help with new system please

fabdabcab

fabdabcab

fabdabcab

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hi all its been a while since i last built a system it seems thing have moved on quite a bit. i want to build a system that can do everything from gaming to photo editing and general office tasks so i was thinking an i7 system would be the way forward (please correct me if wrong) looking at motherboards i was thinking maybe the asus rampage II extreme ( once again feel free to advise differently ) what memory and how much would i need for this setup? hard drives seem to have progressed hell of a lot i read something about a flash type hard drives (solid state) are these any good ? recommendations please.
as far as price is concerned i plan on buying over a short period of time rather than all at once so price not really an issue but looking between £1000-1500 i guess
thank you
Wayne
 
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If I were on your budget I'd be looking at something like this:
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On your budget you may as well get an i7 system yes, as for motherboards don't always go for the one with the biggest price tag, once you get to about £100 you usually have a decent motherboard capable of everything you need, you need DDR3 for the setup, 1366 socket will need triple channel and a 1156 socket will need dual channel, as for SSD's yeah there great but there still fairly small in storage size and are very expensive, there's a lot of growing in them yet so I'd hold off an SSD for now

Also I'd overclock that ;)
 
Yep, windows 7 is good for gaming and general use. Windows 7 allows trim support with ssd's and allow dx11 with the new 58** ati series. Windows 7 is a WHOLE lot better than windows vista, I can't think of anything that is wrong with it :D
 
I would be looking for somthing like this mate;

Total : £1,460.04

This build is fantastic and has nailed all of your needs in your original post! The 5850 is the best best band for buck out there! It can be overclocked to 5870, which gives you room for another 5850 down the line. I can't see anyone buying the 5870 which is £100 more for 10fps on avg. All you got to do is oc the 5850 and your laughing.

I've included an 80gb ssd for your operating system, apps and a game or two. Sdds are fantastic, as they offer a really high read speed. My 128gb ssd boots windows in 12 secs :o

For the i7, it is an i7 and is the best you can get! You can overclock the cpu like hell and with that motherboard, which is fantastic btw as I use it and the cpu, you can oc it with the pre overclocks :D

The psu is up for the job, and is up for 2 x 5850's in corssfire so you don't need to worry there.

Everything is included, good luck :D
 
sounds lie a good system there buddy whats the difference between the cpu you recomended and the 920 do stepping cpu i know its cheeper by £30 but peeps on here seem to like it!
 
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For me I would choose the i7 860 over the 920 for 3 reasons, its clocked a bit higher at 2.8GHz, it has one thread per core instead of two which I prefer because it has been shown to cause a small negative impact on some programs that aren't greatly multithreaded and two threads per core only really shines with programs designed around it, so kinda pointless atm and it uses Dual channel DDR3 which will give you the sweet spot of 4GB, instead of 3GB (too little) and 6GB (too much and expensive) that you get with triple channel
 
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Its a totally different chipset. The one i have speced is for a P55 setup which uses the core i7 860. The other setup is what a lot of people use is the X58 with the core i7 920. There is no difference tbh. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages for the p55 route;
Cheaper
I7 860 clocks better and beats the i7 920

The X58 use tripple channel memory (6gb) where as p55 uses dual channel (4gb). However, the tripple channel as no extra effect what so ever, so waste of cash. X58 do sli and corssfire (16x16) whereas the p55 does sli and crossfire but only does (8x8). The difference is nothing! There is 2% performance loss over the p55. E.g 100fps - 2% = 2fps = 98fps.
 
the triple channal memory does make a differnece but it has another affect as well, it don't matter how fast you memory runs due to the fact a large amount of data is able to run to and fo between CPU and RAM anyways, unlike dual channal, but again what application takes this to its advtange?
 
so 860 it is then how would this board and power supply cope if i were to have 2 gpu's and would i be able to set up raid or is this no longer a worth while thing anymore thanks for your replys im getting itchy feet now want to start shopping ;)
 
thanks for your help ben i have swaped the psu and added another ssd to my wish list will i still need a normal hard drive or would two ssd;s be ok
 
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