How good is this PC?

[dantheman121]

Was thinking of setting something like this up and would like to know how good it is.

System Specification
- Case: Corsair 650D
- Power Supply: OCZ ZX 1250W PSU
- CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz Sandybridge overclocked to 4.60GHz
- Motherboard: Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Cooler: Full Custom watercooling loop (UV Red)
- RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
- Hard Drive: 1TB HDD Storage Drive and 128GB SSD Boot Drive
- Graphics Card: 2 SLI Extreme H2O GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 [EVGA Superclocked]
- Sound: Asus D2X 7.1 Channel Sound
- Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter

[ShyguyXPC]

Realistically, if your going to dive head first into that kind of overclocking AND a Custom Water loop, you should already know how good that is going to be.


Your asking How Good the PC would be.... Compared to what though?

Most people, gamers and users don't have anything near what this is planned to be.

[dantheman121]

Im not the one who will be building this, Im just the person buying the parts and getting a clever friend to set it up for me:P

Was asking how good it will be running the likes of Battlefield 3 and future FPS games within the next few years and so.

[ShyguyXPC]

Its hard to say exactly for games in a few years. But for Battlefield 3, I would guess from what I've read of the game and beta so far and its demands it should run silky smooth with that.

We've got a BF3 thread around here somewhere, might want to read through that a bit, a few of the guys here are running the Beta, and running some decent systems, nothing quite like this one your getting, but they should have a good idea of how the game is running on more modest hardware.

Battlefield 3 Thread

Myself, I'm sort of prepping for BF3, but mainly Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, and ArmA 3 next year.

hit a bit of a snag in a defective part putting together my rig yesterday, so waiting to hear back from Corsair on getting a replacement piece for the H60 cooler, but I just bought a barely used Core i7 940 for a steal, that was successfully OC'd to 3.9GHz, though I only plan on trying for 3.6GHz max. Waiting on my 6GB DDR3 1600Mhz Corsair Vengeance to get here. Have a single GTX 560 Ti, waiting till I can get a 2nd for SLI. And then 2 more single slot GT 430 or 440's for running Folding@Home while running the 2 560 Ti's for gaming (using the 560's on occasion for folding as well)

EVGA X59 SLI LE mobo, 750GB/32MB WD Black Series SATA II drive, 1.5TB WD Green Series for storing/backing up data on. Eventually installing an SSD down the road.

My current system/hardware is in my sig above, so my "new" system is only going to be a small jump up, but enough to hold me off for another year.

most of the hardware (CPU, Mobo, RAM, GTX 285) in that sig is going into a 2nd system for my brother.

But the H60 all in one loop kit I have a pair of Noctua's for the Rad, to be installed in the 690 II Advance case.

Should hopefully keep it fairly cool running once its all together.

[jmjwalker]

That certainly sounds like a powerful system. What hard drives, specifically, are you thinking about? I've learned that there is a lot more of consequence to hard drives than just size.

Also, any reason why you're not going with a blu-ray drive? I can't imagine in the coming years that you won't be seeing games on BDs with how large they're already getting.

Have you confirmed that such a monster power supply is necessary? I suppose having an outsized power supply isn't a bad idea, but you might be able to save yourself some unnecessary money.

I like to use Newegg's power supply calculator when building a system. Myself, I will usually ask for advice/a look over from Tom's Hardware (a large forum of sys builders who are happy to give free advice) and/or Ask an Expert, a computer service near where I live that gives free advice on these kinds of matters.

[ShyguyXPC]

A dual GTX 580 setup, along with a good size Custom Loop Water cooler, and plans of Overclocking, their going to need a sizable PSU, though that 1250W output is a bit more than they would need, but I'd say they would want at least a good high output 650W PSU AT LEAST, if not closer to 750W minimum with some room to spare.

Myself, I will usually ask for advice/a look over from Tom's Hardware (a large forum of sys builders who are happy to give free advice) and/or Ask an Expert, a computer service near where I live that gives free advice on these kinds of matters.

And what do you think we're doing here?

Many of us have been building custom rigs for 10 years or more, and last I checked I & most others are not getting paid from TechIMO for our advice...

[stroyal]

I'm a member at Tom's also, and have been reading them for at least 12years.
edit (probably more like 18 years +, now that I think of it)

I have never seen anyone there that know more about video cards than Shyguy, as well as anyone that knows more about power supplies than our power supply expert.

Maybe Tom himself, but he has been gone for years AFAIK.

One thing they do have that we don't, is 100s of idiots that don't have a clue.

Don't get me wrong, Tom's has some good people also, but unless you know computers, it is hard to separate them from the fools.

I remember one argument I had with a fool, who insisted that Video RAM had absolutely nothing to do with the max addressable RAM, on a 32bit system.
No one else there even noticed.

That wouldn't happen here, we are too sharp.

We really only have the occasional idiot, and they are easy to spot, as they are usually a first time poster.

[Interrupt]

Throwing this out there as a side note. I'm a member of Newegg's forum and "expert" is funny way of putting it. They have a very large user base, many newer folk, some really smart fellas too but few and far between. But, in all honesty, I can't possibly recommend anyone to that forum for their tech support needs. Tom's Hardware is amazing resource too, don't get me wrong. But I don't find the forum nearly as helpful as this forum (with the exception of our "Associations" thread, which is actually helpful when coming up with words to use on Words With Friends & Scrabble). I DO find Tom's articles to be interesting and use their RSS feeds on my android. My favorite news site is Ars Technica.

I'm really all for TechIMO. We've got professionals from all walks of life. I mean we're talking about real people that dedicate their time to building boxes and actually do something radically different in their day jobs (some). That's cool. Anyhow... enough ego stroking.

Question out of sheer curiosity. Where did you come up with this build? It's very sexy (though I would improve the RAM for my needs if it were my box barring mobo restrictions, don't have the specs up in front of me). There were some custom overclocking kits I saw recently on the web that were very close (not with that monster PSU though), they were too expensive for me. :/ I'm a cheapo.

Personally I would not go with that size PSU, it's too big, but big is good... for me I'd step it down a notch while still ensuring all your components can be powered efficiently while leaving a bit of leg room for upgrades and tinkering. Again that's what I'd do... there's absolutely nothing wrong with your selection (I have had PSUs malfunction and draw excess power than needed but that's not the norm... obviously this is the case for PC PSUs not manual power supplies that are dial operated). Shy has taught me the most important thing of all: the PSU is probably the most critical part of your PC. He's certainly the expert here on all things PSU & graphics.

[ShyguyXPC]

No no no... JP is more expert than I am in PSU's. I already knew some basics of PSU's before I joined this forum (Brand names, who makes what, weight of a PSU, etc), but JP and a couple others set me and others straight on a few misinformed ideas on PSU's (I too at one time went for as much power as I could buy LOL), since then I've been on occasion learning from JP's comments and suggestions on PSU's.

Yesterday I started to reply to this thread, and was going to say the same thing you did about Newegg's forums, almost exactly the same thing. I signed up over there earlier this year/late last year, when Sharder8 from here went over to them. I think I posted once or twice, but that was it. Many of the people posting there are Noobs to PC building talking like they've been doing it for years (probably a bunch of 12 or 13 year olds), and no Idea of what they're saying most of the time.

I've seen Recommendations to people to get RAIDMAX Power supplies for their builds, THATS a big No No.


Then you have the ones who step in and add to it, just when you think its someone who knows what they're doing (all the right words and a few good parts selections, or advice), then they suggest something thats, ah, how do I say it? STUPID...? (Keeping things G Rated) LOL


There are a few knowledgeable folk there, but as you said their few & far between.

[stroyal]

I was talking about JP, as our power supply expert, also.
He's not limited to just that though.

I'm not a member, but I read Hard OCP also, as well as a few others.

[ShyguyXPC]

I'm signed up at Anandtech, HardOCP, Used to be at Tom's until they did a complete site and forums redesign and for some reason now I'm no longer in the members list (checked, via my Email address with registration and even Members list, its no longer listed), Overclock.net, Here, XtremePCCentral, Neweggs Forums, XtremeSystem.org, and a few others.

Mainly just visit TIMO, OCN, and XPC these days.

[stroyal]

Speaking of HardOCP, those articles on Bulldozer, almost brought tears to my eyes.

As you know, I'm not a fanboy, of any kind, but I would hate to see, only Intel surviving.

Lets hope this is only the beginning of Bulldozer.

[ShyguyXPC]

I know what you mean on Bulldozer, its a big big "FAIL" on AMD's part so far. Though for me, and my 3D Graphics Animation Software I play with, it would be a BIG BIG "WIN"... $220 or so for a dang nice 8 Core CPU... my software would fully utilize all the cores (hell the main client and each network client will use a total of 16 cores), so I would benefit from using it for that stuff, but for gaming and basic usage it would be a total Waste.

I'm waiting to hold out and see how it is in the spring, or around there, before I jump on the AMD Bulldozer stuff though.

I'm still a big fan of the AMD Fusion, Llanos desktop setups though, if only they were a tad cheaper, and offered a bit faster clock speeds for the lower end models (or at least the Radeon 6500 series GPU on it like the Triple and Quad cores), instead of the 6300/6400 series)


But you also have to keep in mind, AMD also has an ace up its sleeve, with the Radeon Franchise/line up, Intel can't compete with any of that at all.

Now if Nvidia & Intel were to merge, AMD would be done for.

[stroyal]

For some reason, with my limited knowledge of processor architecture, I was thinking/hoping, Bulldozer would be able to use all it's cores, regardless of the program.

Seems to me, it was the way the L1 Cashe was set up.
Guess not, though.