Review of components for a new case mod build

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crystalfontz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 22, 2000
Messages
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It has been a while since I was involved in a serious mod.

The last one I was involved in was in 2003, my son was 5 years old, and barely remembers it.

Now he is 13 and aching to get a good gaming machine, but with no job, he is hurting to buy the components.

So we are going to do a father/son build . . . meaning I'll spend the money and he will do the work :)

The current custom case goal is to try to make a nearly form-fitting plexi or aluminum case that would be fairly easy to lug around to a neighbor's house. This is the reason for the 2.5" drives. We would like to find a really small power supply. The corsair water cooling thing can be made lower profile in the custom case than a typical stand up HSF, also it should support oveclocking better then a HSF.

Here is the list of components he has come up with so far. I am looking for confirmation that these are decent high-end parts, or suggestions for what parts would be better.

Processor: AMD Phenom II x6 Thuban 3.2GHz
CPU Cooler:CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair IV Formula
RAM(2 sets for a total of 16GB RAM): GSKILL 8GB RAM(2X4GB)
Video Card: ASUS ENGTS450/DI/1GD5 GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi)
Boot SSD Drive( for Win7 / 64 OS )OCZ Agility 2 Internal SSD Drive
Main Hard Drives(4 on a RAID5 setup): Western Digital NoteBook 750GB Drive
Powersupply:OCZ Micro Fatal1ty PSU
Keyboard:Saitek Cyborg V5
Mouse:Saitek Cyborg R.A.T 5 Gaming mouse with Sniper mode
Phones:Koss 159550 TS3 Compatable headset

Thanks for your suggestions, slams, mocking etc :)
 
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Please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.

But so far, not a good build for the money at all:
- Avoid all of OCZ's current SSDs since their rated performance is significantly lower than stated. Not to mention that OCZ has introduced a new revision of some of their OCZ Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs that are even slower. So definitely OCZ. Go for the Crucial C300 or C400 SSDs or Intel's 510 series SSDs.

- That CPU and mobo setup is just plain horrible for the money considering that the significantly faster Core i5 2500K and a decent P67 motherboard costs about the same. Not to mention that the onboard RAID controller on an Intel mobo is far better/supported than AMD's onboard RAID controller.

- At $131 shipped, that GTS 450 is overpriced considering that the faster HD 5770 1GB and GTX 460 768MB are around that price range.

- That OCZ PSU is not a good quality PSU at all. It's of fairly low quality. So a new PSU is definitely in order.

- Why RAID 5?
 
Danny Bui said:
- Why RAID 5?
Click to expand...
+1 to that, especially given the laptop HDDs. Unless the OP has a worthwhile reason, I'd say get two 2 TB hard drives and align in RAID-1. The storage capacity in this alternative would be nearly identical to what the OP suggested, and without the write performance penalty. (Whether the write penalty would be significant is yet to be determined, as we are lacking context for a desktop RAID-5 arrangement.)
 
Wow.. This one should be a fun one to spec after the questions are answered, but the current list is completely unbalanced.
 
OK, here is the list to answer the sticky. Sorry for missing that.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Primarily gaming. Homework, some CAD and running SETI. Photos, music. Stability is critical. Performance is the goal.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

This will be a sponsored build, so the budget can go fairly deep, but it needs to stay practical.

3) Where do you live?

USA - Washington State.

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.

Everything but the case: CPU/HSF/RAM/PSU/MB/SSD/HDD/Video Card/keyboard/Mouse

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

It can all be new.

6) Will you be overclocking?

Might experiment with it, but overclocking is not a primary requirement.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

A couple of 19" flat panels to start with . . . probably upgrade later.

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

Some of the parts that are critical for the mechanical design need to be purchased fairly soon. The processor and RAM could be put off until later. It will take some time to get the mechanical designed and fabbed.

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.

Firewire would be good. RAID was in our original plan.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

We will use a legit Windows 7 64-bit OS.
 
Thanks for the feedback. We want to make a PC that is physically small, with high performance.

The custom case we have in mind will wrap closely around all the components. Airflow will be set up to move the air along each heat prodcuing component.

So this SSD looks more meaty than the OCZ:
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

On the power supply, it would be great to be able to use a small form factor one like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151090
If anything it seems like the CPU and Vid are even more power hungry than ever, so I do not know if a 300W supply ie even close to the running.

The idea we had with the raid is that the small laptop SATA drives in RAID would take less power and be smaller than the rquivalent 3.5" drives, and more rugged for travel. I have it in my mind that RAID 5 was a good compromise between speed and reliability. Does RAID 5 on the motherboard have some big drawback that I am missing?

Small would be nice. Is there a microATX form factor motherboard that has great performance?
 
crystalfontz said:
Thanks for the feedback. We want to make a PC that is physically small, with high performance.

The custom case we have in mind will wrap closely around all the components. Airflow will be set up to move the air along each heat prodcuing component.

So this SSD looks more meaty than the OCZ:
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

On the power supply, it would be great to be able to use a small form factor one like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151090
If anything it seems like the CPU and Vid are even more power hungry than ever, so I do not know if a 300W supply ie even close to the running.

The idea we had with the raid is that the small laptop SATA drives in RAID would take less power and be smaller than the rquivalent 3.5" drives, and more rugged for travel. I have it in my mind that RAID 5 was a good compromise between speed and reliability. Does RAID 5 on the motherboard have some big drawback that I am missing?

Small would be nice. Is there a microATX form factor motherboard that has great performance?
Click to expand...

Much Much better choice on the SSD. the ssd isn't going to be mission critical & with the gen 3's just coming out I would hold of on it for a bit.

For the PSU try this instead. Its probably the most highly reguarded enthusiast PSU smaller then an ATX.

As for the raid.. Why? what is going to be stored on this drive that needs to be so fast & redundant at all times. our running an SSD for the OS so the 2nd drive should be basically for installed games & what not (thats what I use mine for). Speed shouldn't be enough of an issue for the 2nd drive to justify striping of any sort. And if there is going to be mission critical data stored on it then I would go with a pair of 2tb f4's in raid 1 to give you good capacity & respectable speed.

As for Mobo & PSU right now the recomendation is going to be a Asus p67 matx board & either an i5 2500k or an i7 2600k Gets you great Overclocking in mATX & awesome performance. Price wise board will be about 150 & the Cpu will be 220ish for the i5 or 320ish for the i7
 
So for the power supply, I like your suggestion of:
SILVERSTONE ST45SF 450W SFX12V
Nice and compact, 450W should be able to handle the system.

For the main drive array, maybe a RAID 10 (1+0) of four of these:
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s
I left out that the son mainly wants gaming, but the father would like a machine that would be good at video editing with Adobe Premiere also. So that is why we are looking at the RAID. We are not so good with backups at the house, so the additional reliability of RAID is attractive to me.

Is the "RAID 5 penalty" still an issue? Is motherboard RAID trustworthy now? 10 years ago using motherboard RAID was an invitation to a data loss party. Would a dedicated hardware RAID controller be the way to go?

Is this the kind of Micro ATX motherboard you are thinking of:
ASUS P8P67-M PRO (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

I guess that would team up with a processor like this:
Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

I am a bit surprised that on one is commenting on the CPU cooler:
CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler

I would think that a canned water cooling system would raise some hackles :)
 
crystalfontz said:
For the main drive array, maybe a RAID 10 (1+0) of four of these:
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s
I left out that the son mainly wants gaming, but the father would like a machine that would be good at video editing with Adobe Premiere also. So that is why we are looking at the RAID. We are not so good with backups at the house, so the additional reliability of RAID is attractive to me.

Is the "RAID 5 penalty" still an issue? Is motherboard RAID trustworthy now? 10 years ago using motherboard RAID was an invitation to a data loss party. Would a dedicated hardware RAID controller be the way to go?
Click to expand...
So many things to cover:
1) RAID IS NOT BACKUP! All it does is guaranatee uptime. It should not be relied upon as the backup in and of itself. So start getting into the practice of actually backing up your data as no RAID array for use in Windows is gonna provide any sort of backup.

2) If gaming is the main focus, you really should not be using the GTS 450. I highly recommend the GTX 460 1GB at the very least since it offers a little bit of headroom for both future games and a larger monitor size. However if you do get the GTX 460, then you're gonna need a new PSU as I frankly don't trust that Silverstone to power it.

3) Don't bother with Velociraptor drives as their performance is roughly 10% higher than many other consumer grade hard drives. So from a price to performance perspective, VRpators drives are shitty.

4) Onboard RAID has generally ok-ish write speeds (Roughly 70Mb/s) And is ok-ish in terms of reliability. But if performance is key, then a dedicated hardware RAID controller is necessary. Make sure that it's a true hardware RAID controller that you're getting. You can tell it's a hardware RAID controller by the fact that it has a onboard cache/RAM and the existence of a XOR engine.
 
I forgot: Thanks for the input. I appreciate the feedback :)

Other notes:

> RAID IS NOT BACKUP Acknowledged and understood.

> . . . Velociraptor . . . That was the biggest 2.5" 32MB cache 10K RPM drive I could find on Newegg. Am I missing something? I do want to stay with the 2.5" form factor for modding reasons specific to this build, even though I acknowledge that 3.5" will give more for less.

Regarding the motherboard, we compared the uATX and ATX:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...31-700^13-131-700-TS,13-131-707^13-131-707-TS

Not too much difference. But the boy is set on a red and black build, so I guess it is going to end up a full ATX MB. That video card is such a power hog that I do not think the small form factor power supply will cut it in any case.
 
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crystalfontz said:
MoBo: ASUS MAXIMUS IV EXTREME (REV 3.0)
Click to expand...
No. That motherboard is stupidly expensive. $225 over the previous Asus motherboard for just the black and red color? Really? Does that sound like a smart buy? That $225 can be put to better use or saved

crystalfontz said:
Video Card: ASUS ENGTX580/2DI/1536MD5 GeForce GTX 580(Fermi)
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Unless you're planning on upgrading the monitor to a monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080 or above, that GTX 580 is also overkill. For a 19" monitor, you'll be fine with the GTX 460 1GB.

crystalfontz said:
> . . . Velociraptor . . . That was the biggest 2.5" 32MB cache 10K RPM drive I could find on Newegg. Am I missing something? I do want to stay with the 2.5" form factor for modding reasons specific to this buikd, even though I acknowledge that 3.5" will give more for less.
Click to expand...
Well Velociraptor drive is actually larger in height than normal 2.5" hard drives. As such, if you get two VRaptor drives, they're almost about the same size, height wise, as a regulat 3.5" drive. Just something to think about.
 
Intel hands down. It's no contest. Hell even if price was a concern,you could still get the $225 Core i5 2500K which still outperforms any Phenom II X6 CPU.
 
The Intel setup will be more "awesomer."

Couple notes on your RAID setup: As others have said, RAID is not the same as backing up data, and even with a RAID array, you should continue to backup your data regularly. If there is a software corruption--i.e. something hoses your system like a virus--that problem will be duplicated across the redundancy array. Where RAID will protect you is with a hardware failure. Should a drive fail, you won't have to worry about downtime in replacing the drive and restoring from a backup image. You can replace the bad drive while the system operates from your other good drives, and once the bad drive is replaced, the RAID system will rebuild itself automatically.

Note that the RAID 5 write penalty is not due to software-based/motherboard RAID, but to the nature of how RAID 5 works (although not utilizing a dedicated hardware based RAID controller will make things worse.) When writing data to a RAID 5 array, your system has to calculate parity information as it writes data to multiple drives, and then it has to write the parity data to the third drive. Even when using a dedicated controller, this has an effect on performance. When using motherboard RAID, I advise to avoid RAID 5 under all but very specific niche circumstances. Case in point: on Intel's ICH10R controller, using a normal drive or RAID 0 or 1 array, Windows will copy files from installation media in about 10-15 minutes. With motherboard RAID-5, it can take over an hour.

The only instance in which RAID-5 may work well when running off the motherboard is when using it as a dedicated storage or archive drive for data that is updated or appended to infrequently, yet accessed often. Storing photography images is a good example: Chances are you'll import less than you'll browse and edit your existing collection. When browsing your photography collection, the RAID-5 setup will provide a small speed boost in loading images. The trade-off is that imports will take longer.

Software (but not the OS) can also benefit from RAID 5, but typically software is easy to reclaim should a drive failure occur (in most instances, it's not highly customized and can just be re-installed.) For most setups, it wouldn't make sense to install software onto a RAID array.

If you're dead set on a RAID 5 array, consider getting a dedicated RAID card. RAID-5 is much more complex and thus more resource-intensive for a RAID controller to manage than RAID 0 or 1. Don't tax the CPU needlessly with a RAID-5 array. A hardware controller will do a much better job.

Better yet, consider not going the RAID-5 route. If all you intend to install is software, and assuming the software is easily replaceable should a drive failure occur, consider a RAID-0 array (or better yet, a second or larger SSD.) If the array is for documents, up the size of the drives you plan to buy, then buy one less than you had planned and simply do RAID-1. On motherboard RAID solutions, the speed benefit to RAID-0 (or RAID-5 especially) is quite minimal, and is often not worth the overhead and increased risk of drive failure.
 
go with the i7 unless you want to wait for bulldozer that i hope isnt priced to high, i like amd setups myself for the temps, people are still using the core series processors and gaming so any of the pII X6 set ups are fine for gaming with a mild overclock but its all up to you also you can save money that way and get a 6950 and be way overkill and future proof at your resolution, even more so when you unlock a 2 gb into 6970
 
You don't need Core i7 if the primary role of this system is going to be gaming. For heavy-duty graphics/video editing and multiple virtual machines, sure; but outside of Hyper Threading, the only difference between the i5-2500k and the i7-2600k is only 100MHz.

If you're going to stick with the dual 19" monitors for the time being, I recommend going with the HD 5770 or the GTX 460 instead of the HD 6950. You can always buy a newer, better card around the same time that you buy a newer, greater resolution monitor.
 
Markyip1: Thanks for the great run-down on RAID 5. For me RAID 5 seems very elegant in concept, but I can see from your explanation that the elegance is watered down by the reality of implementation in the real world.

We are now thinking of using a four 600GB drive RAID 1+0 array, that will give 1.2TB with full speed and full redundancy. The choice of the 2.5" form factor is for modding reasons right now, if that goes away then choices would be different with 3.5" drives. I acknowledge that this is an expen$ive route to go.

tiraides, mannyman & Danny Bui: Thanks for the Intel vs. AMD feedback. I was an AMD fanboy once, but it seems like Intel is on top for now. We have considered waiting for the bulldozer, but then we are in the "rev 1.0" (brand new motherboard designs, etc) and this system needs to be solid, and we need to start it now. This system will likely take months to do the physical construction, so we may wait on buying the CPU or buy the cheapest "filler" CPU to use for verification during the build, then kick it up to the latest and greatest CPU just before writing it up.

Concerning the video card, I agree, the 580 is kind of overkill for the current monitor, but my son plans to get a larger monitor (~30?). My company has agreed to sponsor the build, but my son will have to earn the monitor upgrade the hard way -- lots of chores!

MY OUTSTANDING WORRIES

1 ) I acknowledge that the ASUS MAXIMUS IV EXTREME is overpriced. However, the money situation in this build is a bit lop-sided since it is a company sponsored build and we want a certain wow factor going on.

I would really like to go with a micro-ATX form factor so the entire mechanical build can be smaller. Assuming that the smaller board meets all of our I/O requirements. Is there any reason to expect that one of these boards micro-ATX vs full-ATX would perform better or worse than the other?

2 ) I am really surprised that there is no feedback on the canned water-cooling solution from Corsair. Can anyone offer any feedback on these? When I was modding years ago, watercooling was a huge and complicated undertaking. Has it just progressed to where $100 makes it a done deal?
 
1) If your company is giving you the Maximus IV Extreme, that would be one thing. But if you're paying for it yourself, I would recommend something cheaper.

A microATX board will perform just as well as a full ATX board. You may be limited in a few PCI(-E) slots, and very few high-end mATX boards have all of the same bells and whistles as their full-sized counterparts, but you can find a decent board with plenty of features. One such example is the Asus P8P67-M Pro, which is what I chose for my SB rig.

2) Self-contained CPU water blocks like the Corsair H50/H70 are treated like high-end fan-based CPU coolers. They generally perform better than the stock Intel CPU cooler, but a DIY water-cooling setup (or a WC kit) is considered to be better. The H50 is not without its flaws: Corsair recommends that the fan it offers should be used as an intake fan (and reviews show that by itself, using the fan as an exhaust fan lowers performance slightly) and its size may limit the type of microATX case(s) that you could use.
 
First off: THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP! It is kind of daunting being the old man trying to get back into the game after years of absence.

My son went out to to look for a RED micro ATX boards, and came up with these two, compared to his original choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...31-658^13-131-658-TS,13-131-700^13-131-700-TS

Now I am super confused! I guess the question becomes: how does the architecture of the X58 + LGA 1366 compare to the P55 + LGA 1156?

So here is the current proposed build (proposed by my very excited son, since it is a [H]ard RED µATX MB :) ):

µATX MB: ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366 Intel X58
CPU: Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7970
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) (3 sets for 24GB)
GPU: ASUS ENGTX580/2DI/1536MD5 GeForce GTX 580(Fermi)
CPU Cooler: CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler
Boot+OS SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
RAID 0+1 drives array: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
Mouse: Saitek CCB437050002/04/1 Black USB Wired Laser 4000 dpi Cyborg R.A.T. 5 Gaming Mouse
Keyboard: Saitek Cyborg V5 CCB44026N002/06/1 Black USB Wired Gaming Keyboard
Headset: KOSS 159550 Stereo Headset

tiraides said . . . size may limit the type of microATX case(s) . . .

This case will be full custom . . . we plan to build it around the components that are getting specified in this thread.
 
Raid 0+1 is silly for a gaming system. It's expensive, complex, and innefficient given your intended use of the computer. Four hard-disks will be needlessly taxing the psu rail your SATA connectors rely upon, and while a hd failure won't bring down the system, they are still annoying to deal with, and with four drives clumped together, you're just increasing the chance you'll need to deal with a failure at some point.

Also consider that the performance gain provided by striped RAID (0 or 0+1) is quite modest when run from a software-powered motherboard controller. If performance is the goal, it's a poor way to achieve it. Consider putting money to a second or larger SSD. With the release of 25nm SSDs in the next few days, you'll see price per GB come down. Already many consider 256GB to be a sweet spot at around $400-$450 (under $2 per GB.) If data redundancy is the chief priority, consider a simple RAID 1 setup. It's not quite as fast as striped RAID, but you'll hardly know the difference.
 
I need to start off by saying that your current plan is way overkill for a gaming machine.

crystalfontz said:
So here is the current proposed build (proposed by my very excited son, since it is a [H]ard RED µATX MB :) ):

µATX MB: ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366 Intel X58
CPU: Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7970
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) (3 sets for 24GB)
GPU: ASUS ENGTX580/2DI/1536MD5 GeForce GTX 580(Fermi)
CPU Cooler: CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler
Boot+OS SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
RAID 0+1 drives array: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
Click to expand...

I know that you have the money for everything, not to mention sponsorship, but the pragmatist in me cringes when looking at the complete build. But before I get ahead of myself here....

crystalfontz said:
Now I am super confused! I guess the question becomes: how does the architecture of the X58 + LGA 1366 compare to the P55 + LGA 1156?
Click to expand...

The LGA1366/X58 platform gives you higher maximum RAM (six slots versus four) and more PCI-E lanes for multi-card CrossFire or SLI. However, the X58 microATX boards have a serious disadvantage: their northbridge chipsets get very hot, to the point that they may need a better heatsink or active cooling (if not both). That problem is due to the close proximity the chipset is to everything, but it's something that has to be factored in regardless. The Rampage III Gene suffers from this very problem (as does my X58 mATX choice, the MSI X58M. I "solved" my problem by buying and installing a much larger third-party heatsink, but you may or may not want to go that route).

The Sandy Bridge processors have integrated the PCI-E controllers (along with "onboard" GPU) within the processors themselves, which allows the H67/P67 chipsets to be smaller (compared to the X58 chipsets) and require less to cool them. Since you also appear to be sticking with one video card for the time being, I recommend a P67 board over an X58 board. (With Sandy Bridge processors and boards back on sale, I wouldn't recommend an LGA1156/P55 setup as the current SB line-up is the successor to those parts.)

Going back, I know that you can do whatever you want, but from a practicality standpoint, you don't need much more than the following:

Intel Core i5 2500k (Sandy Bridge)
Asus P8P67-M Pro (one of the better P67 mATX boards that are currently available)
2x4GB DDR3 1333 kit (your Ripjaws choice is fine, but stick with one set)
Corsair H50 or H70 (You can mount a second fan onto the H50 using machine screws)
Crucial C300 128GB SSD (though you may want to wait for the C400... or get the Intel 510 series)
Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200RPM 32MB HDD (10% slower than the VR but better bang-per-buck performance)
Radeon HD 6870 (for the two monitors you have right now)
A good 650 watt power supply (modular would be ideal)

But the above build is only a suggested alternative.
 
crystalfontz said:
1 ) I acknowledge that the ASUS MAXIMUS IV EXTREME is overpriced. However, the money situation in this build is a bit lop-sided since it is a company sponsored build and we want a certain wow factor going on.
Click to expand...
If you want that WOW factor, then at least upgrade the monitor to a 23" or 24" or even 30" monitor. Otherwise it's gonna be a very very lopsided build. A high-end system with a small-ass monitor? Think about it.
crystalfontz said:
Now I am super confused! I guess the question becomes: how does the architecture of the X58 + LGA 1366 compare to the P55 + LGA 1156?

So here is the current proposed build (proposed by my very excited son, since it is a [H]ard RED µATX MB :) ):

µATX MB: ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366 Intel X58
CPU: Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7970
Click to expand...

In addition to tiraides' excellent post, the Core i5 2500K outperforms the Core i7 970. So again you're paying $370 more for a color scheme and now lower performance.
 
A couple of mea culpas are in order...

tiraides said:
You don't need Core i7 if the primary role of this system is going to be gaming. For heavy-duty graphics/video editing and multiple virtual machines, sure; but outside of Hyper Threading, the only difference between the i5-2500k and the i7-2600k is only 100MHz.
Click to expand...

crystalfontz said:
I left out that the son mainly wants gaming, but the father would like a machine that would be good at video editing with Adobe Premiere also. So that is why we are looking at the RAID. We are not so good with backups at the house, so the additional reliability of RAID is attractive to me.
Click to expand...

First, I should have read that a bit more clearly. If you're spending at least half of your time with Premiere (and it's either CS4 or CS5), then the i7-2600k and its Hyper Threading support would be more beneficial than the i5-2500k. You may also want to consider grabbing a 1+GB Nvidia card (at least the GTX 460, if not better) as Premiere CS4/CS5 can use it for GPU acceleration (where the program runs on the card's GPU rather than the CPU).

And I should have taken your size preference into greater consideration when I came up with my build:

crystalfontz said:
Thanks for the feedback. We want to make a PC that is physically small, with high performance.
Click to expand...

crystalfontz said:
The idea we had with the raid is that the small laptop SATA drives in RAID would take less power and be smaller than the rquivalent 3.5" drives, and more rugged for travel.
Click to expand...

crystalfontz said:
We are now thinking of using a four 600GB drive RAID 1+0 array, that will give 1.2TB with full speed and full redundancy. The choice of the 2.5" form factor is for modding reasons right now, if that goes away then choices would be different with 3.5" drives. I acknowledge that this is an expen$ive route to go.
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crystalfontz said:
> . . . Velociraptor . . . That was the biggest 2.5" 32MB cache 10K RPM drive I could find on Newegg. Am I missing something? I do want to stay with the 2.5" form factor for modding reasons specific to this build, even though I acknowledge that 3.5" will give more for less.
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crystalfontz said:
Small would be nice.
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However, I do believe that the Velociraptors aren't the best choice for this system, especially since you're planning on buying an SSD for the primary drive. I also agree with everyone else who commented that RAID is foolish for the sole purpose of protecting data. That said, the closest that I can come to a compromise with your wishes is to choose either a 750GB or 1TB 2.5" drive... but the 1TB notebook drives are taller than the SSD and the 750GB drives (12.5mm versus 9.5mm -- very few compact devices can fit a 12.5mm tall drive at this time). Worse, the performance of the 2.5" 7200RPM drives aren't as good as the 3.5" drives we normally recommend, let alone a Velociraptor.

Taking RAID off the table for the time being, how do you want to handle the HDD situation?
 
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Getting back to this now. Thanks a ton for all the help. We have really appreciated all the information. This system has morphed from my son wanting to scrimp on a "gaming system" that he could work off, into a full custom computer sponsored build. We have learned a lot during this component selection process. Some advice we took, some things we just went with what felt right.

This will be a "show" system. We hope to make a really unique "modded" case (full custom case actually), and want the hardware inside to be as "balls to the wall" as is reasonably possible.

Since it will take months to get the case constructed, we have ordered what we thought were the most stable bits of the system that will impact the case layout the most. The remainder of the parts we will get towards the end of the build, when there may be better performance or lower prices available.

Parts we are now committed to:

ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131658

CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145329

XFX HD-699A-ENF9 Radeon HD 6990 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card with Eyefinity
http://www.provantage.com/xfx-hd699aenf9~7PINE0ML.htm // in stock
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150529 // out of stock

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010

CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010

We are going to model these parts in 3D, as well as the rest of the case. The drives can be modeled easily, the CPU will not impact the mechanical construction. Hopefully faster/bigger/cheaper things will happen to the parts that we are delaying purchasing right now.
 
I don't get this: If you're gonna be waiting for the rest of the other parts, why not wait for the and buy the parts for the PC in one go? How long exactly are you gonna wait for the rest of those parts? And if it's gonna take months for that case to be built, why buy the parts now? Especially if it's an incomplete PC at that.


EDIT:
Here's my biggest issue with that setup: Yes I can see that you want that "WOW" factor and that "show" feature. However you're doing it with an old and overpriced system. You really should have stuck with the Sandy Bridge route, even with the Asus Maximus IV motherboard that you chose earlier. A Core i7 2600K + that Asus Maximux IV motherboard would have been $685. Your route with the Core i7 970 (assuming same CPU as before) and that Asus Rampage III motherboard is $840. Unless you desperately needed a small size motherboard or really large amounts of RAM, from a price to performance standpoint, the Core i7 2600K + Asus Maximus IV still would have been the far better choice here despite the high price of that Maximus IV
 
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Why again are you committing yourself to the X58 mATX board? You will have to accommodate your case design to factor in the easily-hot northbridge chipset in addition to the processor and motherboard.

Besides, if this build is going to consist of some of the latest and greatest parts available, you're better off either going with Sandy Bridge or waiting for Socket 2011 (or whatever the final name will be) to arrive.
 
The point was to buy the parts that most affect the mechanical build now, and fill in the other parts (processor, disk drives) with (hopefully) lower-cost or higher-performance parts later.

The mATX is pretty important for the build. And we did have a huge internal debate over the Core i7 vs Sandy Bridge. Waiting for socket 2011 . . . is a moving target, at some point you have to pull the trigger.

Hopefully the build will not take as long as we are preparing for.

The video card showed up today. Score for ProVantage.

Well, we will have to see how it all develops.
 
Once more, for emphasis: You'll need something to effectively cool off the northbridge on the Rampage III Gene. The stock heatsink won't do it.

I'm not here to fight with you over your choices, but I want you to be fully aware of your board's serious flaw.
 
> Once more, for emphasis: You'll need something to effectively cool
> off the northbridge on the Rampage III Gene. The stock heatsink
> won't do it.

Are you saying we should remove and replace the stock heat pipe and fin assembly that cools the NB and switchers?

ASUS_Gene.png


Are there after-market coolers for those chips?

By looks, that heat sink seems pretty good. It might be great to get some active air flowing right over it though.

Normally, there will not be a lot of air circulating in that area due to the Corsair water cooler, so maybe an auxiliary fan ducted to bring in fresh air and blow directly trough the NB heat sink:

ASUS_Gene_NB_With_Fan.png


That way the stock heat sink for the NB and switchers could be used, but having direct forced air would keep them cool.

Thoughts?

> I'm not here to fight with you over your choices,

Dang it! Where is the fun in that?
 
If you've already bought the board, the fight is over.

I don't know how well that fan will work on the stock heatsink. For best results, you may have to look at a third-party heatsink that can support a fan.
 
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