Building myself a PC

[Jamesds]

Greetings all,

Seeing the system requirements for Civ5 got me thinking about buying a desktop. My laptop has an i7 with a dedicated graphics card, but it's not a gaming laptop and it regularly throttles when playing games, even with the back of the laptop propped up with cubes of cue chalk (a good use for those cheap blue ones). With Civ5 using my i7 to it's fullest I'm a little worried that playing Civ for long hours will end up taking a toll on my laptop and reduce it's lifetime somewhat.

Whether that's completely true or not I don't know, but it's a perfectly good excuse for me to fulfil one of my lifelong dreams and build myself a PC , something I really should have done before now, but have never had the money or need for.

I've grown up with computers, and I'm a computer scientist, so I'm quite familiar with the insides of a PC and the various components, but I'm no expert, so I would appreciate some thoughts on these components that I've added to a basket at Scan, which you can access here. Basically, I don't want to spend any more than £550 (my budget was £500 but I've stretched it a little...) and I have a monitor and optical drive kicking about so don't need to buy those. I've been looking at CustomPC for some advice, and one of my friends with experience in building PCs has also given me advice, mainly to go for the cheap Intel CPU and moderately overclock it (say 4GHz, nothing crazy) to get some good performance out of it until I can get enough money to upgrade to an i5/i7.

I'll paste the spec here too:

Case: Antec 300
PSU: 600W Coolermaster Silent Pro M Modular
RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600)
MB: Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2, Intel P55 Express, S1156, DDR3 2200, uATX
HD: 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms
GPU: 1GB XFX HD5770, PCI-E 2.0(x16)
Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo,4 Heatpipe + PWM, Silent 120 Fan
CPU: Intel® Pentium® Processor G6950 (3M Cache, 2.80 GHz) LGA1156

Thanks in advance

James

 

[Tarkhan]

I had to look up the CPU (didnt know they still had pentium branded CPUs...) and it looks like a lot of power for a decent price. Supposedly its the most overclockable chip on the planet as of early 2010. I have an i7 and didnt overclock it much, though I have no cooling hardware other than the included heatsink/fan and of course the case fan.

The rest looks ok, the big ones are CPU, quantity of ram and GPU, and anything in the 5700 series should have no issue.

 

[Fëanor]

The i3 530 or 540 will give you much better bang for the buck, so getting one of those instead of the G6950 and the Gelid Tranquillo would be a better long term plan for the same money. Of course if you plan to upgrade in a short while already having a decent Cooler is preferable.

However LGA 1156 is nearing end of life and Intel will release their new mainstream platform ( LGA 1155) and Sandy Bridge processors this quarter. If you can wait to get one of those you will have a much more future-proof machine since you also will be able to upgrade that machine with the Ivy Bridge processors that will be released in Q1 2012.

 

[civ_king]

I had to look up the CPU (didnt know they still had pentium branded CPUs...) and it looks like a lot of power for a decent price. Supposedly its the most overclockable chip on the planet as of early 2010. I have an i7 and didnt overclock it much, though I have no cooling hardware other than the included heatsink/fan and of course the case fan.

The rest looks ok, the big ones are CPU, quantity of ram and GPU, and anything in the 5700 series should have no issue.

As of May the i5-655k dethroned it, 4.8 GHZ ON AIR

 

[tokala]

With an Intel system you indeed run the risk that you get only a small time window in which you will be able to upgrade your CPU, as they switch sockets and voltage regulation specification like every year. So if you are planning to buy a i5-7x0 in a few month anyway, this is reasonable system. If not, you might be indeed better off to wait until the introduction of the next CPU generation.

 

[Jamesds]

Thanks for the replies. That's interesting about the new LGA 1155 platform, although if they were to release them and such motherboards appeared on Scan, wouldn't they be quite a steep price to start with? I think I'll be happy to stick with an i5 for a few years, with the possibility of upgrading it to an i7 when they're cheaper I guess.

Also, I've made some changes - drastic changes actually. It helps that one of my friends has offered me a CoolerMaster Centurion RC534+ case, so I can spend some extra money on a proper CPU and not need to worry about a cooler as I won't be overclocking. I've also gone with a better motherboard as a result to support USB3 and be full ATX size. The PSU was changed as Corsair was highly recommended to me as a more reliable PSU, and plus I am happy to save a bit for not having a modular PSU.

Here's the basket, and here's the copy+pasted components:

PSU: 650W Corsair CMPSU-650TX, SLi/Xfire,Single 12V Rail, 80%+ Efficient, 120mm Quiet Fan, ATX12V v2.2
RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP
CPU: Intel Core i5 750, Lynnfield 45nm, Quad Core, 2.66GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail
HDD: 500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
GPU: 1GB XFX HD5770, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 4800MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, Cores 800, 2x DL DVI-I/HDMI
MB: Asus P7P55D-E LX, P55 Express, S1156, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 2200(OC), USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX

Is that much better? I do like the look of the i5-750, should be good for Civ5 with it's effective use of multiple cores.

 

[tokala]

Is that much better? I do like the look of the i5-750, should be good for Civ5 with it's effective use of multiple cores.

Can't go wrong with the i5-750
The PSU is looking like a severe case of overkill though, this system will be stretched to reach even 250 W power consumption. A good PSU in the 400-450 W range would still provide plenty of headroom, especially if you do not plan to overclock. And it would probably deliver a better effficiency while the system is idling.

 

[civ_king]

I still think a i5-655k dual core @4.8 GHz is killer, slaughters regular apps

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Can't go wrong with the i5-750
The PSU is looking like a severe case of overkill though, this system will be stretched to reach even 250 W power consumption. A good PSU in the 400-450 W range would still provide plenty of headroom, especially if you do not plan to overclock. And it would probably deliver a better effficiency while the system is idling.

Peak efficiency is right around 50% which is right where that 650W will sit at.

 

[tokala]

Peak efficiency is right around 50% which is right where that 650W will sit at.

This system will be at 200-250W during 3D games and below 100W when idling. As can be seen here, for low power output <20% the efficiency of a PSU drops fast. When comparing the TX750 with a 450W model
it's about 10 percentage points less effizient at 100W.

What's probably more important than the maybe 5 bucks you will save each year is that the Corsair TX750W gets a thumbs down by Mr. Katzer, who seriously knows his stuff (he was at that time testing PSUs for a living, and is now working for a PSU manufacturer). The TX650W presumably uses a similiar design. In contrast, he endorses the Corsair VX450W and the Corsair CX400W, which are using a different design, as solid choices in another test.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The system will draw closer to 300W on full load, and most of the load will be on the 12v rails which dont comprise the total 650W output of the PSU.

Now for those numbers: I didnt know about those, and you know what? It doesnt really matter. The TX series is still solid, and well worth the money. Ive had a TX750 in my system for nearly 2 years, and it has given me no trouble at all. Even when overvolting my CPU it's stayed rock solid. Corsair is also a brand Id trust in support, a lot more than say Seasonic or PCP&C.

With all that being said, if op wants to go for a modular PSU simply to remove some of the clutter, Id advise that. With a smaller case the cable management becomes a headache.

 

[tokala]

The system will draw closer to 300W on full load, and most of the load will be on the 12v rails which dont comprise the total 650W output of the PSU.

210-260W with an i7 -920 @3.33GHz which will consume about 50 W more than a i5 -750.
The corsair 650W is rated for 52A/12V, the 450W 33A/12, the 400W 30A/12A; all of those will be more than enough for this build. Obviously you would prefer an option with more headroom if you plan to do some serious overclocking, but the threadstarter seems to be rather content with what the i5-750 will provide at stock. And I did not intended to suggest that the 650W won't do the job, just that the 450W probably is of superior quality. Should be plausible, as the 650W is not that much more expensive than the 450 W.

Out of curiosity, what's your system? Edit: Checked it out, obviously should a quality 750 PSU have no trouble with that
For reference, I have something comparable, only half of the CPU and half of the RAM, and running it with a 400W PSU, also for 2 years without any problem And as a matter of fact/measurement, my rig does draw between 250 and 300 W under load.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

My system used to draw near 550W at full load. Dual GPU and heavily OC'd quad-core will tend to do that. This is measured at the socket for full system draw. I havent checked it recently, but Im sure its a more manageable 300W these days.

 

[Zelig]

My system used to draw near 550W at full load. Dual GPU and heavily OC'd quad-core will tend to do that. This is measured at the socket for full system draw. I havent checked it recently, but Im sure its a more manageable 300W these days.

One thing to keep in mind is the efficiency of power supplies. If your PSU was 85% efficient at those loads, a 550W draw at the wall is is ~470 watts of actual system draw.

 

[Tarkhan]

did you notice any performance increase with dual GPU?

I've tried it before, but it seemed to produce a whole pile of heat and noise for very little FPS gain.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Yep, that was my experience. I used it mostly for folding where I did get an actual 2x boost in performance.

 

[Tarkhan]

As of May the i5-655k dethroned it, 4.8 GHZ ON AIR

Ah, yeah. I got that info from a review posted in January

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The i5-655k may be able to do 4.8gHz on air, but that is one seriously lucky chip. From what I have seen, for the price, the 750 still gets consistently better overclocks.

 

[V. Soma]

PSU: 650W Corsair CMPSU-650TX, SLi/Xfire,Single 12V Rail, 80%+ Efficient, 120mm Quiet Fan, ATX12V v2.2
RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP
CPU: Intel Core i5 750, Lynnfield 45nm, Quad Core, 2.66GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail
HDD: 500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
GPU: 1GB XFX HD5770, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 4800MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, Cores 800, 2x DL DVI-I/HDMI
MB: Asus P7P55D-E LX, P55 Express, S1156, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 2200(OC), USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX

My new machine, dedicated for civ5, is nearly the same

PSU: CHIEFTEC CTG-500-80PB 500W
RAM: GEIL Value Plus 4096Mb DDR3 1333Mhz CL7 KIT
CPU: Intel Core i5 2,8GHz LGA1156 8MB Box (i5-760)
HDD: Western Digital 750GB SATAII (WD7501AALS) 7200RPM 32MB dual processor
GPU: GIGABYTE GV-R577D5-1GD-B 1024MB PCIe
MB: ASUS P7P55 LX

 

[Jamesds]

My new machine, dedicated for civ5, is nearly the same

PSU: CHIEFTEC CTG-500-80PB 500W
RAM: GEIL Value Plus 4096Mb DDR3 1333Mhz CL7 KIT
CPU: Intel Core i5 2,8GHz LGA1156 8MB Box (i5-760)
HDD: Western Digital 750GB SATAII (WD7501AALS) 7200RPM 32MB dual processor
GPU: GIGABYTE GV-R577D5-1GD-B 1024MB PCIe
MB: ASUS P7P55 LX

Nice! Thanks for the input everyone. I've had my new PC up and running since Friday, and it's a pleasure to use. The graphics are actually too powerful for me - runs TF2 for instance on 100+fps with max settings, so I've ended using VSync for the first time ever.

My final spec differed only slightly to the one I posted last week. I upgraded to the i5 760 for a few pounds more, changed the RAM slightly to match one on the ASUS QVI and switched PSU to Antec TruePower Modular 650W.

Looking forward to playing Civ5 on this!