So I'm building a new PC... and some questions

[Chieftess]

First, what may seem like a silly question, is the UPS backups. They have these odd diagonal plugs that I wouldn't feel safe unplugging. Would it be ok to put them in a power strip (assuming it'll take 1200 watts)? I know it seems redundant, but feels safer.

Second, I accidentally go the P8Z68-v instead of the P8Z68-v Pro. The only difference I've noticed is the Pro has extra ports (mostly for video and SSD), and more onboard sound features, one being Blu-Ray Copy Protection layer or something. What effect would not having this be? Also, it doesn't have surround sound. Does that mean that any sound in games would sound the same no matter which way it's coming from? (i.e., left or right) Even still, I can always buy a dedicated sound card (which was my original intent, anyway, but wanted to see what the onboard sound was like after hearing it's pretty decent). So, any sound card recommendations? Creative Labs x-Fi?

 

[Cutlass]

You can plug a power strip into a UPS. I do to add capacity for a few low power accessories. The PC and monitor themselves draw enough power so that I feel better having them plugged directly into the UPS.

 

[illram]

Left and right is stereo, which every audio device since the walkman is capable of, fortunately. Surround sound is a general description of a wide variety of audio formats usually using 5 speakers or more.

The Realtek chip on that mobo is 8 channel and it says it supports 7.1, which is surround sound. An audiophile can correct me if I am wrong here. A quick Realtek alc892 + surround sound google search reveals others having issues with getting it working, although some apparently do seem to get it working once they have the correct inputs.

edit: perhaps I should explain, the onboard audio chipset is what determines the onboard sound features. In your case, your mobo has a realtek ALC892 chipset.

also just curious, what's the specs on your new toy?

 

[Chieftess]

Left and right is stereo, which every audio device since the walkman is capable of, fortunately. Surround sound is a general description of a wide variety of audio formats usually using 5 speakers or more.

The Realtek chip on that mobo is 8 channel and it says it supports 7.1, which is surround sound. An audiophile can correct me if I am wrong here. A quick Realtek alc892 + surround sound google search reveals others having issues with getting it working, although some apparently do seem to get it working once they have the correct inputs.

edit: perhaps I should explain, the onboard audio chipset is what determines the onboard sound features. In your case, your mobo has a realtek ALC892 chipset.

also just curious, what's the specs on your new toy?

ASUS P8Z68-V LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS (should've been PRO, but oh well.. close enough. Already has too many ports anyway! )

Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4 GHz Processor

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 (cpu cooler)

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Lite-On iHBS212-08 12X Internal Blu-Ray Writer - BD-R SL 12X, BD-R DL 8X, BD-RE SL/DL 2X, DVD±R 16X, DVD-RAM 12X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, CD-R/RW 48X, LightScribe, Black

Antec Twelve Hundred V3 (Love this case! My first build was an Antec! Easiest case to work in!)

Corsair Professional Series Gold 1200-Watt 80 Plus Gold Certified High-Performance Power Supply - CMPSU-1200AX

23" LED Samsung Monitor BX2331

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

Logitech S-220 17 Watts 2.1 Multimedia Speaker System - OEM

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - OEM

APC BR1500G 1500 VA 865 Watt 10 Outlets Power Saving Back-UPS RS 1500

Western Digital 2 TB External Hard Drive

Approx. $2330. Saved $250 from rebates and the refurbished monitor.

Obviously, I'm lacking a mouse, but I'm going to look for them at Target or some place. I didn't like the selection on New Egg (can't always tell if they're compact or not).


Speakers - If needed (i.e., I don't like the onboard sound), I'm thinking ASUS Xonar D1, or Creative x-Fi Titanium.

 

[illram]

That's quite the system! Although even if you doubled up on that Video Card, it doesn't look like you would crack 800 w. Why such a huge PSU?

Also, why not add an SSD in there? At $2300 I think you'd be crazy not to go all the way and make this system really scream with an SSD for your OS.

Sorry, I'm being nitpicky. I enjoy talking about this stuff though, don't mind me.

 

[Zelig]

Okay, bunch of thoughts, probably not in a good order, but I'm sure you can sort it out:

I would not plug a UPS into a power strip.

You probably will not need a dedicated sound card.

Most sound card software (including integrated ones) by default upmix stereo sound to play in surround. I don't like this, so I disable this.

That power supply is waaay more than you need for that system. Either the AX750 or AX850 will do great for that computer.

There's really very little point in Win7 Ultimate, unless you specifically need the Enterprise features that aren't available in Pro. Otherwise save your money.

You really don't need an external soundcard with those speakers.


Overall: That's a smoking fast computer, but the speakers and monitor are both pretty weak, which is ok if you're looking for that, but not my cup of tea. My personal monitors/speakers are worth about 4x as much as the rest of my computer.

A nice 27" or 30" monitor with a 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 resolution would do wonders for that build, even with cheaper components otherwise, to offset the cost.

 

[Chieftess]

That's quite the system! Although even if you doubled up on that Video Card, it doesn't look like you would crack 800 w. Why such a huge PSU?

Also, why not add an SSD in there? At $2300 I think you'd be crazy not to go all the way and make this system really scream with an SSD for your OS.

Sorry, I'm being nitpicky. I enjoy talking about this stuff though, don't mind me.

My uncle recommended it (he works in networking). Also, when I build a PC, I plan on keeping it for at least 10 years, so new parts may use more wattage.

For the SSD, I considered it for that purpose, but from what I've read (and talking with my uncle), it has a limited number of writes, and may fail after a few months or years, plus they're still expensive. For now, I'm using a "smaller" drive (my 320gig gaming drive in my current system, which is larger than the 80gig OS drive) for the operating system. Maybe when I'm confident SSDs are more reliable.

Okay, bunch of thoughts, probably not in a good order, but I'm sure you can sort it out:

I would not plug a UPS into a power strip.

You probably will not need a dedicated sound card.

Most sound card software (including integrated ones) by default upmix stereo sound to play in surround. I don't like this, so I disable this.

That power supply is waaay more than you need for that system. Either the AX750 or AX850 will do great for that computer.

There's really very little point in Win7 Ultimate, unless you specifically need the Enterprise features that aren't available in Pro. Otherwise save your money.

You really don't need an external soundcard with those speakers.


Overall: That's a smoking fast computer, but the speakers and monitor are both pretty weak, which is ok if you're looking for that, but not my cup of tea. My personal monitors/speakers are worth about 4x as much as the rest of my computer.

A nice 27" or 30" monitor with a 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 resolution would do wonders for that build, even with cheaper components otherwise, to offset the cost.

1. I'm tone deaf. No, really, I have a hearing loss, so I don't hear all sounds anyway, and I use speakers instead of headphones (headphones make my hearing aids whistle).
2. A 27" or 30" monitor leave no room for my keyboard under my sloping roof, and I'm not about to re-arrange every piece of furniture in my room. That would be another project... Also, a 30" monitor would probably fall off my desk every time I put it on.

 

[Zelig]

My uncle recommended it (he works in networking). Also, when I build a PC, I plan on keeping it for at least 10 years, so new parts may use more wattage.

We've pretty much peaked in terms of wattage for stuff, more wattage takes unreasonably loud/expensive cooling.

And 10 years really doesn't seem too realistic for computers... with current hardware, nothing older than 6 years or so is reasonably useful. You could spend a quarter of what you're planning amount every 2.5 years, selling the old computer when you're done with it, and you'd likely get something similar to this after the first 2.5 years, and then something faster for the last 5 years - and you'd end up with something much faster than this by the end.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Wow, 1200W PSU? What a waste of money/electricity. Most of the time that PSU will be sitting at well below 50% utilization which is horrible for efficiency. I have a 750W Corsair that has had no issues powering two very power-hungry GPUs at 100% utilization, 8 gigs of RAM, a heavily OC'd Q9550 (well beyond its TDP), 5 HDDs and a half dozen fans all at once. The danged thing didn't even spin up the fan too often.

Unless you're going to go for a triple-sli system with a heavily OC'd Extreme Ed. CPU, 1200W is way more than overkill. Save a bunch of money and get a good modular Corsair, a 750W model will be more than plenty I would think.

No, actually, take that money and put it into a SSD. What you said about them is true, but not for all of them. Some of the shoddier SSDs will fail spectacularly. I personally have a 120GB Intel G2 that is going to be a year old in a couple of weeks and it's sitting at 90% of its maximal speeds after all this time. I had to tweak windows initially to reduce the number of small reads/writes, but after that I've barely had to do anything since. In return for all that I get a boot drive that absolutely screams. I wake up in the morning, tap my mouse to boot up my desktop from hibernate. By the time I've gotten out of bed, which on a decent morning takes me 10s, my desktop is already sitting at the login screen.


For everything else, I would possibly wait just a wee bit until Black Friday (or for Newegg/Amazon it would be Cyber Monday) so you can score some of those parts for less. When I was building my current rig 3 years ago, I snagged the Antec 1200 for 75$, got a hefty discount on my motherboard and video card to boot.

 

[Zelig]

SSDs will fail eventually, it's guaranteed.

So will hard drives.

 

[GoodGame]

For a mouse I'd recommend checking the Logitech G500, or the next more expensive one above that if you like. The on-the-fly customizability of DPI is very nice, plus you can load internal weights to improve the feel. And it has software so you can customize the DPI and other features for every single program you run, and it will autodetect what program you are running as well.

Very handy if you game, draw, or find the typical $30 and below mouses to be less than comfortable.

I like Best Buy for shopping for them, since they usually have display models for each mouse.

 

[Chieftess]

So, would 800 watts be better? That was my initial choice, but then I was told that was too low. As for the hard drives, I have drives that are 9-15 years old and are still working. I've had more Windows crashes corrupting data (one was Norton AV induced) than HD crashes.

So, from what I see is...

1200W vs. 850W?750W?
HDD vs. SSD

And one person elsewhere that suggested the Antec was a bad case/choice.

 

[GoodGame]

I think the case is the least critical choice, especially if you are dropping in your own power supply. I'm partial to the CoolerMaster HAF series, but they look similar to your Antecs.

http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=Njkz&lan=us

vs.

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2988

Your Antec choice has several more fan mounts than the HAF.
However the HAF appears to be roomier, at least by the dimensions.

Antec vs. HAF
582 mm (H) x 213mm (W) x 513mm (D) vs. (W x D x H): 230 x 550 x 590 mm

So I'd say the HAF was roomier.




Looking at the power supply ratings, since yours will have 80 Plus gold, and is at 1200 Watts, then you'll be running at best power efficiency if your entire system draws 600Watts exactly (50% load), according to the efficiency charts for the "green" power supplies. The power efficiency drops off if your system draws significantly more or less than 600 Watts. I'd d0 a best guess calculation of the energy requirements of your system (watts) and double that to get the Wattage that your power supply should have. It'll only be a guess because the power draw will be variable depending upon the computer's activity (graphics cards varying the load depending on what you are doing would be one source of variation).



I'd go with an SSD to replace the OS drive, at least as a new toy.

 

[Abaddon]

I don't know enough to comment on the computery stuff.. but is there any real need for the bluray player/reader/writer mugubbuns? Everyithng is on the tinterwebs now!

 

[Chieftess]

I don't know enough to comment on the computery stuff.. but is there any real need for the bluray player/reader/writer mugubbuns? Everyithng is on the tinterwebs now!

I might have to ask you to provide an English translation for Internet slang.


Anyway, I don't mind the extra fans since my room gets really hot during the summer. I'm also adding in extra stuff from my old PC (DVD-Rom Drive, 320GB HD for the OS, possibly the CD-Rom Drive - I believe some games wouldn't recognize a CD in a DVD drive - and my floppy drive, at least temporarily.). It's possible I could add a Sound Card in some years down the road. Also, I've read about PSUs losing power over time. From what I heard, 850 watts was the low end.

 

[Zelig]

I wouldn't put the OS on the 320gb drive, you want the OS on your fastest drive, not your slowest.

I don't know of any games that don't recognize a CD in a DVD drive. For that matter, I don't even have any games that require discs in the drive to play...

And floppy drives are dumb. I haven't used a floppy drive in over a decade.

850 watt is not low end, your system is barely going to break 400 watts at full load.

 

[illram]

800 watts is definitely on the high end.

Intel SSDs are pretty reliable, albeit expensive.

 

[Zelig]

800 watts is definitely on the high end.

Intel SSDs are pretty reliable, albeit expensive.

There isn't really enough data to indicate that current-generation Intel drives are more reliable than other brands.

The Storage Review Leaderboard is usually a pretty good source for making drive selections.

 

[GoodGame]

I don't know enough to comment on the computery stuff.. but is there any real need for the bluray player/reader/writer mugubbuns? Everyithng is on the tinterwebs now!

It's true you could just stream Netflix, but some things are only on DVD and some only on Blue-Ray.

@Chieftess,

I'd say that 400ish Watts is the true low end. About 600 to 700ish Watts is mid end. I thought about 1000 Watts was high end. The thing is it depends on what gen your CPU is. At 550 Watts, my dual core is fine with a relatively new power hoggy video card (450 GTS), sound card, and two RAM sticks. The best gen I7 like yours, is a different story.

The best decision is still a Watts about 2x what all your components will draw at full power (Video card processing 3D games, your discs and drives spinning, and I guess whatever "full" power is for a SSD) plus maybe a little elbow room for another card or two, or a few more sticks of RAM if you might step upgrade all that at a later time.

 

[Chieftess]

I just got the motherboard today and put in the CPU. Little did I know, they shipped a heatsink with it. But, I'm gonna use the Cooler Master. The i7 heatsink looks like this dinky little thing that I used in a really, really, really old build once. The rest of the computer installation is going to be done tomorrow night (when my monitor comes in that UPS said would be here today.).

BTW, here's the full monitor specs -

Spoiler :

Display
Screen Size 23"
Resolution 1920 x 1080
Brightness 250 cd/㎡
Response Time 2ms
Static Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Dynamic Contrast Ratio
5,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
Viewing Angle 170˚/160˚ (CR>10)
Color Support 16.7M
Features
Magic Picture Controls Magic Angle, Magic Eco, Magic Return, MagicBright3
Mac Compatible Yes
Inputs
DVI Yes
HDMI Yes
Composite Video Yes
PC (D-sub 15 Pin) Yes
Weight
Product Weight 7.5 lbs.
Shipping Weight 11
Dimensions (W x H x D)
Product Size With Stand 21.5" x 15.9" x 7.8" -- 16" is about the limit that I can have and still have my keyboard on my desk without starting to hang over the edge.
Product Size Without Stand 21.5" x 13" x 2.1"
Shipping Dimensions 26.4" x 15.9" x 4.5"

EDIT: It turns out it was delivered. We just never bothered to look on the porch! I decided to check the shipment status, and it said:

Delivered On:Thursday, 10/13/2011 at 6:51 P.M.
Left At:Front Door

Why they didn't bother to ring the doorbell is beyond me. Judging from the time it was delivered, they must've been behind schedule. So, I go out to the porch at 10:40pm and there it is.

It looks so deceptively small (rectangular optical illusion), yet it's the same height as my monitor and just fits under the sloping roof.