Building completely new system

[BriSleep]

Ok, this was my original post as my first suggestion I'm coming here to help clear things up and get this going. Thanks much to Danny Bui.

Hey all,
Been a while since I posted anything on any of these boards, if my sig line still holds up you should see how old my system is. Now I'm coming into a big deal of funds and want to built a super machine that will hold me for some tim. I'm posting here because I think the right mobo is where to get started.
So, I want SLI, or at least the option for it, maybe the dual core Nvidia card, what the 295? I only want 2 channel sound, to connect to a pair of Sound Blaster T40 speakers, this being a desktop system I don't see the need for 7.1 surround. I couldn't use it anyway without my family and neighbors complaining. Can someone help guide me through this selection on build trip.
The wife says, oh, just buy a Digital Storm for $2700- but I think I can build better for the same price. I can, right?
So, for mobo, my thought was an Asus X58 P6Tse, or would a P6t Deluxe V2 be better. I've never done water cooling but think this would be the build do jump into the pool on it. No?
I'm open for help and discussion. Please put in your 2 cents and if you have an opinion please spell out the merits of your suggestion. Other than reading MaximumPC and PC World, I'm pretty much out in the cold on this and where to start, what to do next etc.
TIA,
Brian


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
A: Gaming, some Photoshop, lots of web browsing. Maybe online gaming but I'm not sure about that because I haven't done so since Descent 3 and I'm not to familiar with games that are out now and how much online gaming costs, if it does or even if there may be some local Lans that I could get into.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
A: Pretty damn high. I showed my wife a system from Digital Storm for over $3000- and she said that looks good. So, a minimum of $1500- a max of maybe 4 or 5 grand, this must include adding wi-fi and supporting a Laptop that has yet to be purchased.

3) Where do you live?
A: Sparks Nevada. Reno is so close to Hell you can see Sparks. So yeah, right next to Reno.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
A: Almost everything, Case, Mobo, RAM, power supply, video card(s), sound card, Network card or built in, wi-fi router, fans, cooling system {hoping to do water cooling}, DVD drives but probably not Blu-ray, haven't decided on that yet. Hard drive or 2. Quad or hex core processor, hopefully at least 3.0Ghz

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
A: I might re-use a seagate 500GB drive that I just bought. I will have Windows 7 Pro Upgrade as of tomorrow.

6) Will you be overclocking?
A: That depends on if it's safe, it's been 3-5 years since I built the system I have now and it may be that long before I improve on the new one, so I'm more concerned with making it all last than overclocking but I'm very tempted to OC it just a smidge.

7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have?
A: I have a 19" Samsung 930b but would like something in a 24" wide screen. Maybe a viewsonic?

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
A: As soon as I figure out what all is going into it. Anytime from the first of Nov to feb of next year.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
A: I don't think I need RAID, but it might be a good idea to have it to use as a continuous backup, if it doesn't add a lot to the cost, I would consider it. Don't need firewire, don't like Crossfire but SLI is defenitly an idea.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
A: I'm using WinXP right now but it will stay with this machine. I'm picking up Win7 Pro upgrade tomorrow so I guess the answer to that would be yes.

 

[uviuar2]

With a virtually unlimited pc budget going as far as water cooling I would recommend you just copy one of ocp's or tom's or anyone's "enthusiast" builds. Hell, just rip off the build order for that Storm pc and put it together yourself.

Regardless the only thing I really wanted to comment on was the whole SLI video thing. Since you're going to end up with a doozy of a processor, I say forget SLI, and sink all your money into the single best GPU you can buy. While games are finally starting to make legitimate use of sli, the money you spend into purchasing 2 of the same card could be better spent purchasing 1 upgraded card. A single GTX 295 performs better than two 250's. And once your single gpu is tapped and you need an upgrade, the market will be flooded with DX11 cards and such that you wont want 2 of an older generation, but rather uprade to something current gen all over again.

 

[stateofjermaine]

I'm sure some of the heavy-hitters will be in here soon with good build options. In the meantime, the one thing I might suggest is that you check out some reviews for the ATI 5870 ([H], ATech, PCPer) graphics card. I don't know if you like ATI much, but it is a single-GPU card, it's ATI's newest technology, and it performs very well against the GTX 295. A lot of users here will probably tell you that the 295 (or NVIDIA in general) is not a very good value right now, but it is still the fastest card, in terms of fps.

For what it's worth, I have read a lot of posts here about the 5870 playing much more "smoothly" than dual-GPU cards like the 295 and the 4870 X2. You might consider a CF or SLI setup, but scaling seems to be a little bit out of whack with either option. There is the chance that 5870 drivers might improve, of course, and it's your money!

Other than that, I'm sure the users here will be able to give you better information about other components. Good luck!

 

[tiraides]

First off, a decent Core i7 (or a P55-based Core i5/i7) build, minus monitor or peripherals, is easily attainable within a $1500 budget. Here is one such example (from NewEgg, with the GTX 295 included, but not the OS, HDD, or other peripherals):

$495 - Intel Core i7 920* & Asus P6T X58 ATX motherboard combo deal
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 120mm CPU cooler
$135 - G.Skill 3x2GB DDR3 1600 RAM tri-channel kit
$480 - XFX GeForce GTX 295 dual-GPU DirectX 10 PCI-E 2.0 video card*
$29 - Samsung SH-S223B SATA DVD burner
$70 - Cooler Master Centurion 690 ATX mid-tower case
$18 - Two Scythe Slipstream 120mm medium-speed case fans (at $9 each)
$105 - Antec TruePower New TP-750 Blue 750W PSU*
=====
$1362 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates

Items with an asterisk (*) denote those with free ground shipping.

You don't necessarily need multi-card SLI or CrossFire setup for even a 1920x1200 resolution. Unless you're trying to squeeze as much performance from Crysis (at that resolution) as possible, the new Radeon HD5870, by itself, would be more than enough.

Speaking of which, the new Radeon HD 5-series video cards currently are the better option. At this moment, however, they are out of stock at most stores, but the HD4890 performs just as well as the Nvidia GTX 275 (and nearly as well as the GTX 285) for a bit less. Considering how long it took DirectX 10 to become a "necessity," I wouldn't worry too much about "needing" a DirectX 11 card this year. If you really want a GTX 295, try to find a used one first, as it will be considerably cheaper than buying a new one that could be outperformed by a newer, better, (or even) cheaper card by this time next year.

If you're going to pursue water cooling -- which I know little about, so I can't help you there -- you can easily push the "entry level" Core i7 920 to speeds beyond 3GHz. In fact, in many cases, you can push the Core i7 920 to around 3.6GHz under good air cooling and it will outperform any Intel Core 2 or AMD Phenom II processor at similar speeds. Asus, Gigabyte, and EVGA make good midrange and high-end motherboards that will allow for a good overclocking session. A majority of the X58 (and several of the Socket 1156 P55) motherboards support both SLI and CrossFire. And onboard sound has progressed to the point -- with built-in HD audio and digital out connections -- that it's good enough for most users.

The only thing that could improve the performance of the above setup would be the use of flash memory SSDs:

If you want more details on the tech behind an SSD, read the Anandtech SSD Anthology.

[Anandtech] The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ
[Anandtech] The SSD Update: Vertex Gets Faster, New Indilinx Drives and Intel/MacBook Problems Resolved
[Anandtech] The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
[Hard|OCP] SSD RAID scaling under Windows 7

Personally, I went from a 'cuda.10 to a Raptor150 and did not think the performance difference was worth the price premium and space sacrifice. Then I went from a caviar.black640 to a VRaptor300 and again, did not think the performance difference was worth the price premium and space sacrifice. Next I went from a VRaptor300 to an OCZ Vertex 30GB, and yet again, was underwhelmed. Then I picked up a 2nd Vertex 30GB and threw them in RAID0... WOW... I must say, the performance difference is VERY noticeable, but again, the price was pretty steep ($180 total AR in June). Regardless, it was a much bigger performance improvement than any of the Raptors ever were, for even less money than the raptors cost.

I believe the single Vertex was underwhelming because of the slow small random write speeds. As you can see from many tests online, these speeds increase greatly when in RAID0. Since RAID0 is simply striping data across two difference drives, there really isn't any major processing being done, so onboard RAID0 works perfectly fine for up to 650MB/s (around 3 vertex 120GB drives). Here are my screenshots:
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/ocz_vertex.html

As you'll learn from those anandtech articles, the TorqX has a 10yr warranty, and the garbage collection on the most recent firmware is good enough to maintain proper speeds while TRIM support is being worked on.

The Intel X25-M SSDs have fast small random write speeds, but have slower sequential speeds. Conversely, the Indilinx based drives have faster sequential speeds, but slower small random write speeds. When you RAID0 the Indilinx drives, the small random write speeds increase to the levels of the Intel X25-M. For single SSD usage, the Intel is a better choice because of this. One thing to note is that the Indilinx based drives are still faster than mechanical drives, so even in a single drive config, it's still a fast solution (great for laptops/netbooks).

 

[stateofjermaine]

FYI, enginurd and tiraides . . . both heavy-hitters.

 

[BriSleep]

Thanks all, I must just say though that I am surprised that no one suggests I get something like an Extreme Edition proc. I've read a bunch of stuff in which people say that the i7-920 is sufficient if not best and you've backed it up here. So, is it the opinion of you folks that spending major cash on a system is a waste when one around $1500- will work just fine? Also, that this plan makes it so there's money saved for when new tech comes out?

 

[Anchen]

A $1500 build definitely can do fine at 1920x1200 (or 1920 x 1080) for a 24" monitor which was your target monitor. You can definitely get better performance by spending more, you will just run into diminishing returns. As mentioned, one area you can get some really definite faster feeling performance is ssd's and possibly Raid-0 for performance. If you are a serious gamer or just want the best possible experience gaming then adding a second video card for sli/crossfire is also quite good. Depending on how extensive your photoshop use is and how you use it, ram is generally the most efficient thing to get more of. Of the available options, unless you are a hard core video encoder (or some other app that heavily uses cpu speed and threads) then the 920 is a fine option. With overclocking it is generally hard to recommend a 975EE or whatever from a price/performance perspective. Yes it is a better chip generally but at 500+ more well it doesn't give much return. Most i5/i7 motherboards support both sli and crossfire also which is different than in the past.

 

[stateofjermaine]

Yeah, for some reason $1500 or so seems to be the sweet spot for building high-end gaming rigs right now. And the i7-920 has definitely been the processor of choice (increasingly the i7-860) because it overclocks so well. Even in $2000+ setups, you will usually still see the 920.

 

[engiNURD]

Wait as long as you can, buy/build when you can't wait any longer. If the prices of the parts you want don't go down, there will probably be newer/better parts at the same price points, depending on how long you wait.

Intel Expensive Editions have the worst bang for buck. With such OC friendly CPUs, the unlocked multiplier and higher bandwidth QPI aren't worth their price premium over mainstream parts.

GPUs are the fastest depreciating component in a gaming PC (or maybe now its SSDs? lol). With that said, buy a card that fits your needs now, not for the distant future. ATI/NVIDIA tend to refresh GPUs every 8 - 12 months.

Intel is on a tick/tock cycle where they release new microarchitecture every two years, and inbetween those years are die shrinks of the current marchitecture.

SSDs and mechanical HDDs just keep getting bigger and faster. New standards/technologies are always being worked on (USB3, SATA600, LightPeak, etc). Everything is getting more power efficient. With the speed of development these days, you'll get better performance by spending less now and upgrading more often than you would from spending more now and upgrading less often -- unless, of course, $2-5k is negligible to you.

Water cooling isn't worth it, IMO, unless you reeaally have a passion for hardware and cooling. You can actually attain 4Ghz easily on the D0 stepping of the i7 920 (latest version).

With such a healthy budget, I agree with tiraides build along with one or two Intel SSDs and one or two Samsung F3 or Seagate 7200.12 1TB data drives (if you need performance; if not, then get the green or 5400rpm drives).