SFF Gaming build

flooberjobby

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
268
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Heavy Gaming, and some media use

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Around $1,500, though I could go up to $2,000 if necessary. Not including tax and shipping.

3) Where do you live?
FT Bliss, TX

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Blue Ray burner drive, Da Box 100(alredy picked and going to buy), 1200 PSU(looking at an Ultra X4, Ram, CPU(Preferably a Hexacore I like to play more than one game at a time while web surfing, chatting, listening to music and various other things so I need the extra cores/threads), Motherboard(with SATA 3, and USB 3.0), GPU, Getting an H50 for cooling the CPU, HD/SSD Um... I think thats it for parts I'd need.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Keyboard, mouse, nothing else

6) Will you be overclocking?
Would like to have the CPU at 4-4.3 GHZ

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Not sure on size but would like an IPS, DIsplayport, 1920x1200 monitor with the thinest bezels I can get for a god price. (I'm planning for Eyefinity) Would like to keep the price under 1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within a couple of weeks

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0, SATA 3, Crossfire, RAID

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
No. but I'm looking at Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

I would like to have a SSD for booting, and then 2 RAIDed together for gaming, but I'd need at least 300 GB SSD for the games, if it can't fit in the budget that's fine I'll just get the essentials and buy the SSD next month.

Video card has to be the E6 card, or another one with nothing but Display port out, I don't want to deal with any adapters.

This is kinda what I'm looking at so far. Any suggestions I'm open to them.

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5267687&sku=C13-2528

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=15176&sku=M452-6090

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5279700&sku=TSD-2000WD

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6052729&sku=A79-1090

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6044540&sku=L49-1053

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4143847&sku=ULT40323

http://www.lan-gear.com/microATX.php

and thanks for all the help. :)
 
what you want for the budget is going to be a tall order since you have specified a 500 dollar video card, and whats going to be a fairly expensive monitor as well.

Also for your SSD's to get 300GB between 2 drives that alone will end up being 800+.

as 1200w PSU is definitely not necessary. Even crossfireing 2 5870's you can do on an 850 safely so 950 or 1kw would still be overkill (as long as its a good quality PSU)

Either the budget or the hardware you have selected I think needs to flex to be sure your covered everywhere.
 
what you want for the budget is going to be a tall order since you have specified a 500 dollar video card, and whats going to be a fairly expensive monitor as well.

Also for your SSD's to get 300GB between 2 drives that alone will end up being 800+.

as 1200w PSU is definitely not necessary. Even crossfireing 2 5870's you can do on an 850 safely so 950 or 1kw would still be overkill (as long as its a good quality PSU)

Either the budget or the hardware you have selected I think needs to flex to be sure your covered everywhere.

I would like to have a SSD for booting, and then 2 RAIDed together for gaming, but I'd need at least 300 GB SSD for the games, if it can't fit in the budget that's fine I'll just get the essentials and buy the SSD next month.

So in other words I can wait on the SSD drives.

As for the 1200 watt PSU, I am just setting myself up for future proofing, because I would like to eventually water cool everything, and I do plan to OC pretty much everything.

As for the monitors I understand they will be between 200-600 dollars each.

And as for the 5870 E6 you can find them for between 380-500.

The system can be built for 1500 without the monitors pretty much. Just posting here to see what other options there are if I haven't found them. Or better deals for me for the parts.

and the budget can flex, as well as the Hardware... I just want to stay as close to the parameters as possible.
 
Might I suggest getting two WD Caviar Black 640GB HDDs and put those in RAID 0. The SSD for games will get you slightly faster load times, but it will not give you much (for the price premium) in FPS.
edit: Short Stroke the RAID 0 for 300 Primary & 940 for secondary. Put your games on the 300 and use the additional 940 for other storage

Do you ever make it to DFW? If so, you can save yourself a little money and get in on the MC deal for AMD & Intel CPUs with discounted MoBos.

I am looking at a similar build using the langear Da Box. I already have a spare Core i7 920 so that will be the CPU for my build.
 
Ok well I got the case, the mobo, the video card, the ram, cpu, blue ray burner drive, OS, PSU. Well everything I need but the monitors.

Any suggestion for monitors? IPS panel, 1920x1200, Displaoy port plugin. That's the only requirement. I know I could get a 1920x1080 cheap... but is the loss of a 120 pixels really worth the price drip?
 
Might I suggest getting two WD Caviar Black 640GB HDDs and put those in RAID 0. The SSD for games will get you slightly faster load times, but it will not give you much (for the price premium) in FPS.
edit: Short Stroke the RAID 0 for 300 Primary & 940 for secondary. Put your games on the 300 and use the additional 940 for other storage

Do you ever make it to DFW? If so, you can save yourself a little money and get in on the MC deal for AMD & Intel CPUs with discounted MoBos.

I am looking at a similar build using the langear Da Box. I already have a spare Core i7 920 so that will be the CPU for my build.

You should get the Rampage 3. It would work great with that cpu for you. :D
 
Ok well I got the case, the mobo, the video card, the ram, cpu, blue ray burner drive, OS, PSU. Well everything I need but the monitors.

Any suggestion for monitors? IPS panel, 1920x1200, Displaoy port plugin. That's the only requirement. I know I could get a 1920x1080 cheap... but is the loss of a 120 pixels really worth the price drip?


its not loosing anything... it will give you 16:9 gaming... 1920:1200, 1080 and 720 content (and many games) are going to 16:9

not to mention your eyes will not know the difference
 
You should get the Rampage 3. It would work great with that cpu for you. :D

I am looking at the Rampage III. Trying to get this thing built in time for QuakeCon, but with building a house (just wrote an $8K check for deposits, not including the $2K check for earnest) and trying to have a baby (with my wife of course) thru assisted reproduction (this stuff is NOT cheap), this is a "low" priority item. Not too low for me, but we'll have to see.

It is a very nice board.
 
I am looking at the Rampage III. Trying to get this thing built in time for QuakeCon, but with building a house (just wrote an $8K check for deposits, not including the $2K check for earnest) and trying to have a baby (with my wife of course) thru assisted reproduction (this stuff is NOT cheap), this is a "low" priority item. Not too low for me, but we'll have to see.

It is a very nice board.

Well I wish you the best luck. One of my military friends had good luck with that. I hope it works out great for you to. :)
 
Send the ultra x4 back! I have heard alot of bad things about it.

Any other suggestions for a 1200 Watt PSU that will fit in DA box comfortably?

Because I plan on severely OCing stuff and then eventually water cooling the system as well.
 
Dam Idk anything about 1200w but this one looks good, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256041

I dont really think you need that much, even if your ocing everything and watercooling. 5870s arent all that power hungry.

I'm looking to tri-fire the next generation when it comes out. Because they are suppose to fix the bridge link buffer limitation for Eyefinity

That's why I'm looking for a 1200 watt PSU system. Because 3 OCed video cards, with 2 SSD drives in raid for the OS, then 2 more in raid for games, wtih 1 other hd for storage.

Then water cool everything, and OC the cpu, as well as the ram.... So... power requirements go up fast.
 
Wait wait, did you already buy all the hardware? The Ultra PSU is a POS and hopefully you didn't go with capreppy's 2 x 640GB RAID 0 idea as those drives are considerably slower than the WD5000AAKS drives.
 
I'm looking to tri-fire the next generation when it comes out. Because they are suppose to fix the bridge link buffer limitation for Eyefinity

That's why I'm looking for a 1200 watt PSU system. Because 3 OCed video cards, with 2 SSD drives in raid for the OS, then 2 more in raid for games, wtih 1 other hd for storage.

Then water cool everything, and OC the cpu, as well as the ram.... So... power requirements go up fast.
Well you cant tri fire with a matx, unless you want a 5970 and a 5870.
 
Well you cant tri fire with a matx, unless you want a 5970 and a 5870.

Bingo, you figred that one out. No I didn't go with the two 640. I'm just going to get a 1 TB 64 bit 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 HD for now, and then buy my SSD drives as I can afford them.

As well as saving up for the next gen, amd cpu and video cards.

No I didn't buy anything yet. But I plan to with in a week or so. Jut waiting on a pay check to come in. Should be in by tomorrow or monday.

So... What PSU should I get then? Because my next option is either the BFG 1200 watt or go with the tryed and true SIlver stone ST100-P modular 1000 watt PSU. Which I'm worred about power.

I like having head room.
 
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