New Build, i7 1366, x25-m 160... Opions please

[walkng]

Hi all,
I want a smokin' fast system to handle mainly advanced photo editing, lots of them as fast as possible, so I can have part of my life back. Some video encoding, torrent client, other stuff and monitoring of a webcam, often a few at the same time.

New Build:
asus p6x58d premium $295
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813131614

Intel - i7 930, 1366 $289
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3342876&SID==

Intel X25-M 160GB SSD $425
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3342876&SID=

Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB (3x2GB) DDR33 1600 (pc3 12800) model 998805, 6-8-6-24 $240
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820226121

PSU - Crosair CMPSU 950 $169
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817139013

GPU - I'm confused here. I have a samsung 2300sw monitor and I got two Acer 20"ers from my very good wife for Christmas. So whats the best ati solution to power these mostly for adobe but I also would like to blast the new games possibly through all three monitors.

And maybe if things at work start to pick up I might try three 30 inch monitors.

Also I really want a i7 980x 6 core but that adds $700 and that's just totally batshit insane, isn't it?

Thanks
Marc

 

[Axon]

Also I really want a i7 980x 6 core but that adds $700 and that's just totally batshit insane, isn't it?

Thanks
Marc

For what you're doing, the 980x does it better than anything out there. It's only a waste for gaming. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSjY0QWzu0U (Benches don't start until 2:25 but that's a decent example of the real world speed difference).

Then see the 980x at 4.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGjcXcgYeM&feature=related

 

[mfenn]

I'm confused. 3 of your links are to newegg.com and 2 are from newegg.ca. Are you buying in Canada or the US?

Really no point in a $300 motherboard or 950W PSU for what you're doing. The GA-X58A-UD3R is $85 cheaper and will do everything that you need. The Corsair 650TX is also quite enough GPU power.

As for GPU, you won't be able to do Eyefinity unless you have 3 monitors that are the same resolution. Also, for Eyefinity, one of the displays must be Displayport, either natively or through an active adapter. In light of that, I would recommend getting something like a 5850 for the primary monitor and driving the other two from a cheap passively cooler card like this.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

that PSU may be a little overkill if it doesn't offer a high efficiency at low loads.

I'd recommend a Seasonic X 650 or 750. The 650w version offers 88.9% efficiency between 60-70w load. Above that till about 588 watts it's ~ 90% efficient :thumbsup:

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

What about your case? Fans? Heat sink? Storage HDD? External backup HDD? Other accessories?

I don't go over 50% CPU utilization if I have a 720p HD video playing while transcoding a >2h movie to DVD5 with custom menus. That took 23 minutes for the one I did today I had several other office type programs idling in the background and an internet browser open as well... I'm not sure if it would transcode quicker if I had the files on my SSD because they were on an external WD Black over eSATA (via OXFORD chipset enclosure to Jmicron on board).

Yeah, you don't need 950 watts but a higher-quality / lower rated one might be quieter, be more efficient re: your electric bill, and help your system last longer. Like above, the Seasonic X are the best. Read www.jonnyguru.com and www.hardwaresecrets.com reviews for more of an understanding and test results.

Hope some of those details help you decide... Good Luck

 

[walkng]

Thanks guys,
I wrote a long thought out reply but it crashed so here is a nutshell:

I can't afford a 980x.

Your confused, I'm confused! My P4 system crashed and I'm working on a win98 rig that is slooooooooooo........w
And thanks for the Eyefinity clarification, I didn't know that!

That's two for seasonic (that matters). I try to stay with high name psus and feel that I need to largely overate the psu because it's difficult to calculate what you need let alone what you might add and smooth power is big. My last rig had 5 hard drives, a promise PCI controler for the extra drives, two monitors off the asus 9800 xt and I built a 12vdc solid state beer cooler that I plugged into my external molex for kicks and giggles.

I do understand the massive effect these little transformers have on the grid so I consider this option strongly.

Yea, I bought a refurbished Alienware Case off ebay for for $80, I think it'll fit a 5970, the good wife bought me a crosair h50 liquid cooler and I have my old seagate 750G and 2 - 200G, a western digital terabyte external usb and I still have one Rartor 74 on the shelf you can have cheap!!

Thanks for your input guys!

Mark

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Hey sorry to be a buzz kill, but I'm not sure if you know this already... the Corsair PSUs are made by either Seasonic or CWT. The good Corsairs are made by Seasonic, the lower-end Corsairs by CWT. But, the X series is only available as a Seasonic branded unit because like I said, they are the manufacturer and aren't ready to license out the design or whatever... I could be slightly off, but definitely Corsair doe NOT build any PSUs.

Also, the H50 probably won't work for a 1366. Even if it physically fits on the board, I hear that they can't dissipate heat fast enough to be viable for high wattage CPUs. The radiator's not big enough.

 

[walkng]

Thanks for the input Chewthebubuchihu. I haven't had the time to read up on things as I did on my p4. I used an Antec 550 back then and in my breif research this time it seemed people were recommending Crosair but after further reading I'll go Seasonic 750w for now, Thanks for that.

Your opinion of the H50 also seems to ring true now after I looked into it further. Thanks again.

So what's your recomendation for cooling? I've always liked a good heatsink though water cooling lookes fun but expensive and potentaily troublesume.

Peace
Marc

 

[modestninja]

Thanks for the input Chewthebubuchihu. I haven't had the time to read up on things as I did on my p4. I used an Antec 550 back then and in my breif research this time it seemed people were recommending Crosair but after further reading I'll go Seasonic 750w for now, Thanks for that.

Your opinion of the H50 also seems to ring true now after I looked into it further. Thanks again.

So what's your recomendation for cooling? I've always liked a good heatsink though water cooling lookes fun but expensive and potentaily troublesume.

Peace
Marc

The Megahalems, Venemous-X or Noctua NH-D14 are the top aircoolers out there by most accounts. If you want a little cheaper, but almost as good performance and more of a pain to install, check out the Scythe Mugen 2.

I'm assuming you're planning on trying to get a 3.8 - 4.0+ GHz OC? If not, then a CM Hyper 212+ or H50 will do just fine to somewhere around ~3.5 GHz.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Actually the IFX-14 and D14 are the best heat sinks, but they are very large. Then the (maybe the new Armageddon) Megahalems, Ultra 120, TRUE copper, etc. The Mugen 2 is the best for the money, but I like a really solid mounting design like any of the Noctua, Thermalright, Prolimatech models. I have a little U9B and it keeps my lightly overclocked 920 under 60 max or around 40C idle. My place is really warm ambient temp too (around 75-80F).

I will probably end up buying the Armageddon eventually... we'll see how it goes.

 

[walkng]

I bought , I bought it!! Yahoo!!

I left it pretty much as I had it laid out but got a Seasonic 750 and a Noctua NH-D14 (As per Btry and Chaib) though I really wish I could have done water cooling or something instead of putting that hulking sink in.

After all done it was $2100 plus $290 for windows 7 ultimate.

I printed out the p6xd-p manual and am humming through it but I expect to get tripped up a bit in the bios. Is there someplace where people discus/explain the finer points to help me out though this?

I put together my P4 5 years back but then there was a vast resource of knowledge on the forums because it seemed everyone was building on the same board (asus p4c800e-d).

I learned a lot but I'm sure a lot is different now.

Also I haven't mentioned before but my p4 is skitchen out. It just restarts randomly. I wouldn't care but I need a better pc for the kids (10 & 6 Years).

It ran great for 5 years then slowing down to an unbearable level I did a format and reinstalled the OS, got up to service pack 3 then started random restarts again. I formated again, checked the Bios over and over and then after some time starts bugging out.

It always seems to happen on an event like plugging in an external drive or having too many browsers open and clicking on a flash file.

Sometimes it goes into a tailspin where it starts and restarts over and over with no event to start the fault. It's gust nutty.

When it started I did a western digital drive test and memtest 86+ and all came back clear. I've got everything disconnected except the GPU and one HD.

It seems like a PSU problem to me but I have a Fluke multimeter on the 12v rail in the rear molex and it stays at 11.99 and 12V even on failure.

I gave up and took it to a PC repair shop and they said they ran it for two weeks and only rebooted once. They installed new video drivers and charged me $100. They din't help it.

I figure I could built an I3-520 for $650 with a hd 5770 in it and a bootleg xp OS and they could do their homework and play older games. And it wouldn't freeze when I need a quick scan and print. Right?!!

I could do an i7 1156 with a 5850 for $1082 and I think you could call that a gaming machine.

I think parents have to take responsibility for their children's upbringing. And clearly a major danger to our children is the appeal of console gaming.

thanks
mard

 

[ThorofThunder]

Intel X25-M 160GB SSD $425
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3342876&SID=

You can go low-fi with most of your other components, but an SSD would play a crucial part in your editing/encoding machine.

You don't need to fork over so much cash for the rest unless you want to be gaming all the time.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

I bought , I bought it!! Yahoo!!

I left it pretty much as I had it laid out but got a Seasonic 750 and a Noctua NH-D14 (As per Btry and Chaib) though I really wish I could have done water cooling or something instead of putting that hulking sink in.

After all done it was $2100 plus $290 for windows 7 ultimate.

Is there someplace where people discus/explain the finer points to help me out though this?

Right on! Yes water cooling is nuts, but it's so dorky if anyone important comes over and asks WTF that is. I guess.

The BIOS - I had the most trouble figuring this out. I knew how to get in and set up all the normal stuff like enable/disable features, fans, drives, etc. But the s1366 stuff like uncore, core, QPI, RAM timings and all the corresponding voltages were new to me and are tricky, but at the end of the day it's basically trial and error. Just be very careful and double check, and know the voltage limits. Some manufacturers call the uncore and QPI voltages different things, like GIGABYTE calling Vtt vs. whatever ASUS calls it. Here are some links that helped me:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-920-overclocking_2.html

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...task=view&id=44&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=2

http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1111057.htm

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/memory/131/2

http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/631335-memory-frequence-guide.html

It also helps to have Lavalys EVEREST Ultimate.

Also I haven't mentioned before but my p4 is skitchen out. It just restarts randomly. I wouldn't care but I need a better pc for the kids (10 & 6 Years).

It ran great for 5 years then slowing down to an unbearable level I did a format and reinstalled the OS, got up to service pack 3 then started random restarts again. I formated again, checked the Bios over and over and then after some time starts bugging out.

Just buy a $50 PSU and see if it fixes it, if not, next step --> replace the mobo or the entire rest of the system if you don't want to buy an obsolete P4 board. Shameless plug - I actually have an Antec NeoPower 480 sitting here looking for a job. Not sure if it will plug in to your P4 system, but it was working great a few months ago and I just pulled it Monday... I think it's in my FS thread. Could save the day?

 

[walkng]

Hi again,
I was going to put my new system together and I dry mounted the Noctura D14 on my motherboard inside the case and it doesn't fit.

The case is a last generation Alienware that has a 12mm fan on the door that hits the D14. It looks about an inch too tall. Can you guys recommend a shorter CPU heat sink/fan that will cool for a little overclocking?

Thanks
Marc

 

[mfenn]

Hi again,
I was going to put my new system together and I dry mounted the Noctura D14 on my motherboard inside the case and it doesn't fit.

The case is a last generation Alienware that has a 12mm fan on the door that hits the D14. It looks about an inch too tall. Can you guys recommend a shorter CPU heat sink/fan that will cool for a little overclocking?

Thanks
Marc

Can't you just get rid of the fan? Or get a reasonable case?