Help Me Build My Computer

[K PhaNTOM]

When was the last time a power surge actually hit a house? I have yet to hear of any. And I'm glad that Apevia is still working. I loved when I opened the PSU once to clean it and after finishing it said "DO NOT EVER OPEN THE PSU OR ATTEMP TO CLEAN." Worked pretty fine, scared the crap out of me though lol

[Nauticas]

When was the last time a power surge actually hit a house?

If you live in the Southeast, you get many surges just from the lightning storms. On average, a normal utility will have about a surge a week that has enough transient to damage something. You probably don't notice anything because you have a surge protector in your power strip that is beefy enough to handle whatever you get at your house. That, and your house may be grounded properly.

If your wondering how I know this, it is because I'm a licensed professional electrical engineer I specify surge protection equipment all the time.

[Nauticas]

1) Newegg.com - OCZ ZS Series 750W 80PLUS Bronze High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom

Any comments on this PSU? Keep in mind that I'll never SLI more than 2 graphic cards.


2) Is the Blackhawk case worth the extra money. Any comments on these cases. Tomshardware loves them.

Challenger: Newegg.com - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan

Blackhawk: Newegg.com - Rosewill BLACKHAWK Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, come with Five Fans, window side panel, top HDD dock

[goldenfooler]

If you live in the Southeast, you get many surges just from the lightning storms. On average, a normal utility will have about a surge a week that has enough transient to damage something. You probably don't notice anything because you have a surge protector in your power strip that is beefy enough to handle whatever you get at your house. That, and your house may be grounded properly.

If your wondering how I know this, it is because I'm a licensed professional electrical engineer I specify surge protection equipment all the time.

I wish I could add one to my electrical panel.. but I rent. I have power strips on all other important devices just so I can shut them down for ghost energy.

What rating or what specfics should I know when buying a surge protection?
Don't really have that many strikes in my area, but its a cheap protection.

[Nauticas]

Anyone know why there is such a large cost difference between these 2? Their read/writes are pretty close to each other.

Newegg.com - Kingston SSDNow V

Newegg.com - Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW120A3K5 2.5

[K PhaNTOM]

Brand name and reliability. Intels live longer (I guess you can say they fail less), and Kingston might live longer, you just have to risk dealing with Kingston customer reps vs. Intel's.

[Qicmee]

I don't have SSDs yet, but I like Newegg's rating system to show me which parts have positive comments from many users. Kingston's SSDNow series might be great, but I can't tell from the limited feedback.

[WalkinTarget]

What rating or what specifics should I know when buying a surge protection?
Don't really have that many strikes in my area, but its a cheap protection.

I'm not so much of a fan of surge strips as I am of a dedicated UPS. I run a UPS on all of my PCs, as a surge strip won't do an adequate job of preventing some spikes, or more importantly, line conditioning, smoothing out the subtle ripples in a wall outlets constant output. Even a cheap Cyberpower 500w UPS will do a better job than any surge strip.

Anyone know why there is such a large cost difference between these 2? Their read/writes are pretty close to each other.

Same reason why Intel chipset boards cost $200+ when a similar AMD chipset board fetches $120. Price out a Z77/79 board and tell me why it costs $50 more than the Z68 boards did at launch. I have the V+100 Kingston SSD, and its far from an enthusiast SSD, but, wow, it is a screamin' demon compared to ANY mechanical drive. I'd honestly go for the Kingston as there just isn't enough incentive to pay Intel more than they deserve.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5446/k...able-sandforce

[goldenfooler]

ok sorry UPS?

[WalkinTarget]

UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply. The power drops for an instant due to a downed pole or wire and it keeps your PC powered up until the power returns or you can power off the PC by normal means over an extended outage time frame.

Here's a quick and dirty explanation of what they do and how they help out your PC:

http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/a...rotectors.html

They also sell one that I can recommend for an OK price:

http://www.staples.com/CyberPower-CP...product_417645

Like I mentioned, the most important job they do is power line conditioning, and they smooth out the ripple that occurs in your outlet BEFORE it gets to your PSU. Some PCs don't deal adequately with that ripple and it prematurely ages them or strains them into running outside of their safe operating parameters.

[ryanbatc]

+1 to the UPS - I run a 600w Ultra.... our stupid power company isn't the best and we frequently get power bumps... I highly recommend the one I'm using as well

Ultra ULT31502 Xfinity 1000VA 600w UPS w/ AVR - 5 Outlets, 120V, Voltage Boost, 1065 Joules, 4 Battery Backup/Surge & 1 Surge Only Outlets, USB Interface, 3 Year Warranty w/ Registration at TigerDirect.com

[Donziboy2]

Sadly Ryan i saw 4 of those at a local CompUSA right after Xmas, the where open box and on sale for like $40.

So i bought one and took it home, it was dead.
So brought it back and helped one of the techs test another, turns out they are all dead.......

[Nauticas]

So guess who decided to wait for the Ivy bridge to come out. Me. I haven't purchased my computer yet and I plan to finally do it this week. I would like your comments and comparisons on the following motherboards as I think I've narrowed it down to these 2. Feel free to comment on my CPU choice too.

CPU: i5-3570K

Option 1: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H

Option 2: MSI Z77A-GD65

[Dead...Again]

My current system has an MSI motherboard. It is a good quality board. Never had a Gigabyte. ASUS is also good.

[WalkinTarget]

I'm going with the Gigabyte over the MSI simply because of MSI's poor track record with mosfet and VRM issues. I admit that the data is mainly older AM2/AM3 boards, but it still is relevant to at least give pause before recommending them:

http://www.overclock.net/a/about-vrm...tdp-processors

And yes, I've had two MSI boards fail on me in the past year. I'd actually suggest an Asrock board for a Z77 build these days.