Build Feedback - £900 Mid-High end PC, CPU Cooler question

[Redsfan]

A mate has asked me to build him a decent gaming PC, Im looking at this spec

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz LGA1155 6MB
Asus P8P67-M PRO REV 3.0 LGA1155 Intel P67 DDR3 mATX (B3 Stepping)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3)
Patriot Memory 8GB (2x4GB) DIVISION2 DDR3 1866MHz
Crucial 64GB RealSSD C300 SATA-600 2.5" Solid State Drive
Samsung 2TB SpinPoint EcoGreen F4EG SATA3 32MB Hard Drive
KFA2 GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB PCI-Express HDMI EX OC
Samsung 12x BD-ROM/DVDRW Lightscribe SATA
Antec NSK 4000B II Mid Tower Case Black
Corsair Memory Builder Series CX500 500W ATX PSU

I've gone for a Corsair PSU as they are normally really quiet, never used that CPU cooler before though, Would a Zalman CNPS cooler do the job? It doesn't say in the spec it'll fit a 1155?

[2o2o]

CNPS doesn't appear to support 1155 but the akasa has probably the best fan out there at the moment and a descent cooler, the only other thing I would suggest is get an ETA from dabs on the Z68 boards as these will perform better overall.

[DMS]

Looks like a good build. A couple of thoughts though (surprise surprise).

SSD - for £10 more you could go for the latest incarnation from Crucial, the Crucial 64GB m4, which should be a bit more refined than the C300. It also has better read/write speeds - although, probably not noticeably faster.

HDD - I like the Samsung Spinpoint drives but have read various comments about issues with the 2TB ones requiring firmware updates. This may now all be sorted but it is worth having a dig around just in case.

GPU - the GTX 560ti is a cracking card. It's also worth having a look at the HD 6950, some of which can be reflashed to 6970 (which makes it a veritable bargain).

Cooler - either the Akasa or the Zalman would be fine unless you want to go for some serious overclocking. The Zalman is compatible with Socket 1156 which has identical holes to 1155, so should fit without any modification.

Z68 - seeing as you are going for a SSD/HDD build, then it is definitely worth waiting for Z68 (if your mate could bear it). The SSD caching facility in particular looks very interesting. In fact, some evil person on this forum has got me thinking about whether to get a Z68 myself!

[2o2o]

In fact, some evil person on this forum has got me thinking about whether to get a Z68 myself!

What sort of nasty person would do that

[Redsfan]

I did say it might be worth a wait but the build is fairly urgent (Next week) so I've gone ahead with those components, didn't realise about the Spinpoint F4EG bug so I'm hoping I get one with an updated firmware. If not look out for my next thread with the title of "Flashing a dodgy Spinpoint drive to the latest firmware"

Didn't realise about the SSD cache, by those chaps over at intel are clever arent they!

[2o2o]

Don't worry flashing a HDD's firmware is about at simple as it gets its a windows application with 1 button how can you go wrong

[DMS]

Stolen from another forum, but apparently it's a bit of a bugger to update the firmware on an F4...

Before proceeding with the Hard Disk firmware flashing, backup all your files.

1. Download and unzip latest firmware from;

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=386

2. Make a bootable USB drive

http://www.forum.crucial.com/t5/Soli...dates/m-p/5985

Note: The last part where it says '...copy CTXXM.EXE firmware.....', ignore that. Instead copy the HD204UI.exe firmware you downloaded from Samsung to the same USB drive.

3. Shut down PC

4. Unplug all your hard drives except for the Samsung F4 HD204UI 2TB Hard disk.

5. Boot PC and go to your bios. Select IDE mode for your Hard Disk if you were on AHCI.

6. Select USB Drive as your first boot.

7. Save and reboot.

8. After DOS boots from the USB drive, type HD204UI

9. It will start to flash your hard disk with the new firmware. Wait until it says finished.

10. Shut down PC

11. Plug all your other hard drives back.

12. Change your bios settings back to what they were, eg. AHCI back on if it was on before, change first boot drive which was your OS drive.

The author of the thread this was in referred to the process as "quick and painless". Hmm...