Prospective new system (after 4.5 years!)

[WhiteWolf]

Guys and Gals!

I'm new to the group, and hope I can pick your brains on the prospective assembly of my new system. Its the HDD's and case from my old one, and at least one CD/DVD drive if its ok, and the rest will be new (or used if I can find some parts here)

Note: it will be a Windows 7 unit, despite my having Win XP still valid. My laptop is on Win7, so the new desktop should be too, otherwise I get too far behind!



What I ~have~ :

• Antec Sonata III w/o its 500 watt PSU (tPSU went into the rebuild system for nieces/nephew)
• 4 HDD's: WD's all - vary from 160Gb to 2x 2Tb drives (plus a WD Elements 1Tb portable!)
• CD/DVD drive: LG of some type, SATA though, and may buy another one.
• LCD monitor - LG 2243T, 21.5" WS, VGA (HD-15) & DVI, Max Res.: 1920 x 1080, 16:9.

What I'm looking at: (and yes, I HAVE looked at Logical Increments - PC Buying Guide )



Motherboards: all LGA1155 sockets:

• ASUS P8Z77-V PRO,
• GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H or
• GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H

CPU: the Intel Ivy Bridge LGA 1155 Quad-Cores:

• Intel i5-3330 3.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo),
• Intel i5-3470 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo Boost)77W,
• Intel i5-3550 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) 77W, or
• Intel i5-3570K 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) 77W

RAM: completely at a loss here... don't know what's good (or what to avoid!)

PSU: according to this calculator (eXtreme Outer Vision - eXtreme tools for computer enthusiasts) I only need a 400w supply, but i'll go 600watt, JUST to be safe. Suggestions?

Video: I need a DVI-D capable card that the Mobo can accept. Asus, Gigabyte... or mebbe EVGA.


Note: I only run ONE monitor:

• ASUS nVidia GeForce GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 (GTX650-DCO-1GD5) ( $130 )
• ASUS nVidia GeForce GTX 560 1GB GDDR5 (ENGTX560 DC/2DI/1GD5)( $150 ) or
• ASUS nVidia GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 (ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5) ( $160 )

Also found this site a great tool for assembling compatible parts/components: Pick Parts, Build Your PC, Compare and Share - PCPartPicker


So... thoughts?


Thanks ahead of time,
WhiteWolf in Ottawa (will probably buy from Canada Computer during Boxing Week)

[frontier204]

Hello and welcome!
See our sticky on new PC building, as there's some info missing including budget, whether you want to overclock, what resolution your monitor will be, and what you will do with the computer: NOTICE - PC builders, when asking for input on YOUR projects Please Tell

Personally I don't trust those little generic guides and calculators that don't say where they're getting their data from. Although it takes more time, I look at PC parts review setups and the buyers' guides like those on Tom's Hardware where they build the computer and actually test the performance. That first "guide" you linked is just a joke - it looks a lot like boxed PCs, maybe that's why they're so unbalanced performance wise

Here's some stuff about your parts that you listed down:
Motherboards and CPUs: Every one of your motherboards is a Z77 board, so you'll only want one of those boards if want to use Intel's SSD caching technology or if you want to overclock. If the latter, then you need the overclockable 3570K or 3770K processor.
RAM: Really for an Intel build any DDR3-1600 8GB or higher kit will do, unless you need more RAM. Only heavy use of the integrated graphics (IGP) can be helped by getting RAM faster than DDR3-1600. To ensure compatibility you can verify that the RAM you're buying is on the motherboard's QVL list.
See:
AnandTech - Memory Performance: 16GB DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2400 on Ivy Bridge IGP with G.Skill
Choosing the Best DDR3 SDRAM for Ivy Bridge - X-bit labs
Video card (aka GPU): If would be very hard for you to find a modern GPU that DOESN'T have DVI-D these days. This is where I can't give any advice because I don't know what you'll be doing with the computer.
I found the Toms Hardware "Best gaming CPU/GPU" for your money guide pretty good to see where everything's placed, and they have individual reviews to back what they say: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3107.html
If you don't game or do 3D / GPGPU work, then don't even bother buying a video card and hook your monitor to integrated graphics.

[WhiteWolf]

Apologies, will edit the post...

[WhiteWolf]

Oh BOTHER... system ate my edit, AND my initial post.

Any way to retrieve it?

WhiteWolf