cooling and SLI

[seatay]

here is my build so far:

Case
InWIN MANA-136 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER EIGHT CORE FX-8150 (3.60GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)

Motherboard
ASUS® M5A99X EVO (DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/SLI)

Memory (RAM)
32GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 8GB)

Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)

Processor Cooling
SPIRE GEMINI REV.3-THERMAX HDT TWIN FAN CPU COOLER (£39)

I was just wondering if anyone could comment on whether the cooling will be enough to run this. Its a high end gaming pc. I am also going to SLI the graphics cards and wondered about your opinons on doing that aswell.

Cheers

 

[keynes]

Are you planning to overclock? I would consider a better case and an i5 for gaming (i5 would outperform the fx 8150). If you are planning to game in 3 monitors the 4gb VRAM is going to bring a slight improvement as opposed to the 2gb version. In 1 monitor the gtx 680 2gb outperforms the 4gb version.

 

[seatay]

i'm not going to overclock it. Could you give me the spec of a good i5 becuase as far as my knowledge goes the more GHz and cores the better and surely an 8 core 3.60GHz processor would be better then an i5 most likely quad core? again i don't really know.

As for the monitors its going to be a single monitor, and again how can a 2GB graphics card out perform a 4GB graphic card, surely the 4GB VRAM will be better then 2. price isn't an issue and im not sure what getting a bigger case will do if the one ive got atm has enough cirulation and is big enough for the fans i've chosen. could you give me any tips on whether i might be better off with liquid cooling over fans and heat sync?

 

[keynes]

i'm not going to overclock it. Could you give me the spec of a good i5 becuase as far as my knowledge goes the more GHz and cores the better and surely an 8 core 3.60GHz processor would be better then an i5 most likely quad core? again i don't really know.

Most games use 4 or less cores,
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/6

As for the monitors its going to be a single monitor, and again how can a 2GB graphics card out perform a 4GB graphic card, surely the 4GB VRAM will be better then 2.

the higher Vram improves performance at higher resolutions.

The palit jetstream 680 4gb does not come pre-overclock as the 2gb version hence lower fps on games like battlefield in 1 monitor

price isn't an issue and im not sure what getting a bigger case will do if the one ive got atm has enough cirulation and is big enough for the fans i've chosen. could you give me any tips on whether i might be better off with liquid cooling over fans and heat sync?

If you have a SLI set up then I'd suggest a full tower case with good airflow/cable management (Haf 932 or Haf X), liquid cooling for your cpu is not needed if you are not planning in overclocking the cpu.
2 x gtx 670 will give you a very close performance to 2 x GTX 680 2gb and around £200 cheaper but if money is not an issue you could go with the GTX 680 2gb.
What version of windows are you ordering? You will need windows 7 professional to benefit from 32gb but for gaming is overkill.

 

[Wolvo7]

To add on Ruben's post games don't use more than 4 cores so more than that would be pointless, since games would use only 4 cores from your 8. Also Intel and AMD CPU cores are not identical, Intel cores are more powerful than AMD ones, which means that an i5 quad-core would outperform your 8 core. An i5 3570 would be ideal.
Here's an article for u http://www.techradar.com/news/proce...s/intel-vs-amd-which-processor-is-best-936589

If you want an 8 core CPU go for an i7 it uses hyperthreading to create 4 virtual cores, bringing your total to 8. And these 8 cores will blow AMD's ones out of the water. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=434
But there's no use for 8 cores unless you're into video or photo editing.

Also case-wise you've got a very high-end build and this case will become very hot very quick with these components, so you'd want one with better airflow. You don't want to cook food in your PC, just use it for games

Also if that's only for gaming you don't need more than 8 GB RAM, 16GB would be plenty if you edit videos and photos.
Are you going to get separate storage disks? If price is not an issue I'd get an SSD and a Caviar Black as secondary HDD. And with that a 850W PSU just for peace of mind if you plan to add more HDDs or components in the future.

 

[seatay]

since ruben's post ive been looking at the intel and they do seem to perform better from what i've found on the net. Something which i should've mentioned eralier is that I will be running a few virtual machines on it, hence the RAM.

The reason i initialy went with the ADM over the intel was the massive price difference, and i no games don't use 8 cores yet but i was hoping this pc would be my almost final pc so I would be ready for 5 years down the line when we start using 6 cores etc. I think i'll lalso take you on the SSD aswell

 

[Wolvo7]

If you're gonna be running some VMs I'd go for an i7 3770 just so you have additional cores to allocate to each VM. I think you won't regret getting an SSD either.

You may find that 5 years down the line the CPU power will have dramatically improved since Intel will have had time to change their architecture 3 times. They alternate between a major and a minor change every year. The current generation Ivy bridge is a minor change with a new architecture expected next year. So you may decide to upgrade anyways in 5 years.

 

[seatay]

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor Extreme i7-3960X (3.3GHz) 15MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011

Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(8 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)

Processor Cooling
SPIRE GEMINI REV.3-THERMAX HDT TWIN FAN CPU COOLER (£39)

in the list of processors i couldn't find the i7 3770 so i went with the 3960X. Hope the SSD looks ok and everything else. Anymore feedback would be much appreciated. can you crossfire with the motherboard i've selected? as it doesn't say SLI or crossfire on hte board itself.

Are any of my parts O'C by any chance cause i'm not gonna O'C and don't want pre-overclocked components.

 

[keynes]

You can SLI with that motherboard , you are choosing a different socket LGA2011 and the 3960x for gaming is overkill, not sure how it woud benefit running virtual machines but if you want to choose the i7-3770 the link is:
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/

 

[seatay]

cheers for the advice again ruben, just 1 more thing is the new case good enough for circulation etc. and are any of my components O'C atm?

 

[keynes]

O'C as overclocked? For SLI I would choose a full tower case like the coolermaster haf 932 or the hax x.

 

[seatay]

yer, its just ive had a look at other posts with my i7 six core and it seems to be an overclocked processor, i was wondering if it came pre-overclocked or if that was just that specif guy oveclocking his. As i don't want any overclocked parts on my pc. and i'll have a look at another case and get back to you.

 

[keynes]

yer, its just ive had a look at other posts with my i7 six core and it seems to be an overclocked processor, i was wondering if it came pre-overclocked or if that was just that specif guy oveclocking his. As i don't want any overclocked parts on my pc. and i'll have a look at another case and get back to you.

The CPU is not going to be overclocked, if you want a pre-overclocked system you need to order from here:
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/desktop-pcs/intel-overclocked-computers/

 

[Wolvo7]

It's not overclocked, it's just unlocked for overclocking. All of the Sandy Bridge Extreme (socket 2011) can be OCed, doesn't mean you have to.

I wouldn't get a 3960X it's very expensive for a marginal performance increase over the 3930K. Dunno how many VMs you plan to run at the same time, or how powerful you require them to be, but Sandy Bridge E processor would essentially give you 12 cores with hyperthreading. You can allocate 4 cores max/VM as far as i can remember. I think 8 cores should be enough, depends on your use.

 

[seatay]

from what i've seen any of the processors with a k after them are overcloked, i mean they properly aren't buyt i think someone toild me that. I don't really understand that much about hyper-threading but are you saying that this processors will give me 6 physcial cores and 6 virtual aswell?

 

[Rakk]

from what i've seen any of the processors with a k after them are overcloked, i mean they properly aren't buyt i think someone toild me that.

Any CPU with a 'k' after it is unlocked for easier overclocking, but it is not overclocked by default.
If you want it overclocked you have to use the page rubensolo linked to do that

 

[seatay]

oh ok cheers, i must of misread XD.

 

[seatay]

Final build

Thanks for all the help guys and I think im gonna get this

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 932 FULL TOWER GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-3930K (3.2GHz) 12MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011

Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(8 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)

Processor Cooling
SPIRE GEMINI REV.3-THERMAX HDT TWIN FAN CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Headsets (VOIP)
LOGITECH® PC HEADSET 860 - STEREO WITH IN-LINE VOLUME CONTROL (£8)

Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Quantity
1

Price: £2,575.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Wolvo7]

from what i've seen any of the processors with a k after them are overcloked, i mean they properly aren't buyt i think someone toild me that. I don't really understand that much about hyper-threading but are you saying that this processors will give me 6 physcial cores and 6 virtual aswell?

Crudely yeah, HT doesn't add cores, it just allows each core to address 2 threads at the same time instead of one. If you're interested here's an article http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hyperthreading-technology-explained/ the CPUs that they mention are outdated but the concept is the same.

So a 3930k will be able to address 12 threads at the same time. That's a pretty beastly build you've got there but if you feel you need it go for it. It's massively overkill for gaming so hope you're gonna run a lot of VMs to justify it

 

[keynes]

Does the VM programme you are planning to use supports hyper threading?