how's this build?

L

Leb_CRX

Gawd
Joined
Sep 25, 2003
Messages
567
how are the parts I've listed? is there something I can get around the same money that may give me better performance

I plan on ugrading to an SSD around xmas time.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
80% of the time, i will be doing photoshop, dreamweaver, and 20% gaming. I work from home and this will be my primary work PC.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
1200$ for cpu, board, video, ram

I am thinking of the following combo (canadian prices):

330$ - intel i7 920 @ 2.6
260$ - asus p6t
300$ - ati 5850
140$ - corsair XMS gold 6GB (3x2GB)

3) Where do you live?
Ottawa, Canada
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
cpu, board, ram, video
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
150GB raptor
2x500GB seagate drives in a raid0 config
600watt ocz power supply
lian-li case
dvd drive
6) Will you be overclocking?
not right away, but I do plan on getting it to 3.2 and leaving it there later when I upgrade the cooler
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
3 monitors, 2x22 LG's, 1x24 samsung, won't touch those
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ordering the parts monday
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
raid, and crossfire incase I do it later
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
yes, win7 corporate
 
I recommend NOT reusing your old OCZ power supply... but what is the model number?

Most OCZ RAM sets run at 1.65V, which is the limit set by Intel for the safe operation of its Core i7 processors. Try to find RAM that runs at 1.5V-1.6V, like G.Skill or Mushkin.
 
 
tiraides said:
I recommend NOT reusing your old OCZ power supply... but what is the model number?

Most OCZ RAM sets run at 1.65V, which is the limit set by Intel for the safe operation of its Core i7 processors. Try to find RAM that runs at 1.5V-1.6V, like G.Skill or Mushkin.
Click to expand...

out of curiosity why not reuse it? just the age factor?

it's the gamextreme...600watt
this one:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/produc...cz_gamexstream_power_supply-nvidia_sli_ready_

thanks for the info about the ram, I'll def keep that in mind when I place the order
 
gwarren007 said:
i7-
DDR3-1600 Gskill 139.49
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

Asus P6T SE $250
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131386

920 $310
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Radeon 5850 $300
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=45221&vpn=AMD-ATI-RADEON-5850-1GB&manufacture=NCIXPC

i5
i7-860/evga combo $499
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.266102

8gb Ram $179
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277

Radeon 5850 $300
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=45221&vpn=AMD-ATI-RADEON-5850-1GB&manufacture=NCIXPC


and a power supply for eithor combo
650tx $110
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
Click to expand...

hmm interesting...I am flip flopping on the 860 vs 920...part of me plans to OC, so the 920 will be faster, part of me says f'it, don't OC, keep it stable and get the 860

decisions, decisions...and thanks!
 
Leb_CRX said:
is it really that bad? all the reviews I read on it at the time of purchase were pretty decent

I'll see if I can squeeze a PSU in the budget if it's that bad
Click to expand...

It's based off the FSP Episilon PSU design which has out of spec ripple, or voltage fluctuations, at high loads that can damage or kill your system. Granted, you may not reach such high loads but why use a PSU that can kill your system?

The reviews you read were probably not real PSU reviews like the ones done by HardOCP or jonnyguru.com
 
Danny Bui said:
Leb_CRX said:
out of curiosity why not reuse it? just the age factor?

it's the gamextreme...600watt
this one:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/produc...cz_gamexstream_power_supply-nvidia_sli_ready_
Click to expand...
Nah, it's the crap factor.
Click to expand...

As Danny Bui explained earlier, it's both.

I recommend a different power supply from Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, Silverstone, or Enermax, with at least 40A on its combined 12V rails and 80 Plus certification. You don't really need more than 600 watts of power for your proposed upgrade, but there may be some deals on a few 650-750 watt power supplies that make them cheaper than some of the 600 watt models.
 
tiraides said:
Most OCZ RAM sets run at 1.65V, which is the limit set by Intel for the safe operation of its Core i7 processors. Try to find RAM that runs at 1.5V-1.6V, like G.Skill or Mushkin.
Click to expand...

Just want to mention that the OCZ Reapers DDR3 can not run 1.65V (not kidding).

So don't be surprise if they do not work with AM3 or Intel i5/i7 boards. I dunno why OCZ is not following the jedec standards or whatever for DDR3 but they need to get their Reaper series fix.
 
ok cool, thanks everyone!!

so I'll add a new PSU to the list, one of the ones mentioned above :D
and replace the ram with the gskill ram
 
Since its mainly a workstation, go for only a modest OC, like 4Ghz. Get the config with the most RAM you can afford, and use Superspeed RAMDisk for your PS scratch disk.

I'd also suggest selling your Raptor and possibly those seagates if they're older than the 12th gen 'cudas. What model are they? In any case, the newer 500GB-platter drives are nearly as fast as that aging raptor, so I'd suggest some new cudas 7200.12 or Samsung F3 drives, if you can afford them.

Joe Average said:
... I built a RAID 0 box for a small image studio 2 weeks ago, a new startup here in Vegas that is making waves. They wanted a "demo" workstation to see what's possible for processing as they don't want to create a massive server-type situation in the office, but 3-4 workstations that are equal in performance and then just using simple file sharing as required. Very simple setup in terms of the network, but the workstation I built used 2 300GB Velociraptors (tried to sell 'em on SSD but the amount of data they're dealing with wouldn't be practical - again, a price-to-performance and ROI issue).

The hard part was getting them to spring for 16GB of RAM because of the cost, but a few weeks ago I saw that sale for 4 4GB sticks of RAM for about $450 and made a few phone calls and snagged a similar deal.

I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em. ;)

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top