New build, help please...

father-ted said:
Been looking at this combo insted of the Gigabyte:


MB-319-AS_60.jpg
Asus Rampage II Extreme Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £247.99
(£215.64) £247.99
(£215.64)
CP-280-IN_60.jpg
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £208.99
(£181.73) £208.99
(£181.73)
MY-018-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper II 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000 (2000MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel (PV236G2000LLKB) £171.99
(£149.56) £171.99
(£149.56)
WC-001-CS_60.jpg
Corsair H50 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1366) £54.99
(£47.82) £54.99
(£47.82) Sub Total : £594.75


Would that be worth the extra £100+vat? Will there be a noticable difference?
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Get the I7 920 DO OEM cause you already specced a cooling system.
 
I was getting round to choosing a souncard. If I go with the Rampage, is the soundcard that comes with it decent quality?

I have a Logitech Z5500 speaker system already that it will be used for.

I plumbed for the i7 920 retail as it has a longer warranty over the OEM version, is that correct?
 
father-ted said:
I was getting round to choosing a souncard. If I go with the Rampage, is the soundcard that comes with it decent quality?

I have a Logitech Z5500 speaker system already that it will be used for.

I plumbed for the i7 920 retail as it has a longer warranty over the OEM version, is that correct?
Click to expand...

If you're not an audiophile, the sound card that comes with the mobo is way, way a lot better than the ususal onboard audio system.

As for CPU warranty, I believed OcUk has a two year warranty for this, but, try calling them to make sure.
 
Some things to think about if you haven't already....

1) I have heard terrible things about Asus post sales support. If everything is fine no problem. If you have problems you could be stuffed for months.

2) The choice of a case is a very personal thing. You will look at it for hours every day. Even if you spend £200 on it, if you love the look, it meets your requirements in terms of cooling, size, form factor, and noise, it is still a very cheap component since it will probably still be in use in 5 to 10 years. Unlike video cards which cost about the same but have a much shorter life time. I wouldn't buy on cost.

3) Consider the down side of being an early adopter of new technology like the new processors and motherboards and video cards. I think spring might be a better time to build than autumn - the new stuff settles down in terms of price and fixes. Having said that I am committed to building a new rig in the next few weeks for myself at last :)

4) Corsair H50 - I just wouldn't trust something like this long term. I would worry about leaks all the time I use the system - especially after a few years when the warranty runs out. It is a personal thing but I am not ready for water cooling yet. I think it intoduces unnecessary extra risk into the long term use of a system.
 
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EffBee said:
Some things to think about if you haven't already....

1) I have heard terrible things about Asus post sales support. If everything is fine no problem. If you have problems you could be stuffed for months.

Solutions: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14963474&postcount=1

2) The choice of a case is a very personal thing. You will look at it for hours every day. Even if you spend £200 on it, if you love the look, it meets your requirements in terms of cooling, size, form factor, and noise, it is still a very cheap component since it will probably still be in use in 5 to 10 years. Unlike video cards which cost about the same but have a much shorter life time. I wouldn't buy on cost.

Exactly.


3) Consider the down side of being an early adopter of new technology like the new processors and motherboards and video cards. I think spring might be a better time to build than autumn - the new stuff settles down in terms of price and fixes. Having said that I am committed to building a new rig in the next few weeks for myself at last :)

:D

4) Corsair H50 - I just wouldn't trust something like this long term. I would worry about leaks all the time I use the system - especially after a few years when the warranty runs out. It is a personal thing but I am not ready for water cooling yet. I think it intoduces unnecessary extra risk into the long term use of a system.

Good Point.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the info.

Is the sound on the Rampage 'onboard' then, or an additional soundcard that comes with it?

I didn't want to go with 'onboard' sound and was looking at a souncard to go with whatever hardware I settle on. If it is an additional soundcard then I may go with it?

I have been putting off building a new system for ages now, theres always something new just round the corner and I keep waiting and waiting :o

My skt939 A64 4000+, DFI Nf3 mobo, 2gb OCZ PC4000 EB's, and Nvidia 7950GT AGP are all getting pretty tired now, so I have to upgrade. Not spent anything on computing for quite a while, as you can tell! :D
 
its an additional card that plugs into a PCIe slot specifically placed for it. From all accounts it is slightly underwhelming in its performance. I would still buy a seperate card if i got the rampage
 
So theres not much difference performance wise between the Rampage and the UD5. I'm swaying more toward the UD5 now then seeing that the soundcard isn't up to much so I will have to buy one anyway.

Is there anything better than the UD5 that I should look at?
 
What ram should I go for?

I was looking at some 2000mhz but somebody has said to go 1600mhz? Will I not be able to utilize the 2000mhz stuff with 6gb and overclocking?
 
The UD5 is a very capable board, would be my choice of a 1336 system. RAM speed doesn't make much difference. CAS Latencies and amount are more important. That Viper RAM that was suggested earlier will do the job perfectly.

You really sure you need to spend this much though? What's it for? Even for £600 you can get a very capable system for gaming that would last you just as long.
 
I've not updated my system for ages, hence still with a AGP card etc.

This upgrade is to last me a good while, so I like to get the best I can afford at the time. Only a GFX card and soundcard to go now I think.

I take it this system I am putting together will last a while and allow for future upgrades?
 
The problem with getting high end stuff to last is that it will always be 'yesterday's high end' instead of 'today's mid range'. The top end stuff is really only for enthusiasts, who will upgrade whenever a better piece of tech is released. The 920 has a reasonably high TDP and so most likely won't last as long as say... a Q6600, which will still be more than capable the next time you may choose to upgrade, be it in four years or ten.
 
Superewza said:
The problem with getting high end stuff to last is that it will always be 'yesterday's high end' instead of 'today's mid range'. The top end stuff is really only for enthusiasts, who will upgrade whenever a better piece of tech is released. The 920 has a reasonably high TDP and so most likely won't last as long as say... a Q6600, which will still be more than capable the next time you may choose to upgrade, be it in four years or ten.
Click to expand...

You can't really say that mate. It all depends on what the person wants. A Q6600 now would be a bad upgrade decision now. A i7-920 is a good decision. Even though the i7 is high end now, soon it will be mid range, so will still be good.

Sure, if you want, you could call it "yesterdays high end" but todays high end, will one day become todays midrange.

It all depends how often you like to upgrade. The i7 will last you a long time father-ted, and will last you a long time.

Because it is high end now, it will still last a long time. Don't be put off by people saying it won't be. Hell, a 4GHz overclocked 8 threaded processor, will be damn good for a good few years to come. Just look after it well, and it will be fine ^^

And yes, the UD-5 is awesome, as is the Patriot Viper RAM. Running it myself, and they own. Simple as. I wouldn't bother with the Extreme. The UD5 is just as good. The Extreme is a bit over the top.
 
Yes I understand that.

When I built this system I was a bit of an enthusiast and it cost me a small fortune, but work and other things took more of my time hence the system aged a lot. Now I need to upgrade, so want a high end rig.

Taking onboard the info kindly provided I have scaled it down slightly to:

HD-003-CR_60.jpg
Crucial M225 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M225) £214.99
(£186.95) £214.99
(£186.95)
CP-280-IN_60.jpg
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £208.99
(£181.73) £208.99
(£181.73)
MB-155-GI_60.jpg
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £191.99
(£166.95) £191.99
(£166.95)
CA-102-AN_60.jpg
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £139.99
(£121.73) £139.99
(£121.73)
MY-017-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel (PVT36G1600LLK) + 3D Mark Vantage Benchmarking Software £86.99
(£75.64) £86.99
(£75.64)
HD-082-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £59.98
(£52.16) £59.98
(£52.16)
WC-001-CS_60.jpg
Corsair H50 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1366) £54.99
(£47.82) £54.99
(£47.82) Sub Total : £832.98 Shipping cost based on delivery to Credit/debit card billing address, YO32 3QT with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50 VAT is being charged at 15.00% VAT : £126.82 Total : £972.30


How is it looking so far?

Now need a GFX card and soundcard, any advice greatly appreciated
 
Looks good, i would get a cheaper case and cheaper SSD though. And if it's to last i'm not sure i would look at the H50. Sure it's good, but since it's water there's a certain element of risk involved. I would look at high end air instead.
 
Looks good mate =)

If it was me, I would change to the Prolimatech Megahalems with two Noctua-NF12 fans. That's what I have an I love it. However, I have heard a lot of good things about the Corsair, and it is meant to be amazing cooler.

However, overall, lovely. You won't regret the i7/UD5/Patriot combo. It's loverly. Especially when you clock it to 4GHz ^^
 
How would I go with air cooling as opposed to the Corsair?
What would the difference be temps wise?

As the Corsair has a 2 year warranty, I was thinking of chnging it again before it ran out. Wouldn't I be covered that way?
 
Graphics cards? I'd go for a pair 5870s - but if you've got the budget you might wait to see what the 5870x2s are like (coming out next November, if I remember correctly), or perhaps a nVidia alternative.
The UD5 seems to have PCI-E 2.0, which is good, and dual 16x PCI-E for both Crossfire and SLI, which is excellent. If, however, you really want 3-way SLI / Crossfire, the third slot shares bandwidth with the second resulting in 16x/8x/8x. Now, because it's PCI-E 2.0, that's fine for cards up to a 4890. I don't know about 5870s etc, but 8x will be a bottleneck if you wanted to put three 4870x2 or 5870x2s in it. (Crossfire only supports up to 4 GPUs at the moment, so that's a moot point, but it may have an effect in the future (if a certain Windows limitation is adressed - See here for this info). I'm only covering all the bases because I've not found out your actual budget yet.)

As for sound card, go for a nice simple PCI-E 1x one*. If you want to spend, and use headphones, the ASUS Essence has been very highly recommended - although a thread here a while ago had a certain someone shouting the wonders of the 'budget pro' section. He was saying that the 'budget pro' section offers better sound quality (if you're an 'audiophile') than anything in the gaming or 'audiophile' areas. This makes a lot of sense, as gamers can often be liberal with the cash and sometimes (certainly in my case) very easy to convince that something is good (even if it's £150 like the Essence), whereas the slightly more sane, competitive market of the 'budget pro' section would have some good deals (if without the fancy extras and e-peen bolstering goodness)

*When I say simple, I don't necessarily mean cheap, I just mean interface-wise.

Oh - and a tom's Hardware review mentioned that in all honesty a decent air cooler with the same fan on as the H50 will cool to within 2*C of the H50 or something like that:
Here it is
 
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Thanks for the info.

Can anybody advise me where I would stand with the warranty on the H20?
I was planning to change it before the warranty runs out,so that I would always be covered. Does the warranty cover any damage caused to the system if due to leaks etc by the H20? Or is the warranty limited?
 
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