• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

New system build. Could use input.

A

Agrajag

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 3, 2008
Messages
92
Guys,

Been a while since I've bothered upgrading my PC. The current system has been rock-solid and is now running on Windows 7 64-bit as will the new setup. The idea with the new one is that, while I'm a gamer I'm now 46 so I'm not all that concerned as I was about getting every ounce of performance. I want a rock-solid setup that can play just about anything decently but that also has a nice bang-for-the-buck.

What I'm considering is the following:

-Intel BOXDP55SB LGA 1156 Intel P55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
The current system is an Intel D975XBX2 which is just amazing and every other manufacturer I'm reading about has had scary negatives. If you've never owned an Intel board you've missed out. They're so well documented and laid out. The other guys tend to have some nifty features that I tend not to bother with. Overclocking isn't a concern. After years with Asus, Gigabyte, ABit and others this was a wonderful change of pace.

-Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93GHz LGA 1156 95W
The price is right.

-CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
The price is right for this and I'm at 4GB on the current setup with no issues. Thinking about 8GB but the price doesn't scale well. The note on the MB is that 1.6x voltage is critical and this RAM is noted to work well with the board. It's 8-8-8-24.

-Two WD3000HLFS 300GB Velociraptor's. I've never bothered with them before but my 15 year-old has one on my OLDER rig and often gets into Company of Heroes maps before I do and the only better part is his drive.

-SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Yeah, I know. First, I've had top-of-the-line Nvidia cards and always preferred ATI to them. 3 of my Nvidia cards killed themselves in under a year. I've only had a problem with one ATI card ever. Plus after spending for the top-of-the-line ATI cards my current rig has a 4770 and the specs have been great. I get 90% of the performance of the top end cards at 1/4 the price. I also have the option of cheaply going Crossfire. With the X7XX series it doesn't seem to matter which manufacturer you go with either and the current one is a Sapphire so.....

-Rosewill RCX-ZAIO-92 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler
Rosewill is cooling both my systems and they're inexpensive and effective. No overclocking anymore. Those days are behind me so I don't need anything elaborate.

That's it. Any input would be greatly appreciated. This is all going into an Antec P180 with one of their 1200 watt supplies that is running the current rig. Total cost for all of this is under $1,100 which is right where I'd like to be cost-wise. I can handle some slight increases.
 
Last edited:
This build looks pretty solid to me. My only suggestion would be switching to a Solid State Drive instead of the Velociraptors for increased performance, but you'll lose quite a bit of storage by doing so. Of course, you could get the SSD now, and then wait for a good price on something like a WD 1TB Black Edition or something.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226151

But overall, a sound build. I think you'll be happy with it.
 
please answer these questions
Click to expand...

I understand the need to cover these but I covered nearly all of them in my original post. Those not covered below:

3) Where do you live?

New Jersey

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

It's a 24" monitor (HP w2408h) at 1920x1200.
 
mhenley said:
This build looks pretty solid to me. My only suggestion would be switching to a Solid State Drive instead of the Velociraptors for increased performance, but you'll lose quite a bit of storage by doing so. Of course, you could get the SSD now, and then wait for a good price on something like a WD 1TB Black Edition or something.
Click to expand...

I'm a partitioner. I run 3 drives now with 4 drive letters. C: is pretty much Windows and docs. D: is all games (drive 1). E: is all my various utilities and their data (drive 2) F: Is my oldest drive (non-SATA) and holds all my FLAC audio files (many thousands) and photos. This drive will be replaced by one of the SATA drives that the Velociraptors replace.

I'd think about an SSD drive but at 60GB I guess about the only thing that could be on it is Windows 7 and that seems a bit tight. No?
 
greatly... but i am leaving work now. I am sure danny will be along with suggestion.
 
You can get the Core i7 860 for $220 from Microcenter. Definitely a better buy than the Core i7 870.

Don't bother with the Corsair Dominator RAM. You won't notice an iota of real world performance difference between that Corsair Dominator RAM and this G.Skill set:
$82 - G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM

No, timings don't really matter and the higher speed doesn't do anything either. Those two factors would only be important in selecting RAM if you're overclocking. Since you're not, no reason to get the Dominators.

Don't bother with the Velociraptor drives. Those drives rarely get recommended anymore since there are many 7200RPM drives out there that provide 90% of the performance but at 30% to 50% of the costs. So I recommend these drives instead:
$56 - Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$75 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

However, a setup becoming more and more common these days is to pair a SSD and a hard drive together. The SSD holds the OS and critical apps while the hard drive holds all the game installs and other data. I recommend this SSD:
$225 - Intel SSDSA2MH080G2R5 2.5" 80GB SSD
 
Danny, thanks for the great info.

One possible concern is power (in case of heat and system load). The one thought on the 870 was that it's just a 95w CPU. Should I care?

On the RAM given the other savings should I go with 8GB instead of the 4? The 8GB from G.Skill is still very cost-effective.

On storage, the two Velociraptors are just $280 right now and space isn't an issue. The SSD sounds awesome but two concerns. First, the combo of the SSD and the 500GB drive is about the same price but 80GB seems really tight for the OS and key files. Second, write times of 70mbps seems pretty slow. Is it that much faster than a Velociraptor? I've got lots of room on my E: partition so it could easily take the files I store on C: now that aren't the OS (LOTS of downloaded files, etc.)
 
Nah, no need to care.

For just a gaming setup, 4GB of RAM is all that you need. If you're the type to do extenive multi-tasking with multiple instances of apps open at the same time and such, go for the 8GB of RAM. Otherwise, save your money.

80GB is more than enough for the OS and key files. And by key files, I mean non-game installs. As for the write times, yes it is lower than the Velociraptor. However, the key thing you have to note is that the Intel has the far greater random read/write performance and that what makes up a good majority of OS usage. The low write speed is more than made for by the random reaad/write speeds.
 
I'm amazed that Microcenter offers ANYTHING at a decent price. I'd written them off years ago as incredibly overpriced.

I'll be picking up that processor tomorrow.
 
Agrajag said:
I'm amazed that Microcenter offers ANYTHING at a decent price. I'd written them off years ago as incredibly overpriced.

I'll be picking up that processor tomorrow.
Click to expand...

They're using an old business tactic: They're more than likely losing money on the sale of every Core i7 860 or Core i7 930. However, they're counting on the fact that once people enter the store, they're gonna end up buying other parts, parts that are somewhat high priced. Apparently it's working very well considering that MC has been using the same tactic for past 3 years.
 
Yeah, I'd have to agree. The oddity for me is that selling a processor means you're likely selling to a system builder like us and we're going to know our pricing. Seems a bit curious is all but if it's working then more power to them and thanks for the great find.
 
Agrajag said:
Yeah, I'd have to agree. The oddity for me is that selling a processor means you're likely selling to a system builder like us and we're going to know our pricing. Seems a bit curious is all but if it's working then more power to them and thanks for the great find.
Click to expand...

Well you also have to factor in the fact that people, regardless of pricing knowledge level, are prone to impulse buys :). Especially when surrounded by tons of hardware. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top