HI all, this is my first post here, working on my first build and its scaring the hell outta me. I got a number of my parts on sale, and putting it together is stressin me out so I stopped. I realised that the RAM I bought - Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB - might have clearance issues with the CPU cooler. I haven't decided on which one yet because my budget is slowly evaporating and I haven't bought a GPU yet, because I'm waiting/looking for a deal on a 670/7950 or one up from those.
To make matters a little worse, I bought the motherboard off of Kijiji like a dumbass and failed to notice that one of the USB 3.0 pins were bent.
So far I've got:
Bitfenix Prodigy White
Core i5 3570k
Adata SX900 128GB
WD blue 1TB
HyperX Beast 8GB
XFX XXX edition semi-modular 750W PSU
What I need:
-General build advice
-Specific build advice regarding these parts
-Recommendations for a cooler, with a somewhat flexible budget up to about CAD $70
-Recommendations for a GPU, currently on a single monitor @1080p
-got a free crappy keyboard w/ the purchase of the case, looking to put some change into a decent mouse, so recommendations on that too? Just been looking at the G400/G500/Deathadder.
Excuse my ignorance, I'm trying to not worry about this while worrying about finals at the same time. Thanks for your time!
Other Stuff I forgot the first time:
Full budget was around $1200
I'm located in Canada
I have the PS 3D display monitor, it works ok and I'm probably gonna stick to one monitor - 1080p w/ all the trimmings would be nice too.
Trying to keep the rest of my parts under $500
All those words and you missed mentioning your overall budget, which is a no-no
So whats your budget, and what happened to the MB?
Or do you need another mb, as welll?
Sorry about that! I have about $400 to play around with right now. I'm not sure if the mobo is dead as I haven't had the chance to test it. I hope it isn't, so for now let's assume I have it covered. Total budget was $1200.
I have one of those cases and I've had excellent success with my Antec Kuhler H2O 620 cooling a 2500k. makes it much easier to work inside the case and then you never have to worry about clearance issues with ram or video card.
I have been looking at both the NH-D14 and the Sentinel. Also I am in Canada. Damn I messed up putting all the info out there. Bought the PS 3D Display when it went on sale last year so monitor is covered for now. Does anyone know about the NH-D14 and the Beast heat spreaders? Canada Computers employees were sadly unhelpful.
Looking into The 620 now
The 620 is on sale right now so it looks like a viable option. I'm a cheap bastard.
My advice gor is to skip all in one water cooling. For a proper watercooling you need at least 200+$ for it to reall y have an effect, These watercooling toys dont do the job for their price and our loud.
In a 150$ price range dont think about anything else but air cooling
While I agree that the aio solutions arent even close to the performance as a custom loop, I'm not sure any "great" air coolers would leave him without clearance issues. I had the same problem with my build using the Gigabyte Z77N-wifi motherboard. And yes, the stock fans are loud and almost worthless, but with some corsair SP 120 quiets on there it's silent in my build.
As with all of these m-itx form factors you have to look at all options. I looked into the Noctua NH-D14, but it would block my ram slots and the pci-e making it useless as a gaming build. So it comes down to what you need out of the cooler.
I doubt I'll be trying to go for any crazy overclocks right out of the box; for now I'm just looking for something that I can run out of the box, and if I need to bump the clock up at all it'll be in the instance I go for an AMD card and want to use physx.
EDIT: Based off of Logan's latest video (Honey Badger) I've decided to go that route and spring for the Dark Knight II.
Another Question though, I bought a pair of Noctua fans (120mm). Will I be able to use these on the DK2 in place of the one fan that comes with it?