New PC
mod
I've been piecing this together over the last few weeks and the final pieces (Video card, SSD, Processor, Cooler & Ram) arrive this week. I also have 2 500gb 7200rpm drives that will go in there for storage.
It has to be quite, and it needs to run cold. All of the pieces are within their return window except the case, no way that is going back I love it. So if you spot something I could/should upgrade speak up!
ASUS ENGTS250 GeForce GTS 250 1GB
$134.99
ASUS P6T Deluxe 1366 Intel X58
$289.99
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz Quad-Core
$288.99
6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
$229.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
$99.99
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700 Power Supply
$99.99
Kingston SSDNow 128GB
$299.00
COOLER MASTER Intel Core i7 compatible V8 Rifle CPU Cooler
$69.99
COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP Black/ Silver Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
$169.99
The Grand Total: $1,682.92 was a bit more than I wanted to spend and I could have gone noisier, faster and cheaper but I did that last time and I'd rather pay a little more and not have it annoy the crap out of me.
It has to be quite, and it needs to run cold. All of the pieces are within their return window except the case, no way that is going back I love it. So if you spot something I could/should upgrade speak up!
ASUS ENGTS250 GeForce GTS 250 1GB$134.99
ASUS P6T Deluxe 1366 Intel X58$289.99
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz Quad-Core $288.99
6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 $229.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium$99.99
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700 Power Supply$99.99
Kingston SSDNow 128GB$299.00
COOLER MASTER Intel Core i7 compatible V8 Rifle CPU Cooler$69.99
COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP Black/ Silver Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case$169.99
The Grand Total: $1,682.92 was a bit more than I wanted to spend and I could have gone noisier, faster and cheaper but I did that last time and I'd rather pay a little more and not have it annoy the crap out of me.
Replies
I don't plan on overclocking and after looking over the dimensions, the thing is huge! That's a power supply its dwarfing in the background...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150481
If you add the heatsink cost with the price of vid card you choose, above is near the same total.
so I hope you give use some feedback after you've set up the system
i dunno rollin, I recently built my own rig (somewhat similiar to what vig has here) and comparatively speaking, i saved an ass pile of money. i couldn't even create an exact apples to apples combination equivalent to my build, and even at the closest setup i COULD create, i saved more than twice the amount of cash i would have spent if i went with a prebuilt system, a much nicer setup, and the added bonus of no hogwash programs to uninstall after that first startup.
on top of that, a lot of hardware used in those prebuilt rigs can be misleading and cheap. you're also paying for someone to put it together, which is really up to you if it is really worth spending that extra cash on. i can see where some people just don't want to have to mess with it if they run into any snags and the business model of companies like dell (for instance) is targeted towards people who have no clue on how to do it or just don't want the hassle because of time, etc. in the end, with a little google action and research, it's not as complicated as most would think. you'll feel like you actually learned something and take pride in the effort you put into building it yourself. PLUS, you're also paying for a "brand". I would rather not drop additional cash into a branded logo and a company molded/designed/branded enclosures. i don't care if it looks like it was built out of twigs and toothpaste, so long as it busted out high res bakes and could push larger scenes and high poly models. just mpo.
edit: also, if you're an individual, building your own rig makes sense, companies don't have the time to do that shiznat.
just my 2 cents but nice system nonetheless.
128 gb of storage isn't much, so I would GUESS that you are also going to be using some external storage??
And if that's the case, why not save ~$75 and get this intel drive? It's only 80GB, but Intel is widely regarded as the absolute best brand for SSDs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023
Also, you could definitely save on the mobo. This is the board I have in my current build, and I have had no problems.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188049&cm_re=evga_x58-_-13-188-049-_-Product
other than that - why only 6 GB of RAM?
Firebert.: bc of reasons like that
I've definitely build enough single component pc's to know what I'm talking about.
Not saying that - with enough time - you're absolutely able to find a fast and cheap and silent and stable config by yourself
Rollin, I've always built from scratch, I normally save a bunch of money and know exactly the parts I'm getting. I hear ya about it being less of a hassle setting it up, and researching all that techie BS can be a big drain but I kind of like it =P
ZakD, yea its a great case, I've been using it for a few weeks now, I absolutely love it. The same noisy pieces are a lot quieter and I hope (and by I, I mean my wife) the new pieces will make it whisper quite.
Firebat, EQ, good call on the Win7 Pro I hadn't seen anything about locked hardware with home so that's going back. I originally dropped in Ultimate but then did some reading and it had a bunch of junk I don't need.
tekmatic, We went SSD at work and holy bawls is it amazing. Its like a whole new system. I couldn't believe how much of a bottle neck HD's where. I would be willing to drop down to 4gb if I had to choose between ram and SSD.
Frosty, Yeap... back it goes. That's a nice board but I like P6T-D because it supports DDR3 2000, 1866, 1800, 1600 & 1333, so I can branch out above what I have when the price drops down. I also stick with the onboard audio and I'm leaning toward the audio on the P6T-D. The last EVGA board I had put the network port right next to the audio and I would get faint sqeeling noises when there was network traffic. Normally cranking up the system sound to 100% but turning my headphones down to 30 mostly made it nonexistent. Not a big fan of E-LEET tuning either, it just makes me roll my eyes heh..
thomasp, 6 to get started when the price on the faster ram dips down I'll snatch some more and replace what I have.
How about http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139108 and spend the 110 bucks on a terabyte and a half?
Or just buy the big fast one AND a 7200 drive.
can branch out above what I have when the price drops down
Don't think so. AFAIK ram clocks down to the speed of the slowest strip. So if you're planning on getting fast ram, start out with 4GB fast instead of 6GB lessfast.
And i think what EQ means is that the OEM versions lock you in to the hardware. The OEM license doesn't allow you to upgrade mobo's. Replace with the same model if it fries ok, but you can't change the model of mobo. But if you're like me, the mobo isn't gonna be switched anyway. (I buy a new PC instead of upgrading. Then I have +1PC)
I almost always toss out the ram I have when I expand ram. I never mix and match brands or speeds, and its hard to find the same ram 6mo-1yr later.
The OS being locked to the hardware is a deal breaker for me. My current OS has gone through 4 systems and this new OS will probably do the same. So that has to change.
The whole point for me is to relay on the platter drives as little as possible. I need all of my working files on the SSD otherwise I'm bottle necked again.
In addition to 20gb scene files I work with a lot of uncompressed frames (pre-rendered casual games) and they themselves can eat up 20-30gb easy. These files get copied and passed around a few different folders so its not uncommon to eat up 60-80gb while working. It's important that those frames not be sitting on a slow platter drive, the copy time is painful after using SSD.
We have 60gb SSD drives at work and they're tiny... I don't really see 128gb as all that much more breathing room much less only 80. A year from now I won't remember what I paid for it but I won't kick myself for going smaller.
[edit] Yeah looking at the specs of your board, you have 6 slots for triple channel, so you can do:
3gb 1gb x 3
6gb 2gb x 3 or 1gb x 6
9gb 3gb x 3
12gb 4gb x 3 or 2gb x 6
18gb 3gb x 6
24gb 4gb x 6
8 or 16 GB simply isnt an option for your board, or LGA1366 boards in general, unless i am mistaken.
Ideally they said you needed 4gb x6 with custom heat sinks to replace any of the stock ones for it all to fit. Or you could cool it properly with 8gb (4gb x2) or 16gb (4gb x4) but you had to mod the heat sinks on the first two because they where so close. I chose the 6gb spaced out config to start with so I don't run into 2 modules right next to each other.
Those configs checks out with the mobo manual, not sure about the room between slots but I'm taking their 1st hand experience over my non-experience, if they're full of it then I'm no worse off.
if youre interested, heres a very easy to follow tutorial that i followed when i overclocked mine. running very quiet, cool, and stable and its been almost 2 months now.
http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html
I would definitely overclock it. average i7 overclockers go to 3.8 stable with just an after market heatsink/fan.
Youll get the same speed as a stock cpu that costs 2-3 times more.
4 of these would set you back $320 + a controller and would give you 3x ~60 mpbs write and 3x ~80mbps read, coming out at 1.9TB 240/180 versus your 0,13TB 230/180
This is the first HD I saw (around your SSD's price) btw, so there's likely better combinations out there.
You could also opt for a 2x 64 GB SSD RAID0 setup for MAXIMUM SPEEDZ but then you'd have no redundancy disk =(
Having built a silent computer a about 2 years ago I can say that I never want to go back to having a stock fan/heatsink on my graphics card or CPU ever again.
In either case best of luck with your new build, hope everything goes without a hitch.
Is this one of those extreme overclocking boards or something? In which case, since you've said you arent OCing(and i7s auto OC anyway), i'm curious to see why you think you need it.
Taking a look at LGA1366 boards, damn they are expensive! WTF is wrong with people, who would pay $350 for a motherboard, that is just nuts!
How about something like this, sure it isn't the highest rated board in the world, but i would still feel pretty good about it in a system that you aren't doing anything silly with:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16813131365 $189
or this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188049 $199
Surely one of these would be more than enough?
Even this if the ratings on the others aren't quite 5 star,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131641 $239
I'm not a big fan of EVGA mobos (great video cards tho) for two reasons:
1) The on board audio they put on their boards, sucks. I've actually had the box say Realtek but I got some other generic chip their drivers didn't support. I found this out about a year after I had it, yep out of warranty.
1a) Its unshielded and right next to the network port. Every EVGA board I had (2 total) would pick up background noise whenever there was network traffic.
2) 1 year warranty instead of 3. A system typically lasts 2-3 years as my main system then another 2-3 as the family machine.
I could get the extended warranty and a replacement sound card but then I'm right back at the price I'm paying now =/
The last board you linked too, I really really like, better than the one I ordered thanks for the link!
Recap:
I'm eying the DX11 cards but they're a little expensive still. I see a few Radeons in my price range but I think I'll pass. If it was 6mo down the road the price would probably be right. Thanks oXY.
- The cooler is going back.
- The fanless video card options make me nervous and I would want some extra cooling directed toward it. The case does a pretty good job of muffling the 2 I have now which where really noisy in the last case. I might risk a cheap noisy fan on a slightly crappy card because I'm looking to upgrade in a few months anyway, Thanks Ben, I might see what kind of silent options are out there in a few months.
- The mobo is going back in exchange for the P6X58D-E, thanks EQ.
- Set up (only for testing) a Raid0 with the two 7200rpm drives since I'll keep them either way. If the Raid is fast enough get two more drives and convert it over to Raid10 and send back the SSD unopened. Thanks Snader!
- The OS is non-refundable and can only be exchanged if defective so I'm stuck there but I did find out you can contact MS and they will re-auth your copy to install on new hardware, a bit of a pain but I'll deal fine. I had to do the same thing with XP pro OEM.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130226
It really is amazing at the difference it makes, it felt like i upgraded my entire pc.. games ran smoother, everything boots / runs unbelievably better. + 8gig of ram coupled with it helps
as for case surely cosmos is great just a tad expensive, there is the new cm 690 advanced 2 or perhaps the xigmatec midgard, both great case.
also be sure to get v+ series of kingstone, the older version is crap compared to good ssd's.
i would suggest intel 80 gb x25m G2 instead or if you can afford the 160 gb.
GREAT! I couldn't be happier.
I stuffed the thing full of ram, 12gb. I added a fan to blow across the ram because they're packed in there like sardines. It wasn't anywhere near a dangerous level but with summer here I didn't want to push it.
The Raid was fast but I suspected the SSD was faster so I went for it, and it was. It blew the raid out of the water. I didn't even need to benchmark anything. Seriously SSD... wave of the future. I think I would need 4-6 drives in Raid to even start to get close to the SSD.
It's wispier quite. I walk by and if the light isn't on I think it's off.
I actually kept the cooler and installed it. I custom fabricated a brace for it so it wasn't hanging of the mainboard. I've been running with it slightly overclocked and its staying super cool. I don't think I'll kick it up too much more because it already does everything I ask and then some. No need to push it until it needs to be.
I haven't upgraded the video card yet, its doing really well and I'm surprised. It might last a full year.
Windows 7 is a dream. I upgraded to Ultimate, should of just gone for it off the bat. Home is missing GPEdit.msc and handful of other features they don't bother to post in their PR compare charts. I also found myself using the file encryption that only comes with Ultimate, the other day. With a family and ref folders full of questionable material it helps. Heaps of dead people, wounds, all kinds of disgusting bugs and demons, oh and the porn, can't let the little eyes see that stuff...