It is i7 time :)

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 10:27

I am giving the rig in my sig to my brother and want to build myself an i7 based rig.

I will be keeping the GTX 280 and the sound card from my current rig. This is partly so I can see what the new Fermi based cards are like. The main uses for it will be Gaming, VM Ware virtual machines, database development, photo editing and the usual web browsing/office stuff.

The spec I have come up with is below. I have decided not to go down the SSD route at the moment as I want the SLC based stuff to become a bit more mainstream first.

As far as cooling goes I was looking to put and intake fan in both chamers of the Antec P183 and have the H50 exhausting air at the back with a push pull config and an exhaust fan at the top. All the hard drives will be in the lower chamber so hopefully this will allow enough cool air to reach the H50's radiator.

I don't tend to overclock so would the i7 920 be ok or would I be better off with an i7 860 as it has a higher turbo mode and standard clock. I don't care about the 1156 limiting future upgrades as when I upgrade I tend to just start from scratch.

Could you guys look at the spec and the points above and let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

95thrifles · 5 Nov 2009 at 10:30

Looks like a solid build, as you've alluded to though if you're really not going to overclock then the more aggressive turbo mode of the 1156's 8 series i7 will be better for you, though by doing this you're going from 6 to 4 gig of RAM, unless you get 8, which would effect your photo editing performance
re the H50, I think it gets best results used as an intake so it has cold air blowing over the radiator, maybe you can experiment with this, but most people have them set up this way

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 10:46

The I7 860 build would probably be:

magick · 5 Nov 2009 at 11:28

I'd go for the Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 500w or 600w over the BeQuiet PSUs.

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 11:41

magick said:
I'd go for the Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 500w or 600w over the BeQuiet PSUs.

Are there any particular reasons for that?

As I have a Dark Power Pro 650 w at the moment. One thing I like about the Be Quiet is the dedicated fan connectors.

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 11:52

Also is the pre-applied thermal compound on the H50 ok or do I need to replace it with MX3?

xGaffner · 5 Nov 2009 at 11:54

I'd use the MX3 definitely mate.

magick · 5 Nov 2009 at 12:05

mogwai said:
Are there any particular reasons for that?

As I have a Dark Power Pro 650 w at the moment. One thing I like about the Be Quiet is the dedicated fan connectors.

Quieter PSU.

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 12:12

xGaffner said:
I'd use the MX3 definitely mate.

Would I just clean it off and do the line method across the cores on the CPU and let the H50 spread it?

JonJ678 · 5 Nov 2009 at 13:31

Not overclocking the i7 is as close to a sin as you can get on these boards. 4ghz was easy enough to be actually boring, it just did it on my first request. At the least you can go to 3.6 or so on stock voltage?

mogwai · 5 Nov 2009 at 13:48

Do you just set it 4 Ghz and turn off the turbo mode then and it runs at 4 Ghz all the time?

mogwai · 8 Nov 2009 at 20:58

As far as the RAM goes is there any benefit to getting anything faster than PC3-12800? Depending on the temps I get I will be looking to OC the CPU.

Geek. · 8 Nov 2009 at 21:08

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As far as the RAM goes is there any benefit to getting anything faster than PC3-12800? Depending on the temps I get I will be looking to OC the CPU.

i oc my i7 950 to 4ghz with withPC3-12800 ram ok anything over this is wasting money!

JonJ678 · 8 Nov 2009 at 21:11

mogwai said:
Do you just set it 4 Ghz and turn off the turbo mode then and it runs at 4 Ghz all the time?

Close to. I turned off the various energy saving things (including turbo), set vcore to 1.25, qpi to 1.3, and bsck to 200. Damned thing was then stable, felt deprived of several days of cursing at it. It took about three iterations to get the right vcore, it's now been folding for about 3 weeks.

Geek. · 8 Nov 2009 at 21:14

you mite also turn off speedstep in the bios also to keep it at 4 ghz!

Nocky24 · 8 Nov 2009 at 21:34

JonJ678 said:
Not overclocking the i7 is as close to a sin

Agreed, especially when its coupled with a Corsair H50 :eek:

mogwai · 8 Nov 2009 at 22:17

So the Chip would just sit at 4 Ghz all the time if all the above mentioned features are turned off?

mogwai · 8 Nov 2009 at 22:32

The only part I have bought so far is the Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 550w PSU. Will this be sufficient to achieve the 4Ghz OC? I will only be running one GPU. In the short term a gtx 280 and then looking at one of the Nvidia Fermi ones.

JonJ678 · 9 Nov 2009 at 00:05

PSU doesn't matter that much for overclocking, as long as it can hold the 12V line fairly steady it'll be alright. More of an issue is cooling, the current generation of intel chips run very hot when overclocked. The colder you can keep it, the better.

My chip is indeed sitting at 4ghz all the time. Well, currently stress testing at 4.1. I don't really want it to downclock when idle, nor does it spend much time idling.

mogwai · 9 Nov 2009 at 15:16

I have just been looking at what fans to get and it is between the Akasa Apache and the Enermax Magma

Magma
Flow (CFM) 69.15
Pressure (mmH2O) 1.4
Noise (dB(A)) 18

Apache
Flow (CFM) 57.53
Pressure (mmH2O) 2.64
Noise (dB(A)) 16.05

Is the Magma better due to the higher CFM or is the Apache better as it has the higher static pressure?