Yet another "ultimate rig" thread...

[KapnobataiReza]

Hey all, first time posting/in the forums, so a big hello to all the regulars ^.^

I've been using a DTR laptop for the past year and a half, mainly because I was travelling too much to get a desktop, but now I've finally settled down in one place and would like to blow my money on an "uber" desktop.

So, first off, budget is essentially unlimited (I say essentially because someone will probably end up suggesting 10 quad-quad core opteron computers running in a cluster ). Pretty much, whatever it takes to get the job done.

This desktop will be used for gaming as well as an HTPC for a living room and to push content through the house via Media Center and various MC extenders.

On the gaming side of things I decided it would be wise to wait for Yorkfield from Intel and the G9* from NVidia, so I'm looking to temporarily get a Q6600 + 8800GTS 320MB and upgrading when those components come out (I will also be going SLi when the G90 comes out).

For the mobo I was looking at the Striker Extreme 680i SLi since it seems to have the most ports/options, but it lacks DDR3. Is there a mobo that matches the Striker Extreme in features but adds DDR3 RAM support? Also, the Striker Extreme will eventually support Yorksfield right? I dont see a reason why not, but I dont know *shrugs*.

For memory I was planning on getting 2x1024MB of DDR2-1066 RAM (DDR3-1333 if I find a mobo to support it). I heard this is the fastest, but am uncertain as to a specific brand or anything. I basically want whatever the fastest RAM i can get is.

Cooling I wanted liquid cooling to reduce the noise a bit as well as give me more elbow room for OCing (Should I choose to OC), but I'm not sure what the best liquid cooling solution is .

No PhysX card.

On the HTPC end, Im going to use this as a centralised AMX via Lifeware and basically use it to push content throughout the house as well. I need lots of HDD space. Essentially, as much HDD space as possible. I'm eventually going to be ripping 400-500 DVDs in uncompressed format as well as tons of music, pictures, HD movies, HD tv shows, etc. etc. So i will need it. I'm thinking 4x1TB Hitachi drives in RAID 5 would do the trick, but I'd like to have more if possible. I'm going to be putting in dual optical drives, so my mobo only supports 4 HDDs. Is there any other mobos that support more internal drives as well as what was mentioned above? Also, this may be a stupid question, but will a PCI-E Raid Controller like the 3Ware 9650SE-4LPML add 4 SATA II ports, or does it just control RAID to take load off the CPU. If a RAID Controller worth it? This isn't too important since I could add an external eSATA rack when things get tight, but I'd like to keep everything in one box (even if its a huge box).

Optical drives will one LG GGW-H20LI, but I cant find these anywhere. Anybody have info on where to snag one of these or an idea of when to expect them? The other will be a HDDVD reader, and possibly recorder if I can find one.

All this will probably need a 1-1.2kW PSU, heh.

I also looking at custom pc shops to put it all together but I havent found one good enough. I will build it myself if I dont end up finding one, but if anyone could recommend a good one Id really appreciate it.

Anyways, sorry for the long post (Believe it or not I wrote an even LONGER one but my computer crashed ), to sum up here's what I got so far. Where there is bold I dont even have an idea of a specific component, where there isnt I still need input .

UPDATE: I've decided to wait until the release of the x48 chipset to go ahead and start building the system. This gives me more options.

Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower W0133RU ATX12V / EPS12V 1200W Power Supply
Case: MountainMods, Coolermaster Cosmos, Antec P182, Coolermaster Stacker 830, Silverstone TJ07 or LianLi V-2100B
Motherboard: Asus Striker Extreme 680i Sli or x48 with DDR3 and DDR2 support
CPU: Yorksfield CPU.
Cooling: Ps230.3 x 2 Radiators, d-tek fuzion cpu block , d5 or ddc 3.2 water pump
Memory: Best DDR2-1066 OR Best DDR3-1333 (if supported mobo found) or CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit or CORSAIR Dominator 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Hard drives: 4xHitachi Deskstar 7k1000 (1TB) (With switchable HD racks)
Optical drives: 1xLG GGW-H20LI + HDDVD reader/writer (If I can find them in time, if not i need a good blu-ray writer and a good HDDVD writer
Video Card: SLi G9* GPUs
Monitor: Dell 3007WFP
Sound: Xi-Fi Prelude
Other: 2xInteral ATi All-in-Wonder CableCard OCUR tuners. 2xExternal OCUR tuners. 1x4TB eSATA rack.

Operating System: Vista Ultimate 32bit


Thanks in advance for any help, i appreciate it! Ill make sure to post tons of pics + benchies when its all done too ^.^.

3 Special Bonus Questions:

1) I was really hoping to get some cable card action in this HTPC but it looks like im SOL without going to an HTPC brand, but none of them can handle everything I want above. Does anybody know any shops that could actually do this?

2) Sound card will be XiFi Pro. If I get a XiFi Pro + CableCard Tuner (lets say it happens) + dual GPUs in SLi will it all fit? There are 2 PCI slots so I would think so, but I remember a couple years back with 6800s in SLi the cards became extra wide so I could only fit 1 PCI card in. Anybody know about this? UPDATE: Xi-Fi Prelude is the new card since Ive decided to wait longer to purchase the system.

3) I setup a complete AMX + media system at my friends house with a crestron system and a kaleidescape server to push media and control curtains, lights, etc. throughout his house. Im going to replicate this with MyMovies (http://www.mymovies.name/) and LifeWare. Anybody have experience with these apps and how seamless/not seamless they are?

Thanks Again!

 

[MarcVenice]

Might wanna consider getting a cheap mobo instead and buy a x38 mobo in about a month or so. AFAIK they should come out this month. DDR2 1066 or DDR3 1333 offer very little extra performance over DDR2 800 or even DDR2 667mhz. I'm sure there are better ways to spend the money I'd much rather get 2x2gb and run Vista 64bit btw. The x38's should offer SLI and DDR3 to perfectly suite your needs though.

As for cooling, ask on the Cases & Cooling forum, watercooling is something not to many people know a lot about, including me, but there are some knowledgable people roaming that forum... I did see someone mentioning a coolermaster stacker with a watercooling kit built in. And no need for eSATA, just get a switchable HD rack and switch HD's in and out. Besides, most of the time it be a big waste of energy to have multiple HD's running for nothing. Something like this for example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817122108

You've got a lot of questions though, and I can't answer them all.

 

[KapnobataiReza]

Hey MarcVenice,

Thanks a lot for the help. THe x38 seems to be what I'm looking for in a mobo, and since its coming out fairly soon it should be worth the wait. My one concern is that I did some research on the card and it does not support SLi natively. I'm not sure how the hacking community is with this mobo, but I'm just hoping that by the time the g90 cards roll out somebody will have hacked some good SLi drivers (Ive heard that many mobo manufacturers are coming out with their own drivers too).

You are right about DDR3. I actually looked up some prices vs. performance, and even though performance is negligible (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...y/display/ddr3_6.html) for the OUTRAGEOUS prices they are charging. Considering by the time Nehelim comes out I'm going to need to get a new mobo to support it (I probably wont upgrade my mobo on Nehelim, though, unless I see a huge performance difference), I may as well stick with DDR2 until prices on DDR3 drop. Will there be a version of the X38 that supports both DDR3 and DDR2? I basically just want to have the option once DDR3 starts to decrease in price, because there is no saying how long I'm going to keep with this mobo.

I WOULD run 64bit Vista, but I ran 64bit on this laptop and about 99% of all software works fine, but that just makes it all the more frustrating when I encounter that 1% of software/drivers that do not support 64-bit Vista (Particularly 3rd Party MCE Addons, which dont work when programmed for x86 as Vista MCE is x64). I mean, I COULD go with 64-bit, but its just asking for trouble along the road. I dont think Id really benefit from 4gigs of RAM over 2gigs of good RAM, would i?

The switchable HD rack looks tempting, I hadn't realised those were around, but as the main reason I need the HD space is to serve media to the rest of the house I sort of need all HDs on access at any one time (if someone is downstairs and wants to watch "Dr. Strangelove" and its on one of the hard drives that isnt connected, it would be a shame). I will probably end up installing a couple of removeable HD racks as they seem like a nice feature to have...

Ill probably repost some of the more specific questions in some of the more specific forums since I know that I have a lot of specific questions and this is a general hardware forum....

Thanks again!

 

[MarcVenice]

First things first, x38 WILL support SLI, it's just that nvidia is messing with mobo manufacturers, and wants to be the only official x38 mobo with SLI manufacturer. So ya prolly have to buy a nvidia based motherboard. And yes, they should come with both ddr2 and ddr3. 2 slots of each I reckon, which is plenty with 2x2gb...

The reason I mentioned the HD racks was because someone mentioned them to me to use them to dualboot. It's real nice if you think about. 1 HD with your Vista 32x, 1 with Vista 64x. You MUST have either of them UNPLUGGED when you install the other OS. Then when you take out the HD with vista 32x and replace it with vista 64x it will run as if it's the only OS you've got. You can keep all the data storage drives plugged in. Good thing you decided to go with ddr2 though, buying ddr3 right now is like burning money for the hell of it

If you are going to do encoding, decoding and what not, 4gb might come in handy, and besides, even in 32x bits you can adress about 3-3.5gb. Oh, and the p182 for example can take up to 8 hd's and 4 optical drives. Should be plenty. Coolermaster stacker 830 can probably take even more.

 

[KapnobataiReza]

x38 will support SLi? I heard that NVidia was refusing to cert the x38 mobos....I didnt think they were coming out with a x38 version either, i mean, x38 = intel?

The dual boot idea is really nice, Im definetly going to look into doing something like that, I could even keep a smaller HD with XP or Linux and just swap whenever I want to.

And, yeah, I wasnt aware of how much they were charging for DDR3 RAM, its insane! For the price of 2 gigs of RAM i could buy the highest end graphics card on the market, and for almost no difference in performance. Lame.

The p182 and Coolermaster 830 look really nice, I'm going to add those to my list for the case. I like the p182 in particular, looks awesome with all the slots I need. Reviews say airflow and such are pretty awesome as well.

 

[MarcVenice]

Got a p182 myeself, and I love it. Just make sure that the 12v cable to your mobo is longer then 18 inches or buy an extension cable, so you can route it around the back. Nice cable management.

And yeah, you heard right, nvidia is refusing to cert the x38 mobo's for SLI, exept the ones they will be bringing out under their own name. It's just like how asus/gigabyte etc are bringing out p35 mobo's.

 

[jkresh]

MarcVenice where did you get that info on x38? Nvidia has a new chipset (probably November) to replace 680i and that will support sli but nvidia does not make boards (well they design reference boards but others sell them). X38 has the hardware to support sli but its up to Nvidia to release drivers and last I heard it doesnt look good (though hacked drivers are likely). KapnobataiReza, you might want to look at Voodoo as they can do just about everything you want (and if you are willing to pay for their upgrade service they can even swap out cpu/gpu's when upgrades are ready). Otherwise you probably want to build it yourself. If you want the best watercooling you will need a custom kit and you will want/need a case that can handle a nice size radiator. If you dont mind the looks/size then mountainmods is the best as they have cutouts for the top radiators so you dont have to mod the case to install one (or even 2 for some of their cases) 3x120mm radiator. For components I would recommend a pa120.3 (or maybe 2 if you want to cool a new quad and 2 gpu's), as your radiator, a dtek fuzion as your cpu block (wait till g90 is out before buying gpu blocks), an d5 or ddc 3.2 pump, with some tygon tubing. Another case that might be worth looking at (and can easily mount a 120.2 internaly) would be coolermasters new Cosmos (with a little modding a 120.3 should fit on the top or bottom).

 

[MarcVenice]

Well I ment the nvidia chipsets or whatever. I've gotta track back where I read it, but it's in Dutch, prolly not much use to you anyways. It started with NVIDIA not giving out a sli license to intel and I remember reading it was so nvidia would be the only one to support SLI. Otherwise you might have to go with crossfired 2900xt's

 

[KapnobataiReza]

Originally posted by: jkresh
MarcVenice where did you get that info on x38? Nvidia has a new chipset (probably November) to replace 680i and that will support sli but nvidia does not make boards (well they design reference boards but others sell them). X38 has the hardware to support sli but its up to Nvidia to release drivers and last I heard it doesnt look good (though hacked drivers are likely). KapnobataiReza, you might want to look at Voodoo as they can do just about everything you want (and if you are willing to pay for their upgrade service they can even swap out cpu/gpu's when upgrades are ready). Otherwise you probably want to build it yourself. If you want the best watercooling you will need a custom kit and you will want/need a case that can handle a nice size radiator. If you dont mind the looks/size then mountainmods is the best as they have cutouts for the top radiators so you dont have to mod the case to install one (or even 2 for some of their cases) 3x120mm radiator. For components I would recommend a pa120.3 (or maybe 2 if you want to cool a new quad and 2 gpu's), as your radiator, a dtek fuzion as your cpu block (wait till g90 is out before buying gpu blocks), an d5 or ddc 3.2 pump, with some tygon tubing. Another case that might be worth looking at (and can easily mount a 120.2 internaly) would be coolermasters new Cosmos (with a little modding a 120.3 should fit on the top or bottom).

Heh, yeah, I was wondering about the NVidia mobo. Unfortunately, I can"t really wait past mid-september...first week of October at the latest, so it looks like the 680i successor is not really an option. x38 is looking to be my first choice, and I'll just hope that hacked drivers for the G90 series on the x38 come out fairly soon (I've heard certain motherboard manufacturers were working on their own drivers as well, but this seems unlikely ). Worst case I'll end up with a single G90 card (which would probably save me from a huge hole in my wallet, since SLi is not really worth it at the end of the day and is more for bragging rights).

I looked at Voodoo, and they were my #1 choice for the moment, but they lack some of the more specific things I'm looking for. I'm waiting for some of the new HP desktops as well (Blackbird 002, Virtus), since there is some buzz floating around the blogosphere on those two (If the Blackbird ends up being what I'm hoping, it would make me a happy man).

Thanks a TON for the info on the cooling and cases... I don't know much about water cooling and it seemed to be the most complex thing to find the right components and put together. I'm going to do some googling on the parts you mentioned, then add them to my list up top if all looks good .

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Well I ment the nvidia chipsets or whatever. I've gotta track back where I read it, but it's in Dutch, prolly not much use to you anyways. It started with NVIDIA not giving out a sli license to intel and I remember reading it was so nvidia would be the only one to support SLI. Otherwise you might have to go with crossfired 2900xt's

Maybe even quad 2900xts on the x38 .

 

[erwos]

Cablecard tuners (OCURs) are all USB at this point. Don't worry about the space constraints.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: KapnobataiReza
All this will probably need a 1-1.2kW PSU, heh.

Doubt it.

 

[QuantumPion]

Optical drives will one LG GGW-H20LI, but I cant find these anywhere. Anybody have info on where to snag one of these or an idea of when to expect them? The other will be a HDDVD reader, and possibly recorder if I can find one.

the LG GGW-H20LI is a combo blu-ray/hd-dvd drive. It can also also burn blu-ray. The GGC version is the same but without blu-ray burning. They are supposedly coming out this month.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Does the X-Fi have the connection types you need to hook up to your sound equipment? X-Fi has no DD / DTS encoding capabilities if you were planning on hooking up digitally for gaming.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Does the X-Fi have the connection types you need to hook up to your sound equipment? X-Fi has no DD / DTS encoding capabilities if you were planning on hooking up digitally for gaming.

then how would the ASUS Xonar D2 be? seems like a good card from what i read. i assume you'll understand more then me about this but this looks like a really good card if you don't intend to play games all of the time but also listen to music.

good DAC's and good SNR on all channels. based on an improved C-Media chip like the Razer Barracuda. also has Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, and DTS Interactive which looks good.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Does the X-Fi have the connection types you need to hook up to your sound equipment? X-Fi has no DD / DTS encoding capabilities if you were planning on hooking up digitally for gaming.

then how would the ASUS Xonar D2 be? seems like a good card from what i read. i assume you'll understand more then me about this but this looks like a really good card if you don't intend to play games all of the time but also listen to music.

good DAC's and good SNR on all channels. based on an improved C-Media chip like the Razer Barracuda. also has Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, and DTS Interactive which looks good.

I would be looking at this one probably http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2092049&enterthread=y

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Does the X-Fi have the connection types you need to hook up to your sound equipment? X-Fi has no DD / DTS encoding capabilities if you were planning on hooking up digitally for gaming.

then how would the ASUS Xonar D2 be? seems like a good card from what i read. i assume you'll understand more then me about this but this looks like a really good card if you don't intend to play games all of the time but also listen to music.

good DAC's and good SNR on all channels. based on an improved C-Media chip like the Razer Barracuda. also has Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, and DTS Interactive which looks good.

I would be looking at this one probably http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2092049&enterthread=y

maybe. what i understood from the review is that ASUS uses these high end burr DAC which are really really good at decreasing distorsion and it does have all those features now instead of waiting for Auzentech which is forced to use creative's horrible drivers. i hope they'll improve them or rewrite them...