My Latest PC Build

[Tatsujin]

Hmm, does Black Friday come after the 14th this year? Because that's when LGA2011 releases.

Those are fucking crazy processors. I'd so do 200 dollars more for it. Processor is the heart of your machine. If you invest in it, then it'll return the favor. The 2600K is also a good investment if you decide not to get the LGA2011 types.

No, not really. The returns on a processor (or any part) are limited by what you can actually use the part for. If you can regularly use it to its full potential, yes, it will return the favor. Otherwise, it returns less than what you pay for it.

That's the point. If you want that extra horsepower and you think you're going to use it regularly or consistently then it's worth those dollars, if you can spend them. Otherwise, if money is an issue or your basically not gonna heavily use the CPU then fall back to the 2600K (or 2500 if you choose that type). You can also boost your investment on other types of hardware like your GPU if you decided to stick to the 2500/2600/2700K types.

[Ixarku]

Interesting choice on the mobo (wrong link btw). Why Z68 if you're getting a graphics card? o.O

Dammit, probably because I didn't expect it to have on-board video so I didn't look that closely.  I suppose the P67 would have been the better choice.  Sigh.  Oh, well, as long as it all works when I put it together.  It's only money, I'm not gonna miss 50 bucks.  At least I made sure I picked out the right ram for it.  Also, fixed the wrong link & the wrong price in my earlier post.
 

Looking over your build, I see plenty of places where I would have saved some money, but you've probably got a comfortable income; I'm a stingy college student. If you're satisfied and you're comfortable with how much you spent for it, that's all that really matters, I guess.

Yeah, I could have skipped the SSD or gone with one with less capacity for instance, or gone with a mid tower instead of a full, or stuck with 8gb of ram instead of 16.  I've got an extra video card in a dual core machine that died; if I really wanted to, I could've swapped that card into my current machine, and taken my card in the machine I'm using now and put it into my new box.  But I have a younger starving-college-student friend who's going to inherit some or all of the parts in my dual core for some reasonable price as yet TBD, so I figured what the hell.
 
I'm not rich, but I am gainfully employed; this build puts a dent in my checking account, but not enough to worry me or impact any of my other plans for next year.  Great thing about being single & having a decent job is I get to keep my money for myself.   

[Freedom Kira]

Dammit, probably because I didn't expect it to have on-board video so I didn't look that closely.  I suppose the P67 would have been the better choice.  Sigh.  Oh, well, as long as it all works when I put it together.  It's only money, I'm not gonna miss 50 bucks.  At least I made sure I picked out the right ram for it.  Also, fixed the wrong link & the wrong price in my earlier post.

Well, I don't think the P67 would have performed better than the Z68, but the extra graphics capabilities of the Z68 are kind of sitting there unused. =P

At the very least, you would have saved a bit of money. Pretty sweet-looking board though.

That's the point. If you want that extra horsepower and you think you're going to use it regularly or consistently then it's worth those dollars, if you can spend them. Otherwise, if money is an issue or your basically not gonna heavily use the CPU then fall back to the 2600K (or 2500 if you choose that type). You can also boost your investment on other types of hardware like your GPU if you decided to stick to the 2500/2600/2700K types.

Actually, the point was that LGA2011 focuses more heavily on multithreading. If you aren't running any heavily threaded applications, or mainly run single-threaded applications, Sandy Bridge is a better choice. If you look at the benchmarks, you'll see that there is pretty much zero gain in single-threaded performance from Sandy Bridge (LGA 1155) to Sandy Bridge E (LGA 2011). Video encoding is perhaps the best use for SB-E, and most people don't exactly do that all the time.

[AnimeJanai]

As I've said before in more than one other thread, YOU can let circumstance choose the power you NEED to purchase need to use in the FUTURE.  Since you will be using this PC a year from now as your main PC, try to imagine all the CPU intensive things you will be using it for a year from now.   In terms of bakabt, if you were a scanlator, PC power is of no consequence; subbing is the same unless you are the encoder whereupon you need CPU power; as an anime fansub consumer, your highest CPU usage will be with MPC-HC running MAD-VR decoding on a highly detailed large-resolution fansub video of something such as [UTW]_Appleseed_XIII_-_02_[BD][h264-1080p_FLAC].mkv so if you intend to go that route, you might ask someone with a 2600K to try playing it back to see if that is enough CPU power to avoid stuttering.  You might say, why the heck would someone make a fansub that stutters?   Well, that fansub will not stutter on the more powerful processors which surprisingly quite a few anime elite fans have.  That's why the highest end encodes are made in a show of who's got a manly PC able to play it. 

Since you are not using AMD 12-core processors to heat your home in the winter months, that means you are using Intel.  Because you are using Intel, your purchase should take into consideration the Intel Tick-Tock Technology Release Scheme.  That's because based upon your comments, you want a Tock Item instead of a Tick Item.  Therefore, if the primary available items are all Ticks, you might delay to get a Tock item instead.  If you are a contrarian, you could put AMD into a Catch-22nm instead and get Ivy Bridge. 

Caveat:  If you are building missles to shoot against USA forces, you should not use Intel processors which can be commanded to be remotely turned off by USA military forces equipped with electronic countermeasures.

[Ixarku]

Caveat:  If you are building missles to shoot against USA forces, you should not use Intel processors which can be commanded to be remotely turned off by USA military forces equipped with electronic countermeasures.

This is sound advice and is so duly noted.
 

 
And, woohoo, my PSU arrived today.  Bought it from Amazon on Friday.  Whereas the company I purchased my SSD from on the same day has yet to even bill my credit card.        I forgive them, though, if they get the transaction out in the next day or so.

[kitamesume]

can you list your progress just to clarify things up? like a table of items and if it hasn't arrived or just being ordered, kinda interested in how long it takes to build a rig through over-seas orders =D

[Ixarku]

can you list your progress just to clarify things up? like a table of items and if it hasn't arrived or just being ordered, kinda interested in how long it takes to build a rig through over-seas orders =D

Hmm, well I'm in Florida and everything is shipping from within the U.S., so I dunno how helpful that will be for you.  Everything on my earlier list was ordered on Friday 11/25 at around 12am EST.  Amazon & Newegg responded the fastest:

-- PSU shipped by Amazon from somewhere on the East coast IIRC via UPS on Friday and arrived on Monday.
-- my case from Newegg shipped from New Jersey via UPS on Friday, is supposed to be here on 12/01.
-- the bulk of my order from Newegg (mobo, cpu, dvd burner, ram, gpu, cpu cooler) shipped from California via UPS on Saturday and is supposed to be here 12/01.
-- PC Connection Express shipped my SSD via UPS yesterday from Ohio, it's also supposed to be here on 12/01.
-- Discount Mountain Software sent me an email on 11/28 saying that my copy of Windows 7 had shipped via USPS, but the USPS only has the tracking number on file with no info yet.
 
Keep in mind that almost everything I bought had free shipping, so to get almost the entire order in less than 1 week from date of purchase is pretty damn good IMO.  Incidentally, I'm happy with the prices I paid; I checked them again on "Cyber Monday" and almost every item was more expensive.
 
Once I get everything, it will probably take me 2 to 3 hours to actually build the machine, because I'm slow as fuck and make a lot of stupid mistakes (like dropping screws inside the case).  I'm always terrified when placing the cpu & mounting the heat sink, since one wrong move and you're out of luck.

[Freedom Kira]

Hey, at least you don't need your copy of Windows 7 to actually build your machine. So you can put it together before it comes in, and then install it when it does.

Once I get everything, it will probably take me 2 to 3 hours to actually build the machine, because I'm slow as fuck and make a lot of stupid mistakes (like dropping screws inside the case).  I'm always terrified when placing the cpu & mounting the heat sink, since one wrong move and you're out of luck.

A little magnetism doesn't hurt. As long as you're keeping the magnetized screwdriver away from any HDD in there (you don't have one, right?), you'll be fine.

As for the CPU, the pins are actually pretty tough. You need to put a pretty large amount of force on it in order to bend them. So you can kinda just set it down in the right general direction and just kinda nudge it around until it goes into the socket. As for the heatsink, I can't give much advice there... If you're using Intel's stock heatsink, they're normally snap-down ones, so you'd just need to dab a small drop of thermal paste and push it down. You can also use Intel's stock thermal paste, which comes already applied to the heatsink.

[Ixarku]

I normally use Arctic Silver thermal paste (still have some around somewhere) and Zalman heat sinks.  Sometimes it can be tricky getting those installed.  I'm like my dad when it comes to mechanical things -- ie, all thumbs and with little natural talent -- so I have to work a bit harder to overcome my natural incompetence.  I'm not too worried this time around, though.
 
I also have a plastic 3 prong grabby tool (kinda reminiscent of the thing that Arnold Swarzenegger used to pull the tracking device out of his nose in Total Recall) for picking up screws, although the last time I went to use it, it popped apart into pieces.  Was not having a good time that day.

[kitamesume]

so it'll usually take more than a week just to order the stuffs and another day for installing the rig and the OS and the drivers and the other stuffs... well you get what i mean, so more or less its half a month XD ouch...

[Ixarku]

Success!  All of my remaining order arrived at the house yesterday.  It was like Christmas in December.  About 4 hours to put it together since I'm a retard and I was also showing a friend how to build a PC.  Finally fired it up at about midnight, and failure... didn't boot.  Went to bed.  Got up this morning, realized I was missing one power connection to the mobo, corrected this, and successfully booted to the cmos screen.  Now I've just got to go back, clean up some of the cabling and proceed with installing the OS.
New PC is up and running.  Cabling has been redone satisfactorily, and I've got my desk rearranged and setup the way I want it.  Windows with its 32345833111999 updates are done.  Now I've just got a few games to reinstall, and some Win settings to tweak and I'm all set.  Not bad, 1 week turnaround time from start to finish.

Duki3003 edit: Don't double post.

[kitamesume]

use the edit button? lol

you should stress test that for about 20-60mins just incase, so if something is fishy it can be RMA-d before the warranty is out.