Proposed Sandy Bridge Build questions

[mulholland]

Though I'm in no big rush to build a new hackintosh, at this point there doesn't seem to be any reasons to hold off on a new build. That in mind, I am planning on going ahead with the build listed below unless someone here suggests otherwise.

MOBO: ASUS P8P67
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 2x4GB DDR3 1600
PSU: CORSAIR AX850 850W
GPU: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5770 (Batmobile)
CPU: INTEL i7-2600K
HDD: 2 x HITACHI Deskstar 7200RPM 2TB
DVD: 2 x SONY Optiarc SATA CD/DVD burner
COOLER: Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm Cooler
CASE: Silverstone FT02

(I also have a spare 120gb SSD that I'll probably throw in for the main OS drive)

Those parts in mind, I have a few questions:

1) I initially planned on going with a ASUS P8P67 Pro, but those are scarce at the moment. Am I losing anything significant by going with the P8P67 instead of waiting for the P8P67 Pro to start shipping in numbers? Alternately, would I be better off going with a Gigabyte motherboard?

2) Is the PSU a good choice for my build? My hope was that I've gone a bit overboard with the PSU so I have room to grow in the future (additional HDDs, upgraded GPU, overclocking, etc.).

3) Regarding the GPU: I won't be doing anything graphically taxing (no gaming whatsoever), so would I be better served by a lower end GPU? My only GPU requirement is the ability to drive two DVI displays (or one HDMI and one DVI display).

4) I could really us some guidance on the cooler. I'd like to overclock at some point and have heard a few good things about the Noctua cooler, but everyone seems to have a different opinion about what works well. Any guidance here would be greatly appreciated. (note: I am diametrically opposed to water/liquid cooling)

 

[mulholland]

Thanks for the feedback Rankel.

Your PSU is fine, but you might want to look around for a longer profile PSU (I'm not sure what the form factor is called) as a portion of the PSU you have on your list will be covered by case in your FT02.(the grill for the PSU fan is lower than It should be, in my opinion)

Any suggestions on an alternate PSU? I found a few forum posts about the problem you mention, but didn't see anyone suggesting an alternate/longer PSU. Even after a bit of looking on Newegg, I didn't see much in the way of longer PSUs.

You very well may want to look at ram with lower profile heat sinks. the ripjaws may not clear the noctua cooler you want, unless you mount it sideways, and then you ruin the airflow scheme of your case.

Someone has already given me a pair of the ripjaws. Can the ripjaws go in the far DIMM slots and something with a lower profile heat spreader go in the closer (to the CPU) DIMM slots? If not, I suspect I'll be tempted to go with a different cooler.

edit: After a bit of digging it looks like people have had success with the ripjaws, though it appears to be a tight fit.

 

[Rankel]

This is excellent news! Please confirm the ripjaws work for you with the noctua cooler, as that may be the combo I go with for whatever my next build may be in a year or so if it works for you.

I'm really not too sure about the PSU. I know I have seen some, perhaps silverstone makes one? That would make sense that silverstone would make a PSU that fits their trick cases perfectly.

 

[Rankel]

I have gotten an xfx 5770 working using iboot legacy, but have not tried upgrading to 10.6.7 or using andy boot

 

[Yoga]

Nice build. Personally, I would go for the Pro. Many people on many forums (mainly overclocking) have also gone for that choice and not regretted it.

I have the silver FT02 (1.4) case, it's an awesome piece of kit. Also the AX850, it's a fantastic PSU which will last you years. There is a slight mis-alignment with the PSU grille and the PSU fan, but, it's a negligible circumstance which doesn't effect heat or performance. The AX850 fan doesn't even spin unless its under a decent amount of load. Awesome :¬)

Cooler - I also wanted the Noctua at first, but was put off by the RAM limitation as I wanted 1600Mhz CAS8. This Vengeance can be run at 1866, 9-10-9-1T also.

In the end, since the FT02 puts to much air through the case, I opted for the Megahalems cooler with a Noctua fan (pull). Works a treat, in Windows I was getting 27*C idle and 68*C load (4.4Ghz).

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha ... ew-12.html

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ ... view/868/7

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article916-page6.html

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/case ... m_review/4

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=9

Hope some of that helps :¬)