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Comments on proposed new system

S

SGTFury

n00b
Joined
Aug 17, 2004
Messages
51
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel i7 920 Nehalem Socket 1366 279.99
(2.66GHzx4 4x256MB L2, 8MB L3 Cache)
Cooling Vigor Monsoon III LT for Socket 1366 55.40
Video Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB (After $20 Rebate) 199.99
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX (after $15 rebate) 184.99
Memory mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 998691 - Retail 189.99
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives - OEM 94.99
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives - OEM 94.99
Optical Drive LG BD/HD DVD / 16x DVD+/- RW GGC-H20LK 99.00
Case Thermaltake Spedo V190001N2Z Black Full Tower 169.99
Power Supply Silverstone ST70F 700W SLI/CrossFire 80 Plus Modular (after $25 Rebate) 104.99
Base System Total 1,474.32
Display ASUS VW266H Black 25.5" 2ms(GTG) HDMI WUXGA LCD Monitor (1920x1200) (after $30 Rebate) 299.99
Operating System Microsoft Vista Home Premium OEM 99.00
Complete System Bottom Line 1,873.31


Going to run the hard drives in Raid configuration. Not sure about the memory. Too much? Too little? Just right?

Also, better to run a Radeon 4890 or run two 4870's in Crossfire?
 
The only things I would say are that you can get RAM for a lot cheaper than that and that Seagate's 1.5TB drive is only slightly more expensive than that 1TB drive and has very good performance considering its size. Unless that's a particularly special drive for one reason or another, I'd suggest two 1.5TBs instead.

eBuyer (UK) sells OCZ 2x3GB triple channel RAM that is rated at both 1800MHz with 9-9-9-28 timings and 1600MHz with 8-8-8-24 timings for £75 so I have no idea why the one you have listed is $189 unless it is vastly overpriced because of some tiny timings boost? I doubt you would see any performance difference at all considering how fast DDR3 is in the first place and for an extra ~$100 I wonder how you justify it? (not having a go, legitimate question)
 
I do a lot of multitasking, mostly in Linux, compiling kernels, running graphics programs, Open Office, lots of stuff open at once. In Windows pretty much all I do is online gaming. The Bioshock demo brought my current rig to its knees. I'd like to be able to run COD 5, Bioshock, stuff like that at max eyecandy.
 
Go with the UD4P over the UD3P. The difference between the UD3P and the UD4P is much bigger than the difference between the UD4P and the UD5P/R (I forget).

Memory should be fine. I run vista and Ubuntu 8.10 on a VM with LAMP and I can run an entire extra VM along with a game no problem. Mind you the system's overclocked, so don't expect too much. I built a system for a friend based around UD4P and core i7 920. He was kind of disappointed until he overclocked it. So, you might want to spend a little more on the heatsink and go with a thermalright or a Noctua U12whatever it is, or maybe even go water, to get the most out of your CPU.
 
I don't really know of that particular cooler, but he shouldn't have to spend much more than $60-65 for a top notch air cooler... Which should be good for a decent OC, just won't get an extreme one. You can definitely get good memory (G.Skill, OCZ, Corsiar) much cheaper than that though. A 4890 will be fine at your display's resolution, 4870's in CF would obviously be faster but also much more expensive (and quite possibly unnecessary depending on the games you're interested in).
 
The only things I would say are that you can get RAM for a lot cheaper than that and that Seagate's 1.5TB drive is only slightly more expensive than that 1TB drive and has very good performance considering its size. Unless that's a particularly special drive for one reason or another, I'd suggest two 1.5TBs instead.
Click to expand...

Couple of things here - I checked the Seagate 1.5 on Newegg - it got rather poor user reviews, sounds like it is plagued with issues.

Secondly, on the WD drives in the reviews section there is a post from WD saying that these are not RAID class drives and they can't guarantee results using them in a RAID config. Anyone have any experience with that?

And yes, I think I can find much cheaper ram. Ram is always a crapshoot it seems. Not sure if I should go over 1600 or if 1600 is plenty. Comments there?

Also, I'm getting the idea that one 4890 is plenty for now. And I could always buy another one in the future when the prices come down.

Wasn't planning on watercooling this rig, at least not right away. I may later on though. I WC my current setup and had a lot of fun putting that project together.

Thanks for the comments, they are helpful.

And oh yeah, one more thing ... before I pull the trigger on this i7 920, there isn't going to be something much better coming out in three months or something is there?? :)
 
Cheaper RAM really shouldn't be inferior quality, if you were alluding to that at all, you should be able to find a much cheaper 1600 kit even... RAM prices fluctuate a lot, sometimes a certain kit's price is simply not adjusted while all other prices are, etc. There's better bang-for-buck choices out there is all.

WD makes a certain line of drives that are certified for RAID I believe (they mix the batches so you don't get two from the same one, longer warranty, etc.), so that's probably why they have the warning on that line, I wouldn't pay it any attention. One of the latest line of drives from Seagate did have a minor firmware issue that affected a small % of users, but it wasn't limited to one size of drives, I believe they've since corrected it and it wasn't present in their last line at all (7000.12? I forget).

I think in this case you can easily be too paranoid about a drive's reliability, backups are your friend. One 4890 should definitely be plenty imo, it'll play most games at 1920x1200 with various levels of AA. Unless you must absolutely have maxed AA on every game or something there's no reason you won't be satisfied with it.

For once, there probably isn't something substantially better coming down the line in three months or even six months... With the way the economy is, I doubt we'd see the six-core 32nm i7 parts before the end of the year, though I guess it's always possible... They'll probably use the 32nm process to push Westmere (32nm i7) dual-cores unto laptops quickly if Windows 7 is released sooner rather than later.

Beyond that there's very little coming down the line, i5 (cheaper mainstream i7 variant) has apparently been pushed back substantially because i7 and even s775 is still selling well. I seriously doubt you'll kick yourself for going w/an i7 setup right now. GPU prices are at all-time lows too, as is RAM, great time to be buying frankly.

P.S. Other heatsink recommendations: Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme ($50-60 + fan), Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283V ($42 w/fan and bolt-thru kit for i7), Prolimatech Megahalem but availability seems limited, CoolerMaster V8 ($60-ish as well). Like I said, I'm not terribly familiar with the one you listed, the TRUE's probably still the best one tho, but isn't available on Newegg anymore. Xigmatek's pretty good for the money too.
 
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Great, thanks. I changed-up the RAM, mobo and heatsink

RAM:
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - Retail

This was the top choice in a DDR3 roundup review I found and only $99.99

Heatsink:
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO CPU Cooler - Retail $79.99

Beat out the Monsoon and everything else in a 1366 heatsink roundup review

Mobo:
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $239.00

A little more, but its the UD4P.
 
Just a word of caution, check to make sure that ram is on the qualified vendor's list for the mobo you've selected. Nothing worse than a new build that won't post.
 
Seagate issues were a faulty firmware, since been fixed. Go for the seagate (remember you'll go over 2TB with 2 in R0, so you'll need GPT, and thus not be bootable).

Get cheap ram, you'll never need above 1600Mhz with triple channel. Get good timings at 1600 and leave it at that.

You'll do well with the U12P.
 
Impulse said:
Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283V ($62 w/fan and bolt-thru kit for i7)
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029 $42, free shipping (up from $40 last time I looked). I'm quite happy with mine. It generally performs almost the same as the Noctua and TRUE, at half the price.


WD's RE drives are "server class". They're designed for use with hardware RAID controllers, and thus are programmed with some different error-related settings. Whereas the desktop drives retry a little more, the RE's expect the RAID controller to handle the error. In other words, an error on a desktop system using one of these drives might be worse than if the same thing happened with a regular desktop drive. A search here should get you more info on it.

My 500GB 7200.10 is still doing just fine, but I heard too many random horror stories about Seagate. I went with the WD6401AALS for my new build. In general the Seagates seem to have faster transfer rates, but slower access times.
 
Err, yea, thanks for catching that typo, fixed it. I had just looked it up like a day or two previous to posting that, hence why I made the comment on bang-for-the-buck (which surely made little sense if someone read it like that w/the typo). :p

Wasn't it the 7200.11 series that had the firmware bug btw? The newest (bug-free) line is the 7200.12 no? I too have a 500GB 7200.10 that actually acts as my backup/video drive, on an external e-SATA enclosure, zero issues with it so far. Went with a 640GB WD for my last build as well. Seagate does give you two extra years of warranty life on most of their drives (whereas WD only does it for a few modles IIRC), and they were offering data recovery services to people affected by the firmware bug, FWIW.
 
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920
Graphics: SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported
Memory: OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
Hard Drives: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"- Raid0
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Monitor: ASUS VW266H Black 25.5" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Power Supply: SILVERSTONE ST70F 700W ATX12V / EPS12V CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO CPU Cooler

SHIPPED today!!!
 
OMFG this thing ROCKS!!

Just started playing around and used the Gigabyte OC utility and just bumped it up to 3.2 using the auto settings and it didn't even break a sweat. Played ETQW with all eye candy settings maxed out and had a SOLID 60 FPS.

I'm liking ....
 
SGTFury said:
OMFG this thing ROCKS!!

Just started playing around and used the Gigabyte OC utility and just bumped it up to 3.2 using the auto settings and it didn't even break a sweat. Played ETQW with all eye candy settings maxed out and had a SOLID 60 FPS.

I'm liking ....
Click to expand...

You put a really solid rig together. Gratz. :)

With the cooler you've got on there and some tweaking, you should be able to get that to 3.8 with little to no effort. Start reading the guides, there's plenty of them here and out on the interwebs.
 
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