Been a few years....

M

Moose777

2[H]4U
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Oct 10, 2004
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Its been several years since I've built my last rig.

Its now time to build a new one. Problem is, I've kind of been out of what is relevant. Is SLI still relevant?

Its going to be strictly for gaming. So, what motherboard does everyone suggest?

I'd like to stick with an AMD proc; I've also used a lot of ASUS MoBos in the past so what does ASUS have to offer these days?

As for cases, I have no need for one. I'll not be building my new rig to be confined to any one case. The Mobo will be mounted to a wall. The HDDs hidden away somewhere. The PSU will be mounted to a desk. I'm still hashing out the details on that and wanted to establish a Mobo and a processor. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

once I have a MoBo nailed down, I'll post a thread about video cards, then processors.
 
I don't recommend running your computer outside a case. Last person I know who decided they were above cases fried their several thousand dollar system in less than a week.

It all really depends on your budget..

Anyway, if you've got the money (about $800 or $900 for a full system but not including OS or other peripherals) you can get i7 on an X58 chipset. Most X58 boards support both SLI and Crossfire. i7 is in a class of its own.

Otherwise a 790FX or 790GX (cheaper) chipset and a Phenom II would be a good option. DFI is a great one to go with if you plan on overclocking. These don't support SLI but you'd most likely be perfectly fine with a single strong card anyway.

You could get advice about building a new system all at once in the General Hardware Forum. That seems to be where most everyone posts their new build questions.
 
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I was merely thinking of no case because I've been running my internet surfing rig without one for several years now. But then again, the most it sees is YouTube videos and old GI Joe cartoons.

I may just end up recycling my current case or buying an acrylic case. Like I said, the whole mounting it to a wall thing was still being hashed out.

As for money, I should have around $2500 to spend on building a new computer. I'll check into those Mobos and procs you mentioned too, Thanks.
 
I'm open to go back to Intel. In fact I'm looking at the i7 stuff now.

I'm looking at the Asus P6T7 WS Supercomputer MoBo and the Intel i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem.
 
Moose777 said:
I'm open to go back to Intel. In fact I'm looking at the i7 stuff now.

I'm looking at the Asus P6T7 WS Supercomputer MoBo and the Intel i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem.
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The P6T7 board is really useless for most people and provides no benefits for gaming. Here are a few of what I would consider top of the line X58 boards:
ASUS Rampage II Extreme
eVGA X58 SLI Classified
Gigabyte GA-X58-Extreme
ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution

As for the CPU, going with the 965 is an unnecessary expense. It would be much more economical to buy a 920 and overclock it. I know that you have a pretty big budget for this rig, but there's no sense in wasting money, and you can take what you save and invest it into something like GTX285s in Tri-SLI or a RAID0 SSD setup, both of which would give you much more of an advantage for gaming.
 
I wouldn't consider most of those boards just because it's totally not worth the money.. Spending $400+ on the board is pointless unless someone just wants bragging rights. Seems an incorrect association between "highest priced boards I can find" and "best".

Asus P6T Deluxe
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
or EVGA E758-A1

In that order. It would make more sense to get the higher end CPU than pay that much for the board, although I don't think either is a good use of money. I also wonder what would NEED GTX 285 TRI-SLI. At some point you're just adding power that won't be noticed. More bragging rights it would seem.. I'd start with one strong GPU and if more is needed then by all means add on. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130484 (Only $15 more for the factory overclocked edition, so why not)

I'd also just stick with the i7 920. The 950 is more than twice the price of the 920 and most certainly not twice the performance. The 965 is like 3.5x. You obviously have the money, but as far as value it's pretty poor.
 
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Well the benchmarks I've seen have either not been needed or not benefited from more than two cards in SLI at that resolution.. Like Crysis gets a bump up but once you hit that res there's pretty well no difference: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-285-review--3way-sli/17 All the other games reviewed have perfectly good FPS on GTX 285 SLI

A 2560x1600 screen is gonna run them a $1000 or prob more.. Cheapest one I know of is about $1100. It's prob doable but would run the budget tight on 2 285 SLI none the less 3. I mean that's like $2200 on the GPUs and monitor alone. It won't leave enough for the rest of the build.
 
angelicvoices said:
Well the benchmarks I've seen have either not been needed or not benefited from more than two cards in SLI at that resolution.. Like Crysis gets a bump up but once you hit that res there's pretty well no difference: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-285-review--3way-sli/17 All the other games reviewed have perfectly good FPS on GTX 285 SLI
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That review tested with in-game options set to Gamer and only 2X AA. Hardly maximum settings. It's true that with most games you definitely get into the area of diminishing returns with tri-SLI, but I'm just suggesting the best hardware he can get within his budget.
 
It's not in his budget. He can't afford to put $2200 in just the screen and GPUs. $300 just isn't going to buy the rest of it. I still stand that even if it was he shouldn't outright buy that many GTX 285s until he detrmines he really needs it. $1000 is a ton of money just to spend on graphics.
 
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