Help a newbie put together an i7 system :)

[entropy1982]

Hey guys, 3 years have passed since I built the system in my sig. I appreciate everyone who helped me pick out the right parts and overclock it.

I am now ready to give this one to my parents and get myself a new one.

I am a complete newbie at this point as I have been out of the loop for 3 years.

I have read a little bit about the i7 and it seems like that is the processor to get now.

I have about a 2500 dollar budget but of course if i will get negligible performance I am going with not spending an extra 500 dollars ... I do not expect this to be a budget PC though I definitely want high end.

I will be overclocking... but not extreme overclocking. I am not interested in doing any custom work. I don't want to replace any existing fans from the case etc. So if cooling will not be good enough to get that extra 100mhz i'm ok with that

So I would like recommendations if anyone would be so kind to do so.

Case, PSU, Vid card (it seems like GTX275 is popular from the few posts i have read), heatsink, RAM, all of that.

Thanks for anyone that can help.

 

[Lean L]

NEVER!






j/k...
Seriously though $2500? You could get a very powerful computer for $600. I'd say spend around $1000 on an i7 920 with 6GB at a resonable speed (you won't see much performance increase with DDR3 1333) and a Lian Li case if you want a quallity feel.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You only really need to spend half of your budget to get a nice i7 rig.

 

[entropy1982]

Any ideas for the specific components?

 

[A5]

You'll get better advice on parts and stuff from the General Hardware forum. Just follow the format in the sticky, and you should be ok.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
Hey guys, 3 years have passed since I built the system in my sig. I appreciate everyone who helped me pick out the right parts and overclock it.

I am now ready to give this one to my parents and get myself a new one.

I am a complete newbie at this point as I have been out of the loop for 3 years.

I have read a little bit about the i7 and it seems like that is the processor to get now.

I have about a 2500 dollar budget but of course if i will get negligible performance I am going with not spending an extra 500 dollars ... I do not expect this to be a budget PC though I definitely want high end.

I will be overclocking... but not extreme overclocking. I am not interested in doing any custom work. I don't want to replace any existing fans from the case etc. So if cooling will not be good enough to get that extra 100mhz i'm ok with that

So I would like recommendations if anyone would be so kind to do so.

Case, PSU, Vid card (it seems like GTX275 is popular from the few posts i have read), heatsink, RAM, all of that.

Thanks for anyone that can help.

What are you using this for? Games? work? programming? VM's? That will change things.


IMHO as a good start:

CPU: Intel 920 (get a D0 stepping, it should OC better then the older C0 stepping).

HS: A good tower style HS. TRUE or Prolimatech Megahalem are both pretty good. I'm sure there are a few others that have equivalent performance. Add a 1200-1500rpm 120mm fan for cooling, no need to get the "hairdryer" sounding 2000+rpm high speed fans.

MB: X58 chipset, Gigabyte, DFI, Asus, MSI are all good. Most have several models with varying amounts of PCIe, RAM, and SATA ports/slots, so figure how many ports and slots you need.

Video: What's you monitor size? No sense getting 2 GTX285's if you only have a 19" LCD.

RAM: I'd go with 6Gig (X58 is tri-channel, so 3 sticks of RAM), DDR3-1600. If you aren't OC that much, you could get DDR3-1333, but the price difference between the two speeds doesn't seem to be much, so to me, I'd get the 1600. If you find a good deal on the 1333, I wouldn't pass it up though. Don't get any RAM that requires more then 1.65V to run. OCZ, Corsair, GSkill, Patriot, Mushkin are all good, and pretty much all use the same memory chips, so go with whatever is cheapest/on-sale.

Case: No comment Everyone has different likes/dislikes, so cases are hard to pick out. Maybe a Antec P180 mid-tower? Should have good cooling and quiet. I've gone through a bunch of various cases. I prefer full-tower, just to get extra space inside the case when building/adding/changing components. But mid-tower cases are nice as well. I'd make sure there is at least 1 120mm intake fan where the HD's go, and a 120mm fan on the back over the IO area for exhaust. Also, a fan on the side panel or top to also help with ventilation can help as well. Stay with the 120mm size, they push more air and are quieter then 80/92mm fans.

HD: WD/Hitachi/Samsung 1Tb drive - At or less then $100, and pretty fast. Next step up is a $250 VRaptor, but is only 300Gig space. If you really want fast, get a small (60/80 gig) SSD drive as your OS/app drive, and use a 2nd regular 1tb to store your music/video/storage files. Intel X-25M or OCZ vertex are both pretty nice SSD's (although still a bit pricey).

Does this help?

 

[entropy1982]

It does help Garfield,

I will be using this for games, photoshop, browsing... very generic use.

I have a P180 right now. What I dislike about it is that the PSU is all the way at the bottom of the case which makes wires really annoying. I want something that does not require too much assembly. I don't mind overpaying a bit for a case where I don't have to change fans etc. I'm at the point where my time and sanity is worth more than a little bit of money Let me know.

How does the VRaptor compare to an SSD in terms of speed?

Thanks

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
It does help Garfield,

I will be using this for games, photoshop, browsing... very generic use.

I have a P180 right now. What I dislike about it is that the PSU is all the way at the bottom of the case which makes wires really annoying. I want something that does not require too much assembly. I don't mind overpaying a bit for a case where I don't have to change fans etc. I'm at the point where my time and sanity is worth more than a little bit of money Let me know.

How does the VRaptor compare to an SSD in terms of speed?

Thanks

Picking a case is hard for someone else, since we all want different things. I went through several mid-towers, then several full-tower Lian-li's, and finally said "screw it", and got a Mountain Mods Horizon cube. It's a nice big cube, all panels come off, and the mobo is not vertical, so I don't have to worry about huge heatsinks causing problems. I don't have to worry about a case being too big, since it just is on the floor, so I wanted a big case so I can add/change pieces easily, and get good airflow over everything.

For hard drives, Anand has a couple of reviews on the OCZ and Intel SSD's. Comparing Vr's and SSD's can be hard, since for some things, they are the same speed or the VR can be slightly faster. Mainly sequential reading/writing. But those can be misleading, since IMHO, that isn't the most important statistic. How a drive handles a lot of random small read/writes is what really makes a drive appear "fast" or "slow". And in that area, the two SSD's really shine. Anands article talks about this, it's a good read.

My personal opinion is that getting one of those SSD's for a boot/app drive with a larger spinning disc drive for storage would be very nice and fast. Whether it's worth the $$ is up to each person, but I would lean to yes, if you have the money for it. But I would only go with the OCZ Vertex or Intel X-25M. The other drives are either too expensive or don't perform well with the small read/writes.

 

[Golgatha]

I love my Antec Solo case. It has sound deadening material on the side panels, comes with a nice 120mm tri-cool fan, and has easily accessible mounts for two 92mm fans in the front of the case.

For your budget, my build would be...

Core i7 920
6GB of DDR3 1600 Memory (nothing fancy needed)
X58 based motherboard (I prefer Gigabyte and ASUS...normally Gigabyte first, but I got a nice deal on my ASUS P6T and the expansion slots worked better for my build anyway)
(Microcenter has the CPU, Gigabyte X58 board, and an OCZ memory kit on sale this week)

PC Power and Cooling 910w Silencer
Antec Solo with 92mm Antec Tri-Cool fan(s) in front or whatever floats your boat with computer cases.
2x nVidia 275 or 4890 Video cards (depends what games you play really, so do your research)
If you want extremely quiet but powerful video, might I suggest 2x 4870 1GB Sapphire cards with those massive 80mm fans? I have a modded 4870 1GB with a passive Accelero S1 heatsink and a Sapphire 1GB 4870 with that massive fan, and this setup is dead silent. If I was building new, I would just get two of the 4870 1GB Sapphire cards to exhaust heat and have near silence.
Zalman 9900CNPS HSF for the CPU
Arctic Silver 5 thermal goop for the CPU.
SATA Blu-ray/DVD burner or just a DVD burner and Blu-ray reader.
23in+ LCD sporting 1080p or better resolution
X-Fi Extreme Gamer if you're a heavy gamer or a HT Omega Striker 7.1 if you're more into movies and music. Anything more expensive is overkill, but either of those is better in many ways to onboard sound.

Hard Drives - I would stick with spinning discs until Windows 7 has been released (and has SP1 IMHO). I love my Velociraptor 300GB. I'd get that for a boot drive (or the 150GB model if size isn't an issue), and get Seagate's 7200.12 series (500GB or 1TB available) for games and backups. With the seeks times and throughput of the Velociraptor, I wouldn't bother with RAID 0. More fuss than it's worth IMO. The Seagate 7200.12's have better sustained transfer rates than the Velociraptor and are great for a game installation drive. Access time is more for the myriad of apps and OS files that the boot drive will have to handle, which is why I like the Velociraptor for a boot drive.

 

[Sacraster]

here is some sample build idea

motherboard: asus P6T
cpu: 920 (try to get D0)
heatsink: Prolimatech Megahalem
memory: Corsair 1600 Dominator 6gb
hard drive: velicaraptor (wait for SSD's price to fall more)
video card: GTX260 or ATI 4870
case: coolermaster 690
psu: corsair hx620

good luck.
ps. If you are interest in Prolimatech Megahalem. I'm selling a brand new one (see my sig)

 

[plion]

check these ocz 6gb ddr3 1600(7-7-7-24 @1.65) sticks, i just ordered at newegg, use promo code EMCLSMX33 to get 5$ off. theres a 20$ rebate included too. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...emory-_-L0C-_-20227381

Btw what are other alternative to the asus p6t around the same price? I'm also trying to build an i7 rig..

 

[Sacraster]

Originally posted by: plion
check these ocz 6gb ddr3 1600(7-7-7-24 @1.65) sticks, i just ordered at newegg, use promo code EMCLSMX33 to get 5$ off. theres a 20$ rebate included too. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...emory-_-L0C-_-20227381

Btw what are other alternative to the asus p6t around the same price? I'm also trying to build an i7 rig..

you can also get evga 58x sli, which I have. this board is really stable for me (920@ 3.8)

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
It does help Garfield,

I will be using this for games, photoshop, browsing... very generic use.

I have a P180 right now. What I dislike about it is that the PSU is all the way at the bottom of the case which makes wires really annoying. I want something that does not require too much assembly. I don't mind overpaying a bit for a case where I don't have to change fans etc. I'm at the point where my time and sanity is worth more than a little bit of money Let me know.

How does the VRaptor compare to an SSD in terms of speed?

Thanks

A good SSD like the Intel SSD's and OCZ Vertex will kill any Raptor any day of the week including pitting a single SSD to a Raptor RAID array. Do not purchase a SSD with a jmicron controller as you will ultimately be sorry. Stick with the OCZ Vertex for best price/performance ratio and Intel if money is not an object and pure performance is what counts.

I suggest getting 2 30 GB OCZ Vertex drives to run in RAID 0 which will give you a 60 GB system/programs drive. Then just buy the cheapest TB drive for your storage drive as absolute speed is not a necessity for storage.

 

[imported_Shaq]

For $2500 you can get a really great system. These are just an example for about $2000. You just need drives and a case with the other $500 or so left which means you might need to go up to $2700-2800 total budget or shop around for the lowest prices if you want SSD's.

EVGA Classified $400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813188048

Corsair Dominator 6GB $324
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145237

BFG 1200 watt PS $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817702015

i7 920 D0 $320
http://www.tankguys.com/intel-core-i7-920-d0.html

TRUE black edition heatsink with 1366 adapter and fans $85
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/thulexbled.html

EVGA 260 x3 $555
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130434

X-Fi Titanium $140
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16829102019

 

[entropy1982]

So here is what I have so far guys

http://secure.newegg.com/WishL...ishListNumber=15624227

Any suggestions?

Comments on the PSU quality?

Any Motherboard issues I should be aware of?

I am considering just running 2X 1GB WD black drives. Do you guys think it is worth springing for the VRaptor instead?

I feel like 60gigs may be a bit small for a system drive for me (such as a Vertex OCZ SSD drive)

Any fan recommendations and where to purchase them? I will want to add a few fans since the case has enough room for them.

Any recommendations on a better heatsink or should I stick with this one?

Any recommendations for a 2.1 speaker system and a card reader?

Anything I'm missing?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

For the PSU, I would personally go with a different one, because I think PCPC is kinda overpriced now (although with that discount, it's in line with others now), and I don't like PSU's with 80mm fans. They have to spin much faster (and make more noise) then the models with 120/140mm fans.

If you want to minimize noise, getting bigger, slower fans is better. Certainly, the PSU you picked is of high quality and will work fine. Corsair has some nice PSU's in the 600-700W range. But nothing wrong with your pick. It's personal taste on my part.

Motherboard should be fine, it seems for moderate Oc'ing, all the X58 boards are fine.

I really don't like RAID, it doesn't seem to help for day to day stuff, unless you do serious large file editing to take advantage of the huge STR that RAID can give you. Plus, if one drive goes, you lose everything.

If you have the money, I'd go with 1xVR or 1xSSD with 1x1tb for storage. But that's me, and it is kind of pricey. I used a normal 640gig WD drive for a year or so, and it wasn't really slow or anything (not as fast as the SSD I am trying now, but certainly not slow). I think the 120gig Vertex is ~$350 now (haven't checked prices). A Vraptor would be what, ~$250 now? Again, best "bang for buck" is a couple of 7200rpm drives with a lot of RAM to minimize disk usage anyway.

Do you have a 64-bit OS to run, since you are getting 12Gig RAM? Any 32-bit OS can't use more the 4gig.

HS should be fine, most of the tower HS's are +/- 3-4 deg, and for moderate overclocking, will be fine. Maybe a fan controller to lower the speed of the HS fan? 2200rpm can be a little loud. Again, personal choice, I try and get as quiet a system as possible (not silent, but just quiet.

For your case, looking at the pics, ignore the small 80mm vent. I don't think you can put a fan in the top120mm vent, because your tower HS will be too high. You can check the height, but in general, it seems all tower HS's don't give enough space to put a fan on the side panel over it.

Front fan blows air in, the back fan blows out. Orient your HS so that the HS fan blows air to the back wall case fan, which exhausts the air out. The side fan, try it both blowing in and blowing out and see what gives better temps for your CPU and video card.

If you want different fans, Yate loons are pretty good and cheap. If the stock fans are loud, you could get a a fan controller to slow them down when you are not gaming/crunching.

 

[entropy1982]

Can anyone recommend a PSU which may be better?

Which of the 2 video cards in my wish list would you guys recommend?

I was not going to RAID the 2 drives. I might just get 120 gig SSD and a 1TB drive. Do you mean the CPU fan should be blowing towards the HSF? Honestly I know myself and I will not be rearranging anything after I hit the power button and it actually works for the first time

I will probably use vista for now and get 7 once it comes out

You think the Fan controller will be necessary? I really hate the wiring that goes along with one of those. lol If I do have to get one any idea which one would be the least hassle but is still nice. Price isn't much of an issue on that one

Anything else I'm missing? Does any of this stuff not come w some cables i may need etc?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
Can anyone recommend a PSU which may be better?

Which of the 2 video cards in my wish list would you guys recommend?

I was not going to RAID the 2 drives. I might just get 120 gig SSD and a 1TB drive. Do you mean the CPU fan should be blowing towards the HSF? Honestly I know myself and I will not be rearranging anything after I hit the power button and it actually works for the first time

I will probably use vista for now and get 7 once it comes out

You think the Fan controller will be necessary? I really hate the wiring that goes along with one of those. lol If I do have to get one any idea which one would be the least hassle but is still nice. Price isn't much of an issue on that one

Anything else I'm missing? Does any of this stuff not come w some cables i may need etc?

Take a look at Corsair, they have pretty good PSU's. Also, look at JonnyGuru , they have good PSU reviews there.

When your mobo is in the tower case, your HS should be mounted so that the HS fan is pointed to the rear of the case blowing air through the HS to the back wall of the case. Then the exhaust fan (over the the IO port area) will also be pointing the same way, and blow the air out.

Don't much about those two VC's, so sorry I can't help you there.

Just make sure you get/have the 64-bit version or vista or Win7.

Fan controller - It's personal preference. I find that 120mm fans over ~1500rpm can get loud, at least for me. It might not be loud to you though. You can use a fan controller, or get slower rpm fans, but then you have to take out/put in the old/new fans. For only a few fans, the wiring isn't too bad.

Why don't you just do your build as-is, and after a week, if you think it's loud or something, just get a controller. Put it in and you are done.

 

[entropy1982]

Well the whole thing is it's not just putting it in you have to run a wire to each fan from the control... yucks sorry just had bad experiences putting this one together.

I will check out the Corsair PSUs

God you guys have been nothing but helpful i really appreciate it

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
Can anyone recommend a PSU which may be better?

Which of the 2 video cards in my wish list would you guys recommend?

I was not going to RAID the 2 drives. I might just get 120 gig SSD and a 1TB drive. Do you mean the CPU fan should be blowing towards the HSF? Honestly I know myself and I will not be rearranging anything after I hit the power button and it actually works for the first time

I will probably use vista for now and get 7 once it comes out

You think the Fan controller will be necessary? I really hate the wiring that goes along with one of those. lol If I do have to get one any idea which one would be the least hassle but is still nice. Price isn't much of an issue on that one

Anything else I'm missing? Does any of this stuff not come w some cables i may need etc?

If you decide to buy a SSD, then go ahead and run the RC of Windows 7 because it has TRIM support and will make setting up that SSD much easier than setting it up under Vista or XP. The RC is good until March of next year which is plenty of time to purchase the RTM version of the OS.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
Well the whole thing is it's not just putting it in you have to run a wire to each fan from the control... yucks sorry just had bad experiences putting this one together.

I will check out the Corsair PSUs

God you guys have been nothing but helpful i really appreciate it

Antec Earthwatts are really good PSU's too, have 120 MM fans and are 80+ Platinum certified. The rating on the package is the actual continuous power rating of the power supply, where most PSU's rate with "Peak" power instead of "Continuous" power.

 

[entropy1982]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: entropy1982
Can anyone recommend a PSU which may be better?

Which of the 2 video cards in my wish list would you guys recommend?

I was not going to RAID the 2 drives. I might just get 120 gig SSD and a 1TB drive. Do you mean the CPU fan should be blowing towards the HSF? Honestly I know myself and I will not be rearranging anything after I hit the power button and it actually works for the first time

I will probably use vista for now and get 7 once it comes out

You think the Fan controller will be necessary? I really hate the wiring that goes along with one of those. lol If I do have to get one any idea which one would be the least hassle but is still nice. Price isn't much of an issue on that one

Anything else I'm missing? Does any of this stuff not come w some cables i may need etc?

If you decide to buy a SSD, then go ahead and run the RC of Windows 7 because it has TRIM support and will make setting up that SSD much easier than setting it up under Vista or XP. The RC is good until March of next year which is plenty of time to purchase the RTM version of the OS.

Thank you I didn't know this. I just don't know how buggy the version is. Any experience with it?

 

[entropy1982]

What do you guys think about replacing the PSU with this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817371007

 

[Diogenes2]

I think you would do much better with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139005

The Antec 500 seems a bit lean to me..

I like your case .... I have the same...

 

[jandlecack]

If you're not going toward 700W then spend the extra buck on a modular power supply e.g. the modular equivalent of that Corsair one (HX620). Kinda pricey for 620W but damn would I buy it again.