Criteque My New Build Plan

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:26

PICS UP ON PAGE 2!

I've been planning this build for a while now and done a lot of research so there shouldn't be much (if anything) to change.

I will also be getting 2 Enermax Cluster fans to use push/pull on the Megahalems + fan clips.

And a TJ07. (Hence the 2 Noctua 92mm fans - for the back)

I'm waiting till Windows 7 is released before I get an SSD, give a chance for the prices to come down and the performance to go up!

I'm using 3 hard drives from my current comp so I don't need those.

My only question is that with the Rampage support the 1866MHz RAM, as I know it only 'officially' supports 1066 naively.
From the specs:
"The motherboard supports DDR3 memory that features data transfer rates of 1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz "

Any comments welcome.

Thanks!

Plec · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:31

You could save yourself some money and get a 650 or 750 PSU - unless silence is your objective or you plan on adding extra cards/components at a later date.

Microwave said:
My only question is that with the Rampage support the 1866MHz RAM, as I know it only 'officially' supports 1066 naively.
From the specs:
"The motherboard supports DDR3 memory that features data transfer rates of 1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz "

You've pretty much answered your own question - it supports it but won't guarantee it will run at those speeds as it's technically classed as overclocked. It should run at 1800 with the CPU at stock speeds - it's only when clocking the CPU that the memory oc speeds can become a bit of an issue - and even then you wouldn't notive the difference if you had to compromise nad run it at 1600 or slightly less.

Overall a very solid build and should clock very well with that HS and fan combo.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:33

The only reason I went for the 1000w is everyones favourite tech word.... 'futureproofing'!
I plan on adding another 285 and I'm using 3 HDD's from my current PC + the SSD.

Still overkill?

Plec · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:42

I would get the 850 then if you wanted to play safe - and put the money tsaved towards your SSD.

PermaBanned · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:45

Change the graphics to 2x HD 4890, a suitable AM3 motherboard and a Phenom II X4 550 BE.

Also, change the Optical drive to OEM and get the lightscribe one, change the heatsink to a Thermaltake Ultra and a suitable fan. You can save a lot on the RAM, Dual Channel DDR2 is just fine, but you could get DDR3 a lot cheaper than that.

What are you doing for a case?

Antec 900
Coolermaster Dominator 690
Coolermaster Storm Scout
Thermaltake Bach
Xclio Windtunnel

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:47

Plec said:
I would get the 850 then if you wanted to play safe - and put the money tsaved towards your SSD.

Ok. So the 850 would handle 2x 285's + 4 drives and an overclocked i7 no problem?

Also, what you mentioned about the mobo... I was looking at the Gigabyte EX58 Extreme, which has better support for the memory. But without trying to sound too fussy - I think it'll ruin the look of the build!

Is it worth considering still?

Plec · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:50

The Gigabyte is a very good and proven board and will save you yet more money (the UD5 would save you even more money and is an excellent MB) - you would probably be able to get that SSD.

And yes the 850 will be fine.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:52

Superewza said:
Change the graphics to 2x HD 4890, a suitable AM3 motherboard and a Phenom II X4 550 BE.

I'm pretty set with Nvidia really. As I'm planning on going SLI, I want the extra power.
I definitely want an i7. Why the Phenom?

Superewza said:
Also, change the Optical drive to OEM and get the lightscribe one, change the heatsink to a Thermaltake Ultra and a suitable fan. You can save a lot on the RAM, Dual Channel DDR2 is just fine, but you could get DDR3 a lot cheaper than that.

An OEM drive is a good idea, and oh, I thought that had lightscribe, thanks for pointing that out.

Regarding the cpu cooler, I definitely want the Megahalems -it's the best cooler you can get atm (excluding that Thermalright IFX-14).

You need triple channel RAM for the i7 socket. I'm planning on a large step up from my current system - I don't want DDR2!

Superewza said:
What are you doing for a case?

Antec 900
Coolermaster Dominator 690
Coolermaster Storm Scout
Thermaltake Bach
Xclio Windtunnel

As I put in the OP I'm getting a Silverstone TJ07.

Plec · 8 Jul 2009 at 21:59

Christ, i've just looked at the price of your memory - i would change that too.

I favour the Kingston at over £100 less.

At this rate you could get the second 285 and the SSD...

cmndr_andi · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:06

Wow, thats a lot of money. Let me just walk you through how you can keep the same performance, but not break the bank.

This board has pretty much the same features as the Gigabyte extreme, It is proven to overclock like a beast. I'm not sure what the problem about "the look" is, but its better laid out than the ASUS, performs just as well and doesn't cost the earth.

That graphics card is powerful, but hilariously expensive. If you want a 285 get this. But this ATI is much better value (and more powerful), but this would likely be powerful enough.

RAM, well forget about the dominator. This is the same speed and much better value. Anyway, i7 has oodles of memory bandwidth to spare, this would be more than sufficient.

Get the retail i7 920, 2 years extra warranty and cool sticker.

PSU is industrial scale, get this or preferably this when it gets back in stock.

Unless you really want the front panel, this is better sound card to get.

This optical drive is faster, better and cheaper.

I'm sure the silverstone case is nice, but 92mm fans are a bit passe. May want to consider looking at a TJ-09 or a coolermaster HAF 932/ cosmos and fit it with 120mm noctuas.

Everything else looks great.

Edit: Also, what monitor will you be running this rig on. I hope it is suitably awesome or you will be wasting your money.

mogwai · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:10

If you get the BFG 285 GTX OCFU you would get higher clock speed out of the box for £48 less. Or you could standard 285 and clock it yourself which would cost even less.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:28

cmndr_andi said:
Wow, thats a lot of money. Let me just walk you through how you can keep the same performance, but not break the bank.

This board has pretty much the same features as the Gigabyte extreme, It is proven to overclock like a beast. I'm not sure what the problem about "the look" is, but its better laid out than the ASUS, performs just as well and doesn't cost the earth.

That graphics card is powerful, but hilariously expensive. If you want a 285 get this. But this ATI is much better value (and more powerful), but this would likely be powerful enough.

RAM, well forget about the dominator. This is the same speed and much better value. Anyway, i7 has oodles of memory bandwidth to spare, this would be more than sufficient.

Get the retail i7 920, 2 years extra warranty and cool sticker.

PSU is industrial scale, get this or preferably this when it gets back in stock.

Unless you really want the front panel, this is better sound card to get.

This optical drive is faster, better and cheaper.

I'm sure the silverstone case is nice, but 92mm fans are a bit passe. May want to consider looking at a TJ-09 or a coolermaster HAF 932/ cosmos and fit it with 120mm noctuas.

Everything else looks great.

Edit: Also, what monitor will you be running this rig on. I hope it is suitably awesome or you will be wasting your money.

Thanks for your pointers.

The motherboard is my biggest uncertainty. I don't have much reasoning to back up my decision but the aesthetics of the build are very important to me and I'm really not a fan of the 'baby blue' colour scheme of the gigabytes. I'm also drawn to the extra bells and whistles on the Asus (which I am a total sucker for!) and it is only £40 extra which isn't a huge amount of money.

Re the graphics cards. I know a 4890 would be enough and the 4870x2 has a better price/performance ratio but I would like a step up from my 260 which I have at the moment. I've have no particular desire to move away from Nvidia as the 285 is the fastest single GPU card on the market. And the reason I went for EVGA is the step up program. I game at 1920x1200 on a 24" monitor so I will be making using of the hardware! How is the X2 compared to 2 GTX 285's in SLI?

As this build is going to be lasting me quite a while I'm trying not to compromise on any components - something which I've wanted to do for a long time! So with the RAM I don't mind shelling out for the dominator. (I wont be paying £200+ for it though...) I'm not being reckless though as I'm not going for the GT

I've heard good things about the viper RAM and it would go nicely with the Gigabyte board but it is slightly slower...

I LOVE Corsair PSU's, I've been wanting to get one for a while so it's either the one I've chosen or the 850W. IF it will be enough for my power requirements as I mentioned in a post above.

I want the best possible sound card for gaming (I currently have the older version of that championship series card). I REALLY REALLY want to go with a Xonar but some advice I got in several other threads convinced me to stay with that X-Fi for gaming, however good the Xonar is. And yes, I do use the front panel regularly - headset plugged into the back and open headphones plugged into the front panel for music / films. (When the front panel has a connection it nicely overrides the output to the back).

I changed the dvd drive, thanks for the recommendation.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:38

Regarding the case I have my heart set on the TJ07 I'm planning on getting PaulyD's which he is selling. I prefer the lookers over the TJ09, HAF and Cosmos + leaves the option open for water cooling later on.

cmndr_andi · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:44

Fair play with the case, i'm sure you'll get a good deal and its brilliant for water cooling, should you go down that path.

As far as graphics go - the ATI 4870X2 costs the same as a GTX 285 - so comparing its performance against two 285 is not really fair. 1 card vs 1 card - the 4870X2 is definitely the faster at your resolution, "fastest single GPU" doesn't seem to matter.

Going for EVGA is not the best plan. Their service does not seem to compare to the likes of BFG and the step up is pretty worthless as no new tech cards (DX11) will be coming out till November at the very earliest, well beyond the 90 days. Plus, its ridiculously expensive.

PermaBanned · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:49

Microwave said:
I'm pretty set with Nvidia really. As I'm planning on going SLI, I want the extra power.
I definitely want an i7. Why the Phenom?

An OEM drive is a good idea, and oh, I thought that had lightscribe, thanks for pointing that out.

Regarding the cpu cooler, I definitely want the Megahalems -it's the best cooler you can get atm (excluding that Thermalright IFX-14).

You need triple channel RAM for the i7 socket. I'm planning on a large step up from my current system - I don't want DDR2!

As I put in the OP I'm getting a Silverstone TJ07.

Phenom for the same performance for less money. It's better for gaming too.

Frostytech is a good website for coolers, check it out.

Yes, but that's still extremely expensive. 1866MHz? Overkill, i'm running 336MHz

Still, 800 MHz is what you should aim for, anything over that is a bonus.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-169-CS

Oh, and two 4890s would blow that away. It's 1700MHz against 1300MHz, if you got two. ATI are cheaper, faster and just the better choice when it comes to GFX.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:50

I did have DX11 cards in mind and heard yeah, that they may be coming out November / Decemberish. I probably wont be ordering for a few weeks, I just wanted to check I had all the components as perfect as possible which I've just realised still doesn't put an unconfirmed DX11 release within 90 days

I thought there were some problems running 2 4870X2's in crossfire? I would rather keep to single GPU cards because of this and also I've had great experience with Nvidia and not so good with ATI.

I've had good service with my current BFG card (replacing my old fault 8800gtx with the gtx 260!) so would getting the 285 OCFU edition as mogwai said above be a better idea?

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:52

Superewza said:
Phenom for the same performance for less money. It's better for gaming too.

Frostytech is a good website for coolers, check it out.

Yes, but that's still extremely expensive. 1866MHz? Overkill, i'm running 336MHz Still, 800 MHz is what you should aim for, anything over that is a bonus.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-169-CS

Definitely going to go with i7.

I'm trying to get a (sensible) no-compromise build so fast ram is essential, not the budget offerings.

cmndr_andi · 8 Jul 2009 at 22:58

Microwave said:
I'm trying to get a (sensible) no-compromise build so fast ram is essential, not the budget offerings.

There is no compromise. i7/X58 has triple channel DDR3 memory, from the MANY reviews I have seen 1600MHz (PC3-12800) is perfect. Any faster than that and the performance gain is negligible (like 1%).

Its just because the memory bandwidth is so huge that it doesn't come close to bottlenecking the system. On older platforms may have gained a lot from faster memory, but with i7 as long as you are sitting with around 1600MHz, you will be fine and dandy.

Microwave · 8 Jul 2009 at 23:02

I take your point. Better off going for the BFG then? (I replied to your post above).

cmndr_andi · 8 Jul 2009 at 23:09

Ah - so you did. I think getting the BFG card is a great idea. If you are happy with the card and you are fully informed of the competition then you are set.

If you don't mind I'll tell you about my own plan. You can see my system in my sig and its currently limited by the graphics card. I plan to get a GTX 275 (BFG ofcourse) to tide me over till october (I want to be able to play games well during the summer). Then in october when windows 7 and the DX 11, i'll give my 275 to my sister and get the new HD 5870 (or whatever its called). This card will be DX11 compatible and looks like it will blow the gtx 285 away. That's just my personal plan for maximum gaming.