Building a PC, need some tips!!!!

[The Piper]

So far here is my setup:

* CASE: CoolerMaster Storm Sniper Mid-Tower Gaming Case (Original Color)
* Extra Case Fan Upgrade: Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case
* POWER SUPPLY Upgrade: 800 Watts Power Supplies (CyberPowerPC XF800S Performance ATX 2.0 Power - Quad SLI Ready)
* CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366
* Venom Boost Fast And Efficient Factory Overclocking: No Overclocking
* COOLING FAN : Asetek LCLC 240 Liquid Cooling system w/ 240MM Radiator and Dual Fans (Extreme Overclocking Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
* MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA, GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, &7.1Audio (Venom Boost Extreme OC Certified)
* MEMORY: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Kingston HyperX (All Venom OC Levels Certified))
* VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 896MB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
* VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 896MB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
* MULTIPLE VIDEO CARD SETTINGS: Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor
* HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (1TB (1TBx1) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
* Optical Drive: LG 22X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Dual Layer Drive (BLACK COLOR)
* SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Is it even worth to go dual (this) video card setup? Any tips on any of the specs?

 

[Silver03]

Looks good other than I would buy a couple Raptors to stripe for a boot drive but still keep the 1TB drive for storage. I would not spend the extra cash on 2 cards, you will be fine with 1 of those things.

So far here is my setup:

* CASE: CoolerMaster Storm Sniper Mid-Tower Gaming Case (Original Color)
* Extra Case Fan Upgrade: Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case
* POWER SUPPLY Upgrade: 800 Watts Power Supplies (CyberPowerPC XF800S Performance ATX 2.0 Power - Quad SLI Ready)
* CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366
* Venom Boost Fast And Efficient Factory Overclocking: No Overclocking
* COOLING FAN : Asetek LCLC 240 Liquid Cooling system w/ 240MM Radiator and Dual Fans (Extreme Overclocking Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
* MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA, GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, &7.1Audio (Venom Boost Extreme OC Certified)
* MEMORY: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Kingston HyperX (All Venom OC Levels Certified))
* VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 896MB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
* VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 896MB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
* MULTIPLE VIDEO CARD SETTINGS: Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor
* HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (1TB (1TBx1) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
* Optical Drive: LG 22X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Dual Layer Drive (BLACK COLOR)
* SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Is it even worth to go dual (this) video card setup? Any tips on any of the specs?

 

[ITRIEDEL]

Not really unless you want to be prepped for the near future and to always carry top of the line but even then, Games will be yet to be advanced to even lay a SLI/Corssfire setup as a requirment... Id say thats a evil vid card basing off the specs. Its be awsome to have, but yes it will be a bit overkill... But this is going to be a hell rasing machine for some time thats for sure. Puts my Machine to shame... POS Q6600


-Ryan

Desktop Support Analyst (Full time)
Geek squad (P/T job)
IT (USNR)

A+
Security+

EDIT +1 what silver said +$140 for a 74gb...

makes a shit load of difference. and their quiet

 

[Mayo5]

Not really unless you want to be prepped for the near future and to always carry top of the line but even then, Games will be yet to be advanced to even lay a SLI/Corssfire setup as a requirment... Id say thats a evil vid card basing off the specs. Its be awsome to have, but yes it will be a bit overkill... But this is going to be a hell rasing machine for some time thats for sure.


-Ryan

Desktop Support Analyst (Full time)
Geek squad (P/T job)
IT (USNR)

A+
Security+

+1.

I've never had any problems running a single card; it would be sweet to have dual cards but I can't justify the extra money for it.

 

[The Piper]

Not really unless you want to be prepped for the near future and to always carry top of the line but even then, Games will be yet to be advanced to even lay a SLI/Corssfire setup as a requirment... Id say thats a evil vid card basing off the specs. Its be awsome to have, but yes it will be a bit overkill... But this is going to be a hell rasing machine for some time thats for sure. Puts my Machine to shame... POS Q6600


-Ryan

Desktop Support Analyst (Full time)
Geek squad (P/T job)
IT (USNR)

A+
Security+

EDIT +1 what silver said

Thanks, I think the dual SLI is overkill as well. Instead I will save some money, and take it out, and upgrade to an EVGA 275 1792GB for a little bit more then the 896mb.

 

[The Piper]

Not really unless you want to be prepped for the near future and to always carry top of the line but even then, Games will be yet to be advanced to even lay a SLI/Corssfire setup as a requirment... Id say thats a evil vid card basing off the specs. Its be awsome to have, but yes it will be a bit overkill... But this is going to be a hell rasing machine for some time thats for sure. Puts my Machine to shame... POS Q6600


-Ryan

Desktop Support Analyst (Full time)
Geek squad (P/T job)
IT (USNR)

A+
Security+

EDIT +1 what silver said +$140 for a 74gb...

makes a shit load of difference. and their quiet

Add a 2nd hard drive for boot O/S?

# 32 GB 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+45]
# 64 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+98]
# 128 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+208]
# 256 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+752]
# 80 GB Intel X25-M 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+218]
# 160 GB Intel X25-M 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+452]
# 32 GB Ritek RiDATA 2.5 inch SATA Gaming SLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology) [+198]

 

[ITRIEDEL]

SSD is killer fast but like i said in PM pricey for the amount of storage but if your using it to BOOT OS wont need much storage anyway

 

[Boost13]

I have almost the same system except it is the i7 950 oc'd to 3.83ghz and 12 gigs of DDR3 dominator ram. get at LEAST 12 gigs of ram. it is CHEAP, and there have been many instances where I have had about 9gigs of ram taken up ...... Also get a cracked version of windows vista ultimate 64 bit with no activation (from a torrent) works like a charm. you will enjoy the system, but get 12 gigs of ram its only another 100 bux!

 

[Boost13]

OH, and dont get two video cards. get ONE GTX 295. I have it and it runs crysis full settings at 88fps

 

[Boost13]

dont get a SSD , just get a Velociraptor 10,000RPM 300 GIG hard drive for the OS, and a few 1.5TB drives for storage (150$ a piece)

 

[DEVIL]

I would second the opinion on a raid setup with a couple of Raptors. Every rig I've built for the last 18 years or so have had a raid setup. It means about 30% more thruput, give or take a little. And for the video, the SLI setup would be good, but you really don't need that much memory. And 275's are a little weak compared to what's coming out from AMD/ATI now. At least get some 285's and crank that baby up! I did a EVGA 750 for my bro-in-law with an Intel chip 2.8 somethinghz, raid 150gb hd's, 4gb memory, and my old 8800 GTX (loaner to him) and it is fast. I'm using a EVGA 9800GTX plus in this antique, but Cobra modds have got me too poor to do anything else right now. http://hardocp.com/reviews/gpu_video_cards/ Check out the HardOCP website, it has some great reviews on computer stuff.

 

[The Piper]

I would second the opinion on a raid setup with a couple of Raptors. Every rig I've built for the last 18 years or so have had a raid setup. It means about 30% more thruput, give or take a little. And for the video, the SLI setup would be good, but you really don't need that much memory. And 275's are a little weak compared to what's coming out from AMD/ATI now. At least get some 285's and crank that baby up! I did a EVGA 750 for my bro-in-law with an Intel chip 2.8 somethinghz, raid 150gb hd's, 4gb memory, and my old 8800 GTX (loaner to him) and it is fast. I'm using a EVGA 9800GTX plus in this antique, but Cobra modds have got me too poor to do anything else right now. GPU / Video Cards Reviews | [H]ard|OCP Check out the HardOCP website, it has some great reviews on computer stuff.

Yep, I have upgraded to a HD 5850.ATI

 

[smokedgt]

+1 on separate 10k rpm hard drive

Liquid Cooled? I always thought that would be cool to do if I ever build another computer.

 

[thomas91169]

you wont need two 275's right off the bat, you will be able to play everything out there on max with just the one for a year or so. Then add the second (or third and fourth) when its necessary. Im still rocking one 8800GTXoc and so far only few games that are coming out these days i have to play at lesser graphical levels.

Id get a 64gb SSD drive for the OS like someone else said, as well as 12gb DDR3. Vista will run insanely fast and Windows7 will be epic fast. Id only do liquid cooling if you plan on OC'ing.

 

[03DOHC]

Another vote for RAID0 and dual raptors. I have that in my garage PC which is an older P4 and it screams.

 

[astrodudepsu]

Piper, what's your price range? I'll whip you up something.


Couple of things;

1. DON'T CHEAP OUT ON THE POWERSUPPLY!!!!
-it's rule #1 and SO many people forget it. You want a quality brand like Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, Seasonic, and (some) Antec's

2. Get a DX11 card (which it appears you did) 5850/5870

3. Don't run raptors or SSD's. Grab a couple of WD Caviar Black 640GB drives if you wanna run RAID0. These things have 4 times the storage of raptors, are MUCH cheaper, and are only10% slower!

4. Liquid cooling is nice, but do you REALLY need it? A D0 920 will his 4.0GHz on air with a decent cooler, and only MAYBE 4.2-4.4 on water. Usually it isn't worth it.

5. What size monitor do you have? ANY video card recommendation is truly worthless without knowing the resolution you plan to game at.

 

[The Piper]

Piper, what's your price range? I'll whip you up something.


Couple of things;

1. DON'T CHEAP OUT ON THE POWERSUPPLY!!!!
-it's rule #1 and SO many people forget it. You want a quality brand like Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, Seasonic, and (some) Antec's

2. Get a DX11 card (which it appears you did) 5850/5870

3. Don't run raptors or SSD's. Grab a couple of WD Caviar Black 640GB drives if you wanna run RAID0. These things have 4 times the storage of raptors, are MUCH cheaper, and are only10% slower!

4. Liquid cooling is nice, but do you REALLY need it? A D0 920 will his 4.0GHz on air with a decent cooler, and only MAYBE 4.2-4.4 on water. Usually it isn't worth it.

5. What size monitor do you have? ANY video card recommendation is truly worthless without knowing the resolution you plan to game at.

Price range is around $1500 to $1700
1. 800w would be fine I would think, I am not Oc'ing nor do I have a dual vid setup.
2. Done.
3 Only going to run the OS and other programs on a SSD.
4. Came with the package for free.
5. Samsung T260HD 25.5" 1920x1200

 

[astrodudepsu]

Price range is around $1500 to $1700
1. 800w would be fine I would think, I am not Oc'ing nor do I have a dual vid setup.
2. Done.
3 Only going to run the OS and other programs on a SSD.
4. Came with the package for free.
5. Samsung T260HD 25.5" 1920x1200

The wattage can be misleading my friend.

There is a difference between peak wattage and continuous wattage. Cheap no-name PSU's advertise their peak wattage, but that is far less important than continuous wattage.

Also for practical purposes the amount of Amps on the 12v rail is THE MOST important thing, esp when dealing with high end video cards that can draw juice.

Please please please, if you listen to ONE piece of my advice, make SURE you get a brand name psu. Don't let numbers fool you.

Get a nice 750W unit from PC Power and Cooling, Corsair, Seasonic, or Antec (anything but the Basiq series).


If you aren't OC'ing at all then WC is way overkill, but if it came with the package so be it.


1500-1700 you say? Hmm Let me see what I can build you from my favorite builder. That is a LOT of cash to drop on a box today, you can get top of the line stuff for that money.

 

[Smacked_in_ATL]

1TB drives have a high failure rate. I'd do two 500GB drives in RAID0 and then have an external backup.

 

[astrodudepsu]

Ok, a SSD really pushes that budget. I forgot how crazy expensive they really are. Personally I don't believe the tech has matured enough yet, but it's your money.

This is an i5 build. Couple of things:

1. The only feature the i7-920 has over the i5-750 is hyperthreading. You probably don't use hyperthreading. If you do use it heavily (and you'd know if you do) this may be a deal breaker, but most likely not.

2. Because you aren't OC'ing, this i5 will actually be faster than the i7. It also has a better turbo mode.

3. No water-cooling here, because really it's just one more thing that can go wrong. I believe in the K.I.S.S. method.

4. It's priced with a 4890 and NOT a 5850. So expect the price to go up by about $100, still within your budget. The option isn't up yet. However if you email them they'll put it up, pronto. Great customer support from these guys/gals.

5. The SSD is the best price/perf model out right now. However intel is supposed to be launching REAL mainstream drives around xmas. You may want to wait until then.

6. This build comes with a rock solid PSU. It's just too important to risk. It's the ONE component that directly effects all the rest.

CUSTOM DESKTOP COMPUTER, Core™ i5 / i7 DDR3 Mainstream Series System $1473.38 UPDATE $1473.38

* COOLER MASTER, CM Storm Sniper (SGC-6000-KKN1-GP) Black Mid Tower Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel
* CORSAIR, CMPSU-750TX TX Series Power Supply, 750W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Multi-GPU Ready
* INTEL, DP55WB, LGA1156, Intel® P55, DDR3-1333 16GB /4, PCIe x16, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, GbLAN, FW, mATX, Retail
* INTEL, Core™ i5-750 Quad-Core 2.66GHz, LGA1156, 4.8 GT/s, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 95W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
* KINGSTON, 4GB (2 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz CL9 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
* SAPPHIRE, Vapor-X Radeon™ HD 4890 870MHz, 1GB GDDR5 1050MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, VGA+DVI, HDTV-Out, DP, Retail
* INTEL, 80GB X25-M Mainstream SSD, MLC, 250/70 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
* WESTERN DIGITAL, 640GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD6401AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
* RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
* SONY, AD-7241S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, OEM
* MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, OEM
* WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)


Now an i7 build along the same vein.


1. Smaller case on this one. The Antec 300 is a great value case with good airflow and plenty of room. The Scout Sniper is better, but I'm trying not to pop your budget.

2. Same PSU as above build.

3. Again priced with a 4890 and not a 5850, so expect the price to jump a cenote.

4. Personally I don't think the added benefit of the 920 is worth the cost upgrade.

CUSTOM DESKTOP COMPUTER, Core™ i7 2-way CrossFire™ DDR3 24GB Performance Series System $1658.10 UPDATE $1658.10

* ANTEC, Three Hundred Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU
* CORSAIR, CMPSU-750TX TX Series Power Supply, 750W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Multi-GPU Ready
* GIGABYTE, GA-EX58-UD4P, LGA1366, Intel® X58, 6400 MT/s QPI, DDR3-2100 24GB /6, PCIe x16 SLI CF /3, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /8, HDA, GbLAN, FW /3, ATX, Retail
* INTEL, Core™ i7-920 Quad-Core 2.66GHz, LGA1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 130W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
* OCZ, 6GB (3 x 2GB) Gold XTC PC3-10666 DDR3 1333MHz CL (9-9-9-20) 1.65V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
* SAPPHIRE, Vapor-X Radeon™ HD 4890 870MHz, 1GB GDDR5 1050MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, VGA+DVI, HDTV-Out, DP, Retail
* INTEL, 80GB X25-M Mainstream SSD, MLC, 250/70 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
* WESTERN DIGITAL, 640GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD6401AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
* RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
* SONY, AD-7241S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, OEM
* MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, OEM
* WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)

And just to play devil's advocate, have you considered AMD? Their phenom II line is competitive with Intel these days.

1. It's priced within a dollar of the i5 build, and truth be told is going to come out trading blows with the Intel box.

2. It's a Black Edition CPU, which means that should you ever decided to even try OC'ing it will be stupid easy to do. AMD is better at supporting enthusiasts than Intel when it comes to OC'ing.

3. Again a 4890 instead of a 5850



CUSTOM DESKTOP COMPUTER, Phenom™ II X4 AM3 CrossFireX™ DDR3-1333 Performance Series System $1473.65 UPDATE $1473.65

* COOLER MASTER, CM Storm Sniper (SGC-6000-KKN1-GP) Black Mid Tower Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel
* CORSAIR, CMPSU-750TX TX Series Power Supply, 750W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Multi-GPU Ready
* GIGABYTE, GA-MA790XT-UD4P (rev. 1.0), AM3, AMD 790X, DDR3-1666 (O.C.) 16GB /4, PCIe x16 CF /2, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /8, HDA, GbLAN, FW /3, ATX, Retail
* AMD, Phenom™ II X4 955 Quad-Core 3.2GHz, AM3, HT 4000MHz, 4x 512KB L2 + 6MB L3 cache, 125W, 45nm, Black Edition, Retail
* KINGSTON, 4GB (2 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz CL9 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
* SAPPHIRE, Vapor-X Radeon™ HD 4890 870MHz, 1GB GDDR5 1050MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, VGA+DVI, HDTV-Out, DP, Retail
* INTEL, 80GB X25-M Mainstream SSD, MLC, 250/70 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
* WESTERN DIGITAL, 640GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD6401AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
* RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
* SONY, AD-7241S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, OEM
* MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, OEM
* WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)



I know I just threw a crazy amount of info at you, but to recap.


1. PSU's are important!!!! Don't skimp out.

2. I don't like Cyberpower and Ibuypower for a few reasons. First, they tend to give crap PSU's. Second, they don't list EXACT parts specs. Knowing your exact MoBo is important. You don't want a PoS, and they will usually give you one. If you want PoS equip you might as well buy HP, Dell, or any other major OEM. And thirdly, their customer support sucks.