New Build

[smarteyeball]

You don't need a Mack Truck to go to the supermarket for your weekly grocery shop.

I don't know... These days when every second car is a SUV/4WD in the car park, a Mack suddenly makes a lot of sense

Fair enough. I'm done then. Thanks for the help all!

Good luck when you get around to building it

 

[JaidynM]

You don't need a Mack Truck to go to the supermarket for your weekly grocery shop.

I don't know... These days when every second car is a SUV/4WD in the car park, a Mack suddenly makes a lot of sense

Fair enough. I'm done then. Thanks for the help all!

Good luck when you get around to building it

Thanks, Pat.

 

[smarteyeball]

You're welcome mate. Just sing out if you need hand with anything come build time. Plenty of us here have built computers remotely on more than a few occasions

 

[simmo]

Get a dedicated sound card..Realtek onboard causes issues with some games e.g BF2 and is universally despised.
A SSD will make a lot of difference also and the price is dropping to some extent..get a Sata 3 capable one if your board of choice supports it.
If you plan on running a multiple card system then a Matx board is better in regards to cooling if you don't plan on watercooling your graphics..fact is that a normal ATX board has not got the room for the cards to coexist happily on air..the bottom card will effectively starve the top card of air as theres like sfa gap and a Matx board has wider spacings between pcie slots. Also a much higher price.

 

[simmo]

Also regarding the PSU..I use a Antec Quattro 1000 watt and have had no problems with it...PSU's that are worth buying would be Antec/Corsair/Seasonic/Ocz in no particular order.
If you may be thinking quad SLI then you will need a lot of power to run them and you will have to watercool them also..you are talking big dollars here mate...I have a water block for my gtx 480 which cost over $250 to buy and import,multiply that by 4 and see what that costs then you need rad/pump/fittings/res etc etc AND a case to fit it in.
There is a reason why some high end cases are being made which accomodate 2 PSU's now...
cheers

 

[JaidynM]

Bumping the thread again for the last time.

My final budget is $1100 and I'm still unsure about the RAM. Everything else I'm quite sure of so that leaves me with a max of $102. So I've put down some:
G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-12GBRL 12GB (3 X 4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz

...from centrecom. The memory looks decent but on the motherboard compatibility list, the ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z isn't there. So would it fit and work?

 

[kodi]

If you are buying other parts from PCCG then get it from them they have it at $99.
There is to many brands and models of ram to list them all in the Compatibility chart,see if Gskill's website has a Ram chart where you can enter your motherboard and it advises what ram is compatible.

 

[JaidynM]

If you are buying other parts from PCCG then get it from them they have it at $99.
There is to many brands and models of ram to list them all in the Compatibility chart,see if Gskill's website has a Ram chart where you can enter your motherboard and it advises what ram is compatible.

But centrecom has it for $89?

I tried yesterday but couldn't find anything. Anyway, I'll have another look after school. Thanks, Kodi.

 

[A Guy]

I've been googling, and I see many users specs listing 12 or 16GB Gskill on that MB. As you say, the QVL list doesn't list that ram (no 12GB or 16GB kits actually), and the GSkill site doesn't list that MB as a supported MB. But I was unable to find any GSkill ram that listed that MB for that matter (mind, I didn't look through them all). Just offhand, I'd say that Ram would work fine, it is 1.5v Ram. But I believe that not being listed just means that it is not guaranteed to reach the listed speeds. I'd think you'd need to inquire of Asus if that Ram would work, as GSkill is likely to say yes.

Have a look through this thread. Starts at coming soon, to 200 pages following!

ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z Owners Club - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

A Guy

 

[JaidynM]

I've been googling, and I see many users specs listing 12 or 16GB Gskill on that MB. As you say, the QVL list doesn't list that ram (no 12GB or 16GB kits actually), and the GSkill site doesn't list that MB as a supported MB. But I was unable to find any GSkill ram that listed that MB for that matter (mind, I didn't look through them all). Just offhand, I'd say that Ram would work fine, it is 1.5v Ram. But I believe that not being listed just means that it is not guaranteed to reach the listed speeds. I'd think you'd need to inquire of Asus if that Ram would work, as GSkill is likely to say yes.

Have a look through this thread. Starts at coming soon, to 200 pages following!

ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z Owners Club - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

A Guy

Thanks, Bill. I signed up and posted. Hopefully I'll get an answer soon.

I'm also thinking of selling my current build including the GPU. I can then up my budget and buy a better card.

Okay. As this is going to be my last build for a long while, the GPU budget is going to be $400. It looks like the best PCCG can offer is an EVGA GTX 570 HD SuperClocked. I'm worried about the HD part of it though. Apparently it's a cut down version of the card with a center fan. I just went with EVGA as it's the most reputable GPU brand. Any ideas?

 

[smarteyeball]

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

 

[JaidynM]

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.

 

[smarteyeball]

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.

 

[JaidynM]

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.

 

[Ross]

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).

 

[Layback Bear]

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.

 

[JaidynM]

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.

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]

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.

 

[JaidynM]

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.

 

[kodi]

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.