Approve This Build

G

GeForceX

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 19, 2003
Messages
4,172
Hi guys!

Building a PC for a friend. I compiled this list and I had a difficult time choosing between alternatives, especially the motherboard part. My concern is - there's no space left for a wifi network card and sound card on the motherboard once he installs SLI video cards. Here is the list!

PSU Corsair 750W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
CPU Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
MOBO EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024
RAM GSkill 4GB pc2 6400 (2gbx2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122
HDD WD Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS in RAID http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
DRIVES LITEON 20X http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106073
CASE Antec Twelve Black ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043
VIDEO (2X) EVGA 8800GT in SLI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130318
SOUND Razer Barracuda AC-1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829153003

Thanks!
 
What size monitor does your friend have? Hopefully a 24" or bigger since that's the when SLI is truly worth the added costs and hassle.

Drop the sound card and try out the onboard sound. Onboard sound has improved a lot in the past few years. Unless your friend is a huge audiophile and have a decent speaker setup, don't bother with a sound card.

Also, you can get that PSU for cheaper here:
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU - $105

And finally, your friend chose that case, correct? I mean it is his PC and all. At the very least he should be able to pick his own case.

Some questions:
- Will he be overclocking?
- What is he planning on doing with this new PC?
 
I agree with Danny's suggestions. If he needs SLI, go with a 750i SLI FTW board instead. If he doesn't need SLI, don't bother with an nForce board. Intel chipsets are more stable/reliable cuz they run cooler. So, if he has a 22" or smaller monitor, drop to a P35 board instead, like the MSI P35 Neo2-FR.

Please answer Danny's questions.
 
Thank you, Danny Bui and enginurd. I know you guys have helped others when it comes to stuff like this. This is certainly nothing new to you but it's great help for individuals. :) Keep it up.

Answering your question - he's getting a BenQ 24" inch LCD which is exactly why I compiled this build. If he didn't get a 24" incher, I wouldn't even recommend SLI.

My friend is relatively conscious / paranoid about sound. I knew about onboard sound being good but he's not budging. I can always try to convince him. The problem is that IF he wants the sound card (and a wireless network card), there will be no room to fit into the 750i FTW. That's the biggest negative with that board. That's why I switched over to 780i hoping for the best. What do I do about this?

Regarding SLI, my friend is paranoid about the video card choices. As you guys probably know, there are tons and tons of different video cards to choose from when they all share a similar name such as 8800GT. He wants to go for Akimbo's (EVGA's video card cooler + overclocked). I told him that the regular EVGA 8800GT's would be more than enough but he's still willing to look for the "best video card for the money". I thought the EVGA 8800GT's were just fine. What do you guys think?

PSU noted. Thanks.

-He chose that case. :)
-He will not overclock.
-He's going to use this computer mainly for gaming and video editing. Playing on his 24" BenQ should be nice. And other typical things include word processing, web surfing, setting up a file server, etc.

I would like to take advantage of my opportunity here to ask another question - RAID-related. Since he's going to get two of the hard drives (WD 640GB), is it feasible to set up RAID in 1 or 0 or 1+0? My concern is for him to get the best performance of the drives.

Once again, thank you. ;)
 
No room on an evga 750i SLI FTW for a sound card? You have one PCI and one PCI-E x1 slot for a sound card even with dual slot GPU's in SLI .
 
What kind of video applications is he using? Doing much encoding? This is one area where quad core CPUs really shine, especially if you're not going to overclock. Unless money is an issue I think you have to look at quads if the apps he using support it. I use TMPGEnc 4 xpress a lot and it makes full use of quad core CPU's.
 
heatlesssun, when I saw the pictures of the EVGA 750i FTW, it didn't seem to me that there were much room. I'm not sure if it would fit both the wireless network and sound card.

To be honest, he's new to video editing. He would use Adobe Premiere and After Effects to make gaming videos and some flash program for making his own site. We've agreed that Core 2 Duo would be a match for him considering 95% of any given time, he'd be gaming anyway.

Thanks.
 
heatlessun is right, there is plenty of room for a sound card and wifi card with two 8800GT in SLI. The 8800GT is a single slot card so you can use the PCI slots in between the PCI-Ex16 connections. You can always use a USB wifi adapter for wireless access and there are wireless and sound cards that uses the PCI-Ex1 interface right above top PCI-Ex16 slot on the 750i FTW.

It is feasible to setup up a RAID0 or RAID 1 with those two drives. If your friend to have max performance, put the drives in RAID 0. Do note, however, that if one drive dies, your friend loses all his data. The safest option would be to avoid RAID altogether IMO.
 
You've got two slots free to use so one for the wifi and one for the sound card. If I may ask, why does he want a wifi card for a desktop? Lan parties are something? If its becasue he doesn't have a wired jack near where is is going to have his PC, there's the option of an electric outlet network jack. I've got a couple and they work great.

If gaming is the main use, then sure the E8400 is just fine for now. Not trying to second guess you, just offering some ideas!:)
 
DannyBui, We're going to avoid RAID this time. He has a 320 GB HD he could use as back up.

What about dual slot video cards such as this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325

He is seriously considering this. That means there will be no room for a sound card down in the road. So how does one go about this?

Heatlesssun, he has a wireless-installed house. He has no wired connection. Basically every desktop PC has a wireless adapter. It's unique, I know. :p

Thanks!

Here's the wish list: https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersio...ishListNumber=9422068&WishListTitle=Norb's+PC

Jeff

Edit: He told me he has a $2500 dollars budget including a monitor. So, I suppose he could go all out. What do you guys think I could improve on that list? Think $2500, that's a lot. :) Maybe change the video card to something better?
 
GeForceX said:
What about dual slot video cards such as this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325

He is seriously considering this. That means there will be no room for a sound card down in the road. So how does one go about this?
Click to expand...

As I have said already:
Danny Bui said:
You can always use a USB wifi adapter for wireless access and there are wireless and sound cards that uses the PCI-Ex1 interface right above top PCI-Ex16 slot on the 750i FTW.
Click to expand...

So just use a PCI-E x1 sound card. Simple as that:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=57&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

There really aren't that much parts you can get that'll provide a good price to performance ratio. The 8800GT and 8800GTS 512MB are the best bang for your buck cards out there. The 9800GTX isn't that much better than the GTS G92. Neither is the 9800GX2 worth it's costs.

RAM wise, unless he's planning on doing a ton of video editing, encoding, etc, 4GB of RAM is enough. CPU wise, again if he's doing a ton of video editing, encoding, etc, the E8400 is a good choice.

So in other words, there's really not much more you can improve without increasing diminishing returns.
 
GeForceX said:
Since he's going to get two of the hard drives (WD 640GB), is it feasible to set up RAID in 1 or 0 or 1+0? My concern is for him to get the best performance of the drives.
Click to expand...
I took a chance and set up my current system to use my two HDD's in RAID 0 and it is working well so far. If you can fit 2 more HDD's into the budget, then RAID 1+0 would give you the performance benefits of RAID 0 and the redundancy (real-time backup) of RAID 1. Video editing would benefit from faster HDD access and should make the computer faster in many appliactions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top