Brother building a new PC

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

I know there are threads like this. I was just hoping someone could give some oversights on my brothers build.

Article No. HV20CO73DE
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL9	60,89 €	60,89 €
Article No. HVR550SADE
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W	58,82 €		58,82 €
Article No. HV20Y35KDE
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155	209,08 €		209,08 €
Article No. HV1133RPDE
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX			83,99 €
Article No. HV203I18DE
BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil		53,03 €
Article No. HV30THRGDE
Thermalright Macho 120		35,99 €
Article No. HV12S841DE
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s		86,99 €
Article No. HV13WRE1DE
WD Red RD1000M 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB	67,69 €

And the graphics card is a NVidia GTX 660Ti EVGA. Already bought so cant change that.

Hes going to buy it soon, I know. I want to make sure he hasnt made any large mistakes, or overlooked something obvious. We are both new to this PC building bussiness.

[Vicious]

Peter, I priced up buying my mini-itx pc in September with hardwareversand and it still worked out cheaper to buy with overclockers.co.uk, just as an fyi (the two day delivery to Ireland and not having to fuck around with payment were a bonus).

Firstly: Z77 and i5-3570K carry an overclocking premium. Is he going to overclock? If not, save the money and get a H77 + i5 3530 or 3330

Secondly, unless you need low profile RAM: http://www.hardwareversand.de/1600+L...0U+CL9.article

Thirdly: The PSU you chose is €6 less when ordered as a 'special item' for some reason: http://www.hardwareversand.de/500+-+...s+550W.article If you have the money to spare, I'd suggest this PSU though: http://www.hardwareversand.de/500+-+...s+gold.article

Fourthly: The Shinobi case is notably bad at cooing in general, and graphics cards in particular. If you can afford an extra €25, buy this: http://www.hardwareversand.de/articl...gid=631&apop=6 If you can't, buy this http://www.hardwareversand.de/articl...gid=631&apop=3

Fifthly, try get a cheaper 250GB SSD. I have a 256gb Samsung 830 that I got for around €150 last september, and my brother has a 256gb Crucial M4 that I got for €120 on Black Friday from Amazon. Both of us have filled the 256gb up quickly with Windows, games and most frequently used apps.

Sixthly: Why a 1TB hdd? And why a WD Red?

[Sakkura]

Firstly: Z77 and i5-3570K carry an overclocking premium. Is he going to overclock? If not, save the money and get a H77 + i5 3530 or 3330

Fifthly, try get a cheaper 250GB SSD. I have a 256gb Samsung 830 that I got for around €150 last september, and my brother has a 256gb Crucial M4 that I got for €120 on Black Friday from Amazon. Both of us have filled the 256gb up quickly with Windows, games and most frequently used apps.

Sixthly: Why a 1TB hdd? And why a WD Red?

1. Looks like an overclocking build with that big cooler. The Asrock Z75 Pro3 looks cheaper and is identical apart from the chipset (and the Z75 chipset is very similar to the Z77 chipset), so that would be a place to save some money. Otherwise, for serious overclocking, you might spend some more to get a board with more serious VRMs (MSI Z77A-G45, Asrock Z77 Extreme3 etc.)
If you're not overclocking, B75 is usually cheaper than H77.

5. Depends what you're after, if you only want to speed up Windows, programs, and a handful of games, 120 GB is fine. Otherwise, 240+ is a good idea. As an added bonus, a larger SSD is also faster (at least at that end of the spectrum). This is particularly true of the 250 GB Samsung 840 vs. the 120 GB version.

6. I'd suggest a 1 TB WD Blue. Don't see the problem with 1 TB? Though going 2 TB isn't exactly expensive.

[Vicious]

My Win8 install(cleaned as much as possible)+hiberfile is 30gb and iirc, you're meant to keep a decent % of space on an SSD free or it starts to significantly affect performance? I just personally find it silly to spend ~€800 on a PC only to have to micromanage an SSD - but YMMV and all that :)

Also, 3 TB WD Red is less than twice the price, and the WD Red commands a significant premium for no reason that will benefit the OP's brother. Personally, I'd steer clear of WD as they seem to suffer worse reliability than Seagate or Hitachi/Toshiba based on Amazon.com/Newegg 1star reviews.

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

Thanks guys! He read the thread, and he will probably be changing the RAM and the PSU bassed on the recommendations above. He confirmed that he wants to overclock. Well see how that goes :D

[Vicious]

Try convince him to change the case, overclocking in a Shinobi could be...problematic :)

[Sakkura]

My Win8 install(cleaned as much as possible)+hiberfile is 30gb and iirc, you're meant to keep a decent % of space on an SSD free or it starts to significantly affect performance? I just personally find it silly to spend ~€800 on a PC only to have to micromanage an SSD - but YMMV and all that :)

To some extent yes, though SSDs also have a "hidden" amount of storage that is used to help performance and increase longevity. But sure, the practical difference between 120 GB and 240+ is significant, and when you also get better performance, it's a good investment.

[neema_t]

I don't know how it compares to the WD Red or anything but I have a Seagate 2TB Barracuda which was £70 from Scan, it does perfectly well as a gaming drive since the only game I have on my SSD is BF3. I find everything else loads acceptably quickly from the HDD, so... Yes.

[Sakkura]

Seagate Barracuda is roughly comparable to WD Blue. It's the middle of the road consumer HDD, without power-saving features that sacrifice performance.

[Moraven]

If you can afford it, the 240GB+ SSDs would be a good investment.

On my 128Gb M4 have only D3, SC2, LoL and maybe one other game, plus 50% of my applications on it. Down to 15GB left. Win updates and other files get on it (Default Save location folder is in your Users, while movable some games/applications may not like it) are slowly filling it up.

I have been using Seagate Barracudas since 2005 with no problems. I guess I have not really looked into the minor differences between model lines other than RPM and SATA I/II/III.

Good review on the latest Crucial drives and comparision to other SSDs.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6884/c...gb-240gb-120gb
I just got a M500 right before I read this. I will keep it since the user will never notice the performance difference and I liked my m4. The review does show the performance gains that Sakkura has mentioned when going to a larger SSD.

[Boris]

I just got a Samsung 840 250GB for my birthday, and I really like it. You don't really notice the reduced write speeds vs. other drives, and its high read speeds are very nice. Not all that expensive either, but still a good dent in your wallet.

[Sakkura]

On my 128Gb M4 have only D3, SC2, LoL and maybe one other game, plus 50% of my applications on it. Down to 15GB left. Win updates and other files get on it (Default Save location folder is in your Users, while movable some games/applications may not like it) are slowly filling it up.

I have Borderlands 2, Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Torchlight II, XCOM and a handful of smaller games on my 120 GB SSD, along with Windows and all of my programs (including Steam, though with a secondary game library on a 500 GB HDD). I have 24 GB left.

[Moraven]

Yah, I'm sure I have something eating up, or what I have is a lot of space. But it runs out fast and if I had the option I would have more games that I frequent on the SSD (WoW, MWO, NS2, smaller indie games).

[Boris]

http://windirstat.info/

I cleaned up like 20 GB of useless crap with that the other day.

[Vicious]

I prefer TreeSizeFree

[tommyshads]

That build is very similar to one I've put together in the last month - very pleased overall, so I don't think you are going to go too far wrong!

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

Got all the parts now. I wondering something about the i5s included heat sink. It already has a thermal compund applied to the bottom of it. I didnt know this and ordered some Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Paste. Would it be best to leave heat sink as it is now, or remove the stuff on it, and replace with the Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Paste?

[Sakkura]

The thermal paste you bought may be marginally better. Whether that justifies the bother of removing the preapplied paste and putting the other stuff on is up to you.

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

I dont like the way the paste is set up currently on the heat sink. It may be just my ignorance. It looks like there is gaps as you should be able to see at this time stamp.
Or is it that the pressure of the heatsink being clamped against the CPU will spread out this paste to evenly cover the contact area?

[Moraven]

The paste will spread, its on a little thick.

Does not hurt to clear it off and put your own paste on. There are numerous tests showing some minor improvements with certain pastes vs pre-applied.

I use Isopropyl alcohol and q-tips to clean off thermal paste.