can someone cast their eye over this lot pls?

[Billybob]

Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W,Retail £257
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H USB 3.0 Intel Z77 Socket 1155 Ivybridge Ready Motherboard with USB3 £ 78
Corsair Memory Vengeance Jet Black Low Profile 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel £ 31
2GB EVGA GTX 670 FTW Signature II, 28nm, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6208MHz GDDR5, GPU 1006MHz, Cores 1344, DP/DVI/HDMI+Free Games £311
Samsung MZ-7TD250BW 250GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic £158

im very much out of the loop in terms of whats hot and whats not these days so any advice would be appreciated. specifically on compatibility, if there are any better bits more suited, that sort of thing. thanks for any advice

[DrKazza]

do you need a 1tb storage drive too?

I assume you're sorted for dvd drive, case, psu, heatsinkfan?

Tomshardware only has a buyers guide from Aug - could be worth it as a ref point:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bui ... ,3276.html
ditto Bit-tech
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers ... ust-2012/1

I doubt much has changed in a month and a half to be honest

[Billybob]

yeah im just going to use my old hdd for storage , new install of win 7 on the ssd of course. i was going to go with the stock cpu heatsink, is this recmmended? i doubt ill be doing any overclocking. old dvd drives too.

[Billybob]

cheers kazz those sites seem to be not too dissimilar from what ive picked, i notice theyve gone for the slightly cheaper cpu, but not much other difference really.

[DrKazza]

The best CPU heatsinks seem to be a bit bulky for a lot of cases so it's probably easiest to go for stock.

See how you live with it... check the clearance with the Mobo and the case and if the noise is too much then buy an upgrade... it's probably the cheapest component in there anyway

[larchy]

The 3570K is an itsy bitsy tiny miniscule little bit slower than the 3770K and £70 cheaper. Just an option. The extra 100MHz ain't gonna make any odds, and nor is the SMT for 8 virtual cores, but hey wtf not just get the bigger one anyway for the hell of it. I did!



Anand recently had a look at Ivy Bridge RAM performance from 1333 up to 2400 and there was quite a difference - the caveat being they were only looking at IGP gaming. I strongly suspect there'd be little worth getting anything dearer than the RAM you've chosen given you're getting a discrete GPU.


The GTX 670 is probably the best buy GPU at the moment.

There is a Pro version of the Samsung 840 which sports MLC NAND (as opposed to the standard version's TLC) and consequently has greater longevity (backed by a 5yr as opposed to 3yr warranty) and hugely improved write speeds. Random writes for the Pro on 6Gpbs will be around ~350MB/s as opposed to 200-250MB/s, though on sequential writes the Pro is hitting almost 500MB/s

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6337/sams ... b-review/7

Read speeds are comparable as you'd expect.

Given you're spending >£70 for a miniscule CPU increase just thought I'd mention the ~£50 extra for a substantially faster and longer lasting SSD option.



Gigabyte. Gnggnh.

[Billybob]

lol, sorry mr larch i was getting an itchy finger waiting for scans tomorrow delivery order cut off and ordered it all. i probably would have changed the cpu and ssd if id seen it oh well thanks anyway!