Intel i7 Rig Advice..?

ScarySquirrel · 18 Feb 2009 at 10:17

gps said:
ScarySquirel
A seperate boot drive can allow you to get a faster boot time on a faster smaller drive (200-300Gb) like a Velociraptor, whilst getting a standard speed larger drive for storage. Clearly getting both a fast and large drive will kill both objectives, but supersize 10k RPM drives don't come cheap.
I guess another point to add is that if you are doing high demand gaming which take a while to load, the temptation will eventually come to put your games on your boot drive aswell, and before you know it you'll be running out of space.

So the idea is to use the boot drive just for your Windows install, and the other drive for everything else?

Petrarch · 18 Feb 2009 at 10:25

I decided to go down the dual drive setup as well.

Originally I planned on fitting a single WD Caviar Blue 500GB drive, but after getting a good price, I'm fitting a second 500GB Cavair GP with 16MB cache which will be the boot drive and the other will be for storage/game installs.

mike2801.lee · 18 Feb 2009 at 11:38

lunarwolf said:
just noticed that, get cheaper ram. what are you expecting to get from this overpriced RAM?

1333mhz should be all you really need GeIL 6GB DDR3 PC3-10666 1333MHz (3x2GB) Ultra Series Triple Channel Kit (GV36GB1066C7TC) . Geil is easily as good as OCZ, if you don't want preorder get the corsair kit -> half the price of the Ram you selected

otherwise get some 1600mhz Corsair 6GB DDR3 XMS3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (TR3X6G1600C9) although most with i7 seem to say the 1333 is all one needs

PS Don't forget about the Noctua cooler, you can't fault it, it's the best. Forget getting a TRUE + fans and brakets

Will Gill -> those aren't the best fans for CPU cooling you need the ones with the xtra blades for air pressure

Thanks for the advice lunarwolf, I did wonder whether this RAM was worth it or not.. I guess I just saw its speed and potential for overclocking, and figured maybe it was worth investing in, but tbh would I ever need to overclock 6gb of DDR3 RAM? lol Overkill me thinks on that one..

I'm defo going to go with Noctua CPU Cooler now that everyone has been raving about them on this thread.

Also if 850W is capable of running this rig with 2 GTX 295 cards in it, I see no point in spending £80 to jump to 1000W Corsair. The Quad SLI upgrade will be more than enough to boost my performance at a later date!

icey_haj · 18 Feb 2009 at 11:49

750W will be enough to power 2 cards. I've also included a blu-ray reader and the Coolermaster V8 cpu cooler, which is one of the best around.

mike2801.lee · 18 Feb 2009 at 14:02

750W will be enough to power 2 cards. I've also included a blu-ray reader and the Coolermaster V8 cpu cooler, which is one of the best around.

I'm not sure that the Coolmaster V8 Cooler would fit in my new Antec 900-2 Case with the side panal fixed in place.. Looks cool though!

mike2801.lee · 26 Feb 2009 at 20:27

After doing a bit more research on various components I have come up with a near-enough finalised list for my new i7 rig:

I'll probably buy the parts as I can afford them and build the rig as i go. Hopefully the GTX 295 will drop in price a bit by the time I come to purchasing it!