First rig in years

Sunny_Sahota

Sunny_Sahota

Sunny_Sahota

Associate
Joined
3 Feb 2010
Posts
9
Hi everyone, this is my first post here at Overclockers. Loving this forum so far, full of everything any overclocker needs to know.

I'm looking to build my first rig, in over 2 years, at some point between now and Easter. This is what I'm looking at getting;

CPU:
i7 920/950/975? (My aim is for a ~4.5 GHz oc with watercooling)

Mobo:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3

Memory:
Corsair Dominator GT 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C8 2000MHz Triple Channel Kit

GPU:
Gainward GeForce GTX 285 2048MB PCI-Express Graphics Card

Monitor:
Samsung P2350 23" Widescreen LCD Monitor

PSU:
Corsair TX 850W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply

Case:
Coolermaster HAF 922 Case - Black

Storage:
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache

Sound:
Logitech S-220 2.1 Speaker System

Watercooling:
Open to suggestions, as I have never built a watercooling system before.


I have read up on the components required for a watercooling system, but would like some recommendations based on my aim of a stable 4.5GHz oc.
I have also read on the forum about the advantages of getting an i7 920 D0 and oc'ing that to 4GHz as opposed to getting an i7 975, but which one would allow me to achieve my aim with stability and the lowest temps?

I have not purchased this system yet, so please recommend any suitable changes to the list above. I will be using this system for FSX (CPU dependent), as well as for playing other games, web design, video editing and watching movies.

Thanks for taking your time to read this,
Sunny
 
Hi Sunny,

I would advise considering some cheaper 1600MHz RAM instead of the Dominator GT 2000MHz. Even if, as you say, you are planning to watercool I would be very surprised if you were able to get it to run anywhere near 2000MHz - especially as you want to overclock to 4.5GHz (I admire your ambition!). Going by previous reports & threads (and my own experience) the IMC of the i7 920 isn't good enough to handle such high RAM speeds combined with big (4GHz+) overclocks. I could be wrong but I think you would be better served saving the best part of £150 on the RAM and putting it towards a GPU. Which is my second piece of advice; lose the GTX285 - it is EOL now - Look at the ATI 5800 series if buying now. However, bare in mind that Nvidia should be releasing their DirectX11 cards reasonably soon so perhaps you should delay your build until you find out the performance of these?

Also, get an SSD or 2.
 
ejr22 said:
Hi Sunny,

I would advise considering some cheaper 1600MHz RAM instead of the Dominator GT 2000MHz. Even if, as you say, you are planning to watercool I would be very surprised if you were able to get it to run anywhere near 2000MHz - especially as you want to overclock to 4.5GHz (I admire your ambition!). Going by previous reports & threads (and my own experience) the IMC of the i7 920 isn't good enough to handle such high RAM speeds combined with big (4GHz+) overclocks. I could be wrong but I think you would be better served saving the best part of £150 on the RAM and putting it towards a GPU. Which is my second piece of advice; lose the GTX285 - it is EOL now - Look at the ATI 5800 series if buying now. However, bare in mind that Nvidia should be releasing their DirectX11 cards reasonably soon so perhaps you should delay your build until you find out the performance of these?

Also, get an SSD or 2.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. So your advice would be to;

1. Drop the current RAM for the cheaper and slightly slower RAM
2. Change the GTX285 for an ATI 5800
3. Possibly get a SSD drive

I'm looking to build it over the next few months, as soon as I can afford it. I'm trying to see how much a system that would maintain those proc speeds would cost, while giving me ideal fps in FSX and other games.

What is your take on the i7 950 and 975? are they worth it? do the performance gains justify the increasing prices? Because I'm not sure if I want to go with the 920 or one of the other higher end procs.
 
Depends on your budget. If money isn't an issue then go for an i7 975 or 950 - you are more likely (though not guaranteed) to achieve a higher stable overclock the further up the range you go (at least I think you are??). Saying that, you could end up spending precious wonga on a dog of 975 that can be easily out-clocked by a gem of an 920.

Personally, I would get a 920.
 
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ejr22 said:
Depends on your budget. If money isn't an issue then go for an i7 975 or 950 - you are more likely (though not guaranteed) to achieve a higher stable overclock the further up the range you go (at least I think you are??). Saying that, you could end up spending precious wonga on a dog of 975 that can be easily out-clocked by a gem of an 920.

Personally, I would get a 920.
Click to expand...

OK thanks. I'm thinking of getting either the 920 or the 950. I don't think I will get the 975 unless I come across a hugely convincing argument to do so. :D

Cheers for the help mate.
 
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Any particular reason for getting a 1TB and a 500GB? A 1.5TB is only a few quid more than a 1TB, so I'd suggest getting a 1.5TB instead of the 1TB anyway.
 
As above really, personally id get an SSD for you OS, if you've got the budget then get one for games too, and the HDD for storage.

GPU, i stick with Nvidia purely on the ATI driver support, there's a lot of issues on the boards and i think im right in saying you can't watch BBC iplayer in HD with the ATI cards.

Watercooling wise, id maybe look at a bigger case, is you've got an SLI supported power supply and board id guese that you'd be looking at SLI in the future? If so you'd probably want a couple of rads in there, maybe 2 loops as well so you're going to need a bit of room to work with.
The Corsair 800D is a popular watercooling case but look at build logs etc for more info and ideas.
 
Thanks guys for the feedback.

@miniyazz. I wanted a separate HDD for backups. I was planning on getting a 1.5TB and partitioning the 500gb off as a storage partition, but thought a separate drive would be better in the event the entire hard drive fails.

@Danm54. I'm thinking of getting 2 SSDs, one for FSX and the other for the OS. Not sure what I'm going to be doing yet, but will definately be looking to get at least 1 SSD. I am thinking of going SLI/Crossfire at some point, but going to start off with just the one GPU. I'm trying to build a system that will allow me to upgrade components further down the line, such as CPU, GPU, etc...
If I do go with NVidia, I'm going to wait for the DX11 support cards to come out. Was looking at getting the 285's in SLI or a single 295.
 
I was looking into the watercooling systems and cases and came across these. What is your view on these?

Danger Den Double Wide Tower - 21 Black Series
http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd-double-wide-tower-21-black-series-edition.html

Danger Den Tower 21 Cooling Kit 260mm Radiator
http://www.dangerden.com/store/tower-21-cooling-kit-360mm-radiator.html

Firstly, what do you think about the case? Is it suitable for a gaming rig and is it worth it?
Secondly, is the cooling kit a good starting point for a watercooling-noob like myself?

Thanks
 
Sunny_Sahota said:
OK thanks. I'm thinking of getting either the 920 or the 950. I don't think I will get the 975 unless I come across a hugely convincing argument to do so. :D

Cheers for the help mate.
Click to expand...

The 950 isn't worth the extra ££ over a 920 mate, unless you're going to be using exotic cooling like DICE or LN2 you should just get a 920 instead.

Even under water you won't be able to o.c the 950 that much higher than a 920 D0, maybe a couple 100 MHz at the most which imo isn't worth the extra cash.

Regarding RAM, if you're planning on pushing for 200+Bclk then I'd recommend going for either 1866 or 2000MHz RAM instead of 1600MHz.

That Danger Den case above would be great for WC, but you could get yourself a Corsair Obsidian 800d or TJ07 for considerably less, both of which are excellent cases for watercooling.
 
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DavyBoy said:
The 950 isn't worth the extra ££ over a 920 mate, unless you're going to be using exotic cooling like DICE or LN2 you should just get a 920 instead.

Even under water you won't be able to o.c the 950 that much higher than a 920 D0, maybe a couple 100 MHz at the most which imo isn't worth the extra cash.

Regarding RAM, if you're planning on pushing for 200+Bclk then I'd recommend going for either 1866 or 2000MHz RAM instead of 1600MHz.

That Danger Den case above would be great for WC, but you could get yourself a Corsair Obsidian 800d or TJ07 for considerably less, both of which are excellent cases for watercooling.
Click to expand...

Yeah I looked through numerous posts and no surprises the 920 is the most favored amongst most overclockers.
Regarding the cases, i would prefer to get the Danger Den rather than the Corsair, the price difference works out to be £35 which is bearable.
 
Those Danger Dan cases look rather nice, and very roomy for a watercooled setup.

If you're looking at crossfire then i think 2 GTX280's or above will kick ass on most games/benches, the top ATI cards (58XX) are about a GTX295 performance wise, there are loads of threads on which is better.

Id reconmend you go for a 360 rad or go duel rads, 240 + 120 etc.

Ive got a 360 and a 120 which once i get my pump back will cool a CPU and GPU, it a Q9550 OC'd to 3.7Ghz but i can give you some temps when its sorted if you like
 
Danm54 said:
Those Danger Dan cases look rather nice, and very roomy for a watercooled setup.

If you're looking at crossfire then i think 2 GTX280's or above will kick ass on most games/benches, the top ATI cards (58XX) are about a GTX295 performance wise, there are loads of threads on which is better.

Id reconmend you go for a 360 rad or go duel rads, 240 + 120 etc.

Ive got a 360 and a 120 which once i get my pump back will cool a CPU and GPU, it a Q9550 OC'd to 3.7Ghz but i can give you some temps when its sorted if you like
Click to expand...

Yeah I would be more than likely to go for either 2 GTX 285s in SLI or 2 5870s in Crossfire.
In terms of the watercooling, Danger Den allow you to create a either a custom watercooling setup...

http://www.dangerden.com/store/custom-water-cooling-kit.html

or customise their Tower 21 setup, which is designed for the Toewr 21 cases such as the one I'm looking at getting.

With regards to the temps, that would be great. It would be even better if we could compare the temps, so temps at idle and load on air, and temps on idle and load on water. Then I could get a better idea of the sort of temps I could be looking at with a 4 GHz oc.
 
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