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Long awaited upgrade

V

Veilrap

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Messages
337
So I've been holding off on replacing my nearly 4 year old Q660 box with a modern workstation, and am finally ready to pull the trigger.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
All of the above, large amount of gaming, both modern and older games. Photoshop, browsing, software development (visual studio, eclipse, 3D and other applications), virtual machine servers, video encoding

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Originally aiming at ~$1000 now upped to around ~$1250 not a hard line tax and shipping included. I have amazon prime.

3) Where do you live?
Cambridge, MA, microcenter down the street

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, MB, RAM, CASE, PSU, SSD (system drive), GPU

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
22" Samsung (1680), 19" other, data harddrives

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not generally, possibly for fun and benchmarking not for normal use

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
22" 1680x1050 for now, will likely upgrade down the road but not now

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
NOW

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Would like to be able to sli/crossfire at some point, USB3.0 would be nice, SATA 6gbs would be good, eSATA is not necessary, onboard video no necessary, blue tooth is optional but fine, firewire not needed

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
64-bit Windows 7 license owned primary OS. Possibly will dual boot with ubuntu or some other linux distro.

Here's where i'm at right now:
$279 - i7 2600k Microcenter (Worth the extra $100 from 2500k?)
MSI $179 - P67A-GD65-B3
$260 - XFX HD 6950
16gb DDR3 (Worth it over 8gb?)
Some Smallish SSD for a system drive
$109 XFX 750w PSU (I'm not that familiar with PSU requirments what would be necessary?)
$144 - SILVERSTONE RV02B-W

Any suggestions for alternatives, better prices, or general build advice?
 
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You did your homework.

The build looks pretty good to me. All the parts you listed are good. Be sure to get 1333 MHz CL9 DDR3 RAM for that motherboard (not hard to do, and you'll save money without losing performance vs getting 1600MHz modules.) 16 GB of RAM might be worth it but I'm skeptical. How hard do you push your system when doing non-gaming tasks?

The PSU size is good. You could probably drop down to a 650W but you'll just have to upgrade later if/when you decide to go Crossfire, so I'd stick with what you've selected.

Consider the Crucial C300 64GB or 128GB SSDs.

The 2600k is generally not worth the price difference unless your applications get a large performance boost from Hyper-Threading. If gaming is your main task, save the $100 and get the 2500k. Maybe spend $30 on a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ heatsink/fan combo if you plan to permanently overclock your system. Otherwise the stock Intel cooler is fine.
 
Other than occasional virtual machine workloads the machine will be most taxed by video encoding outside of gaming. But I think you're right that the 2600k probably isn't worth the benefits.

Any suggestions on specific brands or models for the RAM? I was looking at the Corsair deal that was at 75 but it looks to have jumped back to 99 for now.
 
I recommend this RAM:
$164 - 4 x G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

Since you're doing video encoding and doing some programming, I think you should spend the extra cash for the 2600K if you can spare the cash after getting the SSD and RAM.
 
Thanks for the RAM link.

I was looking at the GPU again and I noticed that the price has gone up a tad and its now out of stock at Newegg. Any other choices for that one? Or should I wait and hope that stock comes back in?
 
Veilrap said:
I was looking at the GPU again and I noticed that the price has gone up a tad and its now out of stock at Newegg. Any other choices for that one? Or should I wait and hope that stock comes back in?
Click to expand...

Go for the other XFX HD 6950 2GB card.
 
Wow thats a facepalm on my part I didn't realise there were two nearly identical models. Looks like the only difference is a slightly different DVI port? Thanks for the heads up..

Well barring any unexpected anomalies or critique I'll probably start ordering stuff tonight. Thanks for the help so far you two.
 
Keep in mind that a lot of non reference 6900 series cards are shunning the Bios switch.
 
Thanks for the heads up about the GPU. I was thinking of looking into the bios switch, but it won't bother me if it doesn't work out. Either way I'll give it a look
 
Unfortunately my order took longer than anticipated to process, but I'm intending to do the build early next week. I think I might pick up the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus fan from microcenter this weekend. I haven't done too much OC'ing in the past so I'm not very familiar with thermal pastes. Is the thermal paste that comes with that fan adequate or would I have to pick up something else for the conductivity?
 
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