DrGrass1987

Hey all,

I am currently in the military stationed over seas near Afghanistan. I will be coming home around July/August time frame. I was an avid computer gamer before i left (11 months ago) and have been looking on NewEgg at building a new one when i get back. I set my limit on the tower to be about $1500, and right now my tower is sitting at just under 1500 at around 1470. If you all could please look at my pics and let me know what you think of them i'd appreciate it. I've done my research and feel this is a very decent build.

Games i primarily play: Warhammer: Age of Reckoning & World of Warcraft

Heres the rig:

Case:
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Mobo:
EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

CPU:
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail

GPU:
HIS Hightech H489FT1GP Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Turbo ... - Retail

Memory:
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - Retail

Power Supply:
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 ... - Retail

OS Hard Drive:
OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail

Data HD:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

OS:
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM

Since i plan on overclocking this rig to about 3.6/3.7GHz i plan on getting whatever the best Therma TRUE Heatsink is out. Haven't look much at them yet but i will. If anyone has suggestion's i'd appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for any help.


ps) i know these are not the link to newegg, but these are the exact names that can be searched on NewEgg. Sorry for not posting the exact link.

-Grass

manic

You should read the sticky created by linderman at the top of the page
in this forum, good info and you can get a idea of pricing..Imo sli
is overated, and a little buggy. First thing I see in your build is that you
will need a bigger power supply, the corsair 750watt, and if you plan
on the sli thing, you may need to punch that up to around 1000+.

Tyree

To echo manic, one high quality graphics card will give you all need and you save money and problems.

Mcninjaguy

I will also echo Manic and Tyree.

You'll need a 750w PSU (Corsair) and 1 graphics card is powerful enough.

wrench97

And I'll add use a Asus or Gigabyte Motherboard EVGA makes great video cards but the motherboards are a different story.

DrGrass1987

hey guys i'm all about new ideas. And in refrence to the sli gpu's i understand what y'all are saying completely. Currently on my shopping cart i only have 1 ATI 4890 1GB GPU; which should be way more than enough for WoW/WAR. I am simply wanting to get a mobo that supports it incase in like a year or so, they start releasing programs that support and are optimized for SLI/Crossfire.

About the mobo suggestion, i was originially going to go with a Rampage II mobo, which is around 350/400 dollars. But was told that i didn't need to go that extreme since i'm only planning on overclocking the i7 920 from 2.66GHz to about 3.66GHz, they said it would be overkill. Could you guys suggest a specific mobo i may want to consider?

Also how's the Ram i chose? My original inclination was to go with 1333MHz RAM but i was the 1600 was only like 5 bucks more; how big of a performance increase is there in the faster ram speeds?

manic

If it was me, I would be looking for a 775 config. You have more options ie,
ddr2, more versatility, cheaper cpu. With ram I always buy the fastest
ram I can get, even if the cpu's fsb does not support it, which is rare
for me. A good dual core 775 will be fine, as most games arent written
for quads anyway...

wrench97

With an ATI card you need CrossFire(ATI) support not SLI(Nvidia), some X58 motherboards offer both some are one or the other.
Another issue is that a year or two from now you'll pay dearly for a matching card if you can find one, for either Xfire or SLI to work best you need to have matching cards as the models fall out of production the price goes up your then at the point where the next latest and greatest card is the same price and outperforms 2 of the older ones on less power. not to mention that some games will actually run slower in SLI/Xfire then they do on a single card.

For gaming the E8500 with it's overclockabilty is still on top games are still running on one or 2 cores and a faster clock speed performs better then more cores. The i7 940 can be clocked up very well but it's a high price to pay to get slightly better performance then the E8500 will give on 1066 ram and a good board.

wrench97

i7 Motherboards I have used the Gigabyte UD5 it's a nice board with plenty OC potential.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131359

DrGrass1987

Ok, i am considering purchasing this link for my mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128362

My theory on buying a 1366 Socket Mobo is simple. I want this computer to last 3-5 years, and by buying the most up to date mobo now, means i will be able to upgrade piece by piece if needed later on without having to build everything around a new mobo. I also am going into school for graphical design next semester so i will be using my computer for more than strictly gaming. I multitask already; lots of movie editing, gaming, game recording, music mixing, dvd ripping, web design, torrenting etc. So i think i can benefit from the quad core make up.

The current computer i own is a pre-built one from Micro Velocity. Here are the rough specs on it:

AMD 9600 2.33GHz Quad Core
3.2GB DDR2 800MHz RAM (32-bit OS)
ATI HD 4850 512mb GPU

I don't really know the mobo/pwrsup/heatsink etc. I am thinking if i OC this i7 920 to about 3.66GHz i will no longer be under a bottleneck from a struggling processor. And since the only game i mainly play is world of warcraft i will be able to have zero playability issues from it.

Besides, i actually threw a wishlist together for a rough 775 build and for a 3.2GHz Dual Core build, it was only like $200 cheaper than a i7 build; not really worth it imo. If anyone else can provide some insight on why a 775 build is superior to a 1366 i'm all ears.

wrench97

The UD5 is a good board and the i7 will work well with graphic design software, but don't look for this socket to stay around anywhere near as long as the 775 did.

You won't be bottlenecked at all with the i7 build, the prices have dropped a good deal in the last month or so even the DDR3 Tri Stick ram prices are a lot lower.

Only thing I'll add is that I would prefer to see a 750TX or if your thinking you migth add a second card a 850TX instead of the 650TX Power Supply.

DrGrass1987

Wrench i just wanted to say thanks for your inputs man :).

I understand that newer technology is coming out at a more rapid pace as years go by. But i feel that at least for the 2 years or so this processor should last me. I will look into getting a higher watt power supply, i think i may try to stay with Corsair if you think thats acceptable.

I know i picked a Mid Tower for my case and this pwr supply has some comments about a **** ton of wires. But what do you think of the:

CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
(link= http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009)

This will also be my first time experimenting with OCing. I have done a lot of my homework on it but have not had the chance to actually start messing with it. A question i have, do i simply just enter the BIOS and increase the FSB to ex:250 from like 175 or w/e and it auto adjusts the voltages? I don't want to hit the highest benchmark i just want to have a 3.66GHz Quad Core. Should be more than enough for what i'm doing these days.

Also, i am probably going with a Thermalyte TRUE-120 for my Heatsink, anyone ever work with this at all?

wrench97

Mount the PSU so that the fan is pointing up towards the top, and coil the excess wires neatly in the bottom hard drive rack.

Here's a handy OC guide for the i7 from Gigabyte> http://images.tweaktown.com/imageban...2.12_(ENG).pdf

The 850TX is a very good PSU.

I haven't used the Thermalright True 120 but I've heard nothing bad about them.

Here's a little look at whats to come the Sandy Bridge due in 2011(Yea it's not that far away) is to replace the Westmere(due next year) some how I don't think the socket will remain the same, this years chip is on a third socket so that now we'll have two parallel lines with the the 1366 being the Hi performance line and most likely to change> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_S...roarchitecture)

manic

The Thermalyte TRUE-120 is a excellent hsf. Does a real good job.
The fan bracket/s can be a little tricky, but I was very impressed when
using it on 2 builds.

DrGrass1987

Ok was just looking at the tech specifics for:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362

Under the memory section it says only "6×240pin" and "Triple Channel", doesnt say specificly if it supports 1600Mhz DDR3 Ram. Anyone care to help me figure it out?

wrench97

The memory controller is on the CPU only the EE i965 officially supports 1600(Like Amd the i7 cpu now controls the max ram speed), that's where overclocking comes in most set ups will run it between 1350 and 1530.

DrGrass1987

Ok, so i will take from that, that I can use my current RAM with this mobo and i will smile. Also, after adjusting the PSU to the 850W and the Mobo to the current one, i only went up 20 dollars from my original list. I think this will be a good one.

wrench97

The OCZ 1600? Yes it will default to a slower speed either 1066 or 1333(I forget atm which) you'll just adjust it in the bios.

DrGrass1987

So when you say the memory will run at the slower ram speed, is it considered OCing to take it from the default 1066 to 1600? And is it hard to do?

wrench97

Yes it's overclocking but It won't go to 1600 unless you use the Extreme Edition i7 CPU. The highest I've seen is around 1530Mhz but the ram speed should not be a priority. It'll be fast at 1333, CPU speed first then tweak the ram speed, stability is the determining factor.

Another thing to add is that 1600 is considered an OC speed even on the EE CPU all it really means is that the ram is good enough quality to reach that speed if run at slower speeds it still the better quality ram.