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Build Advice

O

OCcsdude

n00b
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
8
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Primarily gaming, some web surfing, watch movies occasionally, some C++ programming, some word processing/ms office for work, some fooling around with image editing programs/3d modeling programs (gimp, blender, etc.)

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$5000 including monitor with tax and shipping. I am an enthusiast and really appreciate a high end gaming pc.

3) Where do you live?
Barracks room.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
I have just ordered a SILVERSTONE RV02W-EW case and it should arrive soon. I thought it was a beautiful case and plan on staying with air cooling for its simplicity. 3x180mm bottom intake fans and 1x120mm top exhaust fan with ability for 90 degree mobo placement seems like a great cooling system to me.

Here's what I have in mind to order:

HP ZR30w Black 30" Height &Swivel Adjustable Widescreen LCD
Saitek Cyborg V5 CCB44026N002/06/1 Black USB Wired Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G500 Wired Laser Gaming Mouse
XTRAC PADS Ripper Optical Mouse pad
LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Model iHOS104-06 - OEM
ASUS XONAR_XENSE 7.1 Channels PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card (comes paired with Sennheiser PC350 headphones/mic).
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Full

MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) LGA 1155
SAPPHIRE 100310SR Radeon HD 6990
CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W
Intel Core i7-2600K
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC
G.SKILL Ripjaws X + Turbulence II Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Not reusing anything.

6) Will you be overclocking?
I'm open to it if it will improve my gaming experience.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Listed above. HP ZR30w Black 30" Height &Swivel Adjustable Widescreen LCD.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
I plan on building it in about two weeks.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
I guess this is one of the reasons I'm here. I want to make sure all the parts I listed will work ok together. Do you think I would have any trouble getting a second video card for crossfire for this rig later on?

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Will be ordering a new copy of Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Full.

Any suggestions/advice you can give? I appreciate any help. I will probably post more details later.
 
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As it stands now, all of the parts that you're considering would work together, but they aren't the parts that we would normally recommend.

First, drop the RAM. Since you'll be overclocking using the processor's unlocked multiplier, you don't need to touch the RAM. Plus, the MSI board that you're considering has issues running RAM faster than DDR3 1333, which is all that you need bandwidth-wise for your system. Additionally, you can often grab four 4GB sticks or two 2x4GB sets for less than you would for one 4x4GB set.

I wouldn't recommend any OCZ SSD due to the company's history of quality issues and SandForce SSDs generally producing worse-than-advertised speeds. Go with Intel's new SSDs (310 and 510 series) or wait for Crucial's upcoming C400 series SSDs.

I have no problem with you grabbing the HD 6990, but go for XFX as it has a (double) lifetime warranty.

Please answer the following questions:

Where within the U.S. do you live in? Are you within driving distance of a Fry's or a Micro Center brick-and-mortar store?

Which games do you play? Plan on playing? At what level of visual quality?

How often do you program or use photo/3D editing programs in comparison to your gaming time?

Why Windows 7 Ultimate? Do you need the BitLocker drive encryption? Windows XP Mode? Support for 37 different languages? Do you plan on switching computers several times within the next three or four years?
 
Thank you for your input and the quick reply. My goal is to be able to play current and soon-to-be-released games at 2560x1600 with maxed out settings. The most I can fit is a 30" lcd with the space I have (multi-monitor setup not really an option for me).

Games I will be playing include Crysis, Metro 2033, Singularity, Bulletstorm, COD, Battlefield, Doom 3, and Source engine games-and of course some more I can't think of at the moment.

I will probably be ordering all the parts off of newegg though there is a best buy near me that has some decent stuff sometimes. I do plan on doing hardware upgrades in the future so I need a "full" version of Windows, though perhaps not Ultimate. Will I lose no performance/important features if I drop down to Premium? I definitely don't want to just throw away money-this is one of the reasons I'm posting here ;). I will definitely look into some different ram and a different SSD drive, and go with the XFX card rather than the Sapphire.

I rarely use 3d modeling programs and image editing programs at the moment, but I enjoy playing around with them and may seriously get into it at some point in the future. I program using Visual Studio C++ (free download) and have done a lot of 3d graphics programming in the past for fun (not hardware accelerated). I may pursue game development as a career. At this time I would be spending half my time gaming on the computer and the other half web surfing, taking care of office/word stuff for work, and messing around with game development-related stuff (spending roughly equal amounts of time with each for the near-future). I will be using Time Warner cable so I should have a pretty highspeed connection.

Once again, thanks for the help. Now to do some more research :). I will post back when I come up with some new parts.
 
OCcsdude said:
I will probably be ordering all the parts off of newegg though there is a best buy near me that has some decent stuff sometimes. I do plan on doing hardware upgrades in the future so I need a "full" version of Windows, though perhaps not Ultimate. Will I lose no performance/important features if I drop down to Premium? I definitely don't want to just throw away money-this is one of the reasons I'm posting here ;).
Click to expand...
No performance difference between Premium or Ultimate.

OCcsdude said:
I will definitely look into some different ram and a different SSD drive, and go with the XFX card rather than the Sapphire.
Click to expand...
I recommend getting this RAM:
$164 - 4 x G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

You won't notice an iota of difference between the above RAM and the RAM you chose outside of synthetic benchmarks.

OCcsdude said:
CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W
Click to expand...
With your budget and the kind of cash you're already spending, I recommend spending the extra cash for this higher quality Antec PSU:
$312 - Antec High Current Pro HCP-1200 1200W Modular PSU
 
Here's the updated list:
HP ZR30w Black 30" Height &Swivel Adjustable Widescreen LCD
Saitek Cyborg V5 CCB44026N002/06/1 Black USB Wired Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G500 Wired Laser Gaming Mouse
XTRAC PADS Ripper Optical Mouse pad
LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Model iHOS104-06 - OEM
ASUS XONAR_XENSE 7.1 Channels PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card (comes paired with Sennheiser PC350 headphones/mic).
Microsoft Windows 7 Premium Full

MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) LGA 1155
XFX Radeon HD 6990
Antec High Current Pro HCP-1200 1200W PSU
Intel Core i7-2600K
Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH250A2K5 2.5" 250GB SATA III MLC SSD
4xG.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

Does this look good to you guys? Anything you would change? Total price is ~$4500.
 
Danny Bui said:
No performance difference between Premium or Ultimate.
Click to expand...

The only potential issue there is if the OP wants to upgrade to more than 16GB any time in the near future. You see, Windows 7 Home Premium can run on a system equipped with more than 16GB of RAM but will only see 16GB of that RAM. So, if the OP wants to upgrade to more than the currently suggested 16GB anytime in the future, he would need Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate.
 
OCcsdude said:
Saitek Cyborg V5 CCB44026N002/06/1 Black USB Wired Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G500 Wired Laser Gaming Mouse
XTRAC PADS Ripper Optical Mouse pad
Click to expand...
If you can, get some hands on time with these hardware at your local electronics store. You may find that those parts don't fit you right.

Besides that, looks solid to me.

E4g1e said:
The only potential issue there is if the OP wants to upgrade to more than 16GB any time in the near future. You see, Windows 7 Home Premium can run on a system equipped with more than 16GB of RAM but will only see 16GB of that RAM. So, if the OP wants to upgrade to more than the currently suggested 16GB anytime in the future, he would need Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate.
Click to expand...

That is true.
 
Thank you very much for your help. I will consider biting the bullet and just going with Ultimate, though I doubt I will be getting more than 16gb of ram anytime soon...Windows 8 will probably be out by then haha. I'll let ya'll know when I've ordered my parts. Maybe I'll take some pics for ya'll when she's all put together eh :cool:.

Btw, would you recommend using arctic silver and removing the crappy tape-paste on the stock intel heatsink with nail-polish/alcohol? I'm not sure if this is worth the trouble. Also, I really hate load times for games so I would appreciate any advice/links you can provide regarding tweaking windows/hardware in this area. I'm going to be doing my own research but maybe some of you can provide some good pointers. Tweaktown is one site that comes to mind.
 
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