Help with new computer build

[Marute]

Hi all this is my first post on this site,

I’m looking into buying a new desktop computer to replace my faithful old laptop. This is the build I’m looking at (scroll down and you’ll find specs): http://www.mm-vision.dk/produkter/vispcsystem.asp?action=vis&menu=computer&varenr=99 107&type=pcsystem
I’m sorry everything is in Danish, it’s a Danish company so I’ll post the specs here as well:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Hard drive: 500GB
Ram: 4GB (upgradeable to 8GB)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2600 4x3.40GHz (Turbo 3.80GHz)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX560 (upgradeable to the GTX570)
Price: 1146US$ (6590DKK)

The games I’ll be playing on this machine are games that I cannot play on my Xbox360, for instance Dawn of War 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and similar – all on max graphic settings of course. Therefore I won’t be playing much FPS as I have my Xbox for that. So the reason I’m making this post is that I’d like to ask: 1) Is the GTX560 sufficient, also in the future or is it already so “old” that it’ll be outdated fairly quick in comparison to the GTX570; which should I get? 2) The system can be configured with an Intel® Core™ i5-2500 4x3.30GHz (Turbo 3.70GHz) processor instead, but I’ve gotten the impression that if you want to play games, i7 is the thing. So is the i5 enough or am I right to go with the i7?

All this in mind, of course I’d like my computer to be worth something and play games on good settings a couple of years from now. Finally, you can by picking another built get either SLI graphics or the GTX580 though I doubt this is relevant for me.

Replies and advice are much appreciated. Thanks!!

Edit: Oh darn, I forgot the motherboard: Gigabyte PH67 motherboard

Happy new year to all!

[frontier204]

Hello and welcome!

See the sticky: NOTICE - PC builders, when asking for input on YOUR projects Please Tell
What resolution are you gaming on, and how do you feel about overclocking?

Is it this motherboard? http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3653#ov
If so, forget about any overclocking (so the 2600K will be a waste of money).

1) If "max graphic" means everything at the highest settings with light AA (2x or 4x), a GTX 560 should be able to drive DoWII and SCII fine. I don't know about Diablo 3 (never saw reviews on that one). The GTX 560 is actually newer than the GTX 570 you speak of. Getting "outdated" is always subjective as there will always be a game out there that current cards can only manage 10FPS on fully maxed out graphics. This year's crippler is Metro 2033
The 560 should manage you "high" but not "extreme" settings on most games into next year on a monitor smaller than 1080p. If you can accept "medium" on later games you'll likely be good for another 1.5 years.

If you can upgrade for not much money, you'll get a lot better performance out of a GTX 560 Ti *not the 448 version*.

2) If your motherboard has the H6x chip and not the P67 or Z68, then a 2600K is a waste as I mentioned above. There are currently no games that notably benefit from an i7 vs a quad core i5 - that's why on almost every bang-for-your buck gaming system recommended on this forum we recommend the Core i5 2500k + motherboard that allows overclocking.

SLI setups are for playing at >1080P resolution (multiple monitor or 3D vision). You won't want to buy a GTX 580 right now because you'll be yelling at yourself in 4 months when the next-gen GPUs halve its retail value

[Marute]

Thanks for the reply, it is much appreciated!

I know I ask a lot of questions but that is only because I really appreciate the time you've taken to write the reply and I want to get as much information out of this as possible. I hope you don't mind.

First of, the resolution. To be honest, I don't really know what resolution I will be gaming on. As I told, I am currently using a laptop thus I actually need to get everything but speakers for my system (my mouse needs a replacement as well...). So I don't have a screen yet. Resolution and computer screens in general are topics where I know very little. Of course, I want the picture to be as good as possible, but right now I can't do much better than that. Feel free to advice and enlighten me if you feel like it hehe.

I don't think they have the GTX560TI available but then isn't the GTX570 better in terms of performance than both the GTX560 and the GTX560TI? The reason I ask about graphics card is that I'm a tiny bit worried that I'll regret a year from now not taking the GTX570 but on the other hand it's stupid spending money on something you don't need. Then again some would say better save than sorry, but still...

Hm, overclocking. I have no experience with overclocking, is it even intended? - if you don't mind I ask a stupid question. More importantly, is it a necessity , why should I overclock? And will it not require more cooling?

Regarding the motherboard, I'm actually not exactly sure what chipset the one featured in this system use. It appears that the specific motherboard is not available on their site other than in the system so I can't tell, which I find a bit strange as they in general are very thorough with information about their products. But I'll contact them and talk to them about the system before I spend 1000US$.

There is one thing I don't understand. You say that if the motherboard has the "wrong" chipset, there is no point in the i7 as it won't overclock, yet you also say that there are currently no games that notably benefit from the i7. Why whould it then be favourable to overclock the i7? You recommend i5 + motherboard that allows overclocking but do I need to overclock? Isn't the system powerful enough without? A last thing regarding the processor, you call them respectively 2600k and 2500k but on the page they are just called 2600 and 2500. Are they the same or am I missing something?

And as I said - and you seem to agree - no need for SLI and GTX580. Thanks for confirmation.

[Silent_Avenger]

Well an OC'd 560 Ti 448 would be fairly comparable to a 570 probably only a little lower in performance. Overclocking for graphics cards anyways is super easy these days all you have to do is get a program like MSI's afterburner and it will detect your graphics and provide you with sliders to set the core, shader, and memory speeds. You basically increase the values little by little then test for stability using 3dmark, folding at home, furmark, etc.

The 2600 and 2500 are different than the 2600k and 2500k the "k" series have an unlocked multiplier which make them a whole lot easier to overclock for greater performance. If you overclock the i7 you still get increased performance weather games can take full advantage of the chip or not.

For example, lets say the i7 and i5 are highways. The i5 has 4 cores so it would be a 4 lane highway and the i7 since it has HT would be an 8 lane highway. And let's say the information of the programs is represented by cars on the road and since there are pretty much no games that use more than 4 cores we'll use 4 cars. The speed of the cpu Ghz is the speed limit on the highway. So if you have 4 cars on the highway on the i5 highway each of them can take a lane and the cars can travel at the full speed of the highway and reach the end of the highway all at the same time. On the i7 highway even though there are 8 lanes the 4 cars will only occupy 4 lanes thus they gain no benefit from the 8 lane highway. Now let's say you are running more programs along side the game so we'll at 2 more cars. So on the i5 highway again the 4 cars of the game would occupy 4 lanes but the 2 extra cars would be behind those 4 cars of the game reaching the end of the highway slightly after the game cars. On the i7 highway since there are 8 lanes all 6 cars can reach the end of the highway at the same time. Now overclocking can be compared to increasing the speed limit of the highway so the fast the cars can go the faster they can reach the end of the highway.

Overclocking the cpu is a little more complicated than a gpu since it's generally preferred to oc through the bios of the motherboard. If you read guides on the net for overclocking your specific chip it's not actually as hard as it first seems.

[frontier204]

Not a problem - I linger around here as a learning experience (in both reading and posting/replying).

For resolution, maybe what you can do is walk into a computer store and ask to see different sizes of monitor. They may even have some game demos you can look at. I picked my monitor out of a need for work/school: I can't easily do my programming work on a monitor with less than 1000 pixels vertically (so I currently use 1680x1050 and find my parents' 1600x900 too small for instance). I just happen to use the same monitor for gaming so that's how I picked the resolution I game at.

Silent_Avenger answered your question about 560s vs 570s - in most games that fully use the 570 it will mean the difference between "extreme" and "high" graphics settings at 1900x1080 resolution and higher. For lower resolutions it really depends on the game - browse some reviews to see, like HWC's own reviews.

Let me clarify:

1. ANY core i5 or i7 can overclock
2. For a i5 / i7 model number 2xxx you need the P67 or Z68 chipset to do any overclocking
3. A i5 or i7 with either the "K" or the "Extreme" suffix can essentially overclock to the point the CPU breaks
4. Any i5 or i7 2xxx without the "K" or "Extreme" can overclock provided you have the appropriate chipset (see point 2) but not as much
5. You can do a very small overclock without specialized cooling: I managed +300MHz for a 2500k, but the fan gets really loud.

Specifically for the 2500 and 2600:
There are 2 models of Core i5 2500 - the 2500 and 2500K.
The same goes for the Core i7 2600 - there's a 2600 and a 2600K.
The "K" gives you better overclocking and a better integrated graphics chip (IGP). The IGP is useless for gaming, so really the only useful difference is the overclocking - +400MHz max for the non-K chip and pretty much unlimited for the K chip.
(Isn't Intel confusing? )
For now you can play any game fluidly without overclocking a Core i5 or Core i7 - (it had better be this way because i5/i7s are the fastest gaming CPUs commonly available). I won't bet money on this statement, but you should be good for 2 years on a stock Core i5 2400 (no OC). Later on, overclocking may mean the difference between some setting in a game being set to "high" vs "very high" or something like that.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Marute

Hi all this is my first post on this site,

I’m looking into buying a new desktop computer to replace my faithful old laptop. This is the build I’m looking at (scroll down and you’ll find specs): http://www.mm-vision.dk/produkter/vispcsystem.asp?action=vis&menu=computer&varenr=99 107&type=pcsystem
I’m sorry everything is in Danish, it’s a Danish company so I’ll post the specs here as well:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Hard drive: 500GB
Ram: 4GB (upgradeable to 8GB)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2600 4x3.40GHz (Turbo 3.80GHz)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX560 (upgradeable to the GTX570)
Price: 1146US$ (6590DKK)

The games I’ll be playing on this machine are games that I cannot play on my Xbox360, for instance Dawn of War 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and similar – all on max graphic settings of course. Therefore I won’t be playing much FPS as I have my Xbox for that. So the reason I’m making this post is that I’d like to ask: 1) Is the GTX560 sufficient, also in the future or is it already so “old” that it’ll be outdated fairly quick in comparison to the GTX570; which should I get? 2) The system can be configured with an Intel® Core™ i5-2500 4x3.30GHz (Turbo 3.70GHz) processor instead, but I’ve gotten the impression that if you want to play games, i7 is the thing. So is the i5 enough or am I right to go with the i7?

All this in mind, of course I’d like my computer to be worth something and play games on good settings a couple of years from now. Finally, you can by picking another built get either SLI graphics or the GTX580 though I doubt this is relevant for me.

Replies and advice are much appreciated. Thanks!!

Edit: Oh darn, I forgot the motherboard: Gigabyte PH67 motherboard

Happy new year to all!

drop the 2700 for a 2500k
depending on screen size the 560ti will be plenty
don't get a h67 board just get a inexpensive p67

[Marute]

I can really see that overclocking provides advantages - unless you break something you shouldn't break because you don't know what you are doing, that is. If I were to tell you that I after all wouldn't be overclocking my system at least at first would you then go "" on me? Because I think I'll prefer getting a little more experience before I start playing around with that.

Now assuming I won't overclock the system you'd still recommend the i5-2500 simply because no games yet will take advantage of the i7-2600, thus the i5 will be just as capable of running any game as the i7, also some time from now? So right now, you'll take an i7 to run other programs in the back while gaming (really great highway explenation btw, thanks) to make sure they'll "get there fast"? I think the only programs I'd be running in the back while gaming should be FRAPS for fps monitoring and GPU-Z for heat monitoring - once in a while.

Now, I understand that if the motherboard featured in the system has the H6x chipset, overclocking won't be that relevant (?). I'll have to check with them to figure out exactly which chipset is used. But the processors available are the i7-2600 and the i5-2500, not the i7-2600k and the i5-2500k. Therefore, the overclocking potential won't be that great in the first place, am I right? But then again, all of this is irrelevant if I don't plan to overclock anyway, yes? So still assuming no overclocking would be done whatsover, you'd still recommend the i5-2500 4 x 3.30GHz over the i7-2600 4 x 3.40GHz? The price difference is 104US$ (600DKK if anyone should be interested).

About the graphics card, I understand that it depends on the resolution so actually you'd recommend I find a screen and figure out what resolution I'll be gaming on before I buy the system? If smaller than 1080p, GTX560 is perfect. If bigger, GTX570? But you think ideally I should find out about GTX560TI? I'm sure they could configure the system whith it if I'd aks. As a bonus information, the computer will also be used for my school work.

I'm sorry if I'm putting the words into your mouths here, I'm just trying to get an overview without sounding like a total noob. Thanks!

[enaberif]

It's all good.

put it this way the i5 2500k and 560ti is probably one of the best paired combos out right now. The 560ti can be overclocked to a point of being as good as a 570 and the 2500k can be overclocked and perform quite well; it's the route i went.

yes figure out what screen size and resolution you will run and go from there. with a 22" screen you will be fine with a 560ti where if you use a larger screen go with a sli 560ti setup or a 580

[Marute]

I see. But "just" i5-2500 and GTX560 without "k" and "ti" is a good system as well, right?

What screen size and resolution will be recommendable for a GTX560 without "ti"?

Edit: I'm thinking something along the lines of 19", limited space considered.

[enaberif]

its not worth spending the money on that hardware as you become limited quickly