Money To Burn....

zom247

zom247

zom247

Soldato
Joined
29 Sep 2004
Posts
3,250
Location
Wilt of the Shire
..And I need help to spend it! After 22 years service in the forces I've finally got some money to spend!!

I'm looking at getting an i7 920 but what is the best board, RAM and HSF to get for it? I've already got a 4870 GPU to use as well.

Cheers
 
Personally i would go with a q9550 and some decent DDR2 RAM, the proportion of money you would save would be much higher than the performance you loose.

Also watercooling is fun if you have the time but the cost doesn't necessarily justify the benefit over high end air cooling.
 
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I've just ordered the same CPU and Motherboard, went for 6GB Corsair Dominator 1,600MHz RAM and the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366. Hard to go wrong with that setup IMO.

I'm using the Antec P182 and apparently the Noctua just fits in, so the P180 should the same. This review tests it in a P182 and I've seen some other reports of compatibility elsewhere. Also this thread says the Thermalright Ultra Extreme fits which is slightly bigger then the Noctua.
 
I'd go AMD rather than Intel (and I am!).

My new rig will be a Phenom II 940 BE.

No need for extremely expensive DDR3 ram, or an expensive motherboard.

Would leave more cash available for graphics/rest of the system.

Sadly though the Phenom II 940s don't come out until later this month or january.

Edit : Nothing wrong with Intel I should say. But the i7s I just don't think offer decent value for money, if I had to go Intel I'd be going C2Q rather than i7.
 
One other thing, when I go down the i7 route am I better sticking with XP or going with Vista 64?
 
Dont waste time & money with Socket 775. You can easily get an I7 setup for £1K which is more future proof. Intel have stopped all Socket 775 development now.
 
The OP wants to go i7 so i'm not going to try and change his mind. IMHO 775 is not a waste of money though. A Q9650 / Maximus Formula II / 4GB XMS2 Dominator / TRUE Extreme would cost around £770 whilst the above setup (Corsair 6GB DDR3, Asus P6T Deluxe, Intel Core i7 920 & Noctua NH-U12P SE1366) would cost £785.

For gaming performance my money would be on the 775 setup. Most 9650's are easily capable of 4.2Ghz on air. I'm not sure if the same can be said for the i7 920 though :)
 
If he's spending a grand then price/performance matters. Sure he's spunking ten tons on hardware, but it doesn't put him in the money is no object position.

If he wants i7 because he wants the latest platform, fine, he's not buying crap. But if he wants the best price/performance then as the poster above says 775 is where it's sweeter, or as I've said wait until Phenom II and I expect that to be the sweetest.
 
I've bought my kit now but didn't do my homework enough (bad boy) cos I need a PSU with an 8 pin ATX connector for the board and my current psu only has a 4 pin connector. The PSU I currently have is an Enermax EG701AX-VE(W)24P 600W. I've had it for a few years now so it might be time to upgrade this as well. The kit I'll be running is:

i7 920 CPU
Asus P6T Deluxe MB
6 GB Corsair Dominator RAM
Noctua HSF
4 x SATA II HDDs
ATI 4870 GPU 1 GB RAM

I'm going to be overclocking it at some point but nothing too extreme. If my current PSU is still good enough to run this setup is there a 4 - 8 pin adapter I can buy to connect it to the board? If not, can anyone recommend me a PSU?

Cheers

Just noticed that the 8 pin connector has 4 blocked off. Does this mean I'm ok to attach the 4 pin atx connector in? If so, what is the 8 pin connector for?
 
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nice setup :)

600w should be more than enough for your setup. 8 pin is for the cpu, you need all 8 for quads, just remove the cap and plug in 8pin. not familiar with your model psu, but if it is older version; it may not have the 8pin pcie connectors, but hopefully your video card should come with molex adapters for it.
 
Sounds similar to the setup I just put together, though only using 3GB DDR3 with Vista32 (still too many issues with 64 for my liking). I'm on my 3rd BIOS update for the mobbo already - expect a few more too as it's new and there will be problems. The latest showed up when plugging in my new Logitech Illuminated KB caused 2min delay in posting, and wouldn't work within the BIOS screen when it did. Noticed the update on the Asus website this morning, installed it and it fixed the problem. Haven't fixed the dents in the computer case caused by my kicking it around the room in frustration though...
 
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