New Build

JaidynM said:

I just went with EVGA as it's the most reputable GPU brand.

They are good, but I wouldn't necessarily agree they are the most reputable. Evga's biggest rep drawcard is their double lifetime warranty/step up program - which is not available to non-US residents. Quality wise there is not much between them and the other brands.


MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozr III PE/OC [N570GTXTWINFIIIPEOC] - $399.00 : PC Case Gear

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Overclocked V2 [GV-N570OC-13I-V2] - $369.00 : PC Case Gear

Big *******, hard to SLI - but worth it for the quiet:
ASUS GeForce GTX 570 DirectCU II 1280MB [ENGTX570-DCII-1280D5] - $389.00 : PC Case Gear

smarteyeball said:

JaidynM said:

I just went with EVGA as it's the most reputable GPU brand.

They are good, but I wouldn't necessarily agree they are the most reputable. Evga's biggest rep drawcard is their double lifetime warranty/step up program - which is not available to non-US residents. Quality wise there is not much between them and the other brands.


MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozr III PE/OC [N570GTXTWINFIIIPEOC] - $399.00 : PC Case Gear

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Overclocked V2 [GV-N570OC-13I-V2] - $369.00 : PC Case Gear

Big *******, hard to SLI - but worth it for the quiet:
ASUS GeForce GTX 570 DirectCU II 1280MB [ENGTX570-DCII-1280D5] - $389.00 : PC Case Gear

Fair enough. The Twin Frozr has the highest clock speed. I also have good experiences with msi so I might go with them.

I'm also unsure whether to get the P8Z68-DELUXE or the MAXIMUS GENE-Z. Money-wise, it's not an issue and the P8Z68 is ATX whereas that latter is mATX. So I should be able to fit more on the former. Apart from that, I can't see many extra benefits.

The MSI's are also damn good overclockers. The Twin Frozr II were noisy at load - I'm not sure if they fixed that with version III though.

My personal preference would be the P8Z68-DELUXE.

Even if it's for no other reason, room for future upgrades should be a big factor if you don't plan on upgrading the mobo for quite some time.

smarteyeball said:

The MSI's are also damn good overclockers. The Twin Frozr II were noisy at load - I'm not sure if they fixed that with version III though.

My personal preference would be the P8Z68-DELUXE.

Even if it's for no other reason, room for future upgrades should be a big factor if you don't plan on upgrading the mobo for quite some time.

I was worried about the noise; I've read that the Twin Frozr were noisy. But that was an article about the 560 Twin Frozr. I'm not sure if that applies to the 580.

At any rate, I've had nothing but good experiences with MSI and the Twin Frozr has the highest clock. It also seems to stay at incredibly low temps during gaming. The thing is, I most likely won't be overclocking the GPU. The CPU sure, but I see no game that needs a performance boost from a 580

I would have gone for the the ASUS 580 if I could SLI. There's no guarantee that I will but if I want to, I want to be able to without blocking any of the other components.

Some things to look at.
Corsair AX850 Gold
Corsair 600T case, mid size case but pay attentions to the w/l/h. Its bigger than many full size cases.

Ross said:

I'd avoid the Vertex 3 / Agility 3 SSD's, as they are having major issues atm. It's like OCZ released them in beta (check out their forums)! I personally had the BSOD issue and it kept reporting issues with lots of other things, so I was replacing hardware and software like there was no tomorrow. Ended up replacing the OCZ with a Crucial C300 and not a single BSOD and it ran 3 times as quick in the AS SSD tests (after every firmware 'fix' OCZ released, the drive got slower and slower, it ended up being slower than my mechanical HDD's)! The issues apparently occur on ASUS mobo's more frequently.

As for Twin Frozr III graphics cards, I can highly recommend them! I am running the MSI ATI Radeo HD 6870 Twin Frozr III. It is a massive beast of a card due to the cooling on it, but it's silent and can be overclocked very nicely (though I haven't needed to yet, as it runs everything perfectly).

Which SSD would you recommend then? Anyway, I'm going with the following GPU at the moment.
MSI GeForce GTX 580 Twin Frozr Overclocked
It's not a Twin Frozr III but it'll do just fine I hope.

Layback Bear said:

Some things to look at.
Corsair AX850 Gold
Corsair 600T case, mid size case but pay attentions to the w/l/h. Its bigger than many full size cases.

Thanks, but I prefer the Antec case. And what's the problem with the AX850?

Ross said:

I'd highly recommend the Crucial C300 (I'm currently running the 128gb in my desktop). Though if you want to stick with OCZ, the Vertex 2 range are fine as I have been running the Vertex 2E 240gb in my laptop for a few months now with no issues.

They're not stocked at PCCG nor MSY unfortunately and the Crucials they do sell are out of my price range. Anyway, I'll see what other recommendations people can come up with. Thanks, Ross.

OCZ Vertex 3 60GB SSD [06OSSDS3-25M-60V3] - $139.00 : PC Case Gear

I have this one and it is fantastic, have had no problems with it.