.
You don't need a DVD drive these days, just install Windows from USB

Some tests this guy ran say differently unfortunately.

Radeon HD 6870 x2
A second card requires you to add another ~150 Watts. You need a 700 Watt power supply unit

That's with an old i7 965, which is a lot more power hungry, and with other extra stuff. You can get the 750w if you want, I'm just saying you don't HAVE to.

I'm not sure a 200 mm fan will fit in that case.

As far as your graphics upgrade path goes, if you can find another inexpensive 6870 somewhere down the road, that might make for a decent, inexpensive upgrade. However, I would caution you that games are already limited by 1GB framebuffers. BF3 on Ultra at 1080p uses more than 1 GB, which can cause some nasty hickups when you run out of VRAM. Dual 6870s will get you sweet framerates at medium to high settings (keep in mind, 1 6870 already gets a pretty good framerate there), but you aren't going to get a smooth experience with all the eye candy turned on with that setup. I'd advise just swapping out the 6870 for a more powerful, single card when you can afford to.

Dont be mistaken by high watt numbers
An expensive 500w power supply is usually far more efficient than a cheap 750w thingy.
They nowadays have these "80 plus silver/gold whatever" ratings. That is something not too overlook while choose your power supply.

The rest about power supplies is pretty much said. For me its always the hardest choice in building a pc (you dont want to paid too much)

Jokerle wrote:Dont be mistaken by high watt numbers
An expensive 500w power supply is usually far more efficient than a cheap 750w thingy.
They nowadays have these "80 plus silver/gold whatever" ratings. That is something not too overlook while choose your power supply.

The rest about power supplies is pretty much said. For me its always the hardest choice in building a pc (you dont want to paid too much)

Corsair Builder series, are good , They're 80 plus bronze I think. Also you can get them Modular if you like cablemanagement you should get that one.

Anyway if you get 6870's try to get the 2gig versions. But they can run Ultra but No AA and stuff like that. (A friend has two of them).

Well, 99% of all users I've talked to want the option for SLI or CF, but maybe 5% of them actually get it later on. Most of them just buy a better graphics card, mostly cause either the card they have are not available anymore or that there is so little price difference to get a new better standalone card.
So with that Im saying, if you want CF with your current card you better buy it about now, in 6 months it may be out of stock.

Overclocking your cpu wont reduce the lifetime of it, those three years Jokerle are talking about is something Ive never heard about, I've been overclocking CPUs since 1997 and no one became any slower or broke down, except one that actually was burnt to a crisp but that was my own fault!

iRawPeanut wrote: Corsair Builder series, are good , They're 80 plus bronze I think. Also you can get them Modular if you like cablemanagement you should get that one.

Agree!
Just wanted to make a general case.

Crossfire/SLI looks like a waste of money to me.
you need more expensive mobo, more expensive PSU, and buying one more GPU thats also costs money.
all the while your 6870 is a good enough card for BF3 (my 5850 gets 70-80 FPS, but i cap it at 60 to be solid).
when you get to a point where your card can't get a solid 30FPS just buy a new one. it would be better then Crossfire/SLI as the technology of the new cards would already advance a lot. smaller transistors and bigger RAM

double GPUs are for people who have and are willing to spend money right now to get higher performance. its really not that feasible to get a 2nd card in the future to bump up performance as it gets lower.

both Nvidia and AMD recommend a 750W PSU for crossfire/SLI.