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[sco0001]

Recently I am in need of a new computer as my existing one needs to be replaced very soon. I though of building myself, but I need sooner than that. So I went for building the system from an online retailer (
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Xtreme_SSD-K/
)
Configuration:
--------------
Case - CoolerMaster Elite 430
Mobo - GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R
CPU - Intel i7-940 2.93GHz Quad Core
+ Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM
VDO - NVIDIA GeForce EVGA GTS 250 1GB 16X PCI Express
RAM - Corsair Dominator 6GB 1333 DDR3 Triple Ch.
SSD - 64 GB Corsair Nova V64 Gaming MLC
HDD - 640GB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM
Opt - Sony 24X DL AD-7240 burner
PSU - XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX 700 watt PSAZ-CP700
--------------
It comes around $1220 with S&H. (+ about $50 rebates)

Any comments/opinion will be greatly apreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Sp12]

You seem to be missing a vidoecard on what appears to be a gaming system.

Besides that, I'm not a fan of the 940 as it's C0 revision only, and I'm also a bit hesitant to say yes on the watercooling (as it will have maintenance). What will this comp be used for?

 

[mfenn]

The turnaround time for a custom-built system from a boutique is going to be longer than building it yourself. If you need a gaming system NOW!, get one one of the refurb Gateway FX's from Tigerdirect.

 

[darkewaffle]

I actually have a couple friends who have ordered from these guys, and I haven't heard anything bad about them; but by nature I'm kind of wary of smalltime pre-builts.

And I would say go with air cooling, if you aren't building you probably don't have much business with liquid

I would pick a better power supply. Better brand, that is. Unless it's an absolute throwaway rig, avoid no-name PSUs.

6GB of RAM is probably overkill, 4GB would likely do just fine. And as it's an Intel system, I'm pretty sure you would benefit from at least 1600 rated RAM (dont quote me on that though, I tend to keep my nose in AMD boxes).

The corsair nova could be a good or bad choice, depending on how much it's going to cost you. Also 64GB is not a whole lot after you, presumably, install Win7.

The GTS 250 is a nice value card anymore, what resolution are you playing at?

 

[sco0001]

You seem to be missing a vidoecard on what appears to be a gaming system.

Besides that, I'm not a fan of the 940 as it's C0 revision only, and I'm also a bit hesitant to say yes on the watercooling (as it will have maintenance). What will this comp be used for?

Thank you for your quick opinion. On the 940, they are offering free upgrade over 930 (should I really go with 930)?
I can replace watercooling with a good heatsink, but from my previous experience, even the best cooler tends to me loud. I am willing to tryout the silentness.
I left out the video card by mistake, it is EVGA power by NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB 16X PCI Express.

- I will be building a bit more powerful system in a several months down the line. I was going to do that, but my day-today using PC has lot of issues and decided to replace now. This will primarily be used for training (DVD), programming (Java+Visual Studio), plus online and regular use.

Thanks again.

 

[darkewaffle]

If that's all it's going to do, then you can probably lose a lot of that power. You dont even need a GPU or an i7 or that big of a PSU unless you want to migrate components to a new build.

However depending how heavy duty the programming is, you may actually benefit from more than 4GB of RAM. Depends on what kind of projects you have.

 

[sco0001]

I actually have a couple friends who have ordered from these guys, and I haven't heard anything bad about them; but by nature I'm kind of wary of smalltime pre-builts.

And I would say go with air cooling, if you aren't building you probably don't have much business with liquid

I would pick a better power supply. Better brand, that is. Unless it's an absolute throwaway rig, avoid no-name PSUs.

6GB of RAM is probably overkill, 4GB would likely do just fine. And as it's an Intel system, I'm pretty sure you would benefit from at least 1600 rated RAM (dont quote me on that though, I tend to keep my nose in AMD boxes).

The corsair nova could be a good or bad choice, depending on how much it's going to cost you. Also 64GB is not a whole lot after you, presumably, install Win7.

The GTS 250 is a nice value card anymore, what resolution are you playing at?

Thank you.
Although I started up with a gaming machine template (sort of), it will not be used for gaming, if so, perhaps less than 10%. Mostly programming and occasional video rendering. I do have one Intel and one AMD systems (build by me about 5 years ago). While AMD makes a great system in all areas, Intel gives a slight advantage when you are using it for programming.

 

[sco0001]

If that's all it's going to do, then you can probably lose a lot of that power. You dont even need a GPU or an i7 or that big of a PSU unless you want to migrate components to a new build.

However depending how heavy duty the programming is, you may actually benefit from more than 4GB of RAM. Depends on what kind of projects you have.

Infact, I know for it's use, it's little bit too much. But I want to make it last a long time (technology and upgrade-wise), as my previous builds. Whate seems to be a lol today (6GB RAM), 3 years from now maybe it will be minimum.

 

[sco0001]

The turnaround time for a custom-built system from a boutique is going to be longer than building it yourself. If you need a gaming system NOW!, get one one of the refurb Gateway FX's from Tigerdirect.

Yes, time will be the same wether I build myself or have it built. I am just swamped with projects and I don't think I can spare anymore time to build it myself.

Thanks.

 

[mfenn]

Yes, time will be the same wether I build myself or have it built. I am just swamped with projects and I don't think I can spare anymore time to build it myself.

Thanks.

"If you need a gaming system NOW!, get one one of the refurb Gateway FX's from Tigerdirect."

Did you miss this part of my post?

 

[sco0001]

"If you need a gaming system NOW!, get one one of the refurb Gateway FX's from Tigerdirect."

Did you miss this part of my post?

I am going to checkout that.
I just never reconsidered Gateway anymore as I had hard time with it and a lot of people I know-it's just a bad taste that once you go through, you don't want that anymore.

They might be good these days - and that's what I will check out.

Thanks again.

 

[Davidh373]

On newegg you could easily save $300 off that build, and you have no need for a 3X SLI board if you are only using 1 card.

i7 930
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-225-_-Product

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-189-_-Product

Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-220-_-Product

5770 Vid Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-873-_-Product

Coolermaster Gladiator Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...37;20gladiator

650W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-052-_-Product

Blu ray Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-199-_-Product

Total Price is $1153.88

Newegg normally gets orders out day of and packages normally get to me on the shorter end of predicted shipping times (around 3-4 business days). It saves you a ton of money, and knowing the computer will make upgrading easier when the time comes.

If you want to save more money you could go the 1156 route and get an i7 8xx or even a quad core i5 and be happy gaming on that for a while.

 

[sco0001]

On newegg you could easily save $300 off that build, and you have no need for a 3X SLI board if you are only using 1 card.

i7 930
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-225-_-Product

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-189-_-Product

Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-220-_-Product

5770 Vid Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-873-_-Product

Coolermaster Gladiator Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...37;20gladiator

650W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-052-_-Product

Blu ray Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-199-_-Product

Total Price is $1153.88

Newegg normally gets orders out day of and packages normally get to me on the shorter end of predicted shipping times (around 3-4 business days). It saves you a ton of money, and knowing the computer will make upgrading easier when the time comes.

If you want to save more money you could go the 1156 route and get an i7 8xx or even a quad core i5 and be happy gaming on that for a while.

That's very nice, thanks for providing details.

My price isn't bad either, total $1220 and yet not counting the $50 rebate. Yes, buying online all the time, especially from Newegg, I know I could've gotten everything lot sooner. So I am going to get the rig in 2 weeks. But I can deal with that. They have options to get it out of the warehouse (after build) in one day and shipping in 2nd day also, but for a big price !

 

[sco0001]

..well, I got my PC last week and when I turned on I saw nothing. The mobo lights are one but no video. First I connected to a flat screen with DVI port, then I tried with a CRT on the VGA port, but nothing.

I took out the video card and re-installed, then I saw the initial motherboard logo but bery choppy image. After a while it got more pixelized and went black. Could it be the video card is bad or any other component?

 

[mfenn]

..well, I got my PC last week and when I turned on I saw nothing. The mobo lights are one but no video. First I connected to a flat screen with DVI port, then I tried with a CRT on the VGA port, but nothing.

I took out the video card and re-installed, then I saw the initial motherboard logo but bery choppy image. After a while it got more pixelized and went black. Could it be the video card is bad or any other component?

Do you have another video card that you can test with? Or can you test the video card in another system? I'm thinking that it could be the GPU, motherboard, or RAM.

 

[sco0001]

Do you have another video card that you can test with? Or can you test the video card in another system? I'm thinking that it could be the GPU, motherboard, or RAM.

I wish I had access to another PCIx vga or another system to test the card. My other system is old and AGP type. So I am waiting for the replacement card to arrive (hopefully already mailed by CyberpowerPC) and test. If that does not work, I am certain it's the motherboard and/or BIOS. I have 3 sticks of RAM and tested each individually with same result ... all 3 of them cannot be bad!

I noticed that the PCI x16 (slot 1) is loose. The card does not sit tight. Can that cause interruption of the data flow from the card to the south bridge?

 

[Davidh373]

*cough* Cyberpower *cough* sorry, I couldn't help myself. Hopefully the replacement works or you are going to have to get a replacement motherboard and then you might as well have built it yourself and saved some money. Best of luck to you.

 

[betasub]

Check all power & data cables, and add-in cards, are seated properly. Cables should click into place in their socket, but add-in cards may require more force than would normally seem reasonable: for example, that graphics card in PCIe slot1 should be pushed fully into place (and is best held down by both a PCIe socket clip on the motherboard and at the backplate-case).

 

[sco0001]

Update:
They sent me the replacement (new) video card and it's all good now.

My overall experience with CyberpowerPC has been positive. When I configured online, I had WD640GB SATA3 (6GB/s) & CPU i7-940, but I received WD 1TB SATA3 (6GB/s) and i7-950 3.06 GHz without being charged extra.

Even though the tech support seemed very busy, when I left message they called me back the next day and gave me several options to resolve the issue.

Oh BTW, the liquid CPU cooler is excellent, keeping my CPU temp very low and absolutely silent (which I haven't experienced before) - I'm glad I went with it.

Thank you all very much for your responses.

 

[betasub]

Nice to hear your feedback. Glad things worked out well with the RMA & hope the system serves you well + trouble-free.

 

[sco0001]

Nice to hear your feedback. Glad things worked out well with the RMA & hope the system serves you well + trouble-free.

Thanks.