New Rig for the 4th of July

[MraK]

Hello everyone I just need some of your thoughts about this build that I am going to put together during this month of July, preferably a few days after the 4th of July.

This rig will be mainly used for "GAMING" and Photo rendering, with other minor tasks such as music/movie entertainment system.


Processor: INTEL Core i7 Extreme i7-975(BX80601975) 3.33ghz
"felt bragging rights were important lol plus I don't want to overclock so much just as long as I have a solid cpu"

Motherboard: eVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 intel x58 chipset ATX form factor "saw online that this board is a commonly bought board for the i7 platform"

Memory: CORSAIR TR3X6G1600C8D 6gb kit (2gb x 3) 1600mhz 8-8-8-24

Harddrive: *not sure yet* "maybe you guys can help me with department, was just thinking of getting a 7200rpm harddrive, around a 500GB"

Optical Drive: Lightscribe DVD Burner

CPU cooler: COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle

PSU: my old Thermaltake Toughpower 850Watt "wanted to save a little money, but if I need more watts just tell me"

Casing: LIAN LI PC-X500B (black) super mid tower "man have you seen the beauty of this monster!?":thumbsup:

Videocard: EVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR geforce gtx 285 2gb gddr3 pci-e 2.0 x16 (plan to change card when the new cards come out this Christmas 2009) "just to get by until the next cards come out and plus need one that would run smoothly with two 24" inch monitors, with all the eye candy cranked up"

Monitor: Two 24" inch LCDs "too late already have one and the other one is on order already"

OS: plan on using my "unused" Windows XP Pro (64-bit) for now, till Windows 7 comes out "most probably wanna stay away from Vista till Windows 7 is out"

If I'm missing something please let me know. As far as anything else, this is the setup I plan to build in the next 5-10 days, but if their are some better options or solutions please let me know as soon as possible. Also, after I have purchased all this hardware, I plan to take pictures and post them and also make a short "youtube" video of my new rig since I have seen many other people who have already done it.

I appreciate all your input everyone, thanks in advance!

 

[brblx]

bragging rights or not, i think that processor choice is insane. in real world gaming performance, there is not much of a difference between the different core i7 models right now. synthetic cpu benchmarks show the widest gap, and even there you're talking about a quadrupling of price for MAYBE 25% more performance than a 920. about double the cost for the 10-15% or so over a 950. it's your money, but don't be angry when your gaming performance is near identical to the guy who paid $750 less for his processor.

everything else looks fine. psu is enough to run sli 295's, no worries there. seagate has a single platter 500gb hdd on the market now, i'd look into that if that's the size you're after. alternatively you could just go with the popular wd black 640. with your budget, many people are going to recommend an ssd. i'd wait, but it would definately be a performance upgrade if you don't want to wait on prices to fall.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: brblx
bragging rights or not, i think that processor choice is insane. in real world gaming performance, there is not much of a difference between the different core i7 models right now. synthetic cpu benchmarks show the widest gap, and even there you're talking about a quadrupling of price for MAYBE 25% more performance than a 920. about double the cost for the 10-15% or so over a 950.

Well another reason why I want to order this cpu is because I feel it would last longer in the next 2-3 years before I have to upgrade or in other words before I decide to build a totally new rig around that time. But I see what your saying brblx. Plus isn't it true that with the extreme editions you have a safer chance of overclocking them to 4.0ghz and beyond compared to the slower models?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

So you are saying more expensive CPU's last longer...:roll:

 

[brblx]

i'm sure he means longevity as a useful part, not just the amount of time it goes before biting the dust (longer than anyone would ever need, typically).

the thing to keep in mind is that that slight extra boost in speed might, at best, get you what? another year? instead of going four years on one $1000 proc, go two years on a $250 proc and then upgrade to something BETTER than the 975 once the price is reasonable. you'll get much better performance along the life of the machine AND save money.

top end intel processors have always carried ridiculous markups. i remember when the top of the line PII-450 was $500+ and you could buy a celeron with the same performance for about a hundred bucks. not quite the same situation, but just know that simply going to the top of the price list is rarely if ever a good decision.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
So you are saying more expensive CPU's last longer...:roll:

As brblx had said, it's how long the cpu could hack current and upcoming applications in the near future, until I would need to upgrade to a faster cpu, without overclocking it much, if anything, wouldn't need to overclock it at all since its stock speed would be a 3.33Ghz. And when the time comes in say a year from now or so, overclock it. Dunno its just me in how I few things with how technology is moving.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: brblx
i'm sure he means longevity as a useful part, not just the amount of time it goes before biting the dust (longer than anyone would ever need, typically).

the thing to keep in mind is that that slight extra boost in speed might, at best, get you what? another year? instead of going four years on one $1000 proc, go two years on a $250 proc and then upgrade to something BETTER than the 975 once the price is reasonable. you'll get much better performance along the life of the machine AND save money.

top end intel processors have always carried ridiculous markups. i remember when the top of the line PII-450 was $500+ and you could buy a celeron with the same performance for about a hundred bucks. not quite the same situation, but just know that simply going to the top of the price list is rarely if ever a good decision.

How about a i7 950 (at 3.06Ghz) instead?? I would save around $420. Would that be a better option? Probably just use the extra $400 to get another GTX285 for SLI?

thanks for the insight btw.:thumbsup:

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: MrAK

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
So you are saying more expensive CPU's last longer...:roll:

And when the time comes in say a year from now or so, overclock it. Dunno its just me in how I few things with how technology is moving.

THANK GOD!!! for a minute I thought you said 'not much overclocking'

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you are cooling on air for now, i'd say stick with the D0 920 and then maybe save that money for later on and get a custom h20 recommendation from Aigo.

 

[Eureka]

Just go with the i7 920. The 920, 950, and 975 are almost the same chip... I'm pretty sure you can OC the 920 to the 975 speed without even breaking a sweat, and then beyond that. The 975 might give you a LITTLE headroom, but not enough to warrant the $800 difference. And as for longevity, theres no gain from going for a 975 over a 920. They're both in the same series and they will be good for the same amount of time. The small speed difference is bridged pretty easily by a slight OC.

For a video card, if you're planning to upgrade get a 285 or a 4890 and it should be plenty to hold you over.

As for a hard drive, 1TB drives are ridiculously cheap. The Hitachi 1TB and Western Digital Black 1TB are two amazing 7200rpm drives.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: Eureka
Just go with the i7 920. The 920, 950, and 975 are almost the same chip... I'm pretty sure you can OC the 920 to the 975 speed without even breaking a sweat, and then beyond that. The 975 might give you a LITTLE headroom, but not enough to warrant the $800 difference. And as for longevity, theres no gain from going for a 975 over a 920. They're both in the same series and they will be good for the same amount of time. The small speed difference is bridged pretty easily by a slight OC.

how about a 950? I know its around $300 more than the 920, but atleast I'll have a start at 3.06Ghz? I know its a newbie question, its just I'm somewhat of a perfectionist.

For a video card, if you're planning to upgrade get a 285 or a 4890 and it should be plenty to hold you over.

when you say get a 285 or a 4890, do you mean another card for SLI/xfire? or basically just sticking to 1 card till the new next gen cards come out around the end of this year?

As for a hard drive, 1TB drives are ridiculously cheap. The Hitachi 1TB and Western Digital Black 1TB are two amazing 7200rpm drives.

Now I'm thinking of getting an SSD drive for the operating system, a 150GB raptor for games, and a 1TB for movies/files. Would that be a good option to go with?

 

[brblx]

i might do the 300gb raptor if you plan to install many games at once and don't want to have shift things around at all. my games drive is around 200gb at the moment and that's just steam with maybe 10 games plus about five others.

although i'm not sure the speed difference is going to matter much. the raptor doesn't sustain much higher speeds than the fast 1tb drives, it just benefits from lower access times. that might help some in games, but i doubt it's highly significant.

and ditto what everyone else has said about the 920. it's basically the same chip. 660mhz is not worth the price, and yes, you can run a 920 comfortably at well over 3ghz with a fairly basic air cooler.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: MrAK

Originally posted by: Eureka
Just go with the i7 920. The 920, 950, and 975 are almost the same chip... I'm pretty sure you can OC the 920 to the 975 speed without even breaking a sweat, and then beyond that. The 975 might give you a LITTLE headroom, but not enough to warrant the $800 difference. And as for longevity, theres no gain from going for a 975 over a 920. They're both in the same series and they will be good for the same amount of time. The small speed difference is bridged pretty easily by a slight OC.

how about a 950? I know its around $300 more than the 920, but atleast I'll have a start at 3.06Ghz? I know its a newbie question, its just I'm somewhat of a perfectionist.

For a video card, if you're planning to upgrade get a 285 or a 4890 and it should be plenty to hold you over.

when you say get a 285 or a 4890, do you mean another card for SLI/xfire? or basically just sticking to 1 card till the new next gen cards come out around the end of this year?

As for a hard drive, 1TB drives are ridiculously cheap. The Hitachi 1TB and Western Digital Black 1TB are two amazing 7200rpm drives.

Now I'm thinking of getting an SSD drive for the operating system, a 150GB raptor for games, and a 1TB for movies/files. Would that be a good option to go with?

Stick with one card until the next gen comes out, since its so close. The 285/4890 both hold their own pretty well at this stage, the only thing that brings one to its knees is either a) really high resoultion or b) Crysis. They both handle every other game rather well, so its unnecessary to have two of them when you're going to get rid of them soon anyway.

SSDs are fun, but they're kind of useless right now. Not all of them are fast, only the really expensive ones, and you don't get enough storage to really play with it. I'd skip a SSD until you get some serious storage. Raptors are nice but theres not a huge difference over a Black drive.

I don't know enough about the i7 specifics, but if anything the 950s are just cut from the better parts of the wafer than the 920. Should still be the same design. They should all overclock to within 500mhz of each other, if not less.

Heres an afterthought: if you're running air cooling, you should not see a difference between the 920, 940, and 975 when you OC. They're all probably going to be heat limited anyway. The chip differences occur when you push it to the extreme (LN2, DICE, etc)

 

[MraK]

Stick with one card until the next gen comes out, since its so close. The 285/4890 both hold their own pretty well at this stage, the only thing that brings one to its knees is either a) really high resoultion or b) Crysis. They both handle every other game rather well, so its unnecessary to have two of them when you're going to get rid of them soon anyway.

I was thinking of getting with the 2GB GTX285 by eVGA, since I'm using a 24" inch monitor. I know some have said 1GB is enough for 1920x1200 but probably adding that 1GB would help with games such as Empire: Total War, since that game has alot going onscreen when in battles and such, that's just me though.

SSDs are fun, but they're kind of useless right now. Not all of them are fast, only the really expensive ones, and you don't get enough storage to really play with it. I'd skip a SSD until you get some serious storage. Raptors are nice but theres not a huge difference over a Black drive.

I'll go your route and I'll just probably get a 150GB raptor for the OS and some regular 7200rpm drives for the games/movies/etc.

Heres an afterthought: if you're running air cooling, you should not see a difference between the 920, 940, and 975 when you OC. They're all probably going to be heat limited anyway. The chip differences occur when you push it to the extreme (LN2, DICE, etc)

I get where your heading with your statement, but if say you OC the 920 to 3.5Ghz wouldnt the heat be higher than if you would OC a 940 to 3.5ghz? In other words if both the 920 and 940 hit say 3.7Ghz would the 920 be hotter because of the extra needed mhz to catch up with the 940? and if so I would rather get the 940, wouldnt want to over heat the cpu let alone decreasing its life span. *yet another newbie theory* sorry just had to ask questions like this.

thanks for your tips btw!

 

[brblx]

a modern heatpipe cooler designed to take the heat of the i7 isn't going to sweat an overclock from 2.6 to 3.3. even with air cooling, you'll often be limited by what the chip will do rather than by heat. although heat of course becomes more of an issue with large overvoltages, but you're not going to be doing that.

the i7's 4 cores put out about the same amount of heat as a pentium D (two P4 cores). there's no drastic difference when comparing the 2.6 and 3.3ghz versions. though yes, it's likely a 3.3ghz chip may be able to be pushed further on air. again, though- i doubt you're interested in extreme overclocking, so it's likely moot.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: brblx
the i7's 4 cores put out about the same amount of heat as a pentium D (two P4 cores). there's no drastic difference when comparing the 2.6 and 3.3ghz versions. though yes, it's likely a 3.3ghz chip may be able to be pushed further on air. again, though- i doubt you're interested in extreme overclocking, so it's likely moot.

Well actually I want to atleast hit 3.8ghz to even 4.0ghz on air cooling with an i7, that's why I thought as my first choice to get the extreme i7s or just getting a 950 and OC that to that range and keep it there till something mind blowing comes out in the next few years to come.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
If you are cooling on air for now, i'd say stick with the D0 920 and then maybe save that money for later on and get a custom h20 recommendation from Aigo.

quick question, how would I know if I got the "D0" version or "C0" version, once i receive the cpu? *been reading about this around the forum*

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: brblx

the i7's 4 cores put out about the same amount of heat as a pentium D (two P4 cores). there's no drastic difference when comparing the 2.6 and 3.3ghz versions. though yes, it's likely a 3.3ghz chip may be able to be pushed further on air. again, though- i doubt you're interested in extreme overclocking, so it's likely moot.

well the overclocking I plan to do is, with the 920 (2.66Ghz) I plan to run it to at least 3.7Ghz to maybe even 4.0Ghz, if I get lucky with the chip, which brings me to another question, would the aftermarket heat-sink *Coolermaster V8* be the way to go in helping me reach that speed with the processor?

thanks in advance.

 

[MraK]

And my last question before anything else is since I have decided to stick with 1 videocard for now, till the new cards come out in the next 4-6 from now, would a eVGA GTX285 2GB card do the trick? Since I would be running it under 2 24" inch monitors and would be wanting to max out all the graphic settings *if possible* of all the games that would be coming out soon till Christmas, would 2GB of vmemory be a sure enough solution??

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: MrAK

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
If you are cooling on air for now, i'd say stick with the D0 920 and then maybe save that money for later on and get a custom h20 recommendation from Aigo.

quick question, how would I know if I got the "D0" version or "C0" version, once i receive the cpu? *been reading about this around the forum*

I forgot the batch code that signifies the D0 stepping. I heard New Egg still is shipping C0 from slow warehouses. To be sure, I'd call up Tank Guys and ask for a D0 i7920. If you do know the batch numbers for the D0 I'd call up Micro Center and ask specifically for a D0 i7 920. I did when I bought my older i7. They even went through their stock and told me which batches they had = very helpful Micro Center :thumbsup: + right now they are having their 200$ i7 920 week or sale ...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: MrAK

Originally posted by: brblx

the i7's 4 cores put out about the same amount of heat as a pentium D (two P4 cores). there's no drastic difference when comparing the 2.6 and 3.3ghz versions. though yes, it's likely a 3.3ghz chip may be able to be pushed further on air. again, though- i doubt you're interested in extreme overclocking, so it's likely moot.

well the overclocking I plan to do is, with the 920 (2.66Ghz) I plan to run it to at least 3.7Ghz to maybe even 4.0Ghz, if I get lucky with the chip, which brings me to another question, would the aftermarket heat-sink *Coolermaster V8* be the way to go in helping me reach that speed with the processor?

thanks in advance.

Depending on your ambients your results can vary immensely!

My room gets very hot in the summer; its my only computer room option. For my Q9650 doing 4Ghz by 500fsb I chose to run in under water. The custom setup cost me about 300$ Drilled out my case and had some real hobbyist fun :thumbsup:

If your ambients don't go beyond the lower 70's f then I'd say start with a good HS&F - a T.R.U.E would be good.

 

[MraK]

Originally posted by: MrAK
And my last question before anything else is since I have decided to stick with 1 videocard for now, till the new cards come out in the next 4-6 from now, would a eVGA GTX285 2GB card do the trick? Since I would be running it under 2 24" inch monitors and would be wanting to max out all the graphic settings *if possible* of all the games that would be coming out soon till Christmas, would 2GB of vmemory be a sure enough solution??

Can anyone help me in this department? any tip or advice would do me justice thanks

 

[brblx]

a 2gb 285 with an i7 should push just about anything at 1920x1200.

 

[MraK]

Here is my semi-final setup (feel free to share your opinions everyone)

Processor: i7 920 2.66Ghz (hope to reach it to at least 3.8Ghz)

Motherboard: eVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 intel x58

Memory: CORSAIR TR3X6G1600C8D 6gb kit (2gb x 3) 1600mhz 8-8-8-24

Hard-drive: will just be using a 150GB Western Digital 7200rpm HD *for now*

Optical Drive: my old Pioneer DVD burner

CPU-Fan: Coolermaster V8

PSU: my old Thermaltake Toughpower 850Watt

Casing: LIAN LI PC-P50R Red Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Videocard: EVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR geforce gtx 285 2gb gddr3 pci-e 2.0 x16

Monitor: my old Hewlett packard 24" inch widescreen LCD *will buy another one for 2 monitor setup

OS: Will attempt to use my "unused XP Pro 64bit" to save money so that I could upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out. Trying to stay away from Vista until I find it reason enough to get it before Windows 7 *read that Vista is not a so good OS*


Everyone please let me know what you all think, input!

 

[brblx]

go ahead and get a bigger hard drive. the 7200rpm 1tb drives widely available for $100 are going to be a good bit quicker than your current hdd because of their large platter densities.

make sure the cpu cooler is compatible. i'm not positive but would assume i7 takes different hardware than lga775, which was the latest socket when that cooler was originally released.