First build, i7-860

[eugeneius]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc.
Quite a mix of stuff - gaming, media, heavy web browsing, programming, development webserver, some light Photoshop. I have an M-Audio Firewire interface, so I'll probably be using Cubase from time to time, but only basically (just recording and mixing a few tracks, few VST instruments if any).
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
No limit really.
3) Where do you live?
Ireland. I'll probably be ordering most of the stuff from dabs, some from komplett wherever cheaper, and the heatsink from Chilled PC since they stock the new Megahalems Rev.B with P55 socket support.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Case, PSU, motherboard, CPU, heatsink, RAM, graphics card, monitor, hard drives
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I've already bought an Antec P183 on advice from a friend. I'll most likely be getting their proprietary PSU that matches it, the CP-850, unless advised otherwise.
6) Will you be overclocking?
I haven't done so before but I'm willing to try it with the build. System stability is much more important to me than maximum performance though.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Samsung T240 included below. I'd welcome suggestions for alternatives, bearing in mind that I'm pretty set on 1920x1200. I was looking at the Dell U2410 but this build is already getting very expensive...
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP - as mentioned I already have the case, and I'm ready to order the rest as soon as I'm definite on components.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Since I'm going with a P55 socket system, Crossfire is pretty useless (due to halving the bandwidth to each card). RAID could be an option; I don't know too much about it though. See below.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
I'll be getting a copy of Win7 Home Premium with this build.


I've never done a self-build before; but I've been getting advice from friends who are pretty experienced with it. I've picked out what I think is a reasonable set of components, but I'd appreciate some advice on it (and wouldn't be that surprised if I got "wrong kind of RAM, noob" back!).

Anyway, the build-in-progress:

€133 Antec P183 Case ALREADY PURCHASED
€122 Antec CP-850 PSU
€204 ASUSTEK Maximus III Formula
€262 Intel i7-860
£45 (~€50) Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B
€26 Noctua NF-P12-1300 120mm 1300RPM Quiet Case Fan
€109 OCZ 4GB(2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 XMP Extreme Edition
€235 Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5
€259 Samsung T240
€224 Intel X25-M 80GB G2 SSD (retail package with 3.5" mounting bracket)
€265 Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB
€87 Win7 Home Premium

...for a total of €1976.

Possible points of discussion:

• Should I get a second PSU fan? The Megahalems Rev.B comes with two sets of fan clips, but how much of an advantage would this be, since I won't be heavily overclocking?
• The mobo supports RAID, but I don't know much about it. I chose the WD Black 2TB because of its performance here, but could a RAID setup perform comparatively or better? I could buy three Samsung Eco Green 1.5TB drives for less than the WD Black, and run them in RAID5. They spin at 5400rpm, which would be nice for low noise. I understand the seek time wouldn't be improved, but how much of a sustained throughput improvement could I expect from that setup?
• Graphics - I'm currently rocking an X600 Pro (lol) so no matter what I buy I imagine I'll be blown away by the difference. I'm pretty sure I want one of the new ATI 5XXX series cards, but I don't know about the price-to-performance ratio. Here's the cheapest price I can get each of the four models: 5870 - €331, 5850 - €235 (current choice), 5770 - €150, 5750 - €124. Considering I'd like to get back into gaming (I have friends pressuring me to join Aion, and I really like the look of Borderlands), and my res will be 1920x1200, is the extra €85 I'm spending to get the 5850 over the 5770 justifiable?

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. I've been specing this build for over a month now (I'm a little OCD when it comes to these things) and I'd really like to get it ordered soon!

Thanks,
eugeneius

 

[Dangman]

1) More than likely no need for a second CPU (Not PSU) fan
2) Don't bother with a RAID5 setup on a gaming rig using the onboard RAID. You wil lose performance in games as some of the CPU's processing power is now dedicated to doing parity calculations needed to keep the RAID array going. However theoritically, yes a RAID 5 setup with those 1.5TB drives would be a tad faster than the WD Black 2TB. But like I said, you'll lose out in overall system performance and responsiveness
3) The extra 85 euros over the HD5770 for the HD 5850 is well worth the added costs, especially at your resolution.

Now onto a critique of the build:
While all those parts are of good quality, they're horribly bad in terms of price to performance. Here's what I'd get instead:
€ 242.00 - Intel Core i7
€ 168.50 - Asus P6T SE X58 Motherboard
€124.29 - Corsair 6GB DDR3 1600MHz
---
Total: €535

€40 chaeper than your planned setup but with the same performance, stability, overclocking capabability with the added advantages of more RAM and a slightly better CPU upgrade path.

For the secondary drive (where I'm guessing you're gonna install some apps and games), I'd get the WD 1TB Black and better price to perfofmrance ratio. Then get the Hitachi 1.5TB drive you listed for your data storage drive. That frees up another €100 for you to play with or save. That's enough for the HD5870 or another 1.5TB drive. Your pick.

 

[eugeneius]

Hi Danny, thanks for the info. I didn't know onboard RAID would tie up the CPU, that's definitely out then.

I had looked at the i7-920 when starting out and made a decision to go with the 860 (and consequently a 1156 socket motherboard), based on the slightly better performance and lower power usage. The prospect of missing out on all the 1366-goodness in years to come isn't much of a deciding factor, as my plan for when this build starts to show its age will be to pass it on to someone else (who definitely won't be upgrading) and build fresh.

Also, maybe somewhat confusingly, if I was getting an X56 board I'd want to have the option for Crossfire so I'd end up getting the board up from the one you suggested (the Asus P6T) which isn't much cheaper than the one I had picked out. I may in fact pick up a second 5870 when they drop below €100, since two of them on 8xPCIe busses should still outperform one on a full 16x. What I said about Crossfire in my last post was meant to convey that I definitely wouldn't consider buying two now; I realise I was sort of misrepresenting my needs there, sorry about that.

You're right about the drives, the 2TB WD Black is a waste of money. I've gone with 2x1TB drives for over €100 less; these will both be storage drives, as I'm planning on trying to squeeze everything onto the 80GB SSD. If that plan fails I suppose I'll partition one of the 1TB drives.

I've decided to buy most of the components from povdirect.co.uk since they're much cheaper; a few are out of stock but supposedly arriving in 1-2 weeks. Because of the savings I can get there on other components, I've bumped up from the 5850 to the 5870. That has no ETA but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere at the moment so I can't do much about that.

The new build/prices:
(for some reason hardforum doesn't want to allow links with a GET parameter called ref, if you need to follow any of the povdirect links swap out the "reg")

€133 Antec P183 Case ALREADY PURCHASED
€97 Antec CP-850 PSU
€189 ASUSTEK Maximus III Formula
€233 Intel i7-860
£45 (~€50) Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B
€26 Noctua NF-P12-1300 120mm 1300RPM Quiet Case Fan
€109 OCZ 4GB(2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 XMP Extreme Edition
€290 Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
€183 Intel X25-M 80GB G2 SSD (retail package with 3.5" mounting bracket)
€142 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB x2
€22 LiteOn iHAS124 DVD+-R etc etc (forgot this last time)
€87 Win7 Home Premium

Total: €1428, which is €548 less than before (but now with no monitor)

Monitor removed from the build because I've realised the T240 isn't adjustable enough for me - I caught myself swivelling my current monitor repeatedly. I'm now considering the Dell U2410 but it's listed as €667 on the Irish store which is a bit insane. Does anyone know if Dell usually do discounts around Christmas/New Year? I can survive on my current 22" for now, and I might even be waiting for 5870s to come back in stock for a while...

--
Eugene

 

[Dangman]

Hi Danny, thanks for the info. I didn't know onboard RAID would tie up the CPU, that's definitely out then.

Well to be clear: RAID 0 and RAID 1 do not use that much CPU. Barely 1% IIRC. It's RAID 5 that would have a big performance impact.

I had looked at the i7-920 when starting out and made a decision to go with the 860 (and consequently a 1156 socket motherboard), based on the slightly better performance and lower power usage. The prospect of missing out on all the 1366-goodness in years to come isn't much of a deciding factor, as my plan for when this build starts to show its age will be to pass it on to someone else (who definitely won't be upgrading) and build fresh.

Ok. But what about the extra 2GB of RAM you get from the start and the possiblity of 4GB more RAM than a LGA 1156 setup? That extra RAM will help out a lot with the kind of usage scenario you're describing.

If you still are going with a LGA 1156 build, at the very least don't overpay for that Asus Formula mobo. Overpriced for it offers. The Asus ASUS P7P55D LE is half the price but just as stable and reliable.

Does anyone know if Dell usually do discounts around Christmas/New Year? I can survive on my current 22" for now, and I might even be waiting for 5870s to come back in stock for a while...

They generally do.

Also a note about that online store: What idiot decided that motherboards should go under "Memory and Processors"? Stupid organization IMO.

 

[Cobalt35]

Would a RAID 5 really have that much of an impact on system performance, even with a Core i7?

Edit: Ignore this question... just done some quick research and yeah it's not good.

 

[eugeneius]

Ok. But what about the extra 2GB of RAM you get from the start and the possiblity of 4GB more RAM than a LGA 1156 setup? That extra RAM will help out a lot with the kind of usage scenario you're describing.

The two potential configurations (new prices from povdirect):
€179 Asus P6T + €235 i7 920 + €134 6GB Corsair = €550
€186 Asus Maximus III + €230 i7 860 + €109 4GB OCZ = €525

Even with the Maximus III, the LGA 1156 build costs less - I could save even more by getting a cheaper mobo as you suggested, probably enough to afford double the RAM and still stay close to the X58 budget. I had thought 4GB would be more than enough (somewhat based on this article), and I still have the option to throw another 4GB kit in later if I find the system straining.

The Asus ASUS P7P55D LE is half the price but just as stable and reliable.

Yeah, the Maximus III is a bit expensive; I don't know much about motherboards so I went high-end for safely when I was choosing. However the P7P55D LE has no Firewire so I can't go with that, and the secondary PCIe slot is only 4x on both the standard edition and the LE (according to their details here) - I'd still save €50 by getting the PRO model though. I compared the P7P55 PRO with the Maximus III Formula and couldn't find much difference, aside from the Formula's separate mini sound card. Supposedly it gives better shielding from electromagnetic interference from the other mobo components but I doubt that's the kind of thing I'd notice.

Also a note about that online store: What idiot decided that motherboards should go under "Memory and Processors"? Stupid organization IMO.

That site is a bit of a disaster alright - I just searched for components by name instead of trying to navigate their strange menu system. Their stock reporting is a bit dodgy too, since I first went on the ETA on a few of the components has disappeared. With the prices they're offering I can't afford to be picky though - it's not easy to find UK-based retailers that ship to the Republic of Ireland. I'll place the order soon, give it a few weeks to see what comes through, and fill in the gaps with more expensive local retailers.

 

[engiNURD]

... Also, maybe somewhat confusingly, if I was getting an X56 board I'd want to have the option for Crossfire so I'd end up getting the board up from the one you suggested (the Asus P6T) which isn't much cheaper than the one I had picked out. ...

The P6T SE supports CF, so why would you need to bump it up to the vanilla P6T? Save your money and get the SE version instead.