Gaming Rig for around 130K

How about getting an Asus Mobo. ?

Yeah I thought about that but Gigabyte is offering Thunderbolt+Wifi and overclocking headroom thats why I chose that one. I am not stubborn though you can convince me with right logic and reasoning.

Everything seems good.
Just get a custom hd7970.Sapphire hd 7970 OC edition(32k) is quite good,overclocks quite well.Asus HD7970-DC2(32k)T is quite good too.

Also check this AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis

As far as sandy or ivy i7 is concerned.Ivy has these things:better quick sync,native usb 3.0,PCIe3.0.
General application performance difference is not quite significant between them
Unless the above mentioned things are required better off with i7 2600k.For moderate overclocking both are good though.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH is a very good motherboard.Can go ahead with it.

why don't you get the normal Intel Core i7 3770 without the k, its about 2k cheaper and can do everything the 3770k does. the 3770k is meant for serious overclockers and those who do all sorts of benchmarks, and you'll hardly need any overclocking for gaming. also if you are planning to overclock you'll need a better CPU cooler.

Topgear has suggested not to go for GB mobo. RMA issues.

CM hyper 212 evo is good enough for moderate overclocking.If one is spending that much,it is always better to have an overclock-able rig.
One can always overclock if necessary or if 2-3 years down the line if it feels a bit slower it can be overclocked.For higher clocks a better cooler is needed.But not necessary in this case as OP has said he will overclock only if needed which is wise.

Add a Samsung 830 256gb ssd for around 17k.If it goes beyond get the 128gb variant.

^Not needed man...120 GB will do

Well actually as far as CPU goes I am more towards Core i7 2700K or i7 2600K. As for SSD I guess that if I am getting WD Black Edition then I won't need that.
I am kinda confused about the Graphics Card. Please give inputs and also suggest if any better component if you have in mind.

With a good quality SSD,WD black can't be compared.Anyway one can always add the SSD when required.

Yeah thats the point. If my budget would be left then I would buy a SSD if not WD Black Edition would do.

Now I am more inclined towards Core i7 2700K.

there is even a HD7990 available from powercolor

But don't offer VFm and too costly. Not worth the money.

Guys which GPU I should buy ASUS GTX670-DC2-2GD5 or GIGABYTE GV-N670WF2-2GD. The Gigabyte GPU is available for 25.2K and Asus GPU for 27K. So which one???? I can't find any review for this Gigabyte GPU but the elder brother of this card which is unavailable everywhere and have everything same just with 3 fans performed pretty well. Please give your valuable input.

You can find the review of this card on newegg.Its has a windforce 2x cooler,shorter pcb compared to the windforce 3x model which use the longer pcb of the gtx 680,runs very cool and quiet and is extremely popular.I wouldn't go for this model if I were you.

rock2702 said:

You can find the review of this card on newegg.Its has a windforce 2x cooler,shorter pcb compared to the windforce 3x model which use the longer pcb of the gtx 680,runs very cool and quiet and is extremely popular.I wouldn't go for this model if I were you.

Click to expand...

Why ????

And where Can I find that Windforce 3X model ??? Could you suggest any particular place or online shop ??

gameranand said:

Well actually as far as CPU goes I am more towards Core i7 2700K or i7 2600K. As for SSD I guess that if I am getting WD Black Edition then I won't need that.
I am kinda confused about the Graphics Card. Please give inputs and also suggest if any better component if you have in mind.

Click to expand...

look at the benchmark of newly released FX-8350 .. yu will be surprised and may re-consider your cpu+mobo buying decision - just wait a little bit for the price to settle in here.

topgear said:

look at the benchmark of newly released FX-8350 .. yu will be surprised and may re-consider your cpu+mobo buying decision - just wait a little bit for the price to settle in here.

Click to expand...

Ah thank god you finally came here. Could you give some links for the reviews. Also please suggest about GPU also.

Allright just some reviews for AMD CPUs. They are quite good and much better than the previous Bulldozer CPU but the thing is that they are not meant for high end PC they are made more for a mid range PC and also their Mobos are quite Old and all. I mean its not completely deal off from me for AMD its just that if the pricing and performance would be good and some good Mobo will roll out soon then I would consider buying it.
As for now I guess Intel is they way to go, I am actually confused between Sandybridge and Ivybridge, Sandy looses the performance battle with Ivy but is more overclockable. Could you guys please suggest which one I should buy. Also could anyone give me a link for temp comparison between Sandybridge and Ivybridge, I do know that Ivy runs hotter but now I want to see the exact numbers.
Here is performance chart i7 3770K vs i7 2700K vs i7 2600K

Here's my suggestions:-

1) Consider a SSD as a must. Even a 256gb Crucial M4 or Vertex 4 or 240GB Corsair Force GT is yours for under 15k. For storage, get a Seagate 2TB instead of WD Black. SSDs are much much faster than any HDD you could think of.

2) Get RIpJawsX instead of Sniper.

3) You may consider Corsair HX850 for SMPS, which should be well within 10k. Also the PSU you have mentioned is cheaper here:-

SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

4) nVIDIA is apparently controlling how much voltage control manufacturers can offer in their Kepler cards. If that is important to you, you may want to consider 7970 or may be the Sapphire 7950 OC which is now below 24k at Flipkart. Else the card is just fine.

5) You may consider the i7 3770k.

Skud said:

Here's my suggestions:-

1) Consider a SSD as a must. Even a 256gb Crucial M4 or Vertex 4 or 240GB Corsair Force GT is yours for under 15k. For storage, get a Seagate 2TB instead of WD Black. SSDs are much much faster than any HDD you could think of.

2) Get RIpJawsX instead of Sniper.

3) You may consider Corsair HX850 for SMPS, which should be well within 10k. Also the PSU you have mentioned is cheaper here:-

SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

4) nVIDIA is apparently controlling how much voltage control manufacturers can offer in their Kepler cards. If that is important to you, you may want to consider 7970 or may be the Sapphire 7950 OC which is now below 24k at Flipkart. Else the card is just fine.

5) You may consider the i7 3770k.

Click to expand...

1. Yes I am considering it as I have budget of around 130K so the leftover, I mean about 10K would go in that.

2. Thanks for sure.

3. Actually its cheaper at GolchhaIT at around 9700INR. I just forgot to update the post. My bad. Thanks

4. Didn't really get you. How does that affect the performance or does it affect overclocking and how ??

5. Hmm... Thats where I am confused i7 2700K or i7 3770K. Please do suggest.

And thanks for the suggestions they are welcome.

OK Here is the updated prices of the rig.


Please Comment on the prices and products.

Also I am getting
1. i7 3770K - 20000 INR
2. i7 2600K - 18100 INR

So which CPU in these 3 ??

@4. It may affect overclocking (not sure about the voltage regulator chip of that particular ASUS model and the its limitation), but otherwise it's the best purchase below 30k. Not a big deal IMO.

For the CPU, i am personally more inclined to either the 2600k (save money) or the 3770k (get the best). For SSD, get 240/256GB one; you are talking about games, and you will fill up a 120/128GB pretty quick. Remember, Max Payne 3?

Buy two 1 TB Hard disks instead of one 2 TB. If in any case HDD goes bad, you'll still have one working.

Some Asus Direct CU cards are coming with locked voltage these days. Check out some other GTX 670.

Otherwise check this out - MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC Graphic Card This is HD 7970 @ 1.010 Ghz for 28.5K. This is faster than GTX 680 which comes with 1.006 Ghz (1.050 Ghz boos) clocks.

Skud said:

For SSD, get 240/256GB one; you are talking about games, and you will fill up a 120/128GB pretty quick. Remember, Max Payne 3?

Click to expand...

why would you install games on a SSD? it'll hardly improve performance of the game. ssd is best suited for installing the OS or video/photo rendering softwares. games and other data will do good on a HDD.

@ ico
I was also amazed by that MSI 7970 card price. I wonder if its the real price or just a typo from them because its a really great deal. I mean I am getting good performance for gaming and the advantages of 7970 with it at sweet price.
How is the Gigabyte 670 card SMC have. Is that good enough. I read that I better get Windforce 3X instead of 2X but unfortunately that ain't available anywhere at all.

If I buy two BE HDD then that would cost me 14K besides I already have a 2TB HDD that I would be using with BE edition in my rig.

@skud
Yeah you are right about CPU but the thing is I am hardly saving anything if getting 2700K as the price difference is just 750 INR. Not big deal.
About GPU, thanks for clearing my doubt.

dan4u said:

why would you install games on a SSD? it'll hardly improve performance of the game. ssd is best suited for installing the OS or video/photo rendering softwares. games and other data will do good on a HDD.

Click to expand...

Performance is not merely some fps numbers, there's something called gameplay experience. The game load times are drastically reduced, giving you a much better feel of actually being "in the game". In case of witcher 2, on my Vertex 3, it loads instantaneously. With a HDD, it takes significant time. Also there are other factors too. Check this article, its very informative, particularly check the 2 videos posted at the last page:-

Exploring SSD Performance In Battlefield 3, F1 2011, And Rift : Profiling Storage I/O In Three New Games

ico said:

Buy two 1 TB Hard disks instead of one 2 TB. If in any case HDD goes bad, you'll still have one working.

Some Asus Direct CU cards are coming with locked voltage these days. Check out some other GTX 670.

Otherwise check this out - MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC Graphic Card This is HD 7970 @ 1.010 Ghz for 28.5K. This is faster than GTX 680 which comes with 1.006 Ghz (1.050 Ghz boos) clocks.

Click to expand...

This would be a very good option, if OP don't mind the stock cooler. Also 2x1TB is sensible option, but very costly in the current scenario.

Like I said I am also thinking about that MSI card and looking forward to it given the condition that its actually at that price because SMC don't update prices regularly.
As for HDD I will be using 3 HDDs.
1. 2TB WD Cavier Green (already have from previous PC)
2. 2TB WD Black Edition
3. 128GB/240GB SSD. (depends on budget).

Guys I am having a hard time to get any review of MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC Graphic Card.
Can anyone give me a link for that ???

Guys I am having a hard time to get any review of MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC Graphic Card.
Can anyone give me a link for that ???

Check with primeabgb if they are going to sell 670 windforce 3x card. So far only primeabgb has listed out most of graphic cards from gigabyte. Also check with the distributor Welcome to Acro Engineering . Let me know if its going to hit india coz im waiting for that card too.

No Primeabgb don't have that card. Its not listed on the site.

I've told you to wait for a price cut on Intel cpus

BTW, getting a gpu with custom cooler is a better idea IMO .. so if you can look for any other version HD7970 though it may cost ~2-3k extra.

If I would have to get a custom cooler then why wouldn't I buy Asus GTX670 DC2 which in many cases outperforms Stock GTX680. Also if I would have to go farther in GPU for more than 30K I guess GTX680 would be my best bet. The only reason I am considering the MSI R7970 is because of that sweet price as it is coming at the price of custom cooler GTX670 and also give me the features of AMD side like computation and others. Also I am getting a pretty good Air flow case, it is better to get a custom cooler GPU or this will suffice. If custom cooler are better even with that case then I would buy Asus GTX670 DC2.

When Intel CPU prices will drop ?? Early November or something ???

First of all, contact SMC if the 7970 is at all available at that price. Stock cooler is not a big problem.

And for gaming, I would rather stick with Intel.

Also, you may want to take a look at this:-

GIGABYTE GRAPHIC CARD GTX 670 2GB DDR5

I did looked at that card before. Its is also available at SMC but the thing is that there is a bigger brother of that card Windforce 3X which is unavailable here so far. I searched and saw that Windforce 2X has everything similar except that it has two fans rather than three. Now I am confused about The Giggbyte GTX670 & Asus GTX670 DC2 and found that by spending 2K more Asus is available. I am still confused which one to get the Asusor the Gigabyte. As for the MSI R7970 I'll talk to them right now.

Both are representative of their price. Performance wise they are equal.

Well then I guess its better to save 2K right ???

If I was you, I would do that.

Well then I am going to do that. I am not a fanboy or something for any company anyway. Thanks for the suggestion and heads up.

What happened to that 7970? Have you contacted SMC?

They haven't contacted back yet. Hopefully they will contact me tomorrow. Tried calling them but no one picked up even in daytime so I emailed them.

Smc increased the prices of gigabyte cards today.Now both the cards on your list are priced same.

Yeah that they did. I guess then Asus is the way to go now. DC2 has a better reputation than this Gigabyte card and if both cards are selling at nearly same price then I would rather go with Asus.

But it looks like MD haven't increased the price yet maybe I will get the card from them then. Good for MD.

gameranand said:

They haven't contacted back yet. Hopefully they will contact me tomorrow. Tried calling them but no one picked up even in daytime so I emailed them.

Click to expand...

which contact number did you use?
The one I'm having is all time active (in working hrs i mean)
its 011-26293001

here what HD7970 Ghz Ed. with stock cooler can reach at lab temps :

*media.bestofmicro.com/A/P/342529/original/load%20temperature.png

to keep the cards cool the fan really makes some loud noise :

I let AMD know about our acoustic concerns and the company claims that most partner boards will employ third-party cooling, not its reference configuration. Just a little earlier this week we saw in Radeon HD 7950 3 GB: Six Cards, Benchmarked And Reviewed that new heat sinks and fans can work wonders on Tahiti-based boards. Fingers crossed, then, that the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Editions that show up on store shelves don’t sound like our sample.

Click to expand...

The 7970GE was already loud at stock and overclocking it doesn’t help. Under Metro noise is now at 63.8dBA, and under OCCT it’s tied with the 6990 for noise at 66dBA. Even if you’re forgiving of noise, this is reaching the point where it’s going to be difficult to ignore. Serious 7970GE overclockers will want to seek other cards and/or aftermarket coolers.

Click to expand...

Read these to get a more clear idea :
Temperature And Noise : AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Give Me Back That Crown!
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Gets Our Aftermarket Cooling Treatment : AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Give Me Back That Crown!
Temperatures And Fan Speed : Sapphire Toxic HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Gaming On 6 GB Of GDDR5

AnandTech - AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Battling For The Performance Crown

so if a HD7970 is what you are looking for better get one with after market cooler but if you have an Ac in room and do like the sound then stock cooler is good

Well I live in Bilaspur where Temperature goes beyond 50C in summer so I guess Asus GTX670 DC2 is the the way to go if it performs like 7970 at lower noise and temperature. And from what I have seen I think that Asus will deliver it, well lets see. Thanks for the information.

@Piyush
I'll try to contact then at the number you mentioned today. Thanks.

I don't know why you wanna go for kepler card when amd released better drivers that outperform every nvidia's latest card. If your talking about vfm cards amd just made every kepler card overpriced for now. And also ssd is a must if u dont want ur high end pc bottleneck by hdd. I recently bought ssd and i can tell you its really made quite a difference.

gameranand said:

Guys I am having a hard time to get any review of MSI R7970-2PMD3GD5/OC Graphic Card.
Can anyone give me a link for that ???

Click to expand...

AnandTech - Bench - GPU12

I would say 7970 hands down..
As far as gaming is considered its' somewhere AMD is greater & sometimes nvidia but for compute performance no comparision to AMD one..

Chaitanya said:

AnandTech - Bench - GPU12

I would say 7970 hands down..
As far as gaming is considered its' somewhere AMD is greater & sometimes nvidia but for compute performance no comparision to AMD one..

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. Actually I was looking for more of a specific Review of the card but it'll do.

Tried contacting SMC today but I guess because of holiday no one picked up, and tomorrow Nehru Place is closed so I guess my best bet is that they would reply to my email.
For now I am hooked to Asus GTX670 DC2 or Gigabyte GTX670 Windforce 2X.

Alriight guys as per Cilus suggestion I should get a MSI HD R7970 (2PMD3GD5). Whats your say in this and how is the cooler and noise control as the overclocked version of this card of same company having nearly identical cooler makes a lot of noise and is pretty hot. What about this one ??? Is it also like its bigger brother or somewhat better ???

Alriight guys as per Cilus suggestion I should get a MSI HD R7970 (2PMD3GD5). Whats your say in this and how is the cooler and noise control as the overclocked version of this card of same company having nearly identical cooler makes a lot of noise and is pretty hot. What about this one ??? Is it also like its bigger brother or somewhat better ???

I'll just leave an input here, can you wait for this upgrade? If yes, you'll be saving a lot on the components you've mentioned in about 2-3 months. Since it's a drought this year, i.e no great games except ACIII and FC3. Good games release in Feb and late 2013, like BioShock Infinite, Crysis 3, Metro: LL and such.

I suggest you wait and watch the prices, especially the CPUs and GPUs. Buy them RAM sticks and PSU but wait for the processor and graphics processor. I heard AMD are coming out with 8xxx series which will match up with your yet-to-buy GTX670 for just 15K. Or GTX670 might get reduced to that much. It's a win-win situation. After all, patience is the key.

But it boils down to your decision. I'll choose 'wait'.

Wait and you will wait forever. Even nVIDIA was claiming Kepler at $200 will beat GCN at $400 or something like that. Well, that never happened, not yet. And given the current economic situation, we can forget about another Radeon 4800 type situation. You will get a lot more performance at 15k with next-gen cards than you presently get, but that's about it.

@Anand: I doubt that cooler will be good enough, while noise won't be a problem at summer or if you use headphones, high temps may limit OC potential. Either increase your budget or settle for either of the 670s.

Isn't 130K enough for a good gaming rig ??? How much I have to extend the budget anyway ???

@Geek
AMD has already launched the new series of 8xxx CPUs and they are not that promising and in GPU department no high end cards are coming so I don't think that there will be much change in prices.

^^^the prices on Intel should come down seeing the overly aggressive pricing on FX 83XX series...
anyhoo..if you are going Intel way.. i would suggest stick with 2500K cause No games in the near future will use up more than 4 Cores..had it been the case...Intel would have been kicked in the nuts by now by AMD FX series....as for the GPU stick with AMD...they are releasing Drivers like nobodies business and performance enhancement are pretty good..
if i were you i would have gotten an FX+990 setup...and spend extra cash on big a$$ gpu...and save some

^^ you are sounding like an AMD fanboy

anyway, 50c in summer season is crazy hot and with 2500K Op has the option to go for cpu water cooler ike he should opt for Thermaltake Water2.0 Ext.

Well TBH for some reasons I don't trust water cooling. What if that damages my other components and all, would that be covered under cooler warranty ??
Please suggest about the GPU which one 7970 or 670 ???

Also if you can please give me link which states that there are significant improvement because of drivers.

I think if you go for Sapphire 7970 OC, you have to reconsider your CPU/mobo. i5 2500k is a really a good choice for gaming. And you thinking about dual GPU down the line, say 6 months?

topgear said:

^^ you are sounding like an AMD fanboy

anyway, 50c in summer season is crazy hot and with 2500K Op has the option to go for cpu water cooler ike he should opt for Thermaltake Water2.0 Ext.

Click to expand...

riight...the AMD fanboy giving suggestion for an 2500k
am curious as how i sound like an AMD fanboy? pray tell me

gameranand said:

Well TBH for some reasons I don't trust water cooling. What if that damages my other components and all, would that be covered under cooler warranty ??
Please suggest about the GPU which one 7970 or 670 ???
Also if you can please give me link which states that there are significant improvement because of drivers.

Click to expand...

check out HWBOT news...also am doing some testing by myself..will update em as soon as they are finished...
*images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6393/51037.png
*images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6393/51040.png
*images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6393/51041.png

*www.hwbot.org/newsflash/1836_amd_driver_improvement_catalyst_11.12_on_ln2__catalyst_12.11_on_water

gameranand said:

Well TBH for some reasons I don't trust water cooling. What if that damages my other components and all, would that be covered under cooler warranty ??
Please suggest about the GPU which one 7970 or 670 ???

Also if you can please give me link which states that there are significant improvement because of drivers.

Click to expand...

AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis

The relative improvements for each card are:
HD 7750: +4%
HD 7770: +5%
HD 7850: +4%
HD 7870: +10%
HD 7950: +7%
HD 7970: +7%
HD 7970 GHz: +7%

AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis Review | techPowerUp

after price cut by amd still 7970 at flipkart around 33-35k and Asus NVIDIA GTX 670 around 28k (if u like borderlands 2 then special effects made possible only through NVIDIA PhysX technology)

so i think in India 670 is better option

With the price drops and the boost from new drivers, amd is really messing up nvidias market

Custom cooled 670 at 28k or lesser is OK IMO. A good 7970 will cost at least 30k.

Custom hd7970 does make sense.It is definitely faster than gtx670 and more so when one goes to higher settings.
If overclocking is taken into consideration a good custom cooled hd7970 which can do ~1200MHz+ core clocks is actually the fastest thing to have at lower prices,
ignoring higher memory bandwidth of hd7970GHz edition.One doesn't need matrix platinum edition or toxic edition to have the fastest card if one has a good custom cooled hd7970 which can go high clocks,although it has lower stock clocks..

After looking at all these benchmarks it seems like 7970 is a good option, however I also read somewhere that the new Nvidia Drivers has also bring about 7-11% performance gain got GTX6xx series. Is it true and if its true then what would be your suggestion 7970 or 670. As for now I am inclined towards 7970 even if it means that I may have to skip SSD which I'll then buy after a month or two.

@Skud
As for SLI/Crossfire. I may do it when when the need arises means that games won't run at highest settings on 1920*1080. If thats 1 year then I'll SLI in 1 year and if its 2 years then 2 years.

A good 7970 is actually costing more like 32-36K not 30K to me.

Prefer single card setups. In anycase, 7970 will last you quite some time.

There is a msi 7970 at 28.5k in smcinternational. Local prices will be lower.

Even before the recent driver updates hd7970 performed better than gtx670.After 12.7beta hd 7970 had a definite gap over gtx670.As far as nvidia's recent driver is concerned it doesn't bring that big an improvement and it improves performance in less number of titles.Catalyst 12.11 improved performance in most of the titles i.e it was a performance driver for GCN cards.
Before catalyst 12.11beta drivers games like battlefield 3 favored nvidia more which is not the case now.
Sapphire hd7970 OC edition is a good overclocker,many have cranked it past 1250MHz.

gameranand said:

After looking at all these benchmarks it seems like 7970 is a good option, however I also read somewhere that the new Nvidia Drivers has also bring about 7-11% performance gain got GTX6xx series. Is it true and if its true then what would be your suggestion 7970 or 670. As for now I am inclined towards 7970 even if it means that I may have to skip SSD which I'll then buy after a month or two.

@Skud
As for SLI/Crossfire. I may do it when when the need arises means that games won't run at highest settings on 1920*1080. If thats 1 year then I'll SLI in 1 year and if its 2 years then 2 years.

A good 7970 is actually costing more like 32-36K not 30K to me.

Click to expand...

Forget about SSD then or settle for a i5; forget about dual GPU too and get the Sapphire 7970 OC from Flipkart. It's 32.5k atm.

OK thanks for the input guys. One question about GPU. Many people on different forum are saying that AMD might have reduced the image quality to gain that much kind of performance like they did last time in case of 5xxx series. Could you guys confirm and tell me about it if you know ?? I would be grateful.

That has been solved many moons ago.

OK thanks a lot. So which 7970 ?? There are several available Sapphire or something else. Sapphire is available for 34.7K.
I guess that I am finally getting something from my favorite company, makes me feel nice.

It's 32.5k in Flipkart and one of the best models. d3p has the same one.

Could you give me a link its currently priced at 34775.
Sapphire AMD HD 7970 DDR5 Vapor-X 3 GB 3072 MB GDDR5 Graphics Card

That's the Vapor-X model, I am talking about this:-

Sapphire AMD/ATI HD 7970 OC Edition 3 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card | Graphics Card | Flipkart.com

Oh got it. Thanks so which one of them is preferable The vapor X or the OC version ??

Y dont u get the asus platinum matrix 7970?

^^ Link and price and availability ???

@Anand: buddy, everything is preferable, it depends on how much you want to spend. PrimeABGB has the ASUS Platinum Matrix, which is arguably the best 7970 you can buy, have a look:-

Buy Asus Matrix HD 7970 Platinum Graphic Card in Mumbai India

OK thanks a lot guys. I'll see what I'll get in my budget. As stated earlier I'll most probably get the PC in mid November but it seems like the configurations are already set. Still lets see if something happens in these 15 days.
Also I'll go to my village on Diwali and just after coming from there I'll place orders in 1 or 2 days. As because if I place the order now and if I'm unavailable when the package arrives then it would be a big problem for me.
Here is what I have decided so far


Please comment on this and do tell if something is out of order.

Sapphire hd7970 OC edition is quite good for the price.In most of the reviews it went well past 1250MHz(core).Legitreview even went past 1310MHz with it.Different cards of the same version and make would overclock differently but in general with that card one should get pretty high overclocks.The card has pretty low noise levels as well.
Asus Matrix platinum is probably the best hd7970 when it comes to overclocking.It has higher stock clocks compared to some other models and many reviewers have gone past 1300MHz with it.
Take any of them,I don't think one would regret.

well, that way one keeps on going over and over.

The Sapphire one is fine.

More than fine.

Allright Thanks a lot guys. Sapphire one it is then. Will see some reviews of that card in some days as exams are going on so don't get much time. I am posting my rig again so that no one has to go to previous page to see the rig and suggest.

Eh, they are on the same page.

Not for me when 15 posts per page.

Change out the PSU to Corsir AX 850 or TX 850M..and do u really need the 2700K? they are not as overclcokers as they are thought to be...a 2600K would be better and cheaper.

Actually the cost difference between 2600K and 2700K is just 750INR thats why I choose 2700K.

For 2600k and 2700k, the performance gains are so minimal, they can be ignored.
If gaming is your sole purpose, you can do the same with an i5 2500k.
If you have spare cash, stick to the 2600k.

Well the difference is not that much minimal but yes its not significant for sure. I said already that the reason I choose this one is because there is minimal saving if I choose 2600K. Heck I can't even get a DVD writer with that saving. But performance wise and overclocking wise which one would be better?? I mean if 2600K and 2700K both are overclocked and if 2600K has better potential then of course I would choose 2600K.

2700k has a 100mhz lead and an extra multiplier. As compared to a 2600k, under the same settings, it will overclock higher.

Well then I guess I'll stick to 2700K then.

@ sumonpathak
Why should I need to change that PSU. I thought that Seasonic makes very good PSU and that one is 80+ Gold certified. Also I'll get Corsair at nearly the same price.

Two reasons i can think of
1. better rma in case of corsair
2. seasonic makes the corsair ax-850

one thing ASUS matrix platinum is a tripple slot card.

Even the Sapphire one will encroach the 3rd slot. Not a problem with a single card IMO.

OK thanks. Could anyone give me a link where Corsair AX850 is available for price under 12K because at Flipkart its out of stock right now.

Corsair CMPSU-850AX 80+ Gold 850W Modular Power Supply - CMPSU-850AX
CORSAIR SMPS 850 AXUK

Inquire before you place the order. And its all over 12K.

And is the thunderbolt connectivity a must have for your Motherboard or you can do without it?

AX850 -> 12,688
AX750 -> 10,920

at mdcomputers.in plus shipping.

12335 at Bitfang: Corsair AX850 850 W Single 12V Rail Power Supply, Compare and Buy latest Power Supplies & SMPS Online in India: bitFang.com

gameranand said:

OK thanks. Could anyone give me a link where Corsair AX850 is available for price under 12K because at Flipkart its out of stock right now.

Click to expand...

Corsair Professional Series

Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850

Both websites show price of 13.5k

You may look for 850HX
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-850HX 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

someone call up Tirupati enterprise...they usually give a better pricing.

gameranand said:

Well the difference is not that much minimal but yes its not significant for sure. I said already that the reason I choose this one is because there is minimal saving if I choose 2600K. Heck I can't even get a DVD writer with that saving. But performance wise and overclocking wise which one would be better?? I mean if 2600K and 2700K both are overclocked and if 2600K has better potential then of course I would choose 2600K.

Click to expand...

2600k's are better clocker...
proof given below

Myth said:

2700k has a 100mhz lead and an extra multiplier. As compared to a 2600k, under the same settings, it will overclock higher.

Click to expand...

umm...no...multi wall is a draw of luck in SB chips...
2600K: *www.hwbot.org/submission/2270614_spl_cpu_frequency_core_i7_2600k_6050_mhz *valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/2315846.png
2700K: *www.hwbot.org/submission/2268044_brandybuck_cpu_frequency_core_i7_2700k_5856_mhz *valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/2306850.png

^^
6ghz is wicked !!!
Glad I bought the 2600k XD

^^forget to hit any of that speed here

OK got it. So two questions
1. Which CPU 2600K or 2700K if both have nearly no price difference ??
2. Which PSU ?? Do I need a AX850 ?? If not which one will suffice ??

850 should be ok...AX is suggested as it has better after sales and warranty...2600K would give u more OC...

Read this review, tailor-made for you:-

ASUS GeForce GTX 680 & GTX 670 DirectCU II Top Edition Video Card Reviews - ASUS GTX670 & GTX680 DirectCU II Video Cards - Legit Reviews

gameranand said:

OK got it. So two questions
1. Which CPU 2600K or 2700K if both have nearly no price difference ??
2. Which PSU ?? Do I need a AX850 ?? If not which one will suffice ??

Click to expand...

like everyone said AX may be ** better but if you want to keep the PSu budget strictly under 12k then HX series is no slouch - both series comes with 7 years warranty and if you can live a with semi modular PSu then HX 850 @ 10.5k is really a great deal IMO.

** Read these
Corsair HX850 850W Review
Corsair AX850 Review

Skud said:

Read this review, tailor-made for you:-

ASUS GeForce GTX 680 & GTX 670 DirectCU II Top Edition Video Card Reviews - ASUS GTX670 & GTX680 DirectCU II Video Cards - Legit Reviews

Click to expand...

Thank you so much. Vapor-X performs very similar to the OC version as I have seen some reviews but OC Edition is quieter then Vapor-X so I guess 7970 is a really good choice for me.

topgear said:

like everyone said AX may be ** better but if you want to keep the PSu budget strictly under 12k then HX series is no slouch - both series comes with 7 years warranty and if you can live a with semi modular PSu then HX 850 @ 10.5k is really a great deal IMO.

** Read these
Corsair HX850 850W Review
Corsair AX850 Review

Click to expand...

Thanks. It seems like HX850 is also a good choice, and I am getting it at 10450INR from ITwares. I guess I can pick that up.
Performance wise there is hardly any difference between the two, in fact HX850 reached 90+ efficiency at the load which would be used for most of the time. So either the Seasonic 850 or Corsair HX850 then, both have a price difference of about 400INR.

Never for seasonic...
Go for Corsair cause it got better RMA & ASS

yep, Stick with Corsair ..

Btw, there's two version of Corsair HX 850 - one is Gold and anther one is Silver
Corsair HX850 Gold Review

Guess the newer Gold one is not yet available here.

Nope, I haven't seen any at any shop at all.

Are you going to delve in some crazy benchmarking like Sumon? HX850 (Silver) is more than enough for you and backed by the similar 7 year warrantee like the AX series. What else do you want?

Nothing, nothing at all. I'll get HX850 and if the price difference is like 500INR and availability is not an issue then only I'll get AX850.

^^ In your case even the TX 850V2 is more than enough,since you are not going to run your PC overclocked to the teeth for more than 12hrs a day..and a SSD with the saved 5K is wiser...my two cents...

Corsair TX850v2 = cable mess.

HX or AX for me. Modular.

TX 850v2 is like the biggest mess that came out from corsair....in terms of cabling..

There is a Corsair TX 850-M model available at mdcomputers. You may want to check that as it is modular and being offered at a great price

ico said:

Corsair TX850v2 = cable mess.

HX or AX for me. Modular.

Click to expand...

A proper cabinet would cure that gala connectivity issue easily. But then one has to work a little bit to get around the cables,"its not tough...a thirty minute work can save a Rs 5000 for a ssd"....though.... Here is a shot below (grainy)....

I guess I'll stick to HX or AX 850.

Killer config dude.!
but why not 3rd gen processor Ivy Bridge??!

chavanshashank said:

Killer config dude.!
but why not 3rd gen processor Ivy Bridge??!

Click to expand...

Well let me ask why Ivy bridge??

No point cause for gaming both are same. Also SNB has better overclockable

and lesser temps but with undervoltingand OCing even IB K series cpus are also good and one of the most efficient cpus ever made for desktop pcs.

Guys sumon advised me to go for Asus Maximus V Formula or Asus P8Z77 V Deluxe rather than Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH. So guys which one ???

@TG
Really IVK are good enough. I am ignoring them just because of the temps and all. Please advice.

Well, Sumon will be knowing better, but from my personal experience my Gigabyte board is better than Asus one. From the reviews, it doesn't look like UP5 will be a very bad option. Otherwise, either one of the ASUS boards is OK, but going with Maximus will increase your budget quite a bit.

The Bios is buggy
confirmed it last night also..i for one want to see some competition..but there aint any.

You mean the 3D BIOS?

everything actually...they just dont give a damn about the boardsBios....come to think of it the UD4 i used also had real buggy LLC :\

Then how come the reviews never mentioned it?? Also they are recommending it like its the best product in the category.

Just read a complete side by side review of Asus Maximus V Formula & Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH.
Yes Maximus is a better performer than TH but one thing that found good about TH is that its BIOS is actually a upgraded version than the older versions of BIOS and it works much much better and have really good headroom for Overclocking. Still I can't really decide as I am not much of a expert in this department.
So please look for yourself and help me decide.
ASUS Maximus V Formula/ThunderFX Intel LGA 1155
Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH Intel LGA 1155

^^6try looking at XS forums and more OC forums where people actually Overclock.
Gigabyte had this problem of half cooked BIOS from start OF SB days..and sadly most of the bios are bad...
I would really like GB to win
but the bios aint upto the mark..sorry bro...
after this its upto you

Could you please give me a link for a side by side review of both cards from same site with negatives you mentioned ??

^^dats the problem here...u wont see negatives marked distinctly...u have to read up on forums...sometimes u just have to trust people who knows what they are doing
i wish i could do a review but since GB India doesn't bother about new guys i dont have the opportunity to do so...and i cannot put out 19K right now on that board.

Then Please give me link so the specific forum pages. Its kinda important to me as I am spending my entire savings on this RIG.

i will see if they still have it
but wats the problem with MVF? u can get one for around 20K from delta....

^^ It doesn't have Thunderbolt + Few USB 3.0 Ports.

Thunderbolt is a gimmick ATM...how many u need in USB 3.0? there are 6 i think....KB and mouse dont work better with USB 3 u know
anyhoo..i leave it you...

OK. What if I don't have any Thunderbolt then would there be alternative in future, something like add on card for getting Thunderbolt port.
As for USB I guess there are 6 ports and I guess thats enough for me as my Cabinet would also allow me to get 2 more on front.
Actually after reading your posts and all, I am more inclined towards MVF but you know just need a confirmations and all from various source and all. You know what I mean ??

Goddammit. Deltapage don't deliver shipments to my address.

*tries hypnotism* u will get this board....
seriously man...get this board...u aint gonna regret it
i took the board to hell and back and it lived..u know what i mean?
and like all stuff thunderbolts gonna come as add in cards too...but i doubt you will need it..

But Deltapage does not deliver at my address. What to do now ?? Could you please find some more places where I could get at a lower rate ??

PM me your address....am gonna try getting one for you
nearest possible is Delhi...right?

Cypm.

OK so finally after much much searching and suggestions I have finally came to this. I made some modifications and I'll tell why.

1. I changed from 2700K to 2600K because many members here said that 2600K is better suited for me + its better overclockable.

2. Changed the Mobo from Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH to Asus Maximus V Formula because of suggestions from sumonpathak that its has the best BIOS and Gigabyte has not that good BIOS and overclocking features.

3. Changed the GPU from Sapphire HD Radeon HD7970 to Asus Matrix HD 7970 Platinum because of permance gain and funky looks + lower power consumption and performance/watt.

4. Changed the PSU from Seasonic to Corsair HX850 because of suggestions from many members here that Corsair has very good CS and that HX850 is enough for me.

5. Rest is same I guess.

Please give input on this final RIG. Do I need to make any modifications or any other thing. As for SSD I'll buy that in some months but as for now I am skipping that because of my budget constraint.


Thank you all guys for your very valuable suggestions and input. Please comment on this one before I make the final payment.

NICE
all systems GO from my side..try 1TB Raid if possible..

Can't do that. It will shoot my budget to around 140K.

Final Rig which I have to buy. Posting Again.

Good config.
You could get a noctua instead of the cm evo here. About 2k extra and does more justice to the setup.

No SSD!!!

As for CPU cooler I guess Hyper 212 Evo is enough for moderate cooling and I won't do too much overclocking for a considerable amount of time.

@ Skud
I'll add it later in a couple of months after the purchase. This is the reason I am getting a Black Edition to get MAX performance from what normal HDD have to offer apart from Veliocaptor series of course.

gameranand said:

As for CPU cooler I guess Hyper 212 Evo is enough for moderate cooling and I won't do too much overclocking for a considerable amount of time.

Heya super build anand........ one stupid question ^_^ if you wont do max overclock which is why sandy is best even at temp lvls
but if moderate overclock going for ivy might be good idea too........ again this is how i felt

and best build to spend 130k lol .....

Click to expand...

^^ Its not that I won't overclock. I am saying that I won't overclock until I need it. When I need it then I'll extract every inch of performance from that CPU and GPU and memory for that matter before upgrading.

gameranand said:

As for CPU cooler I guess Hyper 212 Evo is enough for moderate cooling and I won't do too much overclocking for a considerable amount of time.

@ Skud
I'll add it later in a couple of months after the purchase. This is the reason I am getting a Black Edition to get MAX performance from what normal HDD have to offer apart from Veliocaptor series of course.

Click to expand...

I think in that case, a normal 7200 rpm drive would do the job. Anyway, your take.

haha coool bro go for it even i am going for almost same build only ivy in it

overclock that 2600k as much u can that processor is crazy beast

Skud said:

I think in that case, a normal 7200 rpm drive would do the job. Anyway, your take.

Click to expand...

I selected that HDD because of Warranty + Performance + Reliability.

I hope you understand all that for 4-4.5k.

Anyway, one hell of a system. Waiting for a separate review of the card itself. I hope you will comply.

Skud said:

I hope you understand all that for 4-4.5k.

Anyway, one hell of a system. Waiting for a separate review of the card itself. I hope you will comply.

Click to expand...

Of Course. Why wouldn't I.
Please list out some softwares which I'll be using so that I'll get them I don't have them already.

^^get the rig...i will PM you afterwards

Skud said:

I hope you understand all that for 4-4.5k.

Anyway, one hell of a system. Waiting for a separate review of the card itself. I hope you will comply.

Click to expand...

if he doesn't am gonna take care of it

Sure thing.

sumonpathak said:

^^get the rig...i will PM you afterwards


if he doesn't am gonna take care of it

Click to expand...

Thanks in advance.

^^ awesome config man, btw where are you getting everything from??

@ gameranand

Whoa just checked your thread. That's an amazing rig you're building ,mate. Making me envy

Anyway i just want to ask you something. Everything you selected is more than fine. But my question is, are you planning for a sure multigpu solution in near future or you'll stick with a single gpu?

Don't think that monster will be too kind on a neighbour.

Whoa man !! Desirable config. Would like to know - To what extent would you be OCing the CPU,GPU ?

dan4u said:

^^ awesome config man, btw where are you getting everything from??

Click to expand...

Various Online shops.

vickybat said:

@ gameranand

Whoa just checked your thread. That's an amazing rig you're building ,mate. Making me envy

Anyway i just want to ask you something. Everything you selected is more than fine. But my question is, are you planning for a sure multigpu solution in near future or you'll stick with a single gpu?

Click to expand...

I guess I'll stick with single GPU solution, thats why I am getting the best GPU in the market. However in 2-3 years if need really desires then I'll go for multi-GPU but that is highly unlikely.
@ OT
Where were you lately ?? Didn't saw you in the forum lately for quite some time.

Skud said:

Don't think that monster will be too kind on a neighbour.

Click to expand...

I use headphones only. No speakers, even now I use HD202 Headphones.

Thetrueblueviking said:

Whoa man !! Desirable config. Would like to know - To what extent would you be OCing the CPU,GPU ?

Click to expand...

When the need arises then to the max with air cooling.

Final Rig

gameranand said:

I use headphones only. No speakers, even now I use HD202 Headphones.

Click to expand...

I was referring to the dual card setup. That card will take 3 slots on its own, and as a thumb rule, you should keep at least one slot clear for the next card. And I doubt your normal crossfire connector will be that long.

Skud said:

I was referring to the dual card setup. That card will take 3 slots on its own, and as a thumb rule, you should keep at least one slot clear for the next card. And I doubt your normal crossfire connector will be that long.

Click to expand...

See the motherboard. You'll get the answer, The next GPU slot is after 3 slots so I guess ASUS will give that long crossfire bridge.

gameranand said:

See the motherboard. You'll get the answer, The next GPU slot is after 3 slots so I guess ASUS will give that long crossfire bridge.

Click to expand...

yes ROG board perfect for 3 slot gpu crossfire

i cant wait for buying my stuff ^_^

Formula V is exy

That is all.

@ gameranand

A bit busy these days mate.

Ok now about your config, i've got something in my mind that i really want to put up here. Since your budget is exceedingly good and deserves the best performance from day one, the points i'm going to put hopefully should seem worthwhile to you and every other potential buyer or reader.

Your config is absolutely spot on, but as you have no plan to upgrade in the near future, it has room to be tweaked in order to give the best possible performance. Here, i'm referring to that 7970 matrix platinum.

Now i'm well aware about a 7970's potential after the 12.11 driver update and the card you've shortlisted has a massive 14 phase vrm and thus making it potentially the fastest 7970 in the world.
A single 7970 is really good and hassle free and everybody will agree with me here. But they would also agree to the fact that multigpu scaling has also come a long way in terms of providing stability and blistering performance.

Now buddy that budget of yours is really really good and demands the best gpu which the 7970 really is. But from best gpu, i never meant single gpu or more so, i meant the best setup for the budget.

That brings me to put sli and crossfire to the picture. Both of them have come a long way into providing the best best framerate and frametime ( more on this one soon) at a specific budget.
But what i'm gonna say further aren't words of a fan boy but truth put forward in the more simplistic and logistic manner.

Since you are more into gaming and ONLY gaming, i would strongly suggest you consider SLI over crossfire. This might start flamewars between fanboys but in reality, there's nothing fanboyish here. SLI looks to be the best solution in providing fludic gameplay. This might sound wierd but technically ( talking purely about framerates against time graph) AMD solutions after recent driver updates all the way to 12.11 are 10% faster on average. But that is not enough to draw the attention of gamers away from SLI ( Note- this only applies more to multigpu setups than single gpu).

Read the following link thoroughly and carefully analyzing each and every game. Don't just see framerate graphs but read the reviewer's words in each and every page.

HARDOCP - Introduction - GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB SLI Review

The test is done between a galaxy gtx 660-ti sli vs 7950 boost crossfire, both of them running on latest drivers i.e 310.33 beta and 12.11 beta respectively.

The results might seem wierd but are interestng. After the boost in clock speeds and driver updates, 7950 crossfire is technically 10% faster than 660-ti sli in almost all games including battlefield 3
and it should have been the unanimous winner in that review as it beats its competition hands down. But that isn't the case as 660-ti sli still received a gold award at the end making it a solid choice
despite the framerate deficit. Like i said it sounds wierd but it isn't.

SLI provides something that crossfire simply does not and that is an inexplicable smoothness to gameplay. By smoothness, the reviewer means responsiveness and overall fluidity which matters a lot more than numbers. According to hardocp, if you play both the systems listed above side by side, sli gives an amazing smoothness which is simply hard to ignore and is evident throughout a game.

Its not like the differences are subtle but are significant. In terms of smoothness, SLI beats crossfire handsdown and not like just. This fact simply can't be ignored. I will put the reviewer's quote below:

Smoothness in Multi-GPU Gameplay

We've beaten this topic into the ground in the past, but it has been a while since we brought it up. There is a smoothness to SLI we just can't put in words. We know for a fact that NVIDIA uses an algorithm that smoothes "frametime" in SLI. We don't know what it’s called, or even how it works, but we know it exists, and we know NVIDIA employs some special sauce when it comes to SLI. It is something that can only be felt, as you play a game, it is not something that shows up in a framerate over time graph. So what you see is AMD CFX winning in framerate, but not winning in frametime or overall game smoothness.

When you sit down, and play games on SLI, the gaming experience just feels smoother and more responsive at lower framerates compared to AMD CrossFireX. With AMD CrossFireX we find that the faster the framerate, the smoother it feels, and we often need higher framerates with AMD CFX for it to feel the same smoothness that NVIDIA SLI feels. So, in all our testing in this article this is why we say that technically AMD 7950 CFX is faster in framerate, but in terms of the actual experience, SLI wins hands down. Gaming with SLI, especially at NV Surround resolutions, just feels better, period. While this is subjective, we are fairly sure that most of our readers would easily identify this in a "Pepsi Challenge" scenario.

We are still looking for ways to illustrate this frametime advantage to you in a proper "scientific" way. As it stands now, all fully reliable avenues to us in this regard are simply too resource intensive to simply "add on" to our reviews. It is also worth expressing that some data collection methods you have seen developed elsewhere are simply not "correct," and we want to be as accurate as possible before exposing data on this topic. NVIDIA has promised upcoming tools for illustrating this, but we have yet to see anything develop. Till then, our subjective impressions are all we have to offer, but as stated above, some of these are more black and white than shades of gray when you experience these first hand.

Click to expand...

Nvidia seems to be employing a specific algorithm which is still unknown outside to them that does this trick. It smoothes out frametime between two cards delivering the best possible experience.
Note that the image quality at highest settings between a 7950 cfx and 660-ti sli is absolutely identical. They both allow to play at max settings and AA. AMD gets smoother once framerates increase but nvidia sli gives much better smoothness even in 10% slower framerates.

Consider sleeping dogs which is an AMD title, 7950 cfx at highest settings gives 63 fps while 660-ti sli gives 55 fps making the former 15% faster. But again sli here felt far smoother and offered a
more responsive gameplay. Since both are capable to emply similar highest settings, image quality was identical.

Reading the review thoroughly will clear a lot of doubts and give a transparent picture to the topic of discussing.


Now gameranand coming to you ( sorry for taking so much time ), i guess you must have guessed my implications. I strongly suggest you to strike off that 7970 from your list
and go for a 660-ti sli which are retailing as low as 19.5k per card and an sli brings them dangerously close to that 7970 matrix platinum card ( tad higher).

But the raw performance you'll get will blow a single 7970 out of the water. Owing to kepler's excellent power envelope, the 660-ti sli draws only 64 watts more than the single 7970 matrix platinum and in return offers blistering performance which cannot be matched by any single gpu out there. Its also a more value as well a future proof solution capable of playing all the games at highest settings for 2-3 years. Once txaa ( nvidia's next gen anti aliasing claims to blow msaa and at the same time is much much less memory bandwidth dependent) arrives, you can still go for highest aa settings for future titles.

The cards to go for are listed below:

GIGABYTE GRAPHIC CARD GTX 660 TI 2GB DDR5

MSI GRAPHIC CARD N660Ti PE 2GD5

MSI GRAPHIC CARD N660Ti PE 2GD5/OC

ZOTAC GRAPHICS CARD GTX 660 Ti

*www.flipkart.com/asus-nvidia-gtx66...GXZM&ref=c6e7f92d-4ff9-4b9f-84bb-47f4225c04b0 ( U should find this much cheaper locally)

Sli any of the above and you have a bigger monster than your current planned rig. The gigabyte 660-ti nails the pricing and is highly recommended.
If you can find the galaxy card, then pick it eyes closed. Else any two from above will be great.

Read this completely and tell us your thoughts buddy.



P.S -

One more suggestion mate. Why spend 20k on an ROG board? You won't be setting some overclocking records are you? Besides you are limited by the hyper 212 cooler and not going for a uber liquid cooling setup to make the most out of the board. You can go for lot cheaper boards which overclock well ( not on par with ROG but comes close). Consider the following options:

*www.flipkart.com/asrock-z77-extrem...ZH9T&ref=95144016-e826-4bbd-b804-338d192649fa

*www.flipkart.com/asrock-z77-extrem...FUJ2&ref=95144016-e826-4bbd-b804-338d192649fa

I would say you stick with Asrock extreme 6, save up and buy that ssd along with that sli setup. The performance improvements you'll get from day one will be significant.

^^ Good info there.
I always thought single card setups are better and preferable.
The 660ti sli is 6% faster than a single 7970 and around 4k costlier.
OCing the 7970 could cover that gap as well.
Amd drivers are getting better. Wouldnt another 7970 for CF sometime later be even better ?

PS: I am going to love the debate over your post

^i was expecting this

Myth said:

^^ Good info there.
I always thought single card setups are better and preferable.
The 660ti sli is 6% faster than a single 7970 and around 4k costlier.
OCing the 7970 could cover that gap as well.
Amd drivers are getting better. Wouldnt another 7970 for CF sometime later be even better ?

PS: I am going to love the debate over your post

Click to expand...

No mate its not 6% but higher than that.

Consider sleeping dogs:

7970 matrix platinum - HARDOCP - Sleeping Dogs - ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum Video Card Review
660-ti sli - HARDOCP - Sleeping Dogs - GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB SLI Review

Look closely and you'll see that the settings aren't same. Both 7950cf and 660-ti sli are employing highest AA settings while single 7970 is employing normal AA.
You get much better image quality in multigpu at those settings.

Bring down the AA and settings to 7970 levels and you'll see a much significant performance advantage. Single 7970 or 680 are a no contest for multi-gpu setups of higher mid-end cards. No matter how much you overclock the 7970, its no match for a 660-ti sli or even 7950 cf in pure performance. They simply have more no. of shaders and horsepower to back performance.

Vicky, I am also going through your suggestions and infos and found that SLI smoothness really interesting, will dig into that. But buddy, suggesting him a VFM Motherboard like Asrock Extreme 6 over a ROG or Sabertooth is simply a bad idea. When a person has the budget, he should go with the best Motherboard available.
Also it is a misconception that ROG and Sabertooth boards are only for Overclocking, there are plenty of cheaper boards available shich offer almost same level of overclocking. They are recommended because the amaount of stress you can put over there. Consider overclocking the CPU to 4 GHz, 100 MHz overclocking to each of the GPU, 2000 MHz+ for the Rams and running them 8 Hrs a day and try to think of how much amount of stress you're putting over there. The ROG and Sabertooth and high end Gigabyte boards like the US7 and UD7 series use some advance technologies like full digital VRM (Asrock has an Analogue Controller over the Digital VRM), very high capacity and excess Solid caps for dividing the workload, advanced Ceramic coating for Voltage protection etc which are not present in any cheaper or VFM motherboards.

You have seen both my cheaper Crossfire Motherboards, the MSI 890GXM-GD65 and the new Sabertooth 990FX and you have seen what happended with the old board with slight voltage fluctuation. Also now I am running a 3 GPU setting, FX 8150 with Sabertooth can easily feel the stability compared to my other solutions. I could have gone for cheaper Asrock Extreme 4 and Fatality 990FX series, available within 11K and looks lot like the ROG boards but the similarity ends there only.

^^this

Cilus said:

Vicky, I am also going through your suggestions and infos and found that SLI smoothness really interesting, will dig into that. But buddy, suggesting him a VFM Motherboard like Asrock Extreme 6 over a ROG or Sabertooth is simply a bad idea. When a person has the budget, he should go with the best Motherboard available.
Also it is a misconception that ROG and Sabertooth boards are only for Overclocking, there are plenty of cheaper boards available shich offer almost same level of overclocking. They are recommended because the amaount of stress you can put over there. Consider overclocking the CPU to 4 GHz, 100 MHz overclocking to each of the GPU, 2000 MHz+ for the Rams and running them 8 Hrs a day and try to think of how much amount of stress you're putting over there. The ROG and Sabertooth and high end Gigabyte boards like the US7 and UD7 series use some advance technologies like full digital VRM (Asrock has an Analogue Controller over the Digital VRM), very high capacity and excess Solid caps for dividing the workload, advanced Ceramic coating for Voltage protection etc which are not present in any cheaper or VFM motherboards.

You have seen both my cheaper Crossfire Motherboards, the MSI 890GXM-GD65 and the new Sabertooth 990FX and you have seen what happended with the old board with slight voltage fluctuation. Also now I am running a 3 GPU setting, FX 8150 with Sabertooth can easily feel the stability compared to my other solutions. I could have gone for cheaper Asrock Extreme 4 and Fatality 990FX series, available within 11K and looks lot like the TOG boards but the similarity ends there only.

Click to expand...

I don't think its a bad idea buddy. You are underestimating asrock. The board that's the match of extreme 6 is the z77 v-pro from asus which is again 5k expensive.
Asrock trumped it in the test below.

Read the following and you can see why asrock is recommended :

Six $160-220 Z77 Motherboards, Benchmarked And Reviewed : Z77 Express: The Perfect Replacement For Older Machines

AnandTech - ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Review: Legacy Bites Back

You simply cannot compare an extreme 6 with your former 890 gxm. Its a no contest in terms of component quality. This is as good as the v-pro board and slightly lesser than z77 sabretooth (which is 19k).

Its an extreme well balanced board and it can take all the stress gameranand's gonna put to it. ROG doesn't make sense here sacrificing other vital components like ssd. Asrock 6 is no way considered an inferior board.

I don't think you sacrifice that much going for extreme 6. It can take all the stress.
Its a mid-range board and its all that is required for op's current setup.

P.S - Asrock extreme 6 has 12 phase (8+4) digital VRM. Its not analog.

*www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asrock-z77-extreme6-extreme4.html

gameranand said:

I guess I'll stick with single GPU solution, thats why I am getting the best GPU in the market. However in 2-3 years if need really desires then I'll go for multi-GPU but that is highly unlikely.

Click to expand...

The right thing to do.

so basically what we are seeing here is that people suggesting to add nitro to a maruti 800?
the motherboards he chose initially and finally are fine IMHO...if one spends over one lakh all total its utter stupidity to buy a substandard motherboard..it being THE most important part in building a PC.
In terms of LLC variation and BIOS Asrock still needs to learn..and they have much to learn.
When it comes to long term stability brands like asrock or msi doesn't really stand a chance against the big players..knowing his usage patterns he needs something that will be able to withstand long sessions.He aint ur everyday gamer

^ And what about the multi gpu option ?

I believe the motherboard is the foundation of the Computer and the foundation better be strong and more so since the budget is not a constraint here.

Myth said:

^ And what about the multi gpu option ?

Click to expand...

a single card setup is more better...Multi Gpu has its own can of worms..

^^ Exactly. The amount of stress GamerAnand is going to put on the Motherboard can easily be guessed from his config and Sabertooth or ROG is perfect for this. Vicky, check the price of Asrock Fatality Z77 which costs around 17.3K. Buy paying 2K extra if I can get an Top end Asus ROG then I'll go for it. SSD can be added anytime but you can't change the Motherboard like that.
If was a sub 80K config then the Asrock board were a strong contender but for a rig of 140 thousands, Asus or Gigabyte is the way to go.

gameranand said:

See the motherboard. You'll get the answer, The next GPU slot is after 3 slots so I guess ASUS will give that long crossfire bridge.

Click to expand...

You can't use the 2nd x16 slot, so you need to plug the 2nd card in the 3rd slot and I haven't seen such a long CF bridge in my lifetime. They, however, do supply such long triple card SLI connectors. Also most of the mobos don't bundle a CF connector.

In any case, I don't think you will ever need to go dual GPU with this card. And by the time you do (people are already saying current PCs are more powerful than upcoming consoles), you will want something else.

BTW, even my 1.5 years old 6950 is more than sufficient so far with a slightly OCed 2600k (4.2 GHz). Guess you are going to blast through the games at 8x MSAA or supersampling.

I have been on SLi for the last 4 years and I know what it is like when you have to wait for driver updates to play a following game!!! But yes I also believe Sli is good only if you can add up two entry level cards and gain performance of single cards which cost more than twice the price of the entry level card in Sli. If its not...... then Why the Hell SLi?

Skud said:

You can't use the 2nd x16 slot, so you need to plug the 2nd card in the 3rd slot and I haven't seen such a long CF bridge in my lifetime. They, however, do supply such long triple card SLI connectors. Also most of the mobos don't bundle a CF connector.

In any case, I don't think you will ever need to go dual GPU with this card. And by the time you do (people are already saying current PCs are more powerful than upcoming consoles), you will want something else.

BTW, even my 1.5 years old 6950 is more than sufficient so far with a slightly OCed 2600k (4.2 GHz). Guess you are going to blast through the games at 8x MSAA or supersampling.

Click to expand...

*www.ocfreaks.com/imgs/maximus-v-formula-z77-review/M5F_8.jpg


he is covered...

Thanks.

OK let me clear some doubts here.
1. I'll add SSD later, its just that I don't have 6K more right now. I have given that to a friend in need and when he returns that then I'll add a SSD.

2. As for Motherboard, when I'll overclock and I'll eventually then most probably I would like to run it on that settings 24*7 as I hardly shut down my PC. Sometimes downloading, sometimes movies and games so suggest me only mobos which can withstand that much pressure. Also I would like to overclock my CPU and GPU as far as I can before upgrading my RIG.

3. As for GPU both options are good for me but there are some other reasons too why I chose 7970. Its Direct Computing is hilarious and I read a article on that many months back which was given by Cilus I think and maybe in near future I might need that also. Please don't ask the reference because its been months and now I don't remember so I would have to read that again to remember why I was wondered by that.

4. Its not that I can't go for Crossfire, I am saying that I wouldn't do it unless I need it so multi GPU is always an option for me.

5. I guess Skud's confusion is already covered by sumonpathak.

6. Also the problem is stated but Incinerator for the SLI setup is not heart breaking for me but still kind of an issue sometimes.

Now please continue.

GamerAnand, I have not tried till now towards your configuration, in fact not aware of most of it. Do you want me try a rig for you of my own without looking to the other configs, but obviously stressing over the parts you want in your rig? It might or might not be in same with your reference config but I'll do my best and will do my research independently. Also I have personal experience of running both Crossfire (HD 6870 CF) and SLI (long back, GTX 6800 Ultra SLI) and also dedicated PhysX card which I will try to use here. Let me know. This will also include my research about display technologies, Human Human Psycho-visual model for display choice, surround sound effects, FPS study etc.

this calls for a Loooong writeup....

Cilus said:

GamerAnand, I have not tried till now towards your configuration, in fact not aware of most of it. Do you want me try a rig for you of my own without looking to the other configs, but obviously stressing over the parts you want in your rig? It might or might not be in same with your reference config but I'll do my best and will do my research independently. Also I have personal experience of running both Crossfire (HD 6870 CF) and SLI (long back, GTX 6800 Ultra SLI) and also dedicated PhysX card which I will try to use here. Let me know. This will also include my research about display technologies, Human Human Psycho-visual model for display choice, surround sound effects, FPS study etc.

Click to expand...

Please do. I would be grateful. I guess you already know my preference. Also one more is that I would like to have a open port for a future upgrade, that is one of the reasons I was more towards single fastest GPU.

sumonpathak said:

this calls for a Loooong writeup....

Click to expand...

From you or Cilus ?? If from you then please take the pain.

from cilus...and am going to bug cilus until he does it

Will surely be a priceless post. Waiting, Cilus.

Give me a little time gusy. Due to Slip disc in my shoulder, now my right hand is little weak, can't type for long, otherwise my right gives me a very bad pain. Also every day I need to follow some exercise and Physiotherapy for recovering. Was in leave at Kolkata for 2 months.

GamerAnand, do you already have a Monitor?

sumonpathak said:

from cilus...and am going to bug cilus until he does it

Click to expand...

Don't. Let him work in peace.

Skud said:

Will surely be a priceless post. Waiting, Cilus.

Click to expand...

That I am sure of.

@Cilus: Take your time. And Anand has the monitor already.

Cilus said:

Give me a little time gusy. Due to Slip disc in my shoulder, now my right hand is little weak, can't type for long, otherwise my right gives me a very bad pain. Also every day I need to follow some exercise and Physiotherapy for recovering. Was in leave at Kolkata for 2 months.

GamerAnand, do you already have a Monitor?

Click to expand...

Yes I have BenQ G2420HD.

Also I'll use WD Cavier Green 2TB which is already full in the RIG.

gameranand said:

Don't. Let him work in peace.

Click to expand...

Cilus and peace....bad combo

The Incinerator said:

I have been on SLi for the last 4 years and I know what it is like when you have to wait for driver updates to play a following game!!! But yes I also believe Sli is good only if you can add up two entry level cards and gain performance of single cards which cost more than twice the price of the entry level card in Sli. If its not...... then Why the Hell SLi?

Click to expand...

Things have changed since a lot then mate. Now, game profiles get automatically updated by the forceware control system and that too during the game's release date.
You are putting things from yesteryear. About the bold part, that is the exact reason why i suggested him a 660-ti sli. Read the review above to know why.

gameranand said:

OK let me clear some doubts here.
1. I'll add SSD later, its just that I don't have 6K more right now. I have given that to a friend in need and when he returns that then I'll add a SSD.

Then its ok.

2. As for Motherboard, when I'll overclock and I'll eventually then most probably I would like to run it on that settings 24*7 as I hardly shut down my PC. Sometimes downloading, sometimes movies and games so suggest me only mobos which can withstand that much pressure. Also I would like to overclock my CPU and GPU as far as I can before upgrading my RIG.

If budget no issue, then i don't see any reason not getting the ROG.

3. As for GPU both options are good for me but there are some other reasons too why I chose 7970. Its Direct Computing is hilarious and I read a article on that many months back which was given by Cilus I think and maybe in near future I might need that also. Please don't ask the reference because its been months and now I don't remember so I would have to read that again to remember why I was wondered by that.

If you mean gpgpu computing, then AMD'S GCN's compute power is much superior to nvidia kepler. Its not that nvidia's architecture is inferior but nvidia has deliberately removed the compute units from its gpu's this time around making them game-centric. But if compute is what you want this gen, amd's 7 series is a no-brainer.

Otherwise, i don't see any reason not trying out the sli setup. One more thing i want to add here is that if you plan to stick with a single 7970 and deciding to add a 2nd card 2-3 years down the line,
then its a very bad idea to begin with. The logistic explanation for this is very simple i.e "The least future proof in a pc is the GPU." By the time a year or two has passed, 7970 will be completely obselete and then a much better card would have taken its place maybe at the price of a 7970 but performing twice as fast or more. So then, getting a 7970 will be foolishness to be honest. If you're building a high-end system, you start adding performance components from day one. After a year or two, when 660-ti sli or something similar reaches EOL, you can sell both cards and get whatever that gen offers at a little extra cost. That's the beauty of multigpu. If you want compute, then consider a 7870 cf.

Look at cilus's config. He has a 6870cf which still performs like this gen's 7950. He's having no problems with cf profiles and i'm a witness to it. There are no hassle in multigpu setup except affordability. If you can afford, then i see no reason going against it.

But if you can set aside compute, then i strongly suggest sli for a better gaming experience considering the reasons given previously. Rest is your decision mate.

4. Its not that I can't go for Crossfire, I am saying that I wouldn't do it unless I need it so multi GPU is always an option for me.

My suggestion is you try it from beginning.

5. I guess Skud's confusion is already covered by sumonpathak.

Yes, that board is perfect if budget's not an issue.

6. Also the problem is stated but Incinerator for the SLI setup is not heart breaking for me but still kind of an issue sometimes.

No problems mate. Incinerator is talking about things a long way back. They are very different now. There are no issues whatsoever and even sli has addressed micro-stuttering with its adaptive-vsync algorithm.

Now please continue.

Click to expand...

My answers in green.

Cilus said:

^^ Exactly. The amount of stress GamerAnand is going to put on the Motherboard can easily be guessed from his config and Sabertooth or ROG is perfect for this. Vicky, check the price of Asrock Fatality Z77 which costs around 17.3K. Buy paying 2K extra if I can get an Top end Asus ROG then I'll go for it. SSD can be added anytime but you can't change the Motherboard like that.
If was a sub 80K config then the Asrock board were a strong contender but for a rig of 140 thousands, Asus or Gigabyte is the way to go.

Click to expand...

Yes checked that mate. I have no problems with ROG if op can afford it along with other necessary components. I wanted him to add an ssd from the start and since he's gonna do it, i have no issues recommending maximus v. Its a rock solid board no doubt. I was trying to save some cash for including the ssd.

@ vicky
Thanks I'll take that into consideration. For now lets wait for Cilus.

gameranand said:

@ vicky
Thanks I'll take that into consideration. For now lets wait for Cilus.

Click to expand...

Ok. But what's he gonna put up? I didn't get him actually.

He'll put up a RIG for me as per my preference after all his research and experience from tech world.

if he needs to do any computing on the GPU then sadly AMD is THE only way...

sumonpathak said:

if he needs to do any computing on the GPU then sadly AMD is THE only way...

Click to expand...

Ya that's true but not sadly. GCN has proved to be a versatile architecture this gen. Credits do go to the MAD team err....i mean AMD.

Expect kepler's 2nd iteration i.e 7xx series (not maxwell) to include compute starting with the introduction of GK110.

sumonpathak said:

if he needs to do any computing on the GPU then sadly AMD is THE only way...

Click to expand...

Sadly ?? What do you mean by sadly ??

gameranand said:

He'll put up a RIG for me as per my preference after all his research and experience from tech world.

Click to expand...

Oh i see but believe me mate, you already have put up a balanced rig yourself. Just fine tune it to make it perfect. Your choice of components was spot on to be honest.

gameranand said:

Sadly ?? What do you mean by sadly ??

Click to expand...

I guess he meant no competition from nvidia in the compute front using open-cl codepath.

gameranand said:

Sadly ?? What do you mean by sadly ??

Click to expand...

Sarcasm my dear anand...sarcasm
the green guys has gone nuts

vickybat said:

Oh i see but believe me mate, you already have put up a balanced rig yourself. Just fine tune it to make it perfect. Your choice of components was spot on to be honest.

Click to expand...

Thanks. But still I would like to see his version of 130K gaming rig also. After all I have some time before I make the final payment.

vickybat said:

I guess he meant no competition from nvidia in the compute front using open-cl codepath.

Click to expand...

Oh that. Got it.

sumonpathak said:

Sarcasm my dear anand...sarcasm
the green guys has gone nuts

Click to expand...

Oh. I thought you were serious.

I thought that I should explain explain everything about the config so that it would be easier for Cilus and everyone else to understand my PC, so I would explain why I selected a particular product in my rig with a proper reason. First let me again post the final config

1. Intel Core i7 2600K - I first thought about 3770K and 2700K but the thing is 3770K is kinda hot and not much overclockable and where I'll be living summer temps goes beyond 50C sometimes but is mostly at 45C+ degrees so I skipped 3770K then 2700K was skipped because I am not gaining anything but loosing some overclocking headroom.

2. Asus Maximus V Formula - I first thought about Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH but sumon said that Asus has best overclocking headroom + stability and has way better BIOS so I skipped Gigabyte and sticked with ASUS ROG.

3. Gskill RipjawsX 8GB RAM - Well I never really thought about this, everyone buys this so I am following. I thought about Corsair Vengeance but still for unknown reasons + suggestions by SKUD I sticked with this one.

4. WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition - I thought about Blue Edition and Segate also but the thing is, this HDD gives very good performance + its reliable than most and it comes with 5 year warranty so thats a win win for me even if its kinda costly.

5. Asus Matrix HD7970 Platinum - Honestly first I was inclined with Nvidia but here guys said that after latest Driver AMD would be better so I thought about Sapphire HD 7970 OC Edition but I kinda liked the looks of Asus Matrix Platinum + lower power consumption + better overclocking headroom for future and killer looks made the decision for me, also when it goes in a ROG mobo then I can overclock right from BIOS also so a win win for me. Also I thought about Multi - GPU solutions but don't know why but I didn't liked the idea, but I can be persuaded. I didn't liked the idea maybe because I like to be the owner of something fastest but its a minor issue, performance matters to me not my ego.

6. Corsair HX850 - First I was inclined towards Season TM 850W but guys here suggested to go for Corsair because of Warranty support so I thought about AX850 but it was bot available with many stores and I read reviews which stated that both are almost same and both Modular so I thought HX850 won't be a bad idea either.

7. Cooler Master Storm Trooper ATX - I had always liked a Cabinet with somewhat like TANK looks, military style and all. This cabinet delivers that, very good looks for me, real nice air cooling + support for largest mobos and GPUs and option to extend the cooling headroom, I really don't wanna change it unless there is something like this, or kinda like this.

8. Corsair Vengeance K90 - I tought about getting Logitech G510 before but when I heard about this one then I thought Mechanical keyboard with all facilities. Why not. I game a lot and mostly RPGs so the extra buttons will come in handy + I type a lot, I mean I am a student and have to do some programming every now and then so I thought better get a mechanical KB, good for typing and real good for gaming.

9. Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G500 - I have used Logitech and Microsoft Mice but for comfort reasons I kinda like Logitech more as my hands are kinda big and have a palm grip rather than claw grip, also I have used MX518 already and it was really comfortable to me so I chose this one.

10. Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - I read that Stock cooler is just not enough so I thought lets get a CPU cooler, so I choose this one. I thought about water cooling but what if because of leakage or something by other components get fried, would I get support for them too. Also I won't be doing overclocking very soon, I'll do it later when I need the extra power and if this cooler won't be enough then I'll buy another and put this cooler in my old PC.

11. ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA - I guess its a no brainier but still many says that ASUS Drives are better than others so I chose this one.

12. APC Back-UPS 1100VA - Again no brainier. APC are good at UPS and its the least I need so I chose it.

13. Corsair Vengeance 1500 - I don't like speakers as others gets disturbed by it and I prefer late night gaming sessions so I am getting it. Thought about Roccat Kave also but its not available anywhere at all and the best alternative for that headphone is this one so...

I guess that is all. I hope this explains a lot about my preference and I hope would be helpful for Cilus and others to sort out the suggestions.

Ok here goes my suggestion:


This would be my choice of a sub- 130k ultimate gaming pc targeted for enthusiast students who can game at the highest ever settings along with programming as per their curriculum.

Now i have striked off the 2600k/2700k/3770k based hyperthreaded cpu's coz they are overkill for a gaming cpu. Besides the 3570k is only non-hyperthreaded and lose out a little bit in multithreaded tasks like video encoding but its performance is still considered brilliant. Its an allrounded processor and also overclocks great. If op wants, he can still go for that 2600k.

Secondly, i have suggested an ROG board but with a m-atx form factor. This board has all the top-grade components and a two-way sli or crossfire is easily possible considering the well spaced out pci-e slots. The price is really sweet making it hard to ignore. If the form factor bugs you, then you can consider the maximus V board.

Since this is a gaming only rig ( keeping aside programming and other stuff as they are easily possible) i chose sli coz of the reasons described previously. Two gtx 660-ti's in sli delivers kickass performance beating any single gpu out there fair and square. The level of settings these cards allow is simply not possible in a single gpu. They even cover surround gaming easily delivering fluidic gameplay over a plethora of titles. It didn't receive a gold award from hardocp for nothing. It deserved every bit of it.

2xgtx 660-ti(sli) >> 7970/680 (This is as simplistic as it gets)

For a 130k rig, multigpu demands attention coz this is what its made for. Single gpu setups does not cut here coz it delivers relatively inferior image quality ( lower AA settings and other). Its totally hassle free as well.


Now coming to cpu cooler, since gameranand lives in a hot place , the nh-d14 fits the bill just fine. Its a terrific cooler and i don't have to say more about its cooling performance. A legendary cooler and is in a totally different league from a hyper212 plus/evo.

Cabinet is personal choice and i found haf 922 to be just fine for this rig considering the value in it. Besides if something flashy is required, then op should take a look at this:

*mdcomputers.in/index.php?route=product/product&path=74_62&product_id=1021

Finally, the headset is a beast. Razer megaladon offers 7.1 channel virtual surround and is more than ideal for gaming and movies.
This is strictly for gamers like gameraanand.

@ gameraanand

Buddy, i have given all the explanation required. Now its upto you to decide what you need. I have given links to most of the components so that it will be easier for you to order. For example motherboard and headset are available in flipkart and offer free shipping as well. The rest are from md computers. Contact cilus and he can help you out. Besides, cilus also has that razer megalaon headset. Ask him about its performance. This is the best that i could dig and they fit your requirements just fine. You can post whatever doubts you have. Now lets wait for cilus's config.

gameranand said:

Spoiler

Thanks. But still I would like to see his version of 130K gaming rig also. After all I have some time before I make the final payment.


Oh that. Got it.



Oh. I thought you were serious.

I thought that I should explain explain everything about the config so that it would be easier for Cilus and everyone else to understand my PC, so I would explain why I selected a particular product in my rig with a proper reason. First let me again post the final config

Type	Name	Price
Processor	Intel Core i7 2600K	18100
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Formula	20918
RAM	Gskill RipjawsX 8GB RAM F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL	2900
Hard Drive	WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition (WD2002FAEX)	10550
Graphics Card	Asus Matrix HD7970 Platinum	36500
Power Supply	Corsair HX850	10450
Cabinet	Cooler Master Storm Trooper ATX	11110
Keyboard	Corsair Vengeance K90	6500
Mouse	Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G500	3550
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO	2275
Optical Drive	ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA	1250
UPS	APC Back-UPS 1100VA (BR1100CI-IN)	5111
Headphones	Corsair Vengeance 1500	4500
Shippping	Shipping Cost in Total	1200
Total	Total Cost Excluding Shipping	134912

1. Intel Core i7 2600K - I first thought about 3770K and 2700K but the thing is 3770K is kinda hot and not much overclockable and where I'll be living summer temps goes beyond 50C sometimes but is mostly at 45C+ degrees so I skipped 3770K then 2700K was skipped because I am not gaining anything but loosing some overclocking headroom.

2. Asus Maximus V Formula - I first thought about Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH but sumon said that Asus has best overclocking headroom + stability and has way better BIOS so I skipped Gigabyte and sticked with ASUS ROG.

3. Gskill RipjawsX 8GB RAM - Well I never really thought about this, everyone buys this so I am following. I thought about Corsair Vengeance but still for unknown reasons + suggestions by SKUD I sticked with this one.

4. WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition - I thought about Blue Edition and Segate also but the thing is, this HDD gives very good performance + its reliable than most and it comes with 5 year warranty so thats a win win for me even if its kinda costly.

5. Asus Matrix HD7970 Platinum - Honestly first I was inclined with Nvidia but here guys said that after latest Driver AMD would be better so I thought about Sapphire HD 7970 OC Edition but I kinda liked the looks of Asus Matrix Platinum + lower power consumption + better overclocking headroom for future and killer looks made the decision for me, also when it goes in a ROG mobo then I can overclock right from BIOS also so a win win for me. Also I thought about Multi - GPU solutions but don't know why but I didn't liked the idea, but I can be persuaded. I didn't liked the idea maybe because I like to be the owner of something fastest but its a minor issue, performance matters to me not my ego.

6. Corsair HX850 - First I was inclined towards Season TM 850W but guys here suggested to go for Corsair because of Warranty support so I thought about AX850 but it was bot available with many stores and I read reviews which stated that both are almost same and both Modular so I thought HX850 won't be a bad idea either.

7. Cooler Master Storm Trooper ATX - I had always liked a Cabinet with somewhat like TANK looks, military style and all. This cabinet delivers that, very good looks for me, real nice air cooling + support for largest mobos and GPUs and option to extend the cooling headroom, I really don't wanna change it unless there is something like this, or kinda like this.

8. Corsair Vengeance K90 - I tought about getting Logitech G510 before but when I heard about this one then I thought Mechanical keyboard with all facilities. Why not. I game a lot and mostly RPGs so the extra buttons will come in handy + I type a lot, I mean I am a student and have to do some programming every now and then so I thought better get a mechanical KB, good for typing and real good for gaming.

9. Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G500 - I have used Logitech and Microsoft Mice but for comfort reasons I kinda like Logitech more as my hands are kinda big and have a palm grip rather than claw grip, also I have used MX518 already and it was really comfortable to me so I chose this one.

10. Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - I read that Stock cooler is just not enough so I thought lets get a CPU cooler, so I choose this one. I thought about water cooling but what if because of leakage or something by other components get fried, would I get support for them too. Also I won't be doing overclocking very soon, I'll do it later when I need the extra power and if this cooler won't be enough then I'll buy another and put this cooler in my old PC.

11. ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA - I guess its a no brainier but still many says that ASUS Drives are better than others so I chose this one.

12. APC Back-UPS 1100VA - Again no brainier. APC are good at UPS and its the least I need so I chose it.

13. Corsair Vengeance 1500 - I don't like speakers as others gets disturbed by it and I prefer late night gaming sessions so I am getting it. Thought about Roccat Kave also but its not available anywhere at all and the best alternative for that headphone is this one so...

I guess that is all. I hope this explains a lot about my preference and I hope would be helpful for Cilus and others to sort out the suggestions.

Click to expand...

Go for it.

vickybat said:

Ok here goes my suggestion:

Type	Name	Price
Processor	i5 3570k	13.5k
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Gene	16k
Ram	Gskill RipjawsX 8GB RAM F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL	2.9k
Hard Drive	WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition (WD2002FAEX)	10.5k
GPU	GIGABYTE GRAPHIC CARD GTX 660 TI 2GB DDR5 X 2 (SLI)	39.9K
PSU	Corsair HX850	10.5K
Cabinet	Cooler Master HAF 922	7.6k
Cpu Cooler	Noctua NH-D14	5k
Keyboard	Razer Lycosa	4k
Mouse	Razer Deathadder	2.3k
UPS	APC Back-UPS 1100VA (BR1100CI-IN)	5.1k
Optical Drive	ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA	1.2k
Headphones	Razer Megaladon	9k
Total		127.5k

]

Click to expand...

I like the noctua part.
The 2600k seems extra warm at idle speeds proving stock coolers somewhat useless. Evo is good. Noctua is very good.
If cooler budget is low then the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 can also be considered at around 4k.

PS: Take the system asap. *drool*

IMHO, Its better to prefer a single powerful GPU instead of 2 "good" GPUs

just dont ask me why

and I found a cool keyboard

*www.logitech.com/en-in/keyboards/keyboards/k750-keyboard

Its not a proper gaming keyboard, but still wanted to share it

Those days are gone mate when single gpu's were considered de-facto for stability reasons. No such issues exists nowadays. Even the power envelope of two high end cards match that of a single highest end card which was impossible before. There's also no need to download game profiles manually as they are auto updated.

In reality there are non-existing cons for a multigpu setup. Evolution has set things just right.
Both power consumption and heat are in check like never before. This will only get better in future iterations increasing more and more enthusiasts to switch to value oriented multi-gpu setups to get maximum performance at similar prices of a highest end card.

hey gameranand For SLI vs Single GPU performance see the following video.
Link GTX 660 Ti SLI vs GTX 680 Single Card Performance Review Linus Tech Tips - YouTube
This will help you in deciding your GPU.

vickybat said:

Ok here goes my suggestion:

Spoiler

Type	Name	Price
Processor	i5 3570k	13.5k
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Gene	16k
Ram	Gskill RipjawsX 8GB RAM F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL	2.9k
Hard Drive	WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition (WD2002FAEX)	10.5k
GPU	GIGABYTE GRAPHIC CARD GTX 660 TI 2GB DDR5 X 2 (SLI)	39.9K
PSU	Corsair HX850	10.5K
Cabinet	Cooler Master HAF 922	7.6k
Cpu Cooler	Noctua NH-D14	5k
Keyboard	Razer Lycosa	4k
Mouse	Razer Deathadder	2.3k
UPS	APC Back-UPS 1100VA (BR1100CI-IN)	5.1k
Optical Drive	ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA	1.2k
Headphones	Razer Megaladon	9k
Total		127.5k

This would be my choice of a sub- 130k ultimate gaming pc targeted for enthusiast students who can game at the highest ever settings along with programming as per their curriculum.

Now i have striked off the 2600k/2700k/3770k based hyperthreaded cpu's coz they are overkill for a gaming cpu. Besides the 3570k is only non-hyperthreaded and lose out a little bit in multithreaded tasks like video encoding but its performance is still considered brilliant. Its an allrounded processor and also overclocks great. If op wants, he can still go for that 2600k.

Secondly, i have suggested an ROG board but with a m-atx form factor. This board has all the top-grade components and a two-way sli or crossfire is easily possible considering the well spaced out pci-e slots. The price is really sweet making it hard to ignore. If the form factor bugs you, then you can consider the maximus V board.

Since this is a gaming only rig ( keeping aside programming and other stuff as they are easily possible) i chose sli coz of the reasons described previously. Two gtx 660-ti's in sli delivers kickass performance beating any single gpu out there fair and square. The level of settings these cards allow is simply not possible in a single gpu. They even cover surround gaming easily delivering fluidic gameplay over a plethora of titles. It didn't receive a gold award from hardocp for nothing. It deserved every bit of it.

2xgtx 660-ti(sli) >> 7970/680 (This is as simplistic as it gets)

For a 130k rig, multigpu demands attention coz this is what its made for. Single gpu setups does not cut here coz it delivers relatively inferior image quality ( lower AA settings and other). Its totally hassle free as well.


Now coming to cpu cooler, since gameranand lives in a hot place , the nh-d14 fits the bill just fine. Its a terrific cooler and i don't have to say more about its cooling performance. A legendary cooler and is in a totally different league from a hyper212 plus/evo.

Cabinet is personal choice and i found haf 922 to be just fine for this rig considering the value in it. Besides if something flashy is required, then op should take a look at this:

COOLER MASTER CABINET CM STROM STRYKER

Finally, the headset is a beast. Razer megaladon offers 7.1 channel virtual surround and is more than ideal for gaming and movies.
This is strictly for gamers like gameraanand.

@ gameraanand

Buddy, i have given all the explanation required. Now its upto you to decide what you need. I have given links to most of the components so that it will be easier for you to order. For example motherboard and headset are available in flipkart and offer free shipping as well. The rest are from md computers. Contact cilus and he can help you out. Besides, cilus also has that razer megalaon headset. Ask him about its performance. This is the best that i could dig and they fit your requirements just fine. You can post whatever doubts you have. Now lets wait for cilus's config.

Click to expand...

1. I guess I'll stick to 2600K for future proofing.

2. Yeah m-ATX form does bother me sometimes and I prefer an ATX board.

3. Don't know much about multi-GPU so can't comment on it but I'll take that into consideration and will buy which will be suggested by most.

4. I am not going to overclock very soon so investing in that costlier Cooler is not a good thing I guess. Like I said I can always upgrade it and the previous one in my current PC.

5. Is Lycosa a Mechanical KB ?? I would prefer a mechanical KB oriented at basically RPG gaming.

6. Somehow Razer mice don't give me that much comfort, don't know why I just feel comfortable with Logitech MX518 style design.

7. Would it be wise to invest that much on a Headphone ??

ico said:

Go for it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Piyush said:

IMHO, Its better to prefer a single powerful GPU instead of 2 "good" GPUs

just dont ask me why

and I found a cool keyboard

Click to expand...

Same feelings here though I can't find a logical reason for that.

double post....go with the config you selected

I just have purchased Razer Megalodon and it is one of the best headphone, both for gaming and Movie/Music. In M.D. Computer is it available at 7.8K.

Look at this , it might help you decide better. Compare the 7970 single card with the 660Ti sli.

SLI And CrossFire, Compared : GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review: Nvidia's Trickle-Down Keplernomics

Which ever you think is optimal and frugal, go for it.

^^ But its before the AMD performance driver release. I guess benchmarks would differ a lot after that driver update.

Cilus said:

I just have purchased Razer Megalodon and it is one of the best headphone, both for gaming and Movie/Music. In M.D. Computer is it available at 7.8K.

Click to expand...

and i hereby proclaim that next time you come to kolkata

Cilus said:

I just have purchased Razer Megalodon and it is one of the best headphone, both for gaming and Movie/Music. In M.D. Computer is it available at 7.8K.

Click to expand...

But its very costly.

Also I already have Senneiher HD202 for music purpose. So I basically need a surround headphone only for gaming. Still I'll see if this one fits by budget.

At MD its available at 10K not at 7.8K at all.
Razer Megalodon

care to share what software (Games ) you are going to get along with this monster??

take Shinobi XL for cabby..looks better
Pre-Order | BitFenix Cases | Shinobi XL | Prodigy | Raider | Ghost | Outlaw SE

^^ Some review links would be useful to me.

Never mind got it with a Google search. Reading now.

Not good for me. Read about 3-4 reviews but wasn't impressed that much. If I am paying 11K for a Cabinet then I would require real good performance which this cabinet is not providing. It is loosing to Trooper is almost all cases + I like the looks of Trooper.

dan4u said:

care to share what software (Games ) you are going to get along with this monster??

Click to expand...

Nothing at all. I already have numerous games lined up to play on this RIG. As for example, I would like to play Metro 2033, Crysis 2 (again for graphical glory), Dirt 3 (again), Just Cause 2, Skyrim, Witcher 2 and many others however I would get the softwares for testing because Bosses of the forum wants me to write a review and I can't disobey them.

OK Anand, here is the 1st part of the analysis, covering CPU and Ram.
Processor:
For Processor, Intel 3770K is a strong contender, although similarly performing i7 2700K is available in less price. But in India, the price difference is only 2K and along with slightly higher IPC but full PCI-E 3.0 support, a feature missing in Sandybridge. Although none of highest cards of the current generation do have a noticeable effect on that, the 140K system is going to stay for some time and who can tell about the near future cards? In every year we're seeing new generations of cards from both Nvidia and AMD camps and I think 3770K is little future proof here. Regarding overclocking issues with Ivy Bridge, still 4.2 GHz, which a user going to use for long run most of the times, still not a problem with a standard cooler. Sadly AMD has no place here. Also there are certain games which use huge amount of pre defined static shaders to make the game look realistic, rather than creating it dynamically and COD series is an example of it. Those games require very less GPU power to deliver good image quality. Now these kind of games can take advantage of the huge band width of PCI-E 3.0 bus and in near future we might see some games. Current low utilization of PCI-E 3.0 bus bandwidth is not GPU's fault but we don't have games that requires that much of bandwidth. But the Computational performance can have great performance leap by using the extra memory bandwidth and how it is going to affect future gaming, I will discuss in GPU section

Another thing we should keep in mind, when game developers develop some games, they always concentrate on how the game run on the latest previous gen cards, not just the latest hardware. That's why we are not seeing games which requires huge memory bandwidth, but in near future, when AMD 8000 series and Nvidia 800 series will emerge, the game developers will definitely try to take advantage of PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth as both the then current and previous generation of cards support it.
And as per AMD, the life time of a card until its successor release, is actually 8 Months to 1 year. I guess Anand want to keep this system for more than that.

I have asked Sumon to provide information about the over clocking potential of 3770K and how stable and cool it will be at 4.2GHz speed. Waiting for his reply.

Motherboard:
I think this is covered in the discussion in the thread and not discussing here.

Ram

G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) PC RAM (F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL) @ 5.3K
LINK

Here most of the suggestions are for 1600 MHz but my recommendation will be a 2000 MHz+ ram, although the cost is almost 2K higher than the standard 1600 MHz Ram for 2X4GB module. Almost all the applications, specially the compute performance and Encryption related works and in some of the games, there are certain performance boost, although not much. But obviously, in future the price will be lower and OP will have the option to add another high speed Ram. Also there are chances for more optimized software to take the advantage of higher memory bandwidth.
Now here comes the most obvious question, what about the Latency? The Ram I've suggested is running @ CL11 whereas the standard 1600 MHz modules run @ CL9. A lot of people actually claims that Latency has a greater impact than speed. Now here comes my explanation: Clock Latency is not a fixed amount of delay for devices running @ different speed.

Consider two ancient Ram modules, R1 and R2, running at 20 Hz and 27 Hz with latency 9 and 11 respectively. the 27 Hz speed is derived by multiplying 20 with the ratio of (2133/1600) so that we can have the exact ratio of the original Rams we are discussing. So the 27 Hz ram is same amount faster than the 20 Hz as the 2133 MHz ram is faster than the 1600 MHz Ram.

Now
for R1: It can perform 20 transactions in 1 sec or it can generate 20 clock cycles in 1 sec. So for 1 clock cycle time required is 1/20 sec.
For R2: It can generates 27 clocks per second. So 1 clock cycle time is 1/27 sec.

Now R1 is a CL9 Ram, so time required for 9 Clock Cycle is 9X(1/20) = 9/20 sec = 0.45 sec
R2 is a CL11 Ram, so time required for 11 Clock Cycles is 11X(1/27) = 11/27 sec = 0.41 sec.

Surprised? Isn't is beautiful that actually the time needed for 11 clock cycle for the faster Ram is lesser than the time needed for 9 clock cycles of the slower Ram. So the effective latency of the 2133 MHz CL11 ram is same as the CL8 version of 1600 MHz Ram (8/1600 ~ 11/2133)
Moral of the story: The 2133 MHz CL11 Ram is faster than the 1600 MHz CL9 Ram in memory bandwidth and it also has better or tighter latency . So you will be benefited from both the aspect, Speed and Latency


Will cover the CPU cooler and Graphics Card in next iteration. The GPU part is going to be something, the most interested thing. Will cover, GP-GPU computing, FPS, Gaming performance and GP-GPU performance in Gaming.

gameranand said:

^^ But its before the AMD performance driver release. I guess benchmarks would differ a lot after that driver update.

Click to expand...

The links i gave before has been tested with 12.11 drivers (latest). Check them.

@ cilus

Excellent explanation about Ram timings buddy.

vickybat said:

The links i gave before has been tested with 12.11 drivers (latest). Check them.

Click to expand...

those were made with 12.7..with 12.11 the perf has increased more.

OOOKKK. I will roger that. Thought like you said waiting for sumon input as he is the one who convinced me to get i7 2600K.
As for RAM, no problem I can afford that I guess, that would cost me about 1K more in Primeabgb if I am not wrong. Though I have to check for confirmation.
OK jusst checked
How is this one Cilus Corsair Vengeance Red 8GB PC3 17000 2133MHz

As for GPU and others please do. Your suggestions are very welcome to me.

Stay away from vengeance series...not overclockable at all...the timings are stubborn as mule

Hokey...now coming to the overclocking part...
Both 3770k and 2600K are pretty impressive at stock;
the 2600K can do 4.2 Ghz @ around 1.25V depending on HOW good the chip and board is..
the 3770K can do it around 1.2V depending on the chip and board.Now that should make 3770K a winner...right?
well...the problem lies in the fact that Intel decided to cheapen out on the IHS part and they decided to cut back on the solder and fill it cheap thermal paste...there are too many delidding guide in the interwebs.
So at the end the problem comes when pushing the chip over 4.4Ghz.The ivy one tops heats up pretty fast so its not possible to run it 24/7 while the sandy can hold upto 5Ghz 24/7(again there are too many instances on the inter webz) so you can check .
So at the end of the day keeping aside the question of PCI 3.0..i would vote for the sandy..since heat is an issue which has plagued ivy from its conception err release (damn that came out wrong ).

OK thanks for that, and what about that 3770K which Cilus recommended ??

sumonpathak said:

those were made with 12.7..with 12.11 the perf has increased more.

Click to expand...

Check them yourself:

HARDOCP - Introduction - GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB SLI Review

gameranand said:

OK thanks for that, and what about that 3770K which Cilus recommended ??

Click to expand...

Go for the 3770k. You'll benefit with higher IPC and pci-e 3.0 controller in future.

Don't worry about overclocking because it will easily go past 4.2 ghz with that noctua cooler or even that hyper 212 evo.
You ain't gonna be setting any benchmark records but getting it purely coz of its compute performance.

Don't get too confused buddy. If you want the highest end cpu, go with 3770k.

Well I am getting kinda confused so waiting for more inputs before making my final decision.

vickybat said:

Check them yourself:

HARDOCP - Introduction - GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB SLI Review

Click to expand...

i though you were referring to the TH one

^^ The CPU buddy ??

Ok thanks for the input Sumon. As for now I am putting the decision of CPU on hold.

gameranand said:

^^ The CPU buddy ??

Ok thanks for the input Sumon. As for now I am putting the decision of CPU on hold.

Click to expand...

Look mate you are getting unnecessarily confused. There's really nothing to get confused selecting a cpu part for your build.

If you can include a 3770k in your budget, then go for it eyes closed. There's nothing better available than it at its price. If there was competition, you should have been confused.
Its the highest end processor available and you should go for it if you want to. Hyperthreading will matter if you run heavily threaded apps or even games like battlefield 3, medal of honour warfighter or similar multicore enabled games like that. Grab it mate. You ain't be sacrificing on anything.

But tell me , what have you decided about the gpu?

Well like sumon said I am sacrificing on overclocking with 3770K, lets see what my budget allows because with that RAM it has already been pushed by 2K.
As for GPU I haven't exactly decided it for the time being.

gameranand said:

Well like sumon said I am sacrificing on overclocking with 3770K, lets see what my budget allows because with that RAM it has already been pushed by 2K.
As for GPU I haven't exactly decided it for the time being.

Click to expand...

That sacrifice doesn't really count in real world mate. Why would you unnecessarily want to push your cpu to its limits like 4.8 ghz or higher ?
Are you buying this system for benchmarking purpose or to satisfy your own compute needs? If you can answer this question yourself, you can decide what to buy easily.

Besides 3770k also has hd 4000 which translates into better quicksync performance(video encoding) than the outgoing hd 3000.

I also checked about gpu performance. Nvidia's 310.33 beta has also received performance boost with its highest gpu's (upto gtx 660) and not the low-end ones.
680 has a 15% boost and 660 has a 7.5% boost. Was checking hardocp's past reviews and the new ones with latest drivers. Games like sleeping dogs and skyrim has got a good boost. The overall boost in % fall just short of the gains achieved by amd's 12.11.

*www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/10/24/nvidia-geforce-310-33/1

But sli is a different ball game altogether.

Ananad, for CPU, the decisionis simple. If you are okay with 4.2 GHz speed @ 24X7 and some times 4.6 GHz then grab 3770K. But if you wanna more speed for long time period then 2600K is a good choice, in fact very good choice. Lets keep the PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth aside for the time being.

Regarding GPU, just wait a little for the GPU explanation. Actually removing all the technical jargons and making it understandable to all is little hard job...but don't worry, I am on it.

Besides 3770k also has hd 4000 which translates into better quicksync performance(video encoding) than the outgoing hd 3000.

Click to expand...

Good point

vickybat said:

That sacrifice doesn't really count in real world mate. Why would you unnecessarily want to push your cpu to its limits like 4.8 ghz or higher ?
Are you buying this system for benchmarking purpose or to satisfy your own compute needs? If you can answer this question yourself, you can decide what to buy easily.

Besides 3770k also has hd 4000 which translates into better quicksync performance(video encoding) than the outgoing hd 3000.

Click to expand...

Good point

^^ Thanks a lot guys. Will have to wait for the final assessment by you so that I can make the final budget and all, because deciding components one by one may shoot my budget sky-high.

Cilus said:

Now
for R1: It can perform 20 transactions in 1 sec or it can generate 20 clock cycles in 1 sec. So for 1 clock cycle time required is 1/20 sec.
For R2: It can generates 27 clocks per second. So 1 clock cycle time is 1/27 sec.

Now R1 is a CL9 Ram, so time required for 9 Clock Cycle is 9X(1/20) = 9/20 sec = 0.45 sec
R2 is a CL11 Ram, so time required for 11 Clock Cycles is 11X(1/27) = 11/27 sec = 0.41 sec.

Click to expand...

Excellent, Cilus. Only problem is that the RAMs chosen by Anand are 1866MHz CL10, so it is basically a R1.5 and I think he will barely notice any difference in practical terms. And this he is getting for almost half the price of the 2133 MHz modules. OK, that's a single module but how much impact does dual channel have?

^^ He has the budget, let him go dual chanel

Haha... Anyway, Flipkart price is effectively 5k.

Anand, check ur PM

he should treat us individually for making us work so hard

Another thing to remember is that memory can be overclocked and when done, can get over the issues regarding lower timings.

For example that 1600mhz cl9 ram can be overclocked to lets say 1800mhz. According to cilus's example, the new ratio between 2133/1800 =1.185

Now as per the ratio, the new frequencies would be 20 and 24 ( achieved by multiplying 20 with the new ratio).

Now considering R1 as 20 and R2 as 24 lets see the results:

R1 - 20 transactions ( memory read/write) per second. So a single clock cycle will take 1/20th of a second.

R2 - 24 transactions per second. So a single clock cycle time is 1/24th of second

Now R1 is a CL9 Ram, so time required for 9 Clock Cycle is 9X(1/20) = 9/20 sec = 0.45 sec
R2 is a CL11 Ram, so time required for 11 Clock Cycles is 11X(1/24) = 11/24 sec = 0.45 sec.

Now they are equally placed.

But the way it should be analysed is that frequency is inversely proportional to latency. Overclocking a memory with lower latency will see it take lesser time.
You just have to hit the right sweet spot.

nicely explained Cilus ....... even i was trying to suggest anand to go for 3770k........ yes 2600k is good overclocker n less heating but 3770k is not at all bad to have ^_^ considering its features and its always gonna be in debate that 3770k is faster than 2600k in many benchs apps and so on by 5-15 % now many gona jump saying super oc 2600k and it will beat 3770k ^_^ but we are keeping cpu arround 4.2-4.5 ghz mark

with ivy always one thing to pray for hope you get luckiest oc and/ or coolest chip lol

sumonpathak said:

he should treat us individually for making us work so hard

Click to expand...

Just say the word and I will.

how about lending your pc to others for smtime

gameranand said:

Just say the word and I will.

Click to expand...

how bout delivering the Mouse to me first

maddy said:

how about lending your pc to others for smtime

Click to expand...

Just come to my place and you are welcome to stay for as long as you want and Game on it.

sumonpathak said:

how bout delivering the Mouse to me first

Click to expand...

I already have MX518 for the time being so I guess I can do that. If you want it then PM me your address. and yes I am serious. I owe you guys that much after all the help from you guys.

Cilus Where are you ?? Please post about GPU and other components if its ready.

Guys the motherboard is unavailable at many places, sumon contacted ASUS and ASUS contacted me, they are providing mobo at my place at around 21650INR, they said its their minimum price, Now I am getting mobo from Techshop.in for around 21K including shipping, but the thing is that if I am buying the mobo from here then I would get support more easily as they are also the distributors + service center for ASUS. So whats your say in this.

Graphics card:

I guess choice of this component is actually the most tricky and we are having more discussions about it which is higher than any of the other components. Better FPS or smoothness, Compute Performance or raw gaming performance, single GPU or multi GPU setup, all the things have been discussed and in my article, I will try to relate all the things.

FPS or Frames Per Second: It is the most common technique of measuring performance and most review sites actually stress on this parameter only. Now better FPS is always better in most cases but now we know there are certain catches.
Gaming Latency is very important while playing games as it decides how responsive the GPU is between the input from the player and the effects to take place. Sometimes it is noticed that even full frame rate is maintained, the game lags if very high amount of post processing is being applied. It looks like Nvidia SLI setup does have an advantage here as per the HardOcp review of GT 660 Ti which Vicky has posted. However, in 1080P, this latency is almost negligible in current gen Graphics cards of same league.

Discarded Frames: Today's most of the Monitors, including Anand's BenQ G2420HD is capped at 60 Hz and it is impossible to see more than 60 FPS in real time. Then why we are opting for cards which can deliver over 100 FPS sometimes. There is a effect called Plummeting in Gaming, which reduces the smoothness, despite having 60FPS on average. Now here the extra FPS comes to rescue. By using the discarded Frames (Display can show only 60 frames in 1 sec whereas 90 Frames are available from the Gfx card) and a simple algorithm, GPU can enhance the output frame quality to provide a smooth game-play experience as well as very good Motion Blur effects. AMD has an upper edge here as it is observed in several reviews that Game Play experience become smoother with the increase of FPS in games. I'm sure they will add new algorithm in their upcoming drivers to take the advantage of it for reducing Gaming latency.

Here my votes goes to AMD for that reason because at same price point, AMD cards deliver little extra frames while gaming.

Compute Performance
The GCN architecture is far more capable than FERMI as well as KEPLER architecture when it comes to compute performance. The Microsoft based DirectCompute and open source OpenCL API based apps run far better in GCN design, thanks to its VECTOR PROCESSOR based design where each of the Compute Engine of the GPU can handle a thread independently. They have their local cache and read/write interface to enhance the performance. On the other hand each of the SP in Kepler is not as powerful as the FERMI architecture. Although it has more number of shader processor, a single shader can't handle a single thread alone...for that it needs a cluster of shaders.

Gaming Performance.
Gaming performance depends of many factors, memory bandwidth, number of shader processors, Number of ROPs and their performance, Texture handling capabilities. The conventional gaming approach basically stresses upon Vertex Shader and Pixel shader performance as GPU can perform a single operation over millions of pixels in parallel. in conventional way, all the gaming effects like Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field, HDR Bloom and Motion Blur can be implemented using Pixel and Texture operations. But the processes are very heavy and older generation GPUs excels over those fields by using their raw parallel processing powers. But now as games are getting more and more demanding in GPU performance for rendering, if all those effects are turned on and executed in conventional methods, that might create a heavy toll over the GPU, resulting poor performance. So smart and efficient techniques are required to implement the advanced effects in a Game.

Are Gaming Performance and Compute Performance two different fields?

In most reviews, we see that Compute performance and Gaming performance are compared as two different faces of a Coin which lead to the believe that those parameters are different and a GPU can excel in one field while doing not so good in other field. But with the emergence of new API like DirectCompute, OpenCL, CUDA which can directly access GPU resources like the Stream Processor Clusters, Video Ram, shared memory like a conventional CPU, enables developers to create some advanced models like a Vector Processor type Processing. As a result we can have threads, data structures like Array, Structure and Classes, Object oriented models in GPU p[programming, just like what we do with our CPU wiyh one exception...GPU can process multiple threads at once by parallel processing unlike the sequential execution methodology of CPU.

I will discuss some of the advanced Graphics enhancement techniques , how they have been implemented in conventional way and how GP-GPU computing performance can improve the performance.

Ambient Occlusion or AO:
Definition: Ambient occlusion is a method to approximate how bright light should be shining on any specific part of a surface, based on the light and it's environment. This is used to add realism.
Here how a surface will be illuminated is not calculated based on a single point source of light, instead it is calculated by studying how the environment and surroundings of that surface interacts with light. So a place surrounding by other objects will be darker even though the light source is same for all of them.

This technique is a Global approach and needs to applied over the whole image rather than applying it on any specific objects.

Z-Buffer or Depth Buffer: In computer graphics, z-buffering, also known as depth buffering, is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. It is one solution to the visibility problem, which is the problem of deciding which elements of a rendered scene are visible, and which are hidden.

Conventional Pixel Shader Approach:
The algorithm is implemented as a pixel shader, analyzing the scene depth buffer which is stored in a texture. For every pixel on the screen, the pixel shader samples the depth values around the current pixel and tries to compute the amount of occlusion from each of the sampled points. In its simplest implementation, the occlusion factor depends only on the depth difference between sampled point and current point.

• For each Pixel present in the image
• Check surrounding neighborhood to see if they form a concave region–(Fit a cone, is it concave or convex). This step is need to check if surroundings of the pixels
• Improved results if normal of the point included in check.

*i.imgur.com/uFk9g.jpg?1

Given a point P on the surface with normal N, here roughly two-thirds of the hemisphere above P is occluded by other geometry in the scene, while one-third is unoccluded. The average direction of incoming light is denoted by B, and it is somewhat to the right of the normal direction N. Loosely speaking, the average color of incident light at P could be found by averaging the incident light from the cone of unoccluded directions around the B vector.

Now there is no smart method available to detect how many surrounding pixels are needed to be taken care of to provide a realistic illumination of point P. Otherwise using Brute force algorithm, the GPU needs to perform 200 texture reads per second which is not possible in real time using current generation hardware. So the following approximation is applied:
1. Some Random sample of pixels are taken from the surroundings of the point needed to be illuminated.
2. For each of the pixels present in the sample, their depth buffer is read from the texture Buffer of the Graphics card.
3. Now using the algorithm mentioned above, the GPU creates an approximate illumination level of the desired point.

Disadvantages:
1.Huge I/O cost. Here for each pixel, the GPU needs to access the Z-Buffer or Texture unit to get its Depth value. in case of 1920X1080 Resolution with 60 Fps, where we are taking 100 neighboring pixel
samples for each of the pixels, the total number of Z-Buffer read will be 1920X1080 (Total number of pixels in a single Frame) X 100 (Sample Size for each pixel) X 60 (Number of Frames per frame) =
12,441,6 X 10^5 which is huge for even the parallel processing power of GPU. Obviously that number is an rough estimation and can be minimized using different techniques, it gives us an idea how it can affect the game
play experience.

2. As the Sample of neighboring pixels are taken randomly, the output might not be that realistic compared to the compute power it needs and sometime creates an unnecessary shadow effect.

3. Here, for parallel processing, we need to rely upon the Texture buffer or Z-Buffer which can hold normally 12 texels per Sp cluster but not taking the advantage of the local registers and Cache Memory of each of the
Stream Processors.

4.Poor Resource sharing. I guess you guys have already understood that two neighboring pixel P1 and P2, situated very closely will have almost same surrounding pixels in common. So if we can keep the sample values in
GPU registers, taken for P1 and 1st check if they are also neighbor of P2 we can actually save the whole sampling thing required for P2. But unlike data in CPU, pixels cannot be directly kept in registers as no information about
them is present as the Sampling picks up random set of pixels.

GPU Computing based Approach:
Now 1st we will discuss another algorithm for AO, which uses Ray Tracing.

*i.imgur.com/Jytok.png

Local ambient occlusion in image-space:

(a) Rays emerging from a point Pmany of which are not occluded (marked red).

(b)Rays being constrained within a distance of rfar, with distant occluders being neglected (blue arrows).

(c) Pixels as viewed by a camera.Neighboring pixels are obtained (marked in green).

(d) We de-project these pixels back to world-space and approximate them using spherical occluders (green circles). These are the final approximated occluders around the point that are sought in image-space. Note that the spheres are pushed back a little along the opposite direction of the normal (−ˆ n) so as to prevent incorrect occlusion on flat surfaces.


*i.imgur.com/iEIzb.gif

In this example we have two sampling points A and B. At position A only a few rays hit the sphere therefore the influence of the sphere is small, at position B a lot of rays hit the sphere and the influence is big what results in a darker color here.
So the algorithm for Compute Shader will be something like that:

1. For every pixel in the image, perform Ray tracing and identify the neighboring pixel Samples required.
2. Check if the depth value of the selected pixels are already in GroupShared Registers.
3. If Yes, then pick the values from them .
4. If No, then read the Z-Buffer and place the fetched values in GroupShared Registers

Advantages:
• Using the groupsharedmemory avoids an incredible amount of over-sampling
• It can be filled using the Gather instruction, which further reduces the number of TEX operations
• Each of the SP of the GPU can perform operation for a different pixels in parallel and can have the data kept in Shared Memory or in Group Shared Registers to be accessed by other SP.
• Each of the SP does have their own Cache memory which can be used to keep frequently read data. It helps a single SP to minimize its I/O operations when it moves to the next pixel after finishing the AO calculation for the current one.

I hope this explains how GPU compute performance is actually beneficial for Gaming performance to implement Ambient Occlusion. Crysis is the 1st Game to implement AO but by means of Pixel Shaders and we all know how heavy the game was on hardware. On the other hand most of the latest games like Battleforge, Battlefield 3, Starcraft III etc use compute based AO logic and they run far smoother.

SO I guess you guys understood my point, a GPU with better compute power will definitely going to have an advantage in current and future games because of those factors discussed above.That's why AMD cards with better compute performance perform better in games like dirt 3, battleforge , civilization 5 etc.

In next iteration, I'll discuss about Depth of Field.

Sayonara till the DOF.....HAHAHAHAHA

^ dude you're awesome.........

One total off topic personal statement for OP (gameranand)

gameranand said:

Even though I have good Budget then also Please suggest VFM products as its hard earned money which I have saved for years so can't waste it. I hope you understand that.

Click to expand...

Moore's law is very true, every 16 to 18 months computing power available in the said price bucket will double.

Since its hard earn money, why not a 50k type system with HD7850 or HD7870 ?

That should safely run you for 2 / 2.5 years and then invest again for a similar 50k-ish system on next gen platform ?

Damn good explanation Cilus. Thanks for clearing the doubts.

Naxal said:

One total off topic personal statement for OP (gameranand)



Moore's law is very true, every 16 to 18 months computing power available in the said price bucket will double.

Since its hard earn money, why not a 50k type system with HD7850 or HD7870 ?

That should safely run you for 2 / 2.5 years and then invest again for a similar 50k-ish system on next gen platform ?

Click to expand...

A very good CPU can easily lst for around 4-5 years for sure. Take example of Intel Core 2 Quad processeors released back in 2006 or 2007 I guess and they are still good enough for most task.
Also I am actually thinking about multi GPU setup of Crossfire, with HD7870, so I guess that is also quite good and would last for around 3-4 years for playing games at high details, as for other components like Cabinet, mice, KB and others, they are kind of one time investment. A mechanical keyboard I am going is buy would probably last more than regular dome based KBs.

correct me if I'm wrong, but you can use a HD 7970 for crossfire in 3-4 years right?? or will a HD 7970 not be available in 3-4 years??

Arey Man, it is not finished and don't comment now. Let me finish it 1st. Gimme 10 mins more. Need to cover the DirectCompute in Gaming

dan4u said:

correct me if I'm wrong, but you can use a HD 7970 for crossfire in 3-4 years right?? or will a HD 7970 not be available in 3-4 years??

Click to expand...

Do you really think that 7970 would be available after 3 years and even it is, would it be better to buy that or a much better card at same cost ?? Vicky and Cilus are right, if I have to do crossfire then I have to do it from start.

dan4u said:

correct me if I'm wrong, but you can use a HD 7970 for crossfire in 3-4 years right?? or will a HD 7970 not be available in 3-4 years??

Click to expand...

hd 58xx series was available 3 years back. Could you find one such card in the market now??

I'm also suggesting a 7870 xfire to gameranand. Its current surpasses any single gpu card like 7970/680 and that too by a huge margin. And not only that, in higher resolutions, it allows higher AA settings to be enabled
not possible on any single gpu. With that, you get a superior image quality at the same price range of the custom versions of highest end cards from both the camp.

Obviously amd suffers from micro stuttering with their default drivers than nvidia SLI setting, but with the use of third party tool like RADEON PRO that problem can be easily handled. Check the latest review of 7990/7970x2
in tomshardware and you'll find out.

About your suggestion of going for a single 7970 now and xfiring later kinda logic is never a realistic scenario and you know that very well. After 1 year, 7970 will make no buying sense due to the presence of better
performing cards at the same and lower price points. Check what happened with 6970. A 13k card like a 7850 can beat it fair and square. I guess i'm pretty clear now.

For long-term plan of dual GPU, stick with popular mid-range GPUs. A couple of 7850 is at least as fast as the 7970, with just 2 power connectors needed instead of 4 and costs less. And if your game doesn't support CF, single card performance is no slouch either. But that particular card you have chosen is in a different league altogether. Well worth the money, I would say.

Cilus said:

hd 58xx series was available 3 years back. Could you find one such card in the market now??

I'm also suggesting a 7870 xfire to gameranand. Its current surpasses any single gpu card like 7970/680 and that too by a huge margin. And not only that, in higher resolutions, it allows higher AA settings to be enabled
not possible on any single gpu. With that, you get a superior image quality at the same price range of the custom versions of highest end cards from both the camp.

Obviously amd suffers from micro stuttering with their default drivers than nvidia SLI setting, but with the use of third party tool like RADEON PRO that problem can be easily handled. Check the latest review of 7990/7970x2
in tomshardware and you'll find out.

About your suggestion of going for a single 7970 now and xfiring later kinda logic is never a realistic scenario and you know that very well. After 1 year, 7970 will make no buying sense due to the presence of better
performing cards at the same and lower price points. Check what happened with 6970. A 13k card like a 7850 can beat it fair and square. I guess i'm pretty clear now.

Click to expand...

Could you please give me the link of the review you mentioned and also some info about the CPU cooler you mentioned would be nice.

Skud said:

For long-term plan of dual GPU, stick with popular mid-range GPUs. A couple of 7850 is at least as fast as the 7970, with just 2 power connectors needed instead of 4 and costs less. And if your game doesn't support CF, single card performance is no slouch either. But that particular card you have chosen is in a different league altogether. Well worth the money, I would say.

Click to expand...

Actually I am thinking about Sapphire 7870 Crossfire as suggested by Cilus as the total cost would be lesser than Matrix 7970 Platinum and performance increase would be significant. Also we should not forget that 7870 cards got 10% boost with the latest driver update, highest in 7xxx series. I am not saying that Matrix 7970 is bad option, its just that if I am getting better performance with lesser price then why not. I hope you got my point.

2x7870 is better performing than one 7970. If you are getting the former at lesser price, it's an easy choice IMO.

Sapphire HD7870 is available for around 17.6K which makes it around 35.2K means 1.3K lesser than Matrix 7970 Platinum.

Here goes the link

SAPPHIRE GRAPHICS CARD HD 7870 GHz EDITION 2GB GDDR5

If Anand is going to buy two of 'em then definitely he is going to have some discount. I'll try my best for that.

BTW, how about my rest of the article?

What about noise coming from those 4 fans?

BTW, MD also have the Sapphire 7970 OC for 29k, and the Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X for 22k. Feeling greedy.

^^ He'll be gaming with a 7.1 headset namely Razer Megalodon or Vengeance 1500.

With the roar of Megalodon or rage of 1500 power Vengeance, i don't think any unwanted noise gonna displease those ears coz they won't be reaching them.

While not gaming, I think you've heard of AMD Zero Core Technology.

Cilus said:

Here goes the link

SAPPHIRE GRAPHICS CARD HD 7870 GHz EDITION 2GB GDDR5

If Anand is going to buy two of 'em then definitely he is going to have some discount. I'll try my best for that.

BTW, how about my rest of the article?

Click to expand...

Oh...I was actually asking you about review link not product link.

As for rest of Article, I would surely love that specially the part where you'll describe about single and multi GPU setup and their advantages and disadvantages.

Skud said:

What about noise coming from those 4 fans?

BTW, MD also have the Sapphire 7970 OC for 29k, and the Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X for 22k. Feeling greedy.

Click to expand...

I will be gaming with Headphones as Cilus stated, also I am going to buy Storm Trooper which isolates the noise pretty well, looks like this feature will go for test in my setup.

Thanks Cilus for that very well written and detailed explanation .

mother of god...errr...explanation.......am so gonna print this out....

@ Sumon
CYPM.

great write up by Cilus - big thanks to him .

that post deserves a separate thread

Well Cilus is already Supermod so he can do it if he wants to.. But Yes I do agree that it would be helpful to many others if the article is in a proper separate thread.

Ya, will do that once I finish the next part about Depth of Field and Dynamic Texture Decompression using DirectCompute.

Anand, here are some features of Dual GPU setup:

1. Scaling: For the current generation Graphics cards, starting from AMD 6000 series (Not 6770 and 6750, which are rebranded 5000 series) and Nvidia 500 series, with the help of updated drivers, the scaling is almost 2X in most of the Games.
2. Out of the Box Compatibility: Here Nvidia does have an upper edge. For long time they have been offering features such as creating custom SLI profiles which is very helpful for the games without SLI profile available. Also current Adaptive V-sync feature of Nvidia control panel can take care of the problem of Micro-shuttering very efficiently.
The custom Game Profile feature has been added to Catalyst Control Center recently along with different Crossfire mode controls but their results are not as good as Nvdia's offerings.
3.Third Party Tools: Here AMD/ATI cards do have an upper edge. There is a fantasic software, called Radeon Pro, is available for long time for AMD cards. This tool offers an extremely useful and feature rich menu and must have for all the Crossfire users. Using all those extra features which are not available with the Catalyst Control Center.
Gaming Profile creation, Crossfire controls, type of rendering can be changed dynamically to improve performance in greater level. I am using for 2 years now and know how useful tweakings it offers.
Recent analysis (Check Tomshardware review of HD 7990/7970X2) shows that with Radeon Pro tweaking, AMD Crossfire can completely overcome Micro shuttering issues and in fact can produce better result than Nvidia Adaptive Vsync.

*drumming fingers*

Thanks for this info. Just talk to all the shops and mailed them, now waiting for their replies.

@Cilus:

Will like to see a separate review for RadeonPro.

Here is the Final config which I have decided


I am not sure about the cooler though and might change that but for others I am pretty sure. Please post your comments on the rig and prices.

Asus Maximus V Formula for Rs.16,500..is this real??

Well I certainly do hope that it is. Have to confirm the price the day after tomorrow.

Good luck man.Hope it comes true.

Yeah thanks buddy. I too hope that its true.

16.5K:O.....kahase?

Hmm i say go for cheap Hard drive and get good SSD for main Boot drive and playing games.

@ gameranand

Buddy you must be confusing maximus v formula with maximus v gene coz the price of the latter is 16.5k.

Besides the gpu set you've choosen seems to make more sense now. The performance of a 7870 ( after 12.11 release) is on par with a 660-ti now!!!!
The crossfire setup you've chosen is freakingly powerful man.

Later on, sell of your benq monitor for a 2560x1600 one coz after you build this rig, you will have all the power in your hands to go beyond full-hd.

Depth of Fields: In Photography, film or 3D games, Depth of field can be considered as the distance between the nearest and farthest object, present in the sharper (relatively sharper than the portion of the image which are blurred and can't be distinguished properly) portion of the image or Frame.

This effect adds realism and Movie like effects in 3D gaming. It also adds a depth sense in the game which we can understand that how far the object is from the Protagonist, who is in the focus of the camera, which is our eyes. How can we forget the creepy feelings in Metro 2033 where we can understand something is moving around in blurred, shabby areas, little far from the source of light but can't see it properly?

*i.imgur.com/METdT.jpg


If you look at the above image, then you will see that the palm which is away from the 1st palm which is in focus, is little shorter and little less sharper too. If we continue like this, the palm size will be getting smaller and more blurred and after some time, it will not be visible when our eyes meet the vanishing point. But until then, we can see palms with varying size and varying sharpness.
So, I guess you guys can relate it with the definition I've given. Here until the vanishing point, we can consider the image is sharper enough to distinguish different objects. So depth of field will be the distance between the 1st palm which is in focus and the last palm which is blurred maximum but still identifiable.

*i.imgur.com/dMgZ5.png

The area within the depth of field appears sharp, while the areas in front of and beyond the depth of field appear blurry.

How to Implement: To simulate this 3D sense of depth in a 2D image, we need to blurred and resized each of the distant objects in such a way so that our human eye can understand the depth in the image. resulting an 3D depth simulation in our brain. For this we need to apply separate level of blurriness an size to each of the objects in accordance to their distance from the object present in the focus.

Traditional Pixel Shader Based Approach:

1. Create a Blurred (Normally Down-scaled) version of the Frame
2. Get the distances of the Objects to be blurred from the object in focus.
3. Mix the blurred image with the Crisp image based on the distance from the focal plane to create a image version with DoF implemented.
4. Perform the same operation with the output image of the 1st image created with DoF. For each iteration, the output of the previous step will be the Input. The number of iterations depends upon the used algorithm.
5. Consider the output of the last iteration as the final image and discard all the other images.

Issues with the Approach:
Although the approach is not an heavy one, it has several issues and couple of them are mentioned below:

1. Fixed blur radius across scene, no variation with depth
2. Artifacts, created due to the DoF algorithm, along the edges are very hard and tricky to remove. It needs significant logic for each thread.
3. Blurring the objects just based on the distance from the focal plane is not a very good method. It ignores the position of the object with respect to a point camera, which is our eyes in Games and the light emitting from them. Even an object is far from the focal point, if it is thermally hot or radiator of intense light then it should not be as blurred as another object with same distance, not radiating any light. For example, a Lamp Post radiates high intensity light and a dark home, situated at roughly same distance from the focal point will be less blurred.

Scientific Model

Here we need understand one Optical concept, important in determining the DoF, both in Photography as well as 3D image creation, known as Circle of Confusion. Lets discuss it a little.
Definition from Wikipedia: In optics, a circle of confusion is an optical spot caused by a cone of light rays from a lens not coming to a perfect focus when imaging a point source. It is also known as disk of confusion, circle of indistinctness, blur circle, or blur spot.

*i.imgur.com/Sffq7.png

1st Image: Object situated before the focus point of the Lens
2nd Image: Object situated exactly at the focus point of the Lens
3rdImage: Object situated after the focus point of the Lens

In the above image we are describing the property of a perfect Lens which creates a blurred circle of light when a point object is not situated at the focus point. But in reality, no Lens is perfect and the object, situated exactly at the focal plane will create a circle or Spot rather than a single point.

Visual acuity: For most people, the closest comfortable viewing distance, termed the near distance for distinct vision (Ray 2000, 52), is approximately 25 cm. At this distance, a person with good vision can usually distinguish an image resolution of 5 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm), equivalent to a CoC of 0.2 mm in the final image

*i.imgur.com/tLSc5.png

After that distance of 250mm, human eye cannot distinguish between a blurred circle and a very sharp circle that just fills the contact point of two adjoining planes. So Circle of Confusion can be a measure to get the Blur effect to be applied on different objects in an image to simulate a Depth of Field.
GPU Compute Based Solution: Here the algorithm creates a Heat Diffusion based approach to reduce the complexity.

Heat Diffusion Model:

1. The image intensities are taken from a Pin Hole Camera View
2. The heat diffuses or reduces gradually with the distance from the source or the Pin hole Camera (In Games, it is our eye)
3. If it creates an higher Circle of Confusion or having high Blur Radius for object B , it is assumed that the thermal conductivity B is higher and heat will pass through it. It means we don't need to paint it with sharp color and it will be Blurred when the image will be rendered.
4. Circle of Confusion increases with the distance from the source and as per the radius of the circle, the Blur effect is added to the object proportionately. So we are having objects with variable blur effect.
5. If the Circle of Confusion reaches 0 for an object then it is considered as complete insulator of heat. So it needs to be painted sharply for identifying.
By using this above mentioned Model, several parallel Processing based algorithm can be created which can produce, variable blur effects to different objects, situated at different distances from the focus.

Metro 2033 uses an algorithm known as Alternate Direction Implicit Solver and Hybrid Tri-diagonal Systems Solver which uses two pixel shader passes to create a Blurred version of the image and then perform a DirectCompute based algorithm to generate the final image with vivid Depth of field.


Dynamic Decompression of Textures:
This direct Compute based method is pretty simple compared to the other two, I've explained earlier.
Suppose I have huge number of documents which are needed to create my final resume and they are scattered here & there in my hard disc and taking a lot of disc space. So what I'll do, compress all of them in a single Zip or Rar or 7Z file and accessing the part which is needed. If I click on that file, that will be decompressed at run time and will be displayed to me.

There are plenty of games which needs to handle huge amount of textures to render different objects in screen. They might not be very exact but the amount of objects are very high. RTS games like Civilikzation V or StarCraft II are perfect example of it. Here the following DirectCompute based steps are used:-
1. Compress the Texture objects into a compressed file and place it to the Video Ram using DirectCompute based parallel processing
2. Dynamically decompress it as per the requirement by using DirectCompute based Decompressing algorithm.
By using this technique, Civilization V can compress texture file of 2GB into a 130MB format which helps it to keep multiple texture files into Video Ram. Now Video Ram can be accessed very fast by GPU due to its high speed and big memory Bus. So it can request the required file which gets decompressed on the fly to produce the final image.

In conventional way, the decompressed texture cannot be placed directly in the Video Ram due to its huge size. Here they need to switched among Virtual Memory (HDD) then to Main Memory (System Ram) and then to Video Ram ( GPU Memory), resulting huge I/O penalty.

Note: The information for the article are Gathered from Wikipedia, How Things Work website, Pixar Animation Studio and their developed algorithm, Nvidia DirectCompute Algorithm Showcase

gameranand said:

Here is the Final config which I have decided

Type	Name	Price
Processor	Intel Core i7 3770K	19600
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Formula	16500
RAM	Corsair Vengeance 2.0 2133MHz	4350
Hard Drive	WD 2 TB Desktop Internal Hard Drive Black Edition (WD2002FAEX)	10264
Graphics Card	Sapphire HD7870 GHz Edition * 2	36400
Power Supply	Corsair HX850	10450
Cabinet	Cooler Master Storm Trooper ATX	11110
Keyboard	Corsair Vengeance K90	6500
Mouse	Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G500	3550
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO	2275
Optical Drive	ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA	1100
UPS	APC Back-UPS 1100VA (BR1100CI-IN)	5200
Headphones	Corsair Vengeance 1500	4264
Shippping	Shipping Cost in Total	Unknown
Total	Total Cost Excluding Shipping	131563

I am not sure about the cooler though and might change that but for others I am pretty sure. Please post your comments on the rig and prices.

Click to expand...

just get the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 - I think I've told you about this before

sumonpathak said:

16.5K:O.....kahase?

Click to expand...

only CrossHair V Formula Costs this less but looks similar

vickybat said:

@ gameranand

Buddy you must be confusing maximus v formula with maximus v gene coz the price of the latter is 16.5k.

Besides the gpu set you've choosen seems to make more sense now. The performance of a 7870 ( after 12.11 release) is on par with a 660-ti now!!!!
The crossfire setup you've chosen is freakingly powerful man.

Later on, sell of your benq monitor for a 2560x1600 one coz after you build this rig, you will have all the power in your hands to go beyond full-hd.

Click to expand...

I clearly stated in my mail that I want Asus Maximus V Formula and they stated this price in reply. This is the reason I am saying that I have to confirm the price tomorrow as today is Diwali.

topgear said:

just get the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 - I think I've told you about this before



only CrossHair V Formula Costs this less but looks similar

Click to expand...

Actually Noctua is above my budget by now I am deciding on Cooler Master 412 Slim as its available to me at around 2800 INR. How is this ??

I also checked the price of similar boards but Srosshair series is for AMD and I clearly asked him the price of Intel CPU also and cost of Maximus Gene is lesser than this even at flipkart so I think that it might be real. Well I do hope that its real.

sumonpathak said:

16.5K:O.....kahase?

Click to expand...

SMC....

Real nice write up Cilus and as usual very informative.

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL.

gameranand said:

Actually Noctua is above my budget by now I am deciding on Cooler Master 412 Slim as its available to me at around 2800 INR. How is this ??

Click to expand...

IMO, its either evo (+noctua tim(optional)) or noctua.
You could add another fan to the evo for a push-pill config. (eg. Cooler Master XtraFlo Cooler)
Dont see much of an improvement with Cooler Master 412 Slim.

You can also check Corrsair A50 and A70, they are very good cooler at sub 3K and 4K price point respectively.

Oh boy confused again on the matter of Single GPU or crossfire. I read that Crossfire could cause problems in future when company stops supporting it, is it true ?? Would it create problems for me in future after 1 or 2 generations because I ain't going to upgrade in near future. Please guide me.

where did u read that?
link plz..

Buddy, 1st check ur PM.

2nd: My card is again 2 generation old already....after it HD 6900 series and HD 7000 seires have already been launched. Now I don't think CF support has been dropped from my card, infact it is getting better. I still get performance comparable to HD 7950.

The support you are talking about is true for any older generation GPU, not specific to single or Multi-GPU solution. For example, AMD has stopped regular Driver update for their HD 4000 series and lower because optimizing all those different architecture based cards regularly under the hood of a single driver is not possible. So they receive update quarterly instead of the regular update of HD 5000 series or higher....It is not specific to single or Multi-GPU solution. A person with HD 4890 CF and a single HD 4890 will face the same problem.

Multi-GPU setup, it is getting better in every iteration of drivers from AMD and Nvidia. They are adding more and more tweaking features in their Drivers for Multi-GPU setup and for AMDF cards, we have some really nice 3rd party tools like Radeon pro which can take care of Dual GPU issues like Micro-shuttering, lagging etc very efficiently.

OK thanks. Got it, anyways I was also reading about that also. See this. This is what I was just reading right now.

OK here are some link about crossfire problems as sumon asked
Advantages of SLI/Crossfire vs Single GPU
Single GPU eqivilent of Crossfire 7950's?
AMD display drivers crash when running crossfire
SLI / Crossfire VS single GPU

As it seems that Crossfire does creates problems but there is always some solution lying around to be unleashed. What it basically means that you are always on edge and would read and learn a lot about AMD when using crossfire.

First link
those have no idea what they are talking about
*www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1128322-Advantages-of-SLI-Crossfire-vs-Single-GPU
old link...not applicable now....multi gpu has came a looong way from 07..
*www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/362389-15-display-drivers-crash-running-crossfire
the problem described was same for single GPU solutions too with 12.9..users had driver crashed problem over a varied number of setup..including me...
*yogscast.com/showthread.php?82505-SLI-Crossfire-VS-single-GPU

Lots of games don't even support dual GPUs so I would never recommend it.

Click to expand...

i wonder where did he learn that..maybe from" i no haz so it sucks" academy..

Moral of the story:the combo you are getting beats the holy hell out of any single GPU out there(almost)..go for it..
Just dont jump into new driver s soon as its released(this tip is for everyone)

@ gameranand

Exactly. I would put this as crossfire won't deliver everything out of the box as a single gpu.

But if the issues are ironed out ( which they will), you get a massive performance improvement with crossfire ( in your case that is).
Just get those two 7870's eyes closed. Thinking more about it will only get you confused.
Driver problems and scaling issues are now a thing of the past.

Posting it again so that no one has to go back. As for CF vs Single GPU. I am reading a lot right now, will come to a conclusion by evening I guess.

Cilus said:

You can also check Corrsair A50 and A70, they are very good cooler at sub 3K and 4K price point respectively.

Click to expand...

Yeah I checked them also and it seems like they offer similar performance to the one I choose. Also Corsair one would block 1 or 2 RAM slots while this one won't and the price I am getting for this Cooler is killer as its available everywhere from Flipkart to MD at around 3.3K -3.5K, so these are the reasons I decided to go with it.

Myth said:

IMO, its either evo (+noctua tim(optional)) or noctua.
You could add another fan to the evo for a push-pill config. (eg. Cooler Master XtraFlo Cooler)
Dont see much of an improvement with Cooler Master 412 Slim.

Click to expand...

I agree that there is not much improvement with this one but the price difference is also not much, as for performance it gives a better performance by 4-5C. So please do tell me should I spend about 400INR for 4-5C or not. As for Noctua, that one would also give similar performance with maybe 2-3C better than 412 Slim but for that I have to pay over 4K. So you see 412 Slim is giving much better VFM than Noctua. I hope you got my point.

anand, AFAIK, Corsair A50 performs similar to Thermalright Venomous X.
HARDOCP - Results: Temps & Sound - Corsair A70 High-Performance CPU Cooler Review

However, you can also opt for DeppCool Ice Blade Pro 2.0, available around 3K. DeepCool ICEBLADEPRO 120MM TRANSPARENT BLUE LED UNIVERSAL CPU COOLER

Here is the review: Deepcool ICE BLADE PRO V2.0 CPU Cooler Review | Hardware Secrets

Ice Blade pro looks like a good option to me. It performs similar to Noctua and other big players and is available for 3K.
Also is 412 Slim not that good ??

Well I just found out that model I am getting everywhere as Ice Blade Pro is actually the older version and not the v2.0 but still as per performance charts it performs quite well.

can't remember where but I've read that CM 412 performs similar to Hyper 212 Evo ..

and yes, Crosshair V is for AMD only the deal you are getting on Maximus V is just too good to be true - if you can get it at 16.5k then this would be the deal of the year

Anand, don't read much; you will only get more confused. AMD does have some problems regarding zero day CF support in some games, but things are generally ironed out quickly (again exceptions are there). If by any chance, CF doesn't work for any game for a significant period of time, you can always fall back to a single card config. In that case, a single 7870 is no slouch at all. In case of lower mid end cards, getting a single GPU is preferable. Say one 7850 is better than a couple of 7770s. But in your case the individual GPU is fairly high end, so you can go for dual GPU eyes closed. The gameplay experience will improve significantly over a single 7970 and you can turn on all the eye candies and some more. Add RadeonPro to the mix and it becomes a no-brainer

topgear said:

can't remember where but I've read that CM 412 performs similar to Hyper 212 Evo ..

and yes, Crosshair V is for AMD only the deal you are getting on Maximus V is just too good to be true - if you can get it at 16.5k then this would be the deal of the year

Click to expand...

Well then I guess I am locked on to DeepCool Ice Blade Pro for now.

Yeah I am also surprised, I hope that its the right price, and if it is then I'm gonna pay the shop tomorrow itself to lock on it.

Skud said:

Anand, don't read much; you will only get more confused. AMD does have some problems regarding zero day CF support in some games, but things are generally ironed out quickly (again exceptions are there). If by any chance, CF doesn't work for any game for a significant period of time, you can always fall back to a single card config. In that case, a single 7870 is no slouch at all. In case of lower mid end cards, getting a single GPU is preferable. Say one 7850 is better than a couple of 7770s. But in your case the individual GPU is fairly high end, so you can go for dual GPU eyes closed. The gameplay experience will improve significantly over a single 7970 and you can turn on all the eye candies and some more. Add RadeonPro to the mix and it becomes a no-brainer

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.

Skud said:

Anand, don't read much; you will only get more confused. AMD does have some problems regarding zero day CF support in some games, but things are generally ironed out quickly (again exceptions are there). If by any chance, CF doesn't work for any game for a significant period of time, you can always fall back to a single card config. In that case, a single 7870 is no slouch at all. In case of lower mid end cards, getting a single GPU is preferable. Say one 7850 is better than a couple of 7770s. But in your case the individual GPU is fairly high end, so you can go for dual GPU eyes closed. The gameplay experience will improve significantly over a single 7970 and you can turn on all the eye candies and some more. Add RadeonPro to the mix and it becomes a no-brainer

Click to expand...

Yup rightly said mate.

gameranand said:

Well then I guess I am locked on to DeepCool Ice Blade Pro for now.

Yeah I am also surprised, I hope that its the right price, and if it is then I'm gonna pay the shop tomorrow itself to lock on it.

Thanks for the advice.

Click to expand...

but there's almost ~5c different between 212 Evo and Ice Blade Pro - guess which one is better ? Hint : refer to post # 278 by Myth

topgear said:

but there's almost ~5c different between 212 Evo and Ice Blade Pro - guess which one is better ? Hint : refer to post # 278 by Myth

Click to expand...

OK. Will try to fit Noctua in my budget.

Another thing Anand, there is no point of buying 2 TB WD Black HDD...You're trying to use a performance Hard Disk for Data Storage. Buy a normal WD Green 2TB around 6.5K (Sata 6 Gbps, 64 MB Cache Version) or Black 1 TB and 128GB Corsair Forsa SSD. Use the SSD for OS and installing the games. ALthough Forsa series is not the best performing SSD out there but still far more speedier than any HDD, It is still faster than even the mighty Velociraptor and Seagate Momentous XT Hybrid Drives.

Regarding installing and running games on SSD - will the more frequent read/writes due to playing games on SSD, shorten SSD life?

He will be buying the SSD couple of months later.

Okay, bad news for me. Asus Maximus V Formula is not available with SMC International who quoted me that sweet price, looks like now I have to get it elsewhere. PrimeABGB is offering it at 20990INR which is the minimum I am getting right now. See guys if you can find lower prices. Deltapge has lesser price but they don't deliver in my area.

Thats sad. Did u order any component till now?

No not yet. Waiting for one more quotation from a shop, after that I'll start ordering.

I guess ordering is not a problem, Just one day in bank with 2-4 NEFT and I am done, real pain is finding the lowest price for the components.

I am currently talking to Vedant in Kolkata if they can provide a little lesser price for the components. Currently couple of components are coming cheaper.

Cilus said:

I am currently talking to Vedant in Kolkata if they can provide a little lesser price for the components

Click to expand...

You can do that !!?
Now I know whom to bug if i am going to buy something

After little chat with Vedant, Now they're offering Sapphire HD 7870 @ 16K + 4% Vat = 16.64K and i7 3770K @ 18.5K + tax= Rs.19240

SO, anyone, planning to buy Graphics card like HD 7850 or GTX 660....Increase your budget and grab 7870 when it is available.

Awesome pricing, just in time.

Damn, I want to throw my 6950 and get 2 too.

gameranand said:

Okay, bad news for me. Asus Maximus V Formula is not available with SMC International who quoted me that sweet price, looks like now I have to get it elsewhere. PrimeABGB is offering it at 20990INR which is the minimum I am getting right now. See guys if you can find lower prices. Deltapge has lesser price but they don't deliver in my area.

Click to expand...

is delta trusted ? and yes do they deliver to delhi ??

^^ Yes they are trusted and yes they deliver to Delhi AFAIK.

OK here are the latest prices that I getting. An big thanks to Cilus for this, without him the prices were around 5K higher than this.


As with this I guess everything is updated now. I have gone from 2600K to 3770K and I thought if I am going to get a hotter CPU then I should get a cooler CPU Cooler so I opted for that Noctua Cooler as it was fitting in the budget. Rest is all same.
Good thing is that now I would have like 6K left for my SSD, now I can buy a SSD along with this config and don't have to wait 2 months to get that, all the credit for this goes to Cilus for bringing such good prices.
I think I'll order all the components in 2 to days, I guess I'll take a day off and talk and finalize the deal with all the shops and on 16 Nov I'll pay to them.

An yes one more thing, I am getting these products from a local store in Kolkata through Cilus and they don't have any online portal

Although they just informed me that their online portal would be online before 25th Dec.

Cilus said:

After little chat with Vedant, Now they're offering Sapphire HD 7870 @ 16K + 4% Vat = 16.64K and i7 3770K @ 18.5K + tax= Rs.19240

SO, anyone, planning to buy Graphics card like HD 7850 or GTX 660....Increase your budget and grab 7870 when it is available.

Click to expand...

Great pricing.

I thought MD Computers was the preferred shop in these matters. I guess Vedant is getting competitive. Good

All the pricing of Vedant Computers is better than MD computers for me, lets see how they perform in real life for me.

Earnestly looking forward to their pricing for your config.

Delay not my friend, just buy the damn items.

MD is going down sadly...they are the sole importer of many stuff...so they are acting all autocratic now...
just like supreme..

Myth said:

Earnestly looking forward to their pricing for your config.

Delay not my friend, just buy the damn items.

Click to expand...

Like I said will place the order on tomorrow or day after tomorrow.

sumonpathak said:

MD is going down sadly...they are the sole importer of many stuff...so they are acting all autocratic now...
just like supreme..

Click to expand...

Agreed. Director of Vedant Computer was really polite.

Update: Anand just got a call from the Director of Vedant Computer that they will offer free shipping to him for all the components.

Next time I need to purchase anything, I will contact Cilus first.

^^Sick build dude.

And Cilus is the dude apparently. You got any contacts in Bangalore if I need parts in the future?

Skud said:

Next time I need to purchase anything, I will contact Cilus first.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the "Contact Cilius for Hardware" foundation

meh...i will just kidnap him :evil laugh:

_AkasH_ said:

^^Sick build dude.

And Cilus is the dude apparently. You got any contacts in Bangalore if I need parts in the future?

Click to expand...

I don't think I'll need Bangalore contacts, I will give you best prices from Kolkata which happens to be lowest and then ship it to you.

hey cilius the can u give me the prices for the following with shipping to delhi!!!----
maximus v formula
i7 3770k
hd 7970 (any manufacture except sapphire)
a good 23 inch monitor (u suggest it under 10k for gaming)
pls lowest prices and guaranteed products !!!!pls fast !!!

I guess for a couple of parts you can get the details from my rig and for others Cilus will help you.

well i think that i should also start a new thread !!!!pls suggest me .....will start it soon!!!!

If you want a new rig then you should definitely make a new thread, you'll get better response there. Just fill the template for new rig and make a new thread, very simple.

HELP!!!!*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/pc-components-configurations/166188-65k-gamnig-rig-help.html#post1785446

@ gameranand

Excellent prices abhisek. Cilus spoke with me tonight and gave me all the story. Prices of 7870 duo is simply too good along with other components.
Now just order asap and build that ultimate rig.

vickybat said:

@ gameranand

Excellent prices abhisek. Cilus spoke with me tonight and gave me all the story. Prices of 7870 duo is simply too good along with other components.
Now just order asap and build that ultimate rig.

Click to expand...

Yeah I'll, just after the confirmation from Cilus tomorrow. I guess I'll pay them tomorrow itself and if it'll be late for NEFT then day after tomorrow for sure.

Guys I guess I'll get a SSD real soon so suggestions would be welcome. I am thinking about these two
Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK)
Corsair Force Series 3 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GB3A-BK)

Please tell me if there are better options available at better prices.

^^ refer this mate:

Tom's Hardware's SSD Hierarchy Chart : Best SSDs For The Money: October 2012

According to that chart, the following should be a good buy:

*www.flipkart.com/ocz-vertex-3-120-...5SXZ&ref=0468604b-2182-40ae-aaf3-35af99cbbfdb

@Gameranand
Well here is my little piece of info AFAIK Microsoft will not release DirectX 11.1 for Windows 7 or lower it will be exclusively for Windows 8 users so the future games will require this Cr*p it is really good to keep some money aside for buying Windows 8 which will be a nice update

Now I think Microsoft is also following the Apple's way.

gameranand said:

Yeah I'll, just after the confirmation from Cilus tomorrow. I guess I'll pay them tomorrow itself and if it'll be late for NEFT then day after tomorrow for sure.

Guys I guess I'll get a SSD real soon so suggestions would be welcome. I am thinking about these two
Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK)
Corsair Force Series 3 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GB3A-BK)

Please tell me if there are better options available at better prices.

Click to expand...

Kingston 120GB HyperX SSD

Crucial 128GB m4 Solid State Drive

OCZ 128GB Vertex 4 SSD

If want to stick to Corsair, get this:-

Corsair 120GB Neutron SSD

You can add another one later in RAID 0, for some serious speed.

PS: There's more options within 10k, if you want to increase your budget.

vickybat said:

^^ refer this mate:

Tom's Hardware's SSD Hierarchy Chart : Best SSDs For The Money: October 2012

According to that chart, the following should be a good buy:

OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (VTX3-25SAT3-120G) | Internal Hard Drive | Flipkart.com

Click to expand...

Thanks.

101gamzer said:

@Gameranand
Well here is my little piece of info AFAIK Microsoft will not release DirectX 11.1 for Windows 7 or lower it will be exclusively for Windows 8 users so the future games will require this Cr*p it is really good to keep some money aside for buying Windows 8 which will be a nice update

Now I think Microsoft is also following the Apple's way.

Click to expand...

Well TBH hardly any game requires DX11 as of now so 11.1 is quite far. Also who needs money to use Microsoft products specially when they are slapped on to you. :-8

Skud said:

Kingston 120GB HyperX SSD

Crucial 128GB m4 Solid State Drive

OCZ 128GB Vertex 4 SSD

If want to stick to Corsair, get this:-

Corsair 120GB Neutron SSD

You can add another one later in RAID 0, for some serious speed.

PS: There's more options within 10k, if you want to increase your budget.

Click to expand...

Oh boy. Please give me one option, also I would't do RAID with SSD like ever. I would rather buy a 2TB HDD with that money, I am buying it just for performance.

Who needs a SSD for anything else? BTW, how many games you keep installed at a time?

And applications?

I guess 120GB will do. I play RPGs which takes like 30GB to get installed but I don't play more than 2-3 games simultaneously. As for Applications right now nothing special but maybe after some time I would work on heavy softwares.

If ASS is important then stick with Corsair, else Vertex 4. Try to search if Samsung 830 is available within your budget, that will be the best.

OK the rig is 2 page back so here I am posting it again for reference.


I am thinking about changing RAM to G skill after advice from sumon, I hope that Vedant Computers have that in stock at a good price.

Skud said:

If ASS is important then stick with Corsair, else Vertex 4. Try to search if Samsung 830 is available within your budget, that will be the best.

Click to expand...

Which one has better performance and is the ASS of OCZ is bad or something ??

No idea about ASS of OCZ, but Corsair you know. Performance-wise Vertex 4 has a bit of edge. Check this:-

Corsair Neutron 240GB & Neutron GTX 240GB SSDs Review - Page 11

I am using OCZ and didn't faced a single problem till now and i did some benchmarking and got impressive results.

I have the Vertex 3, and using with no pagefile and zero issue for almost a year. But given the present situation of OCZ, might be wise to go for something else.

Then I guess I'll opt for Corsair 120GB available at around 6200 INR.

Update - Finalized the deal for most of the products with Vedant Computers. Will pay them tomorrow.