eVGA 790i board and DDR3 RAM

[LittleMike]

Hey all,

Any suggestions as to what RAM I should get? I'm probably picking up the eVGA 790i board, and I know I'm limited to DDR3, but what speed should I buy? Also, I was looking at the compatibility chart over at eVGA's website and I wasn't crazy about the choices. Should I take my chances on other brands, or should I stick to the recommended kits that they confirm work with the board? If I can get away with a G Skill kit for $300 as opposed to the 2gig kit of DDR3-2000 from Crucial for like $545, I'd be much happier. However, they don't list that as compatible and I'm concerned. Any thoughts?

 

[MrWizard6600]

Corsair pays EVGA to create people with the same fears as you, alas, most of them just buy the corsair kit and don't take the issue to a public forum.

That chart means it will work, and that the other ram is untested. But by all technical merits that motherboard should support any kind of DDR3, so I think you could get away with the Gskill just fine.

take a look at pricegrabber for the best DDR3 prices.

 

[silent-circuit]

Seconded. Ignore the compatibility chart. I would however recommend that you don't get RAM that requires crazy high voltages to run at its rated speed, as you may have difficulty at first boot.

 

[JVC]

imo i wouldn't go with ddr3. how long until they have ddr4?

 

[silent-circuit]

imo i wouldn't go with ddr3. how long until they have ddr4?

If you want a 790i Ultra, that's your only option. I do agree with the sentiment though, at least in part. DDR3 is still horribly immature and offers no real performance boost over DDR2, while costing far more. It's very difficult to justify at this point; all the more-so now that people are having harddrive corruption issues and similar with the 790is.

 

[LittleMike]

Hey guys, thanks for the tips. Now the other question is what speed should I get (2000? 1860? 1800 even? etc...?) and any suggestions as to brands and where I should even buy it? I use NewEgg a lot, but they don't always have the best price. So wherever is reputable is fine with me.

 

[nathan3b]

Before you order this board I would advise you to do extensive reading on the evga boards. The 790i has a few problems atm and it still has the infamous hard drive "Corruption" issue. This board also doesn't play too nice with anything rated above 1600 and with over clocking in general, please do your research before hand . Also don’t expect to have everything up and running on your first boot, get ready to stare at the bios screen for a few days.

 

[sethk]

imo i wouldn't go with ddr3. how long until they have ddr4?

DDR3 is here for the long haul - think as long as DDR2 is / was around. It will be the main memory type for most of Nehelam's lifetime (since the memory controller is built into the CPU and they would have to re-design the CPU to support other memory architectures.) Even AMD has put DDR3 on its timeline, and AMD sticks with memory technologies for the long haul too.

 

[LittleMike]

Before you order this board I would advise you to do extensive reading on the evga boards. The 790i has a few problems atm and it still has the infamous hard drive "Corruption" issue. This board also doesn't play too nice with anything rated above 1600 and with over clocking in general, please do your research before hand . Also don’t expect to have everything up and running on your first boot, get ready to stare at the bios screen for a few days.

Hey nathan, thanks for the advice. However, if I want to go SLI, then the 790i is still my best bet. On a side note, what overclocking issues has the 790i had? And aren't the corruption issues only on reference boards with beta drivers and RAID setups only? If I use retail board, official drivers, and no RAID, shouldn't I be in the clear?

 

[agmarley]

I own a 790I board from EVGA, and have not once had the hard drive issues. I also run a raid 0 setup, and I am always messing with my board, so to me its just some bad luck that these poor individuals are having. Seems you take that chance everytime you buy a piece of equipment though. I think you will like the board I know I am. Just my 2 cents.

 

[silent-circuit]

I strongly recommend a 780i or 750i over a 790i Ultra at this point in time. DDR3 is still immature -- you can pay $80 for a solid 4GB kit of DDR2-800 now and ~$200 for a solid, mature, high speed 4GB+ kit of DDR3-whatever when Nehalem gets in to a reasonable price range, or $400+ for immature, low speed DDR3 now and ~$200 for another 4GB kit of DDR3 once it matures.

I know which I'd go with.

Also, in reference to something a couple posts up -- 'reference' refers to the board design, not revision. All current 790i Ultra boards are 'reference' design boards.

 

[LittleMike]

I strongly recommend a 780i or 750i over a 790i Ultra at this point in time. DDR3 is still immature -- you can pay $80 for a solid 4GB kit of DDR2-800 now and ~$200 for a solid, mature, high speed 4GB+ kit of DDR3-whatever when Nehalem gets in to a reasonable price range, or $400+ for immature, low speed DDR3 now and ~$200 for another 4GB kit of DDR3 once it matures.

I know which I'd go with.

Also, in reference to something a couple posts up -- 'reference' refers to the board design, not revision. All current 790i Ultra boards are 'reference' design boards.

When I referred to the reference board, I meant the same board that nVidia designed. It does refer to revision in the sense that the first revision of the board is the same as the reference board. If nVidia comes out with a new revision, I guess it could still be called a reference board, but I wouldn't consider it that. That's what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

In either case, why a 750i? I could understand 780i over 790i because they're basically the same thing except for the RAM. Though the 790i does perform better in SLI, which I do plan to do. So why not the 790i?

 

[silent-circuit]

When I referred to the reference board, I meant the same board that nVidia designed. It does refer to revision in the sense that the first revision of the board is the same as the reference board. If nVidia comes out with a new revision, I guess it could still be called a reference board, but I wouldn't consider it that. That's what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

In either case, why a 750i? I could understand 780i over 790i because they're basically the same thing except for the RAM. Though the 790i does perform better in SLI, which I do plan to do. So why not the 790i?

First up, no the 780i and 790i are not the same except for the RAM. The 790i is more or less new all around, while the 780i is pretty much a 680i respin with an additional chip onboard for PCIe 2.0 capability. The 780is appear to have worked the better part of the kinks out of the 680i, though. The 790i Ultra, on the other hand, seems to be revisiting some of the more serious issues with early revisions and BIOS revisions of the 680i boards, like harddrive corruption and sometimes instability at high clocks.

The 750i is new, unrelated silicon, much as the 650i was to the 680i. Considering Tri-SLI is, by my estimation and that of many others, pure foolishness, the only major feature difference (Tri-SLI support) between the 750i and 780i is a non-issue. The 750i (unlike the 650i SLI before it) supports two full 16x bandwidth PCIe slots, so it suffers no performance loss vs. a 780i (or 790i for that matter) but costs less. Unless you need support for more than 4 SATA devices (and you can always add a controller card) the 750i is the way to go right now, especially considering eVGA now has their 750i FTW with all solid capacitors for substantially less than a 780i, and worlds less than a 790i Ultra.

Also, SLI performance is the same, on a 680i, on a 680i LT, on a 750i, on a 780i, and on a 790i. Period. Maybe a few frames (less than 5) different, but nothing even approaching substantial. So long as both cards are running at 16x bandwidth (680i, 680i LT, 750i, 780i, 790i Ultra), there is no practical difference in performance whatsoever.

The reason I do not recommend anyone buy a 790i Ultra board at this time mostly center around DDR3. First of all, prices are absolutely insane when compared to DDR2, while offering zero real world performance increase in almost all situations -- and certainly in all gaming situations, which is what a SLI rig is for, after all. DDR3 is also very immature at this point; RAM companies are constantly coming out with faster and faster DDR3 kits, but few boards will reliably run above ~DDR3 1600 anyway (this is the only point I'm uncertain about here, but pretty minor regardless), and costs are even more ridiculous on the current "high-end" kits while offering, again, almost zero performance improvement over lowly DDR2-800, and seemingly being replaced every month by something faster/better.

Last I looked, which wasn't all that long ago, you can get a fairly slow 4GB kit of DDR3 for around $300. You can get a 4GB kit of CAS 5 DDR2-800 that would be plenty to OC a Q6600 to 3.6Ghz for around $70 (A-Data). Yes, DDR3 will become the standard when Nehalem hits and we all need new motherboards, but you know what? In the interim, it'll keep getting faster and cheaper. There is zero reason to buy in now when you can get a $70 4GB kit of DDR2-800 now and a better kit of DDR3 than you can currently get for $400 now for ~$200 or less in the future when you need a new board... and the combined cost still be less than the $300 you'd spend on a fairly slow 4GB kit of DDR3 now... that decision kind of makes itself, doesn't it?

 

[LittleMike]

First up, no the 780i and 790i are not the same except for the RAM. The 790i is more or less new all around, while the 780i is pretty much a 680i respin with an additional chip onboard for PCIe 2.0 capability. The 780is appear to have worked the better part of the kinks out of the 680i, though. The 790i Ultra, on the other hand, seems to be revisiting some of the more serious issues with early revisions and BIOS revisions of the 680i boards, like harddrive corruption and sometimes instability at high clocks.

The 750i is new, unrelated silicon, much as the 650i was to the 680i. Considering Tri-SLI is, by my estimation and that of many others, pure foolishness, the only major feature difference (Tri-SLI support) between the 750i and 780i is a non-issue. The 750i (unlike the 650i SLI before it) supports two full 16x bandwidth PCIe slots, so it suffers no performance loss vs. a 780i (or 790i for that matter) but costs less. Unless you need support for more than 4 SATA devices (and you can always add a controller card) the 750i is the way to go right now, especially considering eVGA now has their 750i FTW with all solid capacitors for substantially less than a 780i, and worlds less than a 790i Ultra.

Also, SLI performance is the same, on a 680i, on a 680i LT, on a 750i, on a 780i, and on a 790i. Period. Maybe a few frames (less than 5) different, but nothing even approaching substantial. So long as both cards are running at 16x bandwidth (680i, 680i LT, 750i, 780i, 790i Ultra), there is no practical difference in performance whatsoever.

The reason I do not recommend anyone buy a 790i Ultra board at this time mostly center around DDR3. First of all, prices are absolutely insane when compared to DDR2, while offering zero real world performance increase in almost all situations -- and certainly in all gaming situations, which is what a SLI rig is for, after all. DDR3 is also very immature at this point; RAM companies are constantly coming out with faster and faster DDR3 kits, but few boards will reliably run above ~DDR3 1600 anyway (this is the only point I'm uncertain about here, but pretty minor regardless), and costs are even more ridiculous on the current "high-end" kits while offering, again, almost zero performance improvement over lowly DDR2-800, and seemingly being replaced every month by something faster/better.

Last I looked, which wasn't all that long ago, you can get a fairly slow 4GB kit of DDR3 for around $300. You can get a 4GB kit of CAS 5 DDR2-800 that would be plenty to OC a Q6600 to 3.6Ghz for around $70 (A-Data). Yes, DDR3 will become the standard when Nehalem hits and we all need new motherboards, but you know what? In the interim, it'll keep getting faster and cheaper. There is zero reason to buy in now when you can get a $70 4GB kit of DDR2-800 now and a better kit of DDR3 than you can currently get for $400 now for ~$200 or less in the future when you need a new board... and the combined cost still be less than the $300 you'd spend on a fairly slow 4GB kit of DDR3 now... that decision kind of makes itself, doesn't it?

I can't seem to find any information that says that the 780i and the 790i are different boards other than the RAM they support and a slight increase in the FSB on the 790i version.

Comparison of 750i, 780i, and 790i boards

That image is taken from nVidia's website.

I really don't understand your point on DDR3, though. Yes, it is horribly expensive right now, but that's always been the case with being an early adopter of new technology.

Where did you see that boards aren't running above DDR3-1600? The 790i supports DDR3-2000. Now granted, the price to performance ratio is incredibly skewed at that point, but what's wrong with getting a gSkill kit of DDR3-1600 for around $300? Expensive compared to DDR2, sure, but not going to break the bank. Plus it's much faster than DDR2-800.

The only argument I can see anyone making for going with a 750i is that tri-SLI is pointless right now and when Nehalem comes out, it's going to use a completely different socket, so no more LGA775. And that means that you won't be able to upgrade your processor unless you get a new board. So because the 750i can be had on the cheap, you would go with that.

But when Nehalem comes out, you won't be able to use DDR2, and you won't be able to use your processor either. So either way you look at it, when Nehalem comes out, you're going to have to spend a premium to upgrade.

Personally I don't like having to upgrade every 6 months. I would rather get something now and not have to upgrade anything for at least a year, maybe 2.

I don't mean to come off as rude or anything like that, so forgive me if it sounds that way. I just don't understand your thinking. From how I take it, the way you're thinking, no one should really upgrade anything right now. Unfortunately there comes a point where you have to just decide what you're happy with and buy it. You can't sit around and wait for new technology, because new stuff is always coming out.

It's kind of like iPods. You go and buy an 8gig Touch and then a month later they come out with a 16. You know what I mean?

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

 

[rennyf77]

2gb of ddr3 isn't any more expensive now than ddr2 was at the launch of the c2d chips. you should be able to acquire cas 7 1333 kits for about 150 bucks. i bought 4 gig worth of corsair memory for my 790i board. when discussing the 750i boards; especially samples made by evga, the user has the benefit of going with ddr2 ram as well as enjoying full 16x pci-e lanes in sli, and paying about 200 bucks shipped. the 790i boards still hover north of $300 shipped. i can't speak to the durability of the 780i boards, but i can say that my 750i and 790i builds run very cool with their slight q6600 3ghz overclocks, something i categorically could not say about their 6 series counterparts

 

[LittleMike]

Hey renny, thanks again for the response. I had brought up a similar point about the cost of DDR3. I can understand silent's point that it is more expensive, but it's not over the top expensive. It's in line with what DDR2 was at launch and I guess that was my initial point. I guess silent's was that it was expensive in general, not in relation to what new RAM costs when it first comes out.

So with that said, out of the 750i, 780i, and 790i, which board would you go with? I want some more opinions. I know silent said go with the 750i because it can user cheaper DDR2. What do you think? Personally I was planning on going with the 790i because I feel it has more to offer. Am I wrong?

 

[MrWizard6600]

I can't seem to find any information that says that the 780i and the 790i are different boards other than the RAM they support and a slight increase in the FSB on the 790i version.

Comparison of 750i, 780i, and 790i boards

That image is taken from nVidia's website.

790i contains a northbridge aka SPP (and therefore memory controller) that is entirely un-related to 780i. They are totally seperate pieces of silicon. They don't even have a similar feature set. 790i is, through quite a feat of engineering (lets face it 48 pci-e 2.0 lanes is an absurd amount of graphical throughput) able to push out 48 full pci-e 2.0 lanes. edit: I'm wrong here, 32 are off SPP, 16 are off MCP. Suddenly this chipset is nowhere near worth $400. 780i uses the same northbridge as 680i, only 780i outsources its pci-e allocation to a little chip known as Nforce 200. How well this bridge handles the allocation, I don't know, and it hasn't yet been put through its paces, but it's a cheap dirty way to turn PCI-e 1.1 into pci-e 2.0 and you will see a performance hit accordingly when the bandwidth provided by pci-e 2.0 is able to be saturated by a graphics card (granted, not as much as you might think if Nvidia has implimented some form of Linkboost on the com between NF200 and the NB). Three of such graphics cards will overwhelm 780i's PCI-e subsystems. When running tri-SLI on Nforce 780i, the bandwidth supplied to each card is little better then that of tri-sli on 680i, especially if you consider 680i was designed with pci-e speed overclocking in mind.

 

[silent-circuit]

I can't seem to find any information that says that the 780i and the 790i are different boards other than the RAM they support and a slight increase in the FSB on the 790i version.

Comparison of 750i, 780i, and 790i boards

That image is taken from nVidia's website.

I really don't understand your point on DDR3, though. Yes, it is horribly expensive right now, but that's always been the case with being an early adopter of new technology.

Where did you see that boards aren't running above DDR3-1600? The 790i supports DDR3-2000. Now granted, the price to performance ratio is incredibly skewed at that point, but what's wrong with getting a gSkill kit of DDR3-1600 for around $300? Expensive compared to DDR2, sure, but not going to break the bank. Plus it's much faster than DDR2-800.

The only argument I can see anyone making for going with a 750i is that tri-SLI is pointless right now and when Nehalem comes out, it's going to use a completely different socket, so no more LGA775. And that means that you won't be able to upgrade your processor unless you get a new board. So because the 750i can be had on the cheap, you would go with that.

But when Nehalem comes out, you won't be able to use DDR2, and you won't be able to use your processor either. So either way you look at it, when Nehalem comes out, you're going to have to spend a premium to upgrade.

Personally I don't like having to upgrade every 6 months. I would rather get something now and not have to upgrade anything for at least a year, maybe 2.

I don't mean to come off as rude or anything like that, so forgive me if it sounds that way. I just don't understand your thinking. From how I take it, the way you're thinking, no one should really upgrade anything right now. Unfortunately there comes a point where you have to just decide what you're happy with and buy it. You can't sit around and wait for new technology, because new stuff is always coming out.

It's kind of like iPods. You go and buy an 8gig Touch and then a month later they come out with a 16. You know what I mean?

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

You're not following my reasoning. At all.

DDR3 as it stands is immature. What you can buy now for $300 is not as good as what you will be able to buy for $150-200 in a couple of years once DDR3 becomes the standard and is actually required for the platform, thereby rendering the current "it's useless, it's not any faster in practice than DDR2" argument moot.

DDR2 is plenty fast for even the 45nm LGA775 chips -- and they are the last major architecture revision planned for LGA775. There is no performance advantage (in games, and most other applications) to even very high speed DDR3 that costs 5 or more times as much as quality DDR2 right now.

780i, 750i, and 790i are substantially different architectures -- no, Nvidia doesn't explicitly state that anywhere, because to most consumers it doesn't matter. They only concern themselves with the differences in featureset (DDR2 vs. DDR3, SLI vs. Tri-SLI, etc, as you saw). You're going to have to go on trust there.

Your "be an early adopter" mindset (in this case) nets you nothing but a higher bill. DDR2-800 at $65 for a 4GB kit and $200 for a 750i FTW now gives you the exact same performance as $300 for 4GB of G.Skill DDR3-1600 and $310 after a $30 MIR for a 790i Ultra. $265 vs. $610. $345 saved total. $245 of that on the RAM alone!

Considering we already /know/ that the next major upgrade will require a new motherboard, you've saved $110 toward that, and I'll bet you can get a lot nicer DDR3 kit than the $300 G.Skill in the future for $245 or less. Or, you can spend more on the DDR3 now, get no performance benefit for now, and be stuck with RAM that's slow by the standards of the day when you choose to upgrade, that you paid too much for.

There is no compelling reason to buy DDR3 or a DDR3 based platform at this point in time. Period.

 

[MrWizard6600]

silent, hopefully by the time DDR3 is ramped into real production we won't be talking about 4 gig kits and will instead be talking about 2X4GB kits

 

[rennyf77]

silent makes a valid point about the loss in performance when you look at ddr2 and ddr3 modules clock for clock. 1066 at cas5(ddr2) is faster than 1066 at cas7(ddr3). also, the jump from ddr1 to ddr2 offered an enormous improvement in maximum bandwidth. the best ddr1 kits of the time offered 400mhz with 2-2-2-5 to 2-3-2-6 timings. the best ddr2 kits offered double the bandwidth; 800mhz with negligible increases in latencies (3-3-3-10 to 4-4-4-12). 1333mhz is a pretty big jump from 800mhz but comes with a large penalty in 7-7-7-20 to 9-9-9-25 latencies. if you're building now i'd say gigabyte p35 ds3l+e2160+any kit of ddr2 800. easy overclock 9x333fsb for 3ghz and lock the memory at 800mhz. if you're dying for sli then follow silent's suggestion.

 

[LittleMike]

You're not following my reasoning. At all.

DDR3 as it stands is immature. What you can buy now for $300 is not as good as what you will be able to buy for $150-200 in a couple of years once DDR3 becomes the standard and is actually required for the platform, thereby rendering the current "it's useless, it's not any faster in practice than DDR2" argument moot.

DDR2 is plenty fast for even the 45nm LGA775 chips -- and they are the last major architecture revision planned for LGA775. There is no performance advantage (in games, and most other applications) to even very high speed DDR3 that costs 5 or more times as much as quality DDR2 right now.

780i, 750i, and 790i are substantially different architectures -- no, Nvidia doesn't explicitly state that anywhere, because to most consumers it doesn't matter. They only concern themselves with the differences in featureset (DDR2 vs. DDR3, SLI vs. Tri-SLI, etc, as you saw). You're going to have to go on trust there.

Your "be an early adopter" mindset (in this case) nets you nothing but a higher bill. DDR2-800 at $65 for a 4GB kit and $200 for a 750i FTW now gives you the exact same performance as $300 for 4GB of G.Skill DDR3-1600 and $310 after a $30 MIR for a 790i Ultra. $265 vs. $610. $345 saved total. $245 of that on the RAM alone!

Considering we already /know/ that the next major upgrade will require a new motherboard, you've saved $110 toward that, and I'll bet you can get a lot nicer DDR3 kit than the $300 G.Skill in the future for $245 or less. Or, you can spend more on the DDR3 now, get no performance benefit for now, and be stuck with RAM that's slow by the standards of the day when you choose to upgrade, that you paid too much for.

There is no compelling reason to buy DDR3 or a DDR3 based platform at this point in time. Period.

NOW I understand what you're saying. It's not that I wasn't following your logic - that was perfectly sound. I just couldn't understand how you were saying that DDR2-800 performs as well as DDR3-1600. It's double the bandwidth. But as renny explained, it comes with a catch - extremely higher latencies. That's why I was confused as to why you would suggest a 750i board over a 790i. What you say makes a lot more sense after that.

What also confused me is that my current rig has 2 gigs of Corsair XMS2 DDR2-667 in it, and I couldn't imagine that 3 years later, it's still the fastest technology we have (more or less).

So honestly, why would anyone go with a 790i board right now? After what you said, it makes no sense. I don't pretend to be an engineer, but even from a consumer standpoint, if you get NO benefit whatsoever from DDR3 RAM, then why would anyone even bother given the incredible markup over DDR2? Especially given that the LGA775 architecture is dead after the current lineup of CPUs. Actually, it sounds like now is the worst time to be buying new equipment at all considering that new GPUs are being released in July from nVidia, and Nehalem will be coming 4th quarter this year/1st quarter next year. Ugh, it sounds like I picked a bad time to upgrade.

So no point in going with the Q9550 I was planning on going with either? With Nehalem coming out, it now sounds like it's going to be a waste upgrading now when the new chipset is around the corner, so to speak.

All of this does go back to a point I brought up before, though. When do you pull the trigger and get what's out? It seems like 6 months later it's going to be obsolete anyway. Like my iPod analogy, (look how many unhappy early adopters of the iPhone there were), where do you draw the line and just say, okay, I'm going with this and if something much better comes out a month later, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

 

[silent-circuit]

NOW I understand what you're saying. It's not that I wasn't following your logic - that was perfectly sound. I just couldn't understand how you were saying that DDR2-800 performs as well as DDR3-1600. It's double the bandwidth. But as renny explained, it comes with a catch - extremely higher latencies. That's why I was confused as to why you would suggest a 750i board over a 790i. What you say makes a lot more sense after that.

What also confused me is that my current rig has 2 gigs of Corsair XMS2 DDR2-667 in it, and I couldn't imagine that 3 years later, it's still the fastest technology we have (more or less).

So honestly, why would anyone go with a 790i board right now? After what you said, it makes no sense. I don't pretend to be an engineer, but even from a consumer standpoint, if you get NO benefit whatsoever from DDR3 RAM, then why would anyone even bother given the incredible markup over DDR2? Especially given that the LGA775 architecture is dead after the current lineup of CPUs. Actually, it sounds like now is the worst time to be buying new equipment at all considering that new GPUs are being released in July from nVidia, and Nehalem will be coming 4th quarter this year/1st quarter next year. Ugh, it sounds like I picked a bad time to upgrade.

So no point in going with the Q9550 I was planning on going with either? With Nehalem coming out, it now sounds like it's going to be a waste upgrading now when the new chipset is around the corner, so to speak.

All of this does go back to a point I brought up before, though. When do you pull the trigger and get what's out? It seems like 6 months later it's going to be obsolete anyway. Like my iPod analogy, (look how many unhappy early adopters of the iPhone there were), where do you draw the line and just say, okay, I'm going with this and if something much better comes out a month later, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

I can't give a valid reason to go with a 790i Ultra right now over a 750i unless price is literally no object and you want to run Tri-SLI and the absolute fastest RAM possible, etc. For a month or two there it looked like 790i Ultra was the only way to get a "problem free" solid SLI board, but issues have cropped up since, and if anything 750i based boards seem to be more reliable now, so there's even less reason to go with a 790i.

As of right now, if you need more speed it can be had relatively cheaply. Celerons used to run $300+ (in 90s money, no less) and $160 (compusa.com) gets you an E8400, $200 gets you a Q6600. QX chips are still a total waste (in my opinion) so those are the realistic "high end" chips right now.

$200 for a quad (Q6600) is not bad at all.
$200 for a board (750i FTW)
$70-100 for RAM (DDR2-800, gets a Q6600 to 3.6Ghz)
$450 for a pair of 8800 GTS 512MB (the markup on the 9800 GTX is insane for what amounts to a factory OCed 8800 GTS 512MB)
$100 for a PSU (Corsair TX 750)
$100 for a case
$100 for a HDD (Samsung Spinpoint 750GB)
$35 for a DVDRW (Samsung 20x SATA)
$40 for an Xigmatech Rifle 120mm HSF
$20 for misc stuff everyone forgets (extra fans, cables, etc)
$30 for shipping

Around $1300 for a top of the line tower is not bad, any way you look at it. You can get EVGA or BFG 8800 GTS 512MBs and step up to the new card if it comes out in July and looks that much better. A Q6600 at 3.6Ghz should be enough for anything for at least a year, likely more if current trends continue, but that could obviously change at any point. If Nehalem is really that much better.... yeah, you're out some serious cash. No way around it. Buying a QX9650 won't make the machine last any longer... just cost 2x as much. Same deal with a pair of 9800GX2s.

No, it's not the best time to buy, but it's not the worst either.

You could always "ghetto rig" it, though calling the below build ghetto would be a major stretch.

$50 case (wait for a sale)
$100 PSU (Corsair TX 750 - deal can't be beat)
$90 motherboard (680i LT, used, or Abit IN9 32X-MAX new -- do not get this board if you want to run a quad, horrible with quads, great with duals)
$65 RAM (4GB A-Data DDR2-800)
$160 CPU (E8400)
$20 HSF (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro)
$450 GPUs (2x 8800 GTS 512MB in SLI)
$75 HDD (500 GB 7200 RPM WD)
$35 DVDRW (Samsung)
$30 shipping

Gets you to around $1000 with little if any lost performance over the previous setup, though OCing will be more difficult due to weaker RAM, cooling, and motherboard selection.

 

[heatlesssun]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the 790 Ultra boards. I too was worried when I heard about the data corruption issues, but the professional reviews seemed to be very glowing about the board and I figured if I was going to get a QX9650 why get anything else. This S2E has been very solid for about 2 weeks throwing everything I've got at it running at 3.83GHz on air with only multiplier overclocking, Prime 95 24 hour stable. It solid, no BSOD's, lockups, crashes or data corruption. I'm not doing any FSB overclocking and no RAID, so maybe that's why I've not seen any problems.

Yes there are cheaper rigs that are as fast or a little faster but all I know is that everything seems to working fine and I'm willing to spend a little more to make sure that I am stable rather spending day after day fixing problems.

 

[LittleMike]

See, heatless is why I have trouble deciding. For every person saying the 790i isn't worth it, you have one that says they own it and they have no issues with it.

At the end of the day, though, I'm really concerned about bang for my buck. I don't mind spending $2,000 on a brand new rig. But if it's not going to outperform a rig I can spend $1250 on, then I'm getting less bang for my buck. I'm all about performancerice ratio.

So does anyone else want to chime in on this one? Silent says a 750i FTW will outperform a 790i (or at least perform as well) for significantly less money. I've heard his arguments and they sound good to me. Anyone else want to throw in for the other side?

 

[silent-circuit]

See, heatless is why I have trouble deciding. For every person saying the 790i isn't worth it, you have one that says they own it and they have no issues with it.

At the end of the day, though, I'm really concerned about bang for my buck. I don't mind spending $2,000 on a brand new rig. But if it's not going to outperform a rig I can spend $1250 on, then I'm getting less bang for my buck. I'm all about performancerice ratio.

So does anyone else want to chime in on this one? Silent says a 750i FTW will outperform a 790i (or at least perform as well) for significantly less money. I've heard his arguments and they sound good to me. Anyone else want to throw in for the other side?

heatlesssun is a very outspoken Extreme Edition advocate, and not your typical overclocker (if there is such a beast). As he said, he is neither trying to hit high FSB speeds (multiplyer OCing only -- not something worth $800+ in my option), nor running RAID, both conditions which most if not all having issues with the 790i chipset have reported.

A $1300 Q6600 / 750i FTW based system will perform on par with (or /just/ slightly below, to the point that it will /never/ matter in game) a $3000 or more QX9650 / 790i Ultra based system with the same GPU setup. I'll stand behind that statement. I /never/ said, however, that one was substantially faster than the other. That's... sort of the crux of my argument, in fact.

There is absolutely no question which offers better "bang for the buck" -- if that's what you're after, I listed your perfect build a couple of posts up, and will happily defend every component choice with the reasoning behind it.

 

[LittleMike]

heatlesssun is a very outspoken Extreme Edition advocate, and not your typical overclocker (if there is such a beast). As he said, he is neither trying to hit high FSB speeds (multiplyer OCing only -- not something worth $800+ in my option), nor running RAID, both conditions which most if not all having issues with the 790i chipset have reported.

A $1300 Q6600 / 750i FTW based system will perform on par with (or /just/ slightly below, to the point that it will /never/ matter in game) a $3000 or more QX9650 / 790i Ultra based system with the same GPU setup. I'll stand behind that statement. I /never/ said, however, that one was substantially faster than the other. That's... sort of the crux of my argument, in fact.

There is absolutely no question which offers better "bang for the buck" -- if that's what you're after, I listed your perfect build a couple of posts up, and will happily defend every component choice with the reasoning behind it.

Why the Q6600? Why not a quad like the Q9450 or 9550? The 750i has problems with RAID setups too, doesn't it? In my current build I have 4x 300gb Maxtors in RAID5. The reason I decided to go with that was twofold - 1, RAID5 supposedly increased performance for what I use my machine for (though I've never seen it), and 2, I like having one logical drive and I store a TON of crap on my machines. I have a 500GB external, but I only use it for archiving. I'd rather keep most of the stuff "live" on a single drive (be it one physical hard drive or a logical drive in RAID) and just use the external for backups of everything that's already on the machine.

 

[silent-circuit]

Why the Q6600? Why not a quad like the Q9450 or 9550? The 750i has problems with RAID setups too, doesn't it? In my current build I have 4x 300gb Maxtors in RAID5. The reason I decided to go with that was twofold - 1, RAID5 supposedly increased performance for what I use my machine for (though I've never seen it), and 2, I like having one logical drive and I store a TON of crap on my machines. I have a 500GB external, but I only use it for archiving. I'd rather keep most of the stuff "live" on a single drive (be it one physical hard drive or a logical drive in RAID) and just use the external for backups of everything that's already on the machine.

In short, I don't think the Q9xxx chips are worth the price premium right now. There are only 3 Intel chips worth buying so far as I am concerned (4 if you count used).

Low end: E2xxx -- whichever you can get cheapest. $60-80. OC to 3Ghz and it is fine for pretty much everything. Small cache has 5-15% performance drop per clock, which is negligible considering it will hit 3+Ghz with relative ease on aftermarket cooling.

Middle-low: E6420, used, ~$80-100. A better OCer than the E2xxx chips with more cache, but not costing much more if you can find one. Good, solid chip. I had mine at 3.85Ghz at one point under water.

Middle-high: E8400 - $160. OC to 4Ghz. Fastest reasonably priced dual-core. I generally do not advocate buying these as I feel the Q6600 will last longer (no, this is not the same as saying it is 'futureproof') without costing much more. Also E8400s' combination of high OC headroom and high initial FSB speed with a fairly low multiplier mean they require higher speed RAM to run 1:1, which costs more, and put more stress on the motherboard.

High: Q6600. $200. A quad that'll hit 3.4-3.6Ghz on air with sufficient cooling. Simply cannot be beat at this point in time. Avoids potential issues with 45nm chips and is still blazing fast, for less cash.

I do not know of any issues with RAID and the 750i, but if you have 4 HDDs that will be an issue for you, as it has only 4 SATA headers. That makes your decision much more difficult, as the reasons to avoid DDR3/790i still stand, but 750i is no longer a viable option. 780i looks good on paper but revisits many of the issues people had with 680i (though I've had zero problems with my XFX reference 780i, oddly enough...). You are in the worst possible spot right now.

 

[LittleMike]

You are in the worst possible spot right now.

My sentiments exactly. :\

Well, what I *could* do, and is something I actually considered, is keep the current rig and donate it to my younger brother as is (after eVGA sends me my replacement card for the 7800GT I just RMA'd). Then I could buy everything all new. In which case I'm still debating on RAID versus none.

Here's what's the sticking point for me - I play video games AND I do heavy Photoshop work as well as video editing and DVD authoring (pretty much, you name it, I do it on my machines). So whereas RAID would increase my performance on some of these things, it would hurt my performance in doing others.

The lower cache issue would definitely impact my performance on the lower end chips as well, I think. Especially given what I do with the machines.

It's not like my current machine is bad, it's just that it's older and not as peppy as what's available right now. Unfortunately a whole slew of new things is around the corner. But not close enough, either.

Again, back to that first sentence. Haha

 

[Savoy]

I can't seem to find any information that says that the 780i and the 790i are different boards other than the RAM they support and a slight increase in the FSB on the 790i version.

Comparison of 750i, 780i, and 790i boards

That image is taken from nVidia's website.

I really don't understand your point on DDR3, though. Yes, it is horribly expensive right now, but that's always been the case with being an early adopter of new technology.

Where did you see that boards aren't running above DDR3-1600? The 790i supports DDR3-2000. Now granted, the price to performance ratio is incredibly skewed at that point, but what's wrong with getting a gSkill kit of DDR3-1600 for around $300? Expensive compared to DDR2, sure, but not going to break the bank. Plus it's much faster than DDR2-800.

The only argument I can see anyone making for going with a 750i is that tri-SLI is pointless right now and when Nehalem comes out, it's going to use a completely different socket, so no more LGA775. And that means that you won't be able to upgrade your processor unless you get a new board. So because the 750i can be had on the cheap, you would go with that.

But when Nehalem comes out, you won't be able to use DDR2, and you won't be able to use your processor either. So either way you look at it, when Nehalem comes out, you're going to have to spend a premium to upgrade.

Personally I don't like having to upgrade every 6 months. I would rather get something now and not have to upgrade anything for at least a year, maybe 2.

I don't mean to come off as rude or anything like that, so forgive me if it sounds that way. I just don't understand your thinking. From how I take it, the way you're thinking, no one should really upgrade anything right now. Unfortunately there comes a point where you have to just decide what you're happy with and buy it. You can't sit around and wait for new technology, because new stuff is always coming out.

It's kind of like iPods. You go and buy an 8gig Touch and then a month later they come out with a 16. You know what I mean?

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Some very vaild points here but 1 thing I disagree with. Saying now is never good time to upgrade isn't entirely accurate. Waiting for Nehalem isn't such a bad idea atm since were about 6 months away( yes yes the ultra high end and server chips will probably launch first). This is sorta like the summer of 06 when we knew Conroe was about to launch and someone went out and built a brand new rig using the existing P4 type c2's that intel was pushing. Think that would have been a good idea? You said it yourself, you don't like to upgrade very often, yet you will be very soon, 6 months flies.

I'm not flaming you dude in whatever you decide. Hell I'm on the same fence right now, wait for nehalem or build new from the ground up. If what they are saying is true this isnt a small upgrade, its a new socket with much better performance(supposedly) than the best of whats available now. I'm leaning toward waiting even though I have the itch not too because I know If i spent 2 grand or so now I can spend the same 2 grand in 6 months and get what I really want. Not to mention NV is gonna launch a new line of cards supposedly this summer. So looking at my rig I say to myself it plays everything I play and anything new thats out maxed at 1920 x 1200 smooth, so do I need to upgrade now? Nope.

Sorry for the rant just wanted to share my thoughts with you.

 

[silent-circuit]

-snip-

Here's what's the sticking point for me - I play video games AND I do heavy Photoshop work as well as video editing and DVD authoring (pretty much, you name it, I do it on my machines). So whereas RAID would increase my performance on some of these things, it would hurt my performance in doing others.

The lower cache issue would definitely impact my performance on the lower end chips as well, I think. Especially given what I do with the machines.

-snip-

RAID 1 with 2 drives and frequent backups. RAID5 will slow writes across the board -- you do not want that, especially when dealing with large files. Just keep up with your backups.

They'd hurt performance, sure, but not a great deal, and it's a non-issue because with your doing video authoring and such I'd recommend you get a quad anyway.

 

[LittleMike]

Some very vaild points here but 1 thing I disagree with. Saying now is never good time to upgrade isn't entirely accurate. Waiting for Nehalem isn't such a bad idea atm since were about 6 months away( yes yes the ultra high end and server chips will probably launch first). This is sorta like the summer of 06 when we knew Conroe was about to launch and someone went out and built a brand new rig using the existing P4 type c2's that intel was pushing. Think that would have been a good idea? You said it yourself, you don't like to upgrade very often, yet you will be very soon, 6 months flies.

I'm not flaming you dude in whatever you decide. Hell I'm on the same fence right now, wait for nehalem or build new from the ground up. If what they are saying is true this isnt a small upgrade, its a new socket with much better performance(supposedly) than the best of whats available now. I'm leaning toward waiting even though I have the itch not too because I know If i spent 2 grand or so now I can spend the same 2 grand in 6 months and get what I really want. Not to mention NV is gonna launch a new line of cards supposedly this summer. So looking at my rig I say to myself it plays everything I play and anything new thats out maxed at 1920 x 1200 smooth, so do I need to upgrade now? Nope.

Sorry for the rant just wanted to share my thoughts with you.

Hey no problem, Savoy. You can join in the fun (and my misery haha) along with everyone else. The problem is that I can't play everything right now. The Conan beta has to have everything turned mid to low in order to be playable. Same with most of the games I play. Though that may change depending on what eVGA decides to send me once they RMA my 7800GT. Or at least improve. The current rig:

P4N Diamond (NForce 4 Intel edition)
P4 3.4 Press(h)ott
2 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR-667
4x 300 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (SATA 1.5) in RAID5
eVGA 7800GT 256MB

I think that about sums it up. It's showing it's age. 3 years ago when I built it, it was up there in the specs. Now, it's just piss poor. It's not even dual core!

 

[LittleMike]

RAID 1 with 2 drives and frequent backups. RAID5 will slow writes across the board -- you do not want that, especially when dealing with large files. Just keep up with your backups.

They'd hurt performance, sure, but not a great deal, and it's a non-issue because with your doing video authoring and such I'd recommend you get a quad anyway.

Oh man, I missed this post.

So RAID 1 for striping to increase performance and back up my stuff because there's no fault tolerance/parity like in 0 and 5. Well that doesn't sound out of the question for me. I mean I have RAID5 now and the performance sucks. Should I get a separate RAID card or use nVidia's on board? They've *always* had corruption issues. My drives in 5 got corrupted like 3 times. I blamed MSI, when it looks like I should have been blaming nVidia the whole time.

That's also why frequent backups is not a problem for me. I got used to it after using these controllers

 

[silent-circuit]

Oh man, I missed this post.

So RAID 1 for striping to increase performance and back up my stuff because there's no fault tolerance/parity like in 0 and 5. Well that doesn't sound out of the question for me. I mean I have RAID5 now and the performance sucks. Should I get a separate RAID card or use nVidia's on board? They've *always* had corruption issues. My drives in 5 got corrupted like 3 times. I blamed MSI, when it looks like I should have been blaming nVidia the whole time.

That's also why frequent backups is not a problem for me. I got used to it after using these controllers

Solution: Update the BIOS on whatever board you get immediately, before even installing Vista. Don't install Nvidia's RAID drivers -- let Vista handle it with built-in drivers -- or nTune.. Don't run higher than 105Mhz PCIe (and there's really no reason to ever run above the 100Mhz standard spec, so... don't) and don't try to OC your RAM like crazy (also a non-issue with a Q6600, as DDR2-800 gets you to 3.6Ghz at 1:1 ratio). Shouldn't be a problem then.

The integrated controller is plenty fast for RAID0 -- it doesn't require much CPU time as there are no parity calculations made. I wouldn't spend money on a dedicated RAID card, and if I did, since you're only running RAID0, I'd only get a "software" card (less than $100). Again, just be sure to keep good backups, as you're doubling (or potentially tripling, quadrupling if you keep your current drives) the chance of failure and introducing no fault tolerance it compensate. Performance will be /way/ better than RAID5 though.

 

[LittleMike]

Solution: Update the BIOS on whatever board you get immediately, before even installing Vista. Don't install Nvidia's RAID drivers -- let Vista handle it with built-in drivers -- or nTune..

How can you install Vista without the RAID drivers? I'm running XP SP2 right now, and I had to supply RAID drivers from a floppy before it would even let me install an OS. It wouldn't recognize the drive without them. Did they finally add native RAID support in Vista?

And by the way I completely agree and intended on getting the latest BIOS update before even installing an OS.

 

[Savoy]

Hey Mike I'm pretty sure Vista has raid drivers slip streamed into/with the Vista DVD. Don't quote me on this as I have never installed Vista, I'm still running Xp also. I'm pretty sure that's how it is bro.

 

[LittleMike]

Hey Mike I'm pretty sure Vista has raid drivers slip streamed into/with the Vista DVD. Don't quote me on this as I have never installed Vista, I'm still running Xp also. I'm pretty sure that's how it is bro.

Ah see that would be ideal. Even with the P4N Diamond that I currently run, there are tons of problems with nVidia's RAID manager. Now this is what, nForce 4 chipset? So as far as current corruption issues go, it's *always* been an issue.

But yeah, update BIOS, install Vista, let MS do its thing and not bother with anything but nTune sounds like the way to go. Well, install nVidia's graphics drivers, but leave the chipset stuff alone.

 

[silent-circuit]

But yeah, update BIOS, install Vista, let MS do its thing and not bother with anything but nTune sounds like the way to go. Well, install nVidia's graphics drivers, but leave the chipset stuff alone.

No no no! (insert terror here) nTune is quite possibly one of the single worst pieces of software /ever/ that wasn't just flat-out a virus or spyware. Never, under any circumstances, no matter what, install /any/ version of nTune. Use RivaTuner and ATITool.

 

[LittleMike]

No no no! (insert terror here) nTune is quite possibly one of the single worst pieces of software /ever/ that wasn't just flat-out a virus or spyware. Never, under any circumstances, no matter what, install /any/ version of nTune. Use RivaTuner and ATITool.

Ah I misunderstood you, then. I thought you said use the Vista drivers and nTune. It's that bad, huh? What about eVGA's EVTweak?

 

[silent-circuit]

Ah I misunderstood you, then. I thought you said use the Vista drivers and nTune. It's that bad, huh? What about eVGA's EVTweak?

I don't have any personal experience with it, but I'm going to go ahead and say it can't be half as bad as nTune. nTune has literally caused instability... at stock. Doing nothing. Just installing it has made people's machines act broken, causing them to RMA RAM and motherboards only to uninstall it and have all the problems go away. It is an absolutely abysmal piece of software, and Nvidia should be ashamed to allow people to download it, nevermind putting their name on it.

It has this feature that's supposed to automatically overclock your machine, testing stability and finding highest stable clocks all on its own. Sounds cool right? Up until you realize that it puts insane amounts of stress on your CPU and GPU, and regularly attempts clocks so high no human would even consider them, only to fail, reboot, and do it again 5 Mhz lower.

 

[LittleMike]

I don't have any personal experience with it, but I'm going to go ahead and say it can't be half as bad as nTune. nTune has literally caused instability... at stock. Doing nothing. Just installing it has made people's machines act broken, causing them to RMA RAM and motherboards only to uninstall it and have all the problems go away. It is an absolutely abysmal piece of software, and Nvidia should be ashamed to allow people to download it, nevermind putting their name on it.

It has this feature that's supposed to automatically overclock your machine, testing stability and finding highest stable clocks all on its own. Sounds cool right? Up until you realize that it puts insane amounts of stress on your CPU and GPU, and regularly attempts clocks so high no human would even consider them, only to fail, reboot, and do it again 5 Mhz lower.

Wow that's awful. Okay, mental note. NEVER install nTune.

Okay, so by your recommendation, "minor" upgrade now because everyone will have to upgrade a year from now if Nehalem is as good as they say, correct? And DDR3 gives no performance boost over DDR2 right now and it's like 5x more expensive on top of that. So, with that in mind, how does this sound?

eVGA 750i FTW Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
4gb OCZ Reaper DDR2-800 RAM
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3750330AS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0
eVGA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) KO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

Okay, what else am I missing there? And is any of that good, or should I go with different brands/configs?

*EDIT* Almost forgot - Corsair 1000HX PSU