Suggestion/comments on this build

[crimsonsky69]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
A. FPS gaming, watching/downloading videos

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
A. For now $800 + whatever I can get from current build

3) Where do you live?
A. Rochester, NY, USA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.
A. CPU, GPU, System HD, Storage HD, Memory, PSU, Case, MOBO, CPU cooling solution, DVD/CD Buner. No Blue-ray.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
My keyboard, mouse, and my monitors, X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro

6) Will you be overclocking?
A. Most definitely

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
A. 22" 1680x1050 LG, 23.1" 1080p Acer.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
A. Before summer

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
A. Raid 5, USB 3.0, Sata 6gb, SLI, and the ability to put 2 16x GPU, 2 1x pci-e

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
A. Windows 7 pro 64bit.


The build, http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=19530947

Ok first I'm not buying all of this at once. I will get the second 570 and the ssd later.

I'm planning to make this last at least 4 years. Will OC if required and I play games, BFBC2, CoD:MW2, most deffinately crysis 2, on 1680x1050.

I'm also planning on selling my current build, how much you think I can get from it.

Cooler Master RC-690----------------------------------------$40?
PC Power and Cooling 850W PSU----------------------$100?
2x 2GB G.Skill 1066 RAM----------------------------------$40?
EVGA 750i FTW------------------------------------------------$92?
Arctic Cooling freezer 7 pro + arctic silver 5.---------$25?
Q6600 Stock. [only game that maxes this CPU is GTA IV]----$160?
Sapphire 5770.---------------------------------------------------$130?
7x 120 mm fans. Very quiet with all the fans set low.--$50?
120GB OCZ vertex 2------------------------------------------------$200?
WD640AAKS-------------------------------------------------------$50?
Seagte 500 GB HD.----------------------------------------------$40?
LITE On 20x DVD burner---------------------------------------$15?
Windows 7 professional.----------------------------------------$90?


I did a decent job at wiring too.

 

[Dangman]

Please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.

Right off the bat, don't buy that PC. There's a ton of poor choices there.

Ok first I'm not buying all of this at once. I'm slowly gonna build up to it. I will get one 570 and 3 of the 5 drives in raid 5.

Ok, how long will it take you to buy all those parts?

I also like to keep huge collection of HD movies and TV shows. Thus 5x500 GB raid 5. I was gonna do 3x1 TB in raid 5 but why waste 1 TB in parity. both solutions cost the same.

Not really. 5 drives use more power than 3 drives. In addition, 3 x Samsung F3 1TB drives costs $195, $55 less than the 5x500GB route. Also, 5 x 500GB drives means two more points of failure versus 3 x 1TB RAID 5. So the costs are not the same.

Finally, if you're using the onboard RAID, you cannot add drives as you go along: The ICH10R storage controller does not support Online Capacity Expansion. So once you start with your 3 x 500GB drives, thats it. You cannot expand the RAID array without wiping out the existing array.

I'm also planning on selling my current build, how much you think I can get from it.

Price checks are not allowed in this part of the forum. It's only allowed in the subscription-only General Mayhem.

With that said, $1200 is $500 too much for that setup.

 

[crimsonsky69]

Since I can't expand RAID, the SSD and the second GPU will be purchased later and everything else as soon as I sell my current rig.

Reason for my selection:
Cooler Master Haf x: Lots of room to work + big fans. I also like their solutions for wiring.
ASUS P6X58D Premium: PCI-e layout, USB 3.0, Sata 6 Gb/s. I have a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro and PCI-e x1 TV tuner.
GTX 570: Future proof and great performance. will go SLI in the future.
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3: For the reason danny stated. (Thank you)
The rest can change.

 

[E4g1e]

Actually, the only reason for the HAF X is if you're going to use a tri-SLI setup (three GPUs). Otherwise, the HAF X is not worth its $200 price - in fact, it is not worth anywhere near that much more than the next-lower HAF 932 (quality-wise).

Other not-so-good selections are the HSF (it does not use 120mm fans - but only 92mm fans) and the RAM (it costs twice as much money as it should, and does not overclock any better than lower-speed modules that use lower voltage). The SSD is also relatively slow, and I would spend the extra $20 for an i7-950 instead of the 930 if you're dead-set on the LGA 1366 platform.

 

[Dangman]

I concur with everything that E4g1e said right now.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
A. Before summer

Ok first I'm not buying all of this at once..

Ok, if you want up-to-date advice, ask when you're only 2-3 weeks away from purchasing the parts. Otherwise, you're pretty much wasting time researching parts even two months in advance of your purchase date. I can absolutely gurantee you that those parts will not be good buys a month and a half from now let alone the beginning of summer. Hell right now those parts aren't that good.

So yeah, if you want up-to-date advice and the knowledge that you are getting the best value for your buck, post again 2-3 weeks before you actually buy. Any more than that and you're wasting your time.

Now if you were planning on buying that build this month, here's a list of things wrong with that build and alternative parts recommendations:
- Since gaming is the only real heavy duty mechanism, zero reason for a X58 setup or Core i7 setup. I know that you want to make that system last long but the extra costs of the Core i7 VS Core i5 wouldn't make that PC last that long:
The i5 750/760 is just as fast as the Core i7 950 in gaming as shown here:

The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference over the Core i5 750 as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster than the Core i5 750 with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and i7 950 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under the most ideal conditions, the Core i7 930/950 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. At least fast enough to justify the higher costs anyway. In addition, there's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So platform wise, you can save around $150 to $200 if you switch to the Core i7 750/760 route and still get very similar performance in games. Dunno about you but $150 to $250 is too high for minimal gains in gaming. It'll only extend the life of your PC by 2 months at most.

So if buying this month, then I would recommend this:
$210 - Intel Core i5-760 CPU
$180 - Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard
----
Total: $390 shipped

Same performance but $200 less. So really no good reason for that X58 setup.

- The RAM, as mentioned earlier, is stupidly overpriced. You can get 2GB more RAM at a lower cost:
$105 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9S-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM

There's no real world performance difference between dual or triple channel RAM. So even if you stick with the Core i7 route, that Dominator RAM is still a poor buy.

- As mentioned earlier, that OCZ SSD is a poor choice. Right now the best choices for SSDs are Crucial C300 series.

- Also mentioned earlier, that Coolermaster case is not that good of a choice unless you're going for a triple or quad SLI/Crossfire setup. There are far better cases out there for the money:
$80 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58 ATX Case
$90 - NZXT Tempest Evo TEVO-001BK ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li PC-60FN ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$110 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$110 - NZXT Whisper WHI - 001BK ATX Full Tower Case
$120 - Velocity Micro GX2-W Silver Classic Aluminum Case with Side Window
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$160 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black ATX Case (US Shipping Factored in) (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$160 - Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium ATX Case (US Shipping Factored in) (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$160 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver ATX Case (US Shipping Factored in) (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$160 - Corsair Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$200 - Cooler Master ATCS 840 RC-840-KKN1-GP Full Tower ATX Case
$200 - Lian Li PC-B25F ATX Case
$230 - Silverstone FT02B ATX Case

- GPU wise, unless you really hate AMD or are planning on using applications that takes advantage of CUDA, GTX 570 SLI is not a good buy since you can get a faster HD 6970 Crossfire setup for the same price. Hell even HD 6950 Crossfire would be a better buy than GTX 570 SLI.

- HSF wise, that Coolemaster N520 HSF is a poor choice for the money for a standard ATX case. This is a better choice:
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

NOTE: Most of my recommendations may be obsolete or poor a month and a half from now. I.e Intel's updated Sandy Bridge motherboards will be out in April. Then Crucial's C400 series SSDs and Intel's G3 series SSDs are due out in a few months. The HD 6990 card might be out then and may offer equal or greater performance as HD 6950 Crossfire but at a lower cost. So again, wait till you have the money and then ask for advice.

 

[crimsonsky69]

I will wait for the updated sandy bridge to come out.

On 1920x1200 the 6970 is outperformed by 570 on games like Cod:MW2, BFBC2. And on other games like Metro:2033 sees very little performance gain. Also I've heard a lot of noise and temp complaints for the 6970.

Anyway thanks for all your advice, I will re-post in a month or so and see if any new GPU comes out for Crysis 2. 6990 vs GTX 590. Hopefully they'll be under 700.