I am looking at building a Phenom II 955 rig but need some suggestions on a few other parts. Eventually I will be doing some mild video editing, the plan is buy a single HDD for my OS, and then in 6-9 months, buying additional HDDs when I starting, and setting up RAID 0 +1, So there will be at least 5 HDDs(maybe 4 HDD & 1 SSD). For Video cards I plan on just getting 1 card, I don?t plan on going xFire/SLI. All the components will be in an Antec 1200, maybe a 902/900 depending on what my $1200 + $200 budget allows, that budget includes a need for a monitor, but no operating system. Hope to have the parts by end of the month, may wait till end of june.
CPU: Phenom II x4 955
Motherboard: Not sure which of the 3 I should get, currently looking at.
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 @ $139
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P @ $139 minus $15 MIR
Gigabyte GAMA790FXT-UD5p @ $179
Any comments/suggestions/other options? I am curious as the second gigabyte board has there SATA ports sideways, I?m thinking with the 1200 gaining access to them shouldn?t be an issue, but I am concerned about the 902/900 cases. I've also have only used ASUS brand boards in any of my systems and I have never had an issue with them, so outside that I know Gigabyte is a decent brand, but but I'm more catious fo brands such as MSI, DFI, though thats because of lack of any experience with them.
Memory: 4 GB of Kingston DDR3 1066 @ $63 most likely This, again I have only ever used Kingston memory, and have never had a problem with it, i know Crucial is a good brand but don't know what else.
Video Card:Single card I have no prefrence for either ATI or nVidia. I budgeted roughly $200 - $250 for a card, I haven't played many video games since I graduate college 3 years ago, mostly because my PC can't handle any thing newer then 4 years old, I'm thinking between ATI 4890 or a Geforce 275. I don't really care about having the best eye candy, but still i want something decent, that will last about 1.5-2 years. It will power 1 screen maybe 2 if my budget allows when I install my RAID, most likely 1680x1050, possible 1900x1200. Any Specific brand worth staying away from, I've always like EVGA but they don't make ATI cards, and the last ATI card was an ATI branded so I need some advice here.
Powersupply: Not sure which one, was looking at a few PC P&C, Corsairs, and Antec. Ideally I?d love to have the ability to shut down power only to my RAID drives when I am not using them, but still maintain power to the rest of the system, don?t know if this is possible, outside of 2 independent psu.
Hard Drive: Will either be WD 640 Black @ $72 or WD 750 Black @ $89 Of Course the WD 1 TB is only $99 so that might be the better buy as when i do my RAID 0 it will be 2x 1 TB drives.
CPU cooler: Sure the 955 retail comes with one but I don?t mind spending an additional $30-$50 to get a better one. If the need arrives I may overclock.
Case: Again I want a Antec 1200, not all that happy about the LED Fans, but I want decent cooling and expandabilty, my last few builds were all mid-cases, and I'm starting to get annoyed with the lack of any real space.
Misc: Keyboard, mouse, and opticial drives are also need, but thats a mute issue to me, I don't see any sense in getting a gaming keyboard, will most likely get a semi decent mouse, and for optical drives, i've use pretty much every brand(Panasonic, LG, Sony, Plextor-they even still around?) out there and all seem to perform the same, so I plan on picking up just a run of the mill LG drive over at newegg for 25.
Any suggestions/comments. I'm also consideridering an i7 build, but I'm hesitant for that because I'm not sure what Intel has planned for this socket once i5 is release later this year. I'm sure it will be supported, and there are rumors of an 6 core processor being released, though I doubt it will be affordable. Thats my biggest concern, is once Intel releases their mainstream i5, i7 will become more of niche socket and they won't release another sub $300-$400 processor.
CPU: Phenom II x4 955
Motherboard: Not sure which of the 3 I should get, currently looking at.
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 @ $139
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P @ $139 minus $15 MIR
Gigabyte GAMA790FXT-UD5p @ $179
Any comments/suggestions/other options? I am curious as the second gigabyte board has there SATA ports sideways, I?m thinking with the 1200 gaining access to them shouldn?t be an issue, but I am concerned about the 902/900 cases. I've also have only used ASUS brand boards in any of my systems and I have never had an issue with them, so outside that I know Gigabyte is a decent brand, but but I'm more catious fo brands such as MSI, DFI, though thats because of lack of any experience with them.
Memory: 4 GB of Kingston DDR3 1066 @ $63 most likely This, again I have only ever used Kingston memory, and have never had a problem with it, i know Crucial is a good brand but don't know what else.
Video Card:Single card I have no prefrence for either ATI or nVidia. I budgeted roughly $200 - $250 for a card, I haven't played many video games since I graduate college 3 years ago, mostly because my PC can't handle any thing newer then 4 years old, I'm thinking between ATI 4890 or a Geforce 275. I don't really care about having the best eye candy, but still i want something decent, that will last about 1.5-2 years. It will power 1 screen maybe 2 if my budget allows when I install my RAID, most likely 1680x1050, possible 1900x1200. Any Specific brand worth staying away from, I've always like EVGA but they don't make ATI cards, and the last ATI card was an ATI branded so I need some advice here.
Powersupply: Not sure which one, was looking at a few PC P&C, Corsairs, and Antec. Ideally I?d love to have the ability to shut down power only to my RAID drives when I am not using them, but still maintain power to the rest of the system, don?t know if this is possible, outside of 2 independent psu.
Hard Drive: Will either be WD 640 Black @ $72 or WD 750 Black @ $89 Of Course the WD 1 TB is only $99 so that might be the better buy as when i do my RAID 0 it will be 2x 1 TB drives.
CPU cooler: Sure the 955 retail comes with one but I don?t mind spending an additional $30-$50 to get a better one. If the need arrives I may overclock.
Case: Again I want a Antec 1200, not all that happy about the LED Fans, but I want decent cooling and expandabilty, my last few builds were all mid-cases, and I'm starting to get annoyed with the lack of any real space.
Misc: Keyboard, mouse, and opticial drives are also need, but thats a mute issue to me, I don't see any sense in getting a gaming keyboard, will most likely get a semi decent mouse, and for optical drives, i've use pretty much every brand(Panasonic, LG, Sony, Plextor-they even still around?) out there and all seem to perform the same, so I plan on picking up just a run of the mill LG drive over at newegg for 25.
Any suggestions/comments. I'm also consideridering an i7 build, but I'm hesitant for that because I'm not sure what Intel has planned for this socket once i5 is release later this year. I'm sure it will be supported, and there are rumors of an 6 core processor being released, though I doubt it will be affordable. Thats my biggest concern, is once Intel releases their mainstream i5, i7 will become more of niche socket and they won't release another sub $300-$400 processor.
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