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The Ultra Dream Gaming Build

By on November 22, 2011 in Build a Gaming PC, Computer Builds, How to Build a Gaming PC

intel sandy bridge e 300x200 The Ultra Dream Gaming BuildWith the release of Intel’s Sandy Bridge E series CPUs, I can now take my Ultra Gaming build dreaming to the next level. Previously I have presented realistic gaming builds, in the ‘mid-range’ and ‘budget’ level categories – these have been based on developing systems of value that will allow you to play video games for many years while staying within a specific budget. In this article, I’m skipping over the ‘high-budget’ build and going straight for the Ultra Dream system.

There is no reasonableness in this build. If you want a build that gets you the best performance value for your money, check out the mid-range budget build. This Ultra Build here is simply an incredibly awesome system, made with the most powerful hardware available. It takes advantage of the increased memory and video bandwidth using all four slots of quad channel ram, and using both 16x/16x SLI video slots. I suppose I could go all out with 4 video cards, but then I wouldn’t have room for the PCIe based SSD, and the unnecessary, but still surprisingly appealing Killer gaming NIC.

I would take it a step further and go all out with custom liquid cooling, but I honestly don’t have the experience with extreme custom liquid cooled systems. I’ve always used air cooling, because unless you are overclocking to the extreme, or using a system like this, air cooling is fine. In this system, I will be using a liquid cooling block for the CPU only. In the near future, I plan on writing up an article on custom liquid cooling, as I started researching it for this article.

The CPU choice is obvious – the i7-3960X is the most powerful. It’s also over $1,000 for the processor alone – but here we aren’t worried about that. The CPU will be cooled by the excellent Corsair H100 As previously mentioned, Asus provides yet again another superb quality motherboard. For the RAM, I chose the Corsair Dominator because of the higher speed (DDR 2133 vs DDR 1600) – also we don’t NEED 32 GB RAM, but we CAN use 32 GB ram, so we take 2 packs of 4.

For the GPU – as it is the ULTRA system, one could easily plug in two GTX 590s for the set. There are two main reasons I am not going with the 590. First, the 590 runs hot – or at least there were problems with this at the release of the card. The performance of the 590 is undeniable, but two 580s is absolutely amazing. If I were going to go with two 590s, I would only do so with a custom liquid cooled system – I wouldn’t want to do so with air.  I also chose the 3GB memory version of the 580 vs the 1.5, as we are going for a large 30″ monitor – possibly two.

small revodrive3x2 The Ultra Dream Gaming BuildThe SSD you might find odd. First off, I’ve always loved the Revodrive concept – it’s basically an SSD slotted via x4 PCIe into the system. The result is you end up with twice the read/write as a normal SSD. The downside is price. I picked the 240GB for operating system and games/programs, with a set of RAID HDDs in the background for storage. I have on the list 2 1TB WD Black Hard Drives to be set in RAID – I would actually go with 5 1TB drives set up in RAID 5, giving the perfect combination of speed AND security. Hard Drives are expensive right now though, so starting with 2 is fine.

The Killer NIC is something that a lot of people might call a way to throw away money. While I wouldn’t recommend the NIC to someone building a “regular” gaming system – benchmarking has shown that Killer’s NICs do have an effect on lowering latency. If I were a hardcore gamer, or “pro” gamer, I would probably look at adding one to a mid-range or high-range gaming build – every little bit helps.

The case I chose because I always wanted the Thermaltake Level 10 – which runs in the $800 range, is difficult to work with, and doesn’t have amazing cooling – but my oh my does it look sweet. The Thermaltake Level 10GT has a lot of improvements. It’s lighter, cheaper, and has excellent cooling. It also can easily fit the Corsair H100 CPU radiator block. It also looks awesome. Check out the Gaming Case article for some other options.

Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition Case 1 300x276 The Ultra Dream Gaming Build

The Monitor is the 30” I selected on my Gaming Monitors article. You could also go with two 30”, or two 27”, or three 27” – remember this setup has 2 GTX 580s in x16/x16 SLI. Super.

 

That about wraps up this splurge of an article. I surely do love dreaming about systems like this. The total for the above listed is $5000 without the monitor and $6200 with it, so if that looks like spare change to you, then you should definitely indulge. In the future after I put together the liquid cooling article, I’ll likely revisit this and update for full liquid cooling.

 

 

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Welcome Sandy Bridge E – a CPU Fit for a King

By on November 16, 2011 in Gaming CPU, Gaming Motherboards, Sandy Bridge

Welcome Sandy Bridge E, a true enthusiast processor. Intel is between mainstream CPU architectures right now, with Sandy Bridge out and Ivy Bridge coming around 6 months from now (no official dates on that). What they like to do in between is release their enthusiast level processors. Sandy Bridge E processors will run you at least $1000, so they aren’t for the typical pc gamer or computer builder. These are for those folks who love to build a powerhouse system for the sake of building a powerhouse system – and for who can afford it icon wink Welcome Sandy Bridge E a CPU Fit for a King . Granted I would love to build a system around this setup, but it’s a bit out of my budget range currently.

325080 intel sandy bridge e cpu Welcome Sandy Bridge E a CPU Fit for a KingSandy Bridge E brings us two 6 core processors (and later a 4 core), each with hyper-threading for 12 threads. The i7-3960X is a 3.3 GHZ processor which comes with 15MB L3 Cache. The i7-3930K is a 3.2 GHZ processor bearing 12MB L3 Cache. In a few months Intel will also be releasing the i7-3820, a 4 core 8 thread processor at 3.9 GHZ with 10MB cache – this being part of the Sandy Bridge E series and sitting between the i7-2700k and the i7-3930K. The i7-3960X will run you around $1000, while the i7-3930K will be an ‘affordable’ $600.

To play with these delicious 6 core processors, Intel has also released the x79 chipset. The x79 chipset boasts quad channel memory capabilities (up to 64 GB RAM support), and enough PCIe bandwidth to support true x16/x16 SLI, x16/x16/x8, x16/x8/x8/x8, and even x16/x8/x8/x4/x4 – all depending on the specific motherboard of course. Anandtech showed a sparkling review of Asus P9X79 Pro, which looks to be a slam dunk for me. If I were to be building a Sandy Bridge E system, I would surely go with that motherboard. It should be noted that the x79 chipset is more like P67 than Z68 – it doesn’t come with on board video nor does it include SSD caching. Asus has included it’s own version of SSD caching on the P9X79 Pro which you can read about here – however, if I were spending this much on a processor/motherboard combo, I would be sporting full sized SSDs (probably in RAID) and would have no need for the ssd caching feature.

4381 03 asus p9x79 pro and deluxe intel x79 motherboard preview full 300x220 Welcome Sandy Bridge E a CPU Fit for a KingTo me, the increased performance in gaming over a i5-2500k system is not worth the $$ in terms of value. As we know, there aren’t games which take advantage of 6 cores and 12 threads (one of the reason’s that AMD’s Bulldozer fails). The benefit comes in the video and memory bandwidth increase. As is shown in the Anandtech analysis, games like World of Warcraft actually benefit not insignificantly (13% boost in performance over an i5 system). Still, performance in those games is fantastic in the ‘lesser’ system..

Sandy Bridge E is really for the super enthusiast. It’s part of my dream build that I drool over. So that begs the question: should you consider the Sandy Bridge E? Well, if you are willing to spend $3k minimum to build a computer when a $1200 system can play most games maxed then yes. I myself hope to one day put together a glorious $5,000 gaming system, and I will love every minute of it – but that day is not today. One thing is for sure, that system is going to last you for a number of years. Unless the pc gaming world gets its act into gear and starts putting out games that take advantage of 8-12 cores, PCIe 3.0, and other advancements like quad channel memory and multi-card SLI systems.

For now though, I’m certainly going to have fun dreaming about ultra gaming systems that blow the pixels out of my monitor…keep an eye out for my High End Gaming PC Build icon wink Welcome Sandy Bridge E a CPU Fit for a King

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Picking a Gaming Monitor – What to Consider

By on November 2, 2011 in Gaming Monitor

Originally I wasn’t going to go down the route of suggesting a gaming monitor due to the wide selection of high quality monitors. I also traditionally have approached monitors from a color accuracy perspective, as I do a lot of production work – particularly with photography and video. The nice thing about finding a gaming monitor is that there are a lot of excellent monitors out there, and for gaming there aren’t too many constraints on decisions.

You don’t necessarily need accuracy for gaming – though you want the monitor to “look nice,” which can11195286 cheap asus vh242h 236 inch widescreen lcd for sales 300x300 Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider generally be reliably determined by looking at customer reviews (which I have done here). It really just comes down to figuring out the size you need, then choosing a monitor that is well reviewed by other gamers.

You might hear from many gamers that response time on a monitor is important – you can see this in a millisecond measurement (generally around 8ms). Many gamers will claim that the quicker the response time the better, but for the most part, as long as the monitor has a response time under 10ms, you are fine. The response time is a measurement of time it takes for a pixel in an LCD monitor to switch from one color to another and back again. In games – particularly FPS games where there are a lot of real time rendered objects moving around – if the response time is too high you can end up having visual artifacts such as ghosting. Again though, as long as you are below 10 (and I have read many people with 16ms response time monitors have no problems) you will be fine.

  • A tip: If you are looking at monitor specs and reviews, response time is actually measured in two ways – black to white is the traditional more accurate/legitimate measurement, but some companies tend to list a gray to gray measurement which will make the monitor appear to have a faster response time. Try to find the black to white measurement.

The real question for choosing a gaming monitor comes down to budget. But, before you start thinking in terms of the size of the monitor (22”, 24”, 27” etc) I encourage you to think in terms of resolution. This is because, as mentioned in previous articles, the resolution of your monitor is key in determining what video card you acquire – and visa versa.

NEC AccuSync AS191 AS191WM and AS221WM LCD Monitors 300x268 Picking a Gaming Monitor What to ConsiderLet us say that you are building an entire system from the ground up including a new monitor. If you decide that you want a 27 or 30 inch monitor with 2560×1600 resolution, then you are going to want a 560ti MINIMUM – in fact I would argue that you would want to consider no less than a 570 if you are going to be spending the money on such a nice monitor.

That may be too much for you though, so now we want to look at the best resolution/card combo for the price. Two options – 560ti with a 1920×1080, or a 550ti with a 1680×1050. The sweet spot to me is a 560ti with a 1920×1080. Obviously a 560ti will give you higher FPS on a 1680×1050, but the price between those two resolutions is not very much, and the 560ti is perfectly fit for the 1920×1080.

If you have read my previous articles, you will know that I always encourage you to consider the manufacturer. I personally tend to go with NEC monitors – but again, that is partly due to my need for color accuracy. NEC makes very excellent quality monitors, but they tend to be more expensive than other offerings. ASUS happens to make monitors which are extremely well reviewed, as does Dell.

If I were to purchase a monitor for gaming today, I would chose from the following:

1680×1050

NEC Display Solutions AS221WM-BK 22-Inch 5ms 250 cd/m2 1000:1 Widescreen LCD Monitor (Black) Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider

Acer V223W EJBD 22-Inch Wide LCD Display Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider

1920×1080 (HD)

>> RECOMMENDED << ASUS VH242H 23.6-Inch Widescreen LCD Monitor – Black

STQ310 – G235H Abd 23 H 0.248MM 1920X1080 60HZ Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider(ACER)

2560×1440

Dell UltraSharp U2711 27-inch 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider

2560×1600

HP 30IN LCD 2560X1600 1000:1 7ms Picking a Gaming Monitor What to Consider

My gaming monitor of choice is the Asus 23.6” 1920×1080 monitor.  A note on speakers: some monitors come with speakers – don’t use the speakers, they are most likely poor quality.  I will be adding this monitor to my mid-range gaming build list.

As you can see, the are a bevy of choices when it comes to finding a gaming monitor – just remember to keep in mind your video card’s capabilities and the resolution size of your monitor.

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The Budget Gaming PC Build

By on October 29, 2011 in Budget Gaming PC, Build a Gaming PC, Computer Builds, How to Build a Gaming PC

The release of Bulldozer showed us that for the meantime, Intel is the king of the castle – for the mid range build (and top end), Intel holds the cake with the i5-2500k for gaming. Now we can take a look at the budget range and consider what sort of budget gaming pc system can be built for those who have a constricted budget.

A quick word: The easiest way to save money building a system is to cannibalize old systems – using partsCorsair Vengeance dark blue radiators 1 300x207 The Budget Gaming PC Build from previous systems. This of course only works if you have built systems in the past, or want to take apart an old premade system. Parts I like to cannibalize are hard drives, optical drives, sound cards, and sometimes RAM (new RAM tech is cheap these days) as these components can be used for a long time. One word of caution; Hard drives can last a long time, but when building a new system it is recommended to acquire a new hard drive as these WILL die eventually so they are better as secondary storage drives in the system (they won’t be accessed as much, so this lengthens their usability).

With all that said, I’m going to lay out the specs for a Budget Build. Similar to how I set up the Mid Range Build, the Budget Build isn’t just the cheapest components available – this is about value. I still want to build a system that will last a number of years and will have the least amount of problems (again, picking well rated manufacturers with good return policies).

In order to reach a ‘Budget’ level, we have to sacrifice somewhere – that area is going to be in higher level game performance. The goal with this system is to be able to play any current game – not necessarily on the highest levels – but also to be able to play most games for the next 3 years or so. This is of course speculative, but it all comes down to finding the best performance for the price range we are looking at.

In the Bulldozer article I mentioned that I was going to look at AMD for the budget build – this is because AMD tends to lend itself to the lower range of spending. While their CPUs are excellent, Intel’s Sandy Bridge offering still tops AMD at the lower level – not just with individual performance, but also with the potential to upgrade to the supremely powerful i5-2500k.

antec 300 beauty 282x300 The Budget Gaming PC Build

I gave you a choice between the H67 and the P67 – this depends on your desire to upgrade in the future. If in 6 months (when Ivy Bridge comes out and the Sandy Bridge prices drop) you decide to upgrade to the i5-2500k – and you want the ability to overclock – then you will need the P67. If you don’t see yourself taking this future upgrade to overclocking path, the H67 will serve you fine.

Changes 1-25-12:  After reviews, reading experiences and feedback, as well as Tom’s Hardware’s charts, it is clear that the HD 6790 is head and shoulders above the 550TI – so I have removed the 550TI.  At this budget level, the money is better placed with the HD 6790.  I have also switched the Antec 300 with the Antec 300 Two – newly released upgrade to this great budget case.

Just as with the Mid Range Build, this doesn’t include the monitor and other peripherals. One can of course interchange between this Budget Gaming PC and the Mid Range Build, and this system is easily upgradeable.

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Choosing a Z68 Motherboard for Gaming

By on August 25, 2011 in Build a Gaming PC, Gaming Motherboards, Z68 Chipset, Z68 motherboard

People will often ask, “what is the best motherboard?” That might seem like an obvious question to ask – and 10 years ago that was certainly a more important question to ask – but these days manufacturer quality has increased quite a bit, and figuring out the ‘best motherboard’ is not such a clear process. Aside from figuring out good manufacturers to purchase from, there are so many different options for different objectives that there is no one best motherboard. I definitely have a recommendation, but that doesn’t mean that making a different choice is going to be bad.

Now we are looking at the Z68 motherboard offerings, and we can see that there are a number of quality options. For the key elements of the Z68 chipset, see my previous article ‘The Z68 Chipset – What it Means to Gamers.’ In this article, I am going to go over some Z68 motherboard offerings from the three major motherboard manufacturers as they stand today. As you may have noticed from previous articles, I tend to prefer motherboards made by Asus. Not only do they consistently present a high level a quality in performance, they also present a high level of quality in workmanship – as well as customer service. Check out my article on motherboards – The Motherboard: Lifeblood of the Computer – as to why I think the way I do about this.

That being said, there are three major manufacturers today that provide high performance motherboards at high quality. You would not be making an error of judgment by choosing boards from any of these manufacturers, though I will still make one ultimate recommendation. The three manufacturers are Gigabyte, ASRock, and Asus. In this article, I will be looking at Z68 motherboard offerings in the $200 range – these will roughly correspond with the P67 motherboard offerings which are now in the $170 range. All of these boards utilize a UEFI over the traditional BIOS (basically a BIOS with a much more user friendly UI).

 

ASRock LGA1155/ Intel Z68/ DDR3/ Quad CrossFireX & Quad SLI/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&V&GbE/ ATX Motherboard, Z68 EXTREME4 Choosing a Z68 Motherboard for Gaming
:

  • Allows SLI/Crossfire at 8x/8x and 8x/8x/4x.
  • 12 phase voltage regulator is excellent for overclocking – and for the non overclocking means less stress from power over the lifetime of the board.
  • 2 year manufacturers warranty.
  • Less USB 2.0 ports than typical, to make space for video output – this is seen in the Gigabyte board as well, with Asus removing a PS/2 port.

Gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133 LGA 1155 Motherboards GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Choosing a Z68 Motherboard for Gaming
:

  • Gigabyte makes up for the reduced usb ports by adding more internal ports (so you can add expansion bays connecting to the internal connectors, if you have a lot of USB devices) – 8 usb 2 ports and 4 usb 3 ports internal.
  • Only supports SLI/Crossfire at 8x/x8, there is no third video card slot.
  • Seven phase voltage regulator – the least of the three.
  • Three year manufacturer Warranty.

ASUS LGA 1155 SATA 6Gbps USB 3.0 Supported Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2400 Motherboards P8Z68-V PRO Choosing a Z68 Motherboard for Gaming
:

  • No PS/2 port. If you still use a PS/2 keyboard, then you would have to get a cable to switch to usb (they are cheap) – I actually still use an old keyboard, because it just won’t break.
  • Allows SLI at 8x/8x, and 8x/8x/4x with a catch. With the one slot set at 4x, you have to disable the two 1x pcie slots and the two front panel usb3 ports. At first glance this sounds like a bum wrap, but there are a couple ways to look at this: if you intend on using three video cards, then I would recommend going for a much higher level of motherboard – also the chances of requiring two 1x pci slots, 4 usb 3.0 slots, and an x4 pcie slot is minimal – the only thing requiring an x4 pcie slot is going to be a 3rd video card, any other pci board can utilize 1x with no problems.
  • So why go with this board? Aside from being at the top of the benchmarks, this board comes with a 16 phase voltage regulator, which is quite impressive at this level.
  • Three Year manufacturer warranty.

So with the details aside, it comes down to the benchmarks. As you can see from Tom’s Hardware’s benchmarking reviews – all three of these motherboards are pretty much in line, and also in line with the Asus P8P67 Deluxe which was used for comparison. Gigabyte does well, but not as well as the other two. Toms recommends the ASRock, due to the Asus board requiring special settings for the third video slot. My opinion of that is previously stated, and I see the Asus Z68 motherboard as the best motherboard purchase – their history of quality and customer service brings them over top of the other two options. Again, the motherboard is the lifeblood of the computer, so it isn’t the place to sacrifice any level of quality just to save a few $$.

I’ve also updated my mid-range build page with the P8Z68-V Pro motherboard.  Before you make a decision, be sure to read my Z68 Chipset article, as it will make clear for you whether you should acquire a Z68 Board or a P67 board – you will see both options on the Mid Range page.

 

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Build a Gaming PC – The Motherboard: Lifeblood of the Computer

By on April 7, 2011 in Build a Gaming PC, Gaming Motherboards, P67 Chipset

The motherboard! This is the big one. This is the most critical of components to scruitinize when you build a gaming pc – or any pc for that matter. Why? It is the backbone of your whole system. It is the central nervous system. It conducts all communications between each of the parts. This piece is so critical to get right. Almost all the problems I’ve had in the past with computer systems have been with the motherboard. It is such a critically complex component – more so than any other that you add to the system. I’m here to make the choice easy.

First off I feel like I should explain this upfront. I tend to lean towards Asus when I pick a motherboard. The reason being all the critical points I just mentioned above. If there were a peice of hardware to sweat over it would be the motherboard. But we aren’t going to be doing any sweating here, because ASUS is a magnificantly supreme manufacturerer of motherboards. The quality is absolutely top notch. The unique technology they provide is amazing (DIGI+ VRM power management, but we will get to that). Most of all, their standards and service are above any other manufacturerr. That being said, I would like to mention that Gigabyte boards are being reviewed extremely well right now – so if you have an issue with me recommending ONLY Asus, then I would say it would be safe to also go with Gigabyte. I would recommend staying away from the cheaper end – essentially, you get what you pay for. There is no ‘supreme deal’ in motherboards. The value is in the assured longevity and service that comes with the product, not in the price tag. And the technological combinations. Many peopel talk about ASRock because it is cheap and powerful, but I have seen cheaper manufacturers in the past (like MSI), and their motherboards always fail the test of longevity for me. Ok so to summarize that block of text, I like ASUS – I recommend Asus. On to the motherboards!

My current goal is to build a gaming pc that is a solid long lasting system, which will be roughly a middle budget gaming computer. I am continuing the Sandy Bridge build I started with the CPU article. This means we will be looking at two chipsets – P67 and H67. My last article I wrote about the P67 problem – this is no longer an issue, the only thing you might run into is some delay in getting a new motherboard, as retailers are still replacing the defective ones.

P67 is the standard chipset of choice for Sandy Bridge. P67 allows system power adjustments (“overclocking”), and for gaming this chipset has tested the best in combination with the i5-2500K. The ASUS P67 boards also comes with DIGI+ VRM power design – a digitally controlled voltage regulator. This is a modulated power system that provides digital control over power output (whereas in the past, one had to tinker directly with the board). In the long run, this gives greater control to anyone who is looking to squeeze more power out of their system (“overclock”). Most of the P67 Asus boards also provide a higher number of power phases – more power phases = less load which in turn will equate to greater longevity of the board.

While my main motherboard recommendation is going to be a P67 motherboard, I do want to mention H67. H67 is an often overlooked, yet still powerful chipset. It has most of the benefits of P67 – minus a few key things. You cannot overclock with the H67. You cannot run two video cards in SLI. The H67 also doesn’t have the DIGI+ VRM power system, and it features lower power phases than most of the Asus P67 boards. That being said, if you aren’t going to get a K variation CPU (i5-2500K), and you are looking to shave off some $$ on the budget, then consider the H67. In the near future, I’ll be writing articles for different budgets, and the H67 will most likely make my ‘low budget’ pc pick.

Summary Thus Far:

  • Due to our Sandy Bridge Processor choice, we are looking at the P67 chipset (H67 for low budget).
  • P67 allows overclocking, and it allows SLI (over the H67)
  • Those two benefits define the true value of P67, as it gives us a wide road for improvement in the future, thus increasing the value of our purchase.
  • P67 Asus boards also have a greater amount of power phases which = greater longevity which = higher value

The motherboard which provides all of the above at the lowest price is the Asus P8P67 Pro Build a Gaming PC The Motherboard: Lifeblood of the Computer. For the folks who love to look at benchmarks, here is all the info from Toms Hardware:

Overview

3DMark Benchmark

SiSoftware Sandra Benchmark

Crysis Benchmark

As you can see, the motherboard tops the charts in a couple of those tests, and stays consistantly high in the rest. The value in the power system of the Asus motherboards (aside from my love of asus), pushes this motherboard beyond the rest in overall value. And as we all know, my goal when I build a gaming pc is to create value – a system that will be very powerful and last a long time, with headroom for cheap and easy upgrades in the future.

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