I see, got some speakers in mind? (or have some hope you dont mind me asking...just wondering...lol)
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no...Im just wondering :P ( but that 780 makes me jilly)
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You could pick a better motherboard that comes with 7.1 surround already. My Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H has outputs that rival most audio cards. Also, I should warn you that the GTX 780 TI was just announced. It's even better than a Titan so you might want to look into it.
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"My Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H has outputs that rival most audio cards"
.... Highly doubt that.
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Your motherboard would barely rival an average motherboard. I wouldn't even make that claim on my ASUS Maximus V Formula, and it has SupremeFX IV as its onboard sound. I actually got an Astro Mixamp just to get better sound, for my headphones, over the built-in 300 ohm headphone amplifier. Just because it has an output for it, doesn't mean it does it well. Mine does it fairly well and even then, I wasn't happy.
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The HD Audio quality of the Z77X-UD3H is pretty amazing. It may not be as good as high-end audio cards but it does have a lot of outputs on it that most audio cards don't have. There are a lot more 5.1 and lower cards out there. Having 7.1 audio makes it have outputs that rival most audio cards.
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You could have 70.1 and it wouldn't make it great. Passable, yes. I doubt the quality is amazing on it, unless you have really, really low expectations. That is fine anyway. Most people wouldn't care. I don't really, personally.
The 5.1 and 7.1 simply represent surround sound offerings. This has very little to do with audio quality, unless you are simply wondering how many speakers you could output to. There is a huge difference between quality and how many speakers you can output to.
Dedicated sound cards aren't needed by most and I tend to not recommend them. That doesn't mean that onboard audio is as good or even close to the quality. It is just that most people wouldn't care.
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could not help myself. My advice for the build (I am no expert, my last build was mainly done with the suggestions of my brother's) is the audio card and the case are not worth it. Instead, either buy a better disk drive or a better HDD (I do not prefer Toshiba, they tend to overdo a lot of the components that are unnecessary to my knowledge.)
Also, what's your monitor? A decent build but if the monitor ain't up for it then it's kinda a waste.
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At least I'm a good lying son of a b* in this case.
The build is mainly for both multimedia and gaming, so the audio card is a must. As it is, I see no point getting a "better" disk drive for more money.
And if I don't get Toshiba for HDD, there's only Seagate left.
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I would go with Seagate if I were you, some might be more expensive than Toshiba's but I think it's worth it.
I understand your need of an audio card but the one you intend to use is quite...overpriced or at least expensive. With half the price of it, you could afford a lot of other decent audio cards unless you can acquire Creative X-Fi Titanium PCI-e with a price lower than $80-$100 (kinda impossible to me)
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I told about price premium, I'm not sure what model they have, but in general I believe it's the series that is aimed as drive for use, the other lines are for storage or NAS use.
It's up to you to find out if it's worth the extra cost. Anyway Seagates are now made by WD.
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I'd say get a better PSU if you are getting that graphics card.
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550 is fine...but I would go with a CORSAIR bronze plus. (well you dont have to take my word for it)
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I see...just try to get something thats bronze pluse...I guess? (Have not tried many out PSU other then CORSAIR really sorry ><)
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I would definitely agree a 600 or 700 watt PSU is a must for a multimedia build.
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Hey, I am from SG too. What shop are you buying from? I recommend Fuwell at Sim lim square (that's where I bought my HD 7950 and PSU) I had a faulty PSU and they immediately swapped it out without question, very reliable shop.
Try to get 80+ Gold if possible. (just my suggestion) And also, try to get a modular PSU. (by modular I mean like those PSUs with free cables so you just attach those cables you need and you keep the other cables. This reduces cable clutter and improves air flow) If you can, try to get a Corsair 80+ gold as they will last you very long.
Also, are you getting an aftermarket CPU cooler? Seeing as your CPU is non-K version, you don't really need an aftermarket cooler, but just asking.
For the RAM, what brand are you buying? If you are going to stick to that RAM for a while, I would recommend getting a Corsair one in the first place so you don't have to worry about it anymore.
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I am buying from CyberActive mostly.
As to the brand, I have already decided on Super Flower, which I read is darn good.
I don't intend to get a cooler for it, since there's not much point of having it.
As for RAM, I'll probably go with Kingston, since I don't need it to be gaming spec.
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Any particular reason for IVB instead of Haswell?
I'd advise against a Toshiba hard drive. Western Digital and Seagate are better.
Also I wouldn't go with a Cooler Master PSU. A quality Seasonic/Corsair/Antec/Super Flower would give me more peace of mind especially with that expensive GPU.
Graphics card is really dependent on your needs. A 770 is quite a bit cheaper and not that much worse. Depending on when you're building this, custom R9 290 cards may be out which would be the best value. Completely up to you though, they're all good cards.
Sound card I would recommend Asus though that's really up to you; they have some different feature sets.
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Well, it's mainly cause of the shop I'm getting the parts from does not have the newer CPUs, so I'm stuck with this.
As about that, it's either I go with Seagate which is more expensive or stick with the Toshiba due to only being able to get the "affordable" stuff for it.
I only have a "placeholder" just for the heck of it. Now I know which brands to get.
Singapore doesn't have many options, and I do want "future-proofing".
None of that here, so I only got stuff like Creative.
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+1 for your build, but I would take 16 Gb of ram (cause it's very cheap now and 8 Gb isn't enough for some cool games) and ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus (I own that for myself now) instead of widely boosted expensive, but bugged Creative cards.
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The only thing I would reccomend that hasn't already been mentioned is possibly getting 2x 1TB HDDs instead of the single 2TB HDD, so you can set them up in a RAID configuration. Also, have you checked to see what SSDs are available where you are? Prices have really come down on them (at least, online), so it might be worth checking out.
As for the RAM, I personally think that 8GB will be fine because most games do not seem to use even half of what I have with 8GB. Faster RAM seems more important to me than larger RAM capacity.
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Most motherboards today have built-in RAID capability. In this situation, just having two hard drives installed allows RAID usage. Consider it if 1TBx2 is cheaper than 2TBx2 for your build. Your read and write speeds will be nearly double, with no storage space loss. This is especially valuable if you will be doing any video editing, but if storage speed is critical, you'll get a small SSD just for those tasks.
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The critical point on the HDD for the build is storage space here, thus the 2TB stands. As for whether it's cheaper or not, it's really not. I save just around up to $40 in local currency to get a single 1TB against a single 2TB. Not worth the money.
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If when you say multimedia, you just mean that you'll be watching videos, yeah even a slow 5200 RPM drive will be great. Go as cheap as you want, as long as you're okay with longer load times in games.
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The i7 offers minimal improvements over the i5 product line when you consider the price difference. An i7 is certainly better, but you're paying more per Mhz.
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i5 CPUs are the best bang for your buck for gaming oriented systems. Even if I had the money for an i7, I'd rather go with an i5 and, use the extra cash for something else. Unless you REALLY need (and know :P) what the i7 CPUs offers over i5 CPUs.
If possible AND, if you plan on adding more RAM later on, get a single 8 GB stick so that you can add another 8 GB stick later.
In the PDF you've linked several times, I saw no other PSUs, what are your options for that?
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I got a few places for the PSU, like Sim Lim Square and CyberActive itself, though CyberActive does not put it on the price list.
As it is, the i7 featured is from one of the best generations in the i7 family for gaming. It is even better if it's the k edition, but that would require an aftermarket CPU cooler just for overclocking.
It would be quite a while before I actually need to add RAM, so I would leave it as just that one stick then.
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An SSD would improve boot times, you could always get a small SSD for the OS, and put your steam games on another drive.
I dunno about the audio card, I bought one in my last build and I've regretted it, XFi has always been a buggy brand. And at over hundred dollars it doesn't seem worth it.
Id either use onboard audio or buy one of these its worlds cheaper.
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I dunno
if the Motherboard was made in the last 4~5 years the on-board sounds is probably not noticeable to most audiophiles. That creative tech is aged too, I dunno if they even update it anymore.
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The GTX 780 will really push that power supply to it's limits. I would upgrade it if I were you.
Check out the specifications on Nvidia's website.
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If you know you can get a better part, consider not ordering a soundcard with this build. You can just order something from newegg to install at home. A soundcard is much simpler to install than a video card, if you're worried.
Also, depending on what kind of sound quality you require, you can get away with onboard audio.
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You do realise that GPU and a sound card both go in the PCI-E slots? The installation is exactly the same.
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Looks good so far. I'd maybe switch from ASUS to ASRock as ASUS tends to use low quality capacitors nowadays. As for the CPU unless you really need HT an i5 is always a great choice (using a 4670 myself). Did you look at some Xenons too? As for RAM, given the prices going with 16 might not be a bad thing. It's really rare you'll get to use most of it (only reached a usage of about 10 yet personally) but it can't hurt.
I read you do "multimedia" which is why you want an actual sound card. What do you mean by this? So far I met no situation in which a sound card would show any significant improvements over the onboard Realtek chips so I'm quite curious here. If you record music you might just as well go for an actual audio interface anyways. I'm actually using mine for both recording and "normal" PC usage as in gaming. The thought of using a high end external audio interface for gaming still makes me giggle every time.
Oh and about cases: It's not a bad idea to invest into a good case and use it for many years. I recently gave my "old" PC away to someone and bought some low-end 30 bucks CoolerMaster case. You really notice a difference in quality. Sharp edges everywhere, stuff easily breaks / bends, it can be troublesome to work in such case. So if you play around with hardware a lot spending a few extra bucks there really pays off.
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What OS are you going to use?
The setup looks good, but if you've got the money, I'd suggest to invent in a little bit more RAM (and if you like to keep your movies / music/ games on your HDD, a second HDD).
Personal preferences: I'd have picked a Gigabyte mobo and a Western Digital HDD, but I guess everything that's not IBM is fine ;)
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Win 7 is a good choice, just make sure you install the 64bit version, because 32bit versions don't support more than 4GB RAM (4GB minus "memory of your GPU" to be more precise).
Not that they have a problem with it, but they can't access the memory, so more than 4GB RAM would only be wasted on 32bit systems.
As for HDD: Western Digital green is even cheaper than the Toshiba, but I've never had problems with either of them, so it's your call.
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I already had intended to install the 64 bit version even if you didn't tell me to. 32 bit is really severely underpowered here.
I don't really trust WD Green to be used as the only drive here though. Will probably be getting the Black variant instead.
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Get a wd black or seagate barracuda, get an ssd for your os and don't upgrade your ram 8gb will be more then enough for you unless you plan on doing serious work in editing, rendering etc.
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a 64gb ssd can be had for around 70 dollars that breaks your budget?
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Don't listen to him (about ram), unless you're rendering movies and/or doing other productivity things that require lots of memory, 8GB is more than enough.
I would recommend an SSD for your main drive, if it fits the budget. The sound card isn't really that useful imho, the improvement in audio quality is negligible compared to what modern integrated sound cards provide you with. You might see a miniscule improvement in fps though, because the audio will be processed by sound card, instead of cpu.
The PSU is probably going to be enough, but if you can get 600 or 650w for few dollars more, perhaps it's a good idea to do so, for some future proofing, but not really a necessity.
Overall it looks fine to me.
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I'm sticking at 8GB of RAM until I need more.
As for SSDs, that's a no go, due to the 3.5" 1TB HDDs already costing around $100 in local currency.
Should I really remove the sound card entirely?
As for the PSU, I haven't updated it, but it will be a 650W that's not from CoolerMaster.
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650w should be enough for everything you throw at it, just make sure it's at least bronze 80% certified (most popular models are).
I'd personally just stick with the integrated sound card. I once built a PC with an Creative X-Fi (a cheaper one than the one you're looking to get) and as nice as it was to be able to say that I have a dedicated sound card, it was a waste of money. Maybe 10 years ago integrated sound cards sucked, but nowadays, unless you need specific inputs/outputs and/or you need one for recording instruments, there really is no benefit in getting a dedicated sound card (unless you're building a PC for like 3000$ and don't care about costs).
Edit: I looked up that motherboard and if that X-Fi soundcard uses PCI-E 1x slot, you might not even be able to fit it along with your gpu.
Edit2: I looked at the pdf of prices you provided in some other post, I have to say do NOT get the sound card for 150$, and either add some of it and get a better motherboard (Asus P8H77-V) or get an SSD. It's not worth the 150$ for whatever tiny improvements you'll get in audio quality.
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I just noticed you haven't decided whether to go with i5 or i7. If you plan to use this mostly for gaming, go with i5. If you will use software that you know is optimized to fully utilize i7, then perhaps that's a better option. Personally, I think i5 is best bang for the buck, unless you REALLY need an i7 (if you did, you wouldn't be deciding between the two).
If you plan to do multimedia, creative is useless for you, it's mainly just a gaming soundcard and all the sound improvements it does are done in software.
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I would personally stay away from Toshiba hard drive. I use Western Digital Blacks... they have a good warranty and I have not had a bad experience with them (unlike Hitachi, Toshiba, and Seagate)
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Maybe I should read more before I type... sorry about that!
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if you have any intentions of going sli at a later date instead of upgrading a lot of stuff. you may want to consider a slightly more powerfull PSU. if you dont then just leave it alone. i only mention cause sometimes its cheaper to add a second card than to get new mobo and new card since by then the card you already have will be cheaper to get a second one. unless like me where i have a 580 3gb model and those are hard to find now and because of that the price hasnt dropped a ton.
you will be pleased with the MSI lighting model tho, i have that in the 580 form and its awesome. MSI has some of the better cooling for their cards with dual and triple fans.
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cool i used to have a SupeFlower PSU years ago and it worked for a longtime
oh one more thing, you may want to strongly consider having 2 drives. one for OS and one for games. it will help with loading times a lot and will also enable you to fromat the OS and avoid having to redownload games and programs. If you have the money go SSD for OS and a 1-2Tb drive for games. if SSD isnt an option i would go with either 2x 1Tb drives or 1 250-500Gb drive for OS and then 1-2TB drive for games.
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perhaps 2 1Tb drives are more affordable than SSD option. I just know how much it sucks to have an OS crash or some reason to reinstall and losing all data along with it. If you can separate the 2 then it makes it much easier to reinstall OS and keep game downloads.
if you culd lose anything from this build to save money or spend on something else it would be the sound card. ive never used them as onboard sound has always been fine for me whether that is thru the mobo or the hdmi output on the video card ive had no issues. the only reason i have ever wanted a sound card was for the additional input/output options for certain headsets or speaker systems. on the longrun it never was worth it for me.
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As it is, a single 2TB is up to around $90 in local currency for WD Black from a single 1TB model.
I don't really need to separate the data for this build due to it being a shared, so not much point having more than 1 HDD.
Still, I'll keep your words in mind.
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Seems good, but the PSU should get upgraded later :P get around 700w from brands like Antec, Corsair, P&C, Seasonic, Enermax, XFX, or Silverstone (unless) that's a good brand for case, can't really remember)
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I originally decided to put a 550W in the build. After reading posts in the thread, I ramped it up to 650W. I really don't see the need for a 700W in here.
As for your brand choices, I definitely don't have at least 1/2 of those, if not 3/4.
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Compatible? Everything is compatible except if you try to put a INTEL CPU on a AMD motherboard.
I don't think you will have any problems with bus speeds or something.
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Love your setup there. All is compatible, but i'll throw my 2 cents in if I may. The only thing that I would change with this is to definitely go with an i7 over an i5 just because a processor is one of those things that is a B**** to upgrade later on. There's more of an upfront cost early on, but I promise you won't regret it.
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As I've said, there's no giveaways in here. The thread is just to ask how compatible the parts I chose already are.
Parts are as follows:
Mobo: Asus P8B75-V
CPU: Core i5-3470 or Core i7-3770
RAM: 8GB DDR3 PC-1600
HDD: WD Black 2 TB 3.5" SATA
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 780 LIGHTNING
Disk drive: LG GH24NS95
Audio card: Creative X-Fi Titanium PCI-e
PSU: Highly probably a Super Flower 650W
Case: A CoolerMaster one
So what do you think of the compatibility? Also, you have my thanks for reading.
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