Draft parts list for new PC - opinions welcome

drop the hd5850 and get a hd5870, otherwise top notch build. =)

but do you plan on going sli/xfire? otherwise 850W psu is kinda waaay too much

and that case is fugly, but that just me ^^

I did look at the 5870 but thought the difference in price relative to the performance increase over the 5850 was not justified.

No plans at the moment to go xfire or sli. I thought if I went for the 850w it would cover me for any future options.

LOL at fugly case. She has a great personality though :)

SeaFoam · February 28, 2010

I agree, don't get the 5850 - OC your 5870 a little, then add a second one later.

Dump the Corsair memory too - go with some GSkill Trident 2000, your overclock will love you better.

I agree- that case is... meh.

Go with Corsair 800d. It's worth the extra money.

emenance · March 1, 2010

Its ok and that is a $350.00 us motherboard. I would save 100 bucks and go with a Asus maximus formula 3. It supports i7 and i5. I would then go with a i5 proc http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215 and again save about 100 bucks. These cutting edge boards are designed to overclock and are quality, mine is going on 2.5 years. But in a simmers world the risk and reward ratio is not worth it. I only use a trusted and tested moderate overclock on my system (cpu )and refuse to overclock memory, test it on a regular basis and use a symantec backup exec 8.5 desktop edition to restore everything if it dies. 6.5 is good enough too.

Your PSU is not recommended by ATI AMD, change that http://ati.amd.com/products/certified/powersupplies.html#pstop

I am learning hdd recovery and repair, I do not believe hdd tech is where it should be with 1 tb drives. At least in a power user environment. On the surface there is just too many places for data to spread out on a 1tb drive, room for mistakes increase. Insted of that drive I would run a wd single drive that has a five year warranty. All raid edition drives are made better like this. I would not trust my data to a drive that only has a 3 year warranty is the bottom line. PLus you dont have to use a raid setup with a raid edition drive. Although I am using two wd 320gb raid edition3 drives in a raid 0 and its been very nice.

Edited March 1, 2010 by emenance

SeaFoam · March 1, 2010

DONT get an 1156 board. Stay with a 1366. In the future you will be able to drop in the 6 core processors in the 1366. There will be no 1156 6 core chip. You may save a little bit going with 1156 but it is not worth it.

It also does not support 2 16x pci-e slots. The slots on an 1156 board are electrically 16x but only support 16x and 8x when you run SLI/CF.

Prophet4no1 · March 1, 2010

If you want the mother of all full tower cases, this is the one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119187&cm_re=coolermaster-_-11-119-187-_-Product

SeaFoam · March 1, 2010

If you want the mother of all full tower cases, this is the one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119187&cm_re=coolermaster-_-11-119-187-_-Product

800d is a lot bigger and better made than that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139001&Tpk=800d

Dave_s · March 1, 2010

Thanks for all the opinions guys, appreciated.

I will definitely be staying with the 1336 board and will probably still go with the ASUS Rampage. I have yet to see a bad review of this board, although that is probably the same for the other boards mentioned. Just a case of going for a board with a proven track record and just buying it otherwise I will just go around in circles :)

Have to say, I do like the Corsair 800D case, so may well change to that one. Thanks for the heads up seafoam.

Other than that, the only thing I am humming and arring about is the graphics card. Need to do a bit more research here me thinks. Everyone seems to think the 5870 is the way to go. I just need to be convinced of exactly what extra bang I would be getting for the buck.

Cheers

Dave

Prophet4no1 · March 1, 2010

The new Fermi cards are coming out in a month or two. My buddy that owns Darkside PC's is getting two in to start testing with. From the numbers nVidia has be giving him, they are monsters. But have a price to follow it. Chepest one is $480msrp. They top out at near $700msrp.

hitman · March 1, 2010

drop the hd5850 and get a hd5870, otherwise top notch build. =)

but do you plan on going sli/xfire? otherwise 850W psu is kinda waaay too much

and that case is fugly, but that just me ^^

why spend extra money on something he doesnt need? its basically the same thing. it IS the same exact thing, except the clock speed...and you CAN o/c the cards. sli and crossfire arent needed either. the 850w is just fine too since its in the same price range as a 750w.

Edited March 1, 2010 by hitman

hitman · March 1, 2010

also, drop the 1tb drive and get 2 500gb and run em in raid0.

SeaFoam · March 1, 2010

This is the 800d, the light showing through is just because I didn't have the sides on. All of the wiring runs through the backside so the airflow is absolutely awesome in the case. There is so much room, I haven't had the chance to put mine on water yet. I am running 4.2 ghz stable on air though no problems, I could probably go higher if I messed with it a while. There's room for 3x120mm radiator at the top of the case, also there is a 4x sata hotswap bay in the front.

Here's a little better shot of the wiring.

Edited March 1, 2010 by SeaFoam

SeaFoam · March 1, 2010

why spend extra money on something he doesnt need? its basically the same thing. it IS the same exact thing, except the clock speed...and you CAN o/c the cards. sli and crossfire arent needed either. the 850w is just fine too since its in the same price range as a 750w.

Wrong.

They are not the same cards.

5850

1440 Stream Processing Units
72 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
32 Color ROP Units

5870

1600 Stream Processing Units
80 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
32 Color ROP Units

Also, I would go with 2x 500gb and Raid 0 them. Or the 640gb if it is close to the same price. Make sure you get WD black edition drives, not the green.

hitman · March 2, 2010

Wrong.
They are not the same cards.
5850

1440 Stream Processing Units

72 Texture Units

128 Z/Stencil ROP Units

32 Color ROP Units

5870

1600 Stream Processing Units

80 Texture Units

128 Z/Stencil ROP Units

32 Color ROP Units

Also, I would go with 2x 500gb and Raid 0 them. Or the 640gb if it is close to the same price. Make sure you get WD black edition drives, not the green.

ok so for an extra 150$ or more you get something slightly better? wow.

Edited March 2, 2010 by hitman

SeaFoam · March 2, 2010

ok so for an extra 150$ or more you get something slightly better? wow.

Not 150 more. I got mine for 350 - overclock it and you have a lot faster.

hitman · March 2, 2010

newegg sells them for 450, i can get a 5850 for 300. really no point in getting top line stuff when the next one down performs 3-5 fps lower than the best. hey...if you want to shell out that money for the best, do it. you can play crysis maxed out at 60fps with both cards. you pay extra for nothing in return, thats all.

Prophet4no1 · March 2, 2010

Why would you need such a massive case? It seems like total overkill. You are not even using most of it. If you had some crazy water cooling and/or lots of hard drives I could see it. It seems like a case for the ubber systems with extreme cooling systems. And that is not what's in it. Just seems like overkill.

SeaFoam · March 2, 2010

Why would you need such a massive case? It seems like total overkill. You are not even using most of it. If you had some crazy water cooling and/or lots of hard drives I could see it. It seems like a case for the ubber systems with extreme cooling systems. And that is not what's in it. Just seems like overkill.

You didn't read what I said.

There are a lot of hard drives in it, I bought it for the looks/cable management at first. I am water cooling, I haven't gotten around to it yet. If I am lucky I'll be able to hit 4.8.

EtherealN · March 2, 2010

As someone that also has a proper fulltower (with cable ducts behind the MB plate and so on), it's a combination of airflow and space management. Basically, bigger case like that is easier to make allow better airflow, and it is a lot simpler to do maintenance inside of simply because it has a lot of extra space.

My previous box, that I had the same components inside of (minus the Zalman cooler), actually caused the graphics card to intrude into the HDD tray! With the fulltower I not only have the HDD tray and Graphics card both fitted with nice margins, the size of the package also allows all of them to be readily cooled by their own 24cm fans without impeding total air flow.

Furthermore, these fulltower cases also afford the option of considering all motherboards when upgrading, since you are not limited to the normal ATX standard. Obviously, this is usually not that big of a concern, but it is something to consider.

And in the end, the extra cost for the fulltowers compared to a similar mid-tower isn't much higher, and making room for them on your desk isn't a difficult thing. At worst you'll end up going to IKEA and spending 50 dollars on a new desk. :P

walker450 · March 2, 2010

/\ What he said... :)

I have an Antec 1200 and can't imagine going to a smaller case.

Dave_s · March 2, 2010

The reason I am considering the full tower is, as mentioned above, wanting to ensure a good airflow and ease of access (also, it looks damn good :) )

I think the 5850 will do just fine and it has good reviews with the ability to run stuff at near enough max in most games. To be honest I do not think I would be able to detect a 10fps difference if it is already chugging along at 40-50fps already. The difference in price would probably be better put towards a faster processor.

On the agenda this evening is to read up on RAID 0 to better understand the benefits. (Gawd, I really know how to spend a quality evening at home :) )

Dave

Prophet4no1 · March 2, 2010

Ther are some pretty big mid towers too with massive airflow. Like the CM690 II Advanced. I just ordered one and a full lot of fans. 10 in total with controllers. It even has a 80mm fan for behind the MB tray. As for vid card clearence, I should have no issues. You have 12 inches from HD to rear of case.

I know a bigger case is good for air flow but the last time I seen a 700/800 case was on a pro rig in a design office where they do building design. That was a massive system. Massive MB with dual quad core CPU's, dual nVidia Quadro cards, 10 1tb hds, 2 120gb sshd, and almost everything on water. Not sure on the clock specs. That thing pretty well filled that case though. But they needed enough power to render the entire structure of a building in 3D. All the way down to the wires and plumbing. that's a lot of stuff on a 20-30 floor building. Then display on dual 32inch monitors. lol

People can do what they want, obviously. But, still seems like overkill for a home rig.

Konovalov · March 2, 2010

Change the CPU

Dave,

If you are convinced of going down the socket 1366/X58 platform route then I would recommend that you change your CPU from the i7 920 up to the new i7 930 which effectively will replace the 920 in the future. Has the same D0 stepping which means it should overclock to plus 4Ghz with ease. Novatech has it in stock also: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelCorei7/Intel/BX80601930.html

In fact check out this review at UK site Bit-Tech (Custom PC magazine people): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/1

Otherwise if you want to save a whole lot more then a socket 1156 platform with an i5 750 overclocked to 4Ghz isn't too shabby either.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Konovalov
Dodgy spelling

hitman · March 2, 2010

The reason I am considering the full tower is, as mentioned above, wanting to ensure a good airflow and ease of access (also, it looks damn good :) )

I think the 5850 will do just fine and it has good reviews with the ability to run stuff at near enough max in most games. To be honest I do not think I would be able to detect a 10fps difference if it is already chugging along at 40-50fps already. The difference in price would probably be better put towards a faster processor.

On the agenda this evening is to read up on RAID 0 to better understand the benefits. (Gawd, I really know how to spend a quality evening at home :) )

Dave

think of raid0 like this: 1 disk reads at 3mbp/S at 7200 rpm. 2 discs in raid0 reads at 6mbp/s at 7200 rpm. 3 discs in raid0 reads at 9mbp/S at 7200 rpm...the quirky thing with raid0 is that total capacity is the smallest disk size x # of drives. if you have drives, 1 at 500gb and 2 with 750gb, youll have 1500gb total, not 2000gb you would expect...but your read/write speed will be faster. the more heads you have for r/w the faster data is computed.

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