New Build.

Kovalinen · 30 Nov 2009 at 07:30

Right this is my idea of a new build, i've bought case & CPU Cooler already as they are deffo what im having and i wanted advice if rest will fit & any other suggestions or changes i should make to it

Case - Coolermaster HAF 932 - BOUGHT -
Mobo - Asus P6TD Deluxe Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
GPU - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
PSU - Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
RAM - Corsair Dominator XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9D Twin3X (TW3X4G1600C9D)
HDD #1 - Samsung Spin Point F3 SATAII 1TB 32Mb Cache Hard Drive <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM
HDD #2 - Samsung Spin Point F3 SATAII 1TB 32Mb Cache Hard Drive <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM
Optical Drive #1 - Sony DRU870S 24x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer DVD-RAM SATA
Optical Drive #2 - Pioneer DVR-S18L 22x DVD±RW SATA Labelflash ReWriter
Optical Drive #3 - Samsung S223B 22x DVD+/-RW 8x Dual Layer DVD-RAM SATA Black
CPU Heatsink - Corsair H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler - BOUGHT -
Monitor - Asus VH222H 22" Widescreen True HD LCD Monitor
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

Hotwired · 30 Nov 2009 at 07:34

Kovalinen said:
Optical Drive #1 - Sony DRU870S 24x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer DVD-RAM SATA
Optical Drive #2 - Pioneer DVR-S18L 22x DVD±RW SATA Labelflash ReWriter
Optical Drive #3 - Samsung S223B 22x DVD+/-RW 8x Dual Layer DVD-RAM SATA Black

Aside from spreading the love and money, three brands?

95thrifles · 30 Nov 2009 at 08:10

You need triple channel RAM for that mobo/platform

Kovalinen · 30 Nov 2009 at 09:13

Why trip channel an why get same drives spreading love lol

SMAndy · 30 Nov 2009 at 09:36

i7 uses triple channel. There's no such thing as a dual channel i7 board.

Why 3 optical drives anyway? Surely even if you're copying disks, you just need two drives... Could even just save an image, and then reburn at a later date. Waste of money really.

What are you going to be using this PC for? Are the HDD's for Raiding? If so, you should be getting smaller ones to save money (2TB system drive? insane!)

WD Caviar Black 640GB drives are faster and cheaper, could always get a single TB drive for data storage afterwards.

If this PC is for gaming, get an i5. They're better for gaming. Since you're going for a 5870, suggests you are gaming, so get the i5. Then you need to choose a new mobo, but you can keep the RAM you've got in your list.

Also, why win7 ultimate? Do you plan on needing the features you get in it? Home Premium or Professional are cheaper, and there's very little you get for the extra money. Home Premium is missing the 'XP Mode' that Professional has. I've not had any trouble installing anything on win7 so far, so the XP mode seems a bit pointless.

Kovalinen · 30 Nov 2009 at 13:19

SMAndy said:
i7 uses triple channel. There's no such thing as a dual channel i7 board.

Why 3 optical drives anyway? Surely even if you're copying disks, you just need two drives... Could even just save an image, and then reburn at a later date. Waste of money really.

What are you going to be using this PC for? Are the HDD's for Raiding? If so, you should be getting smaller ones to save money (2TB system drive? insane!)

WD Caviar Black 640GB drives are faster and cheaper, could always get a single TB drive for data storage afterwards.

If this PC is for gaming, get an i5. They're better for gaming. Since you're going for a 5870, suggests you are gaming, so get the i5. Then you need to choose a new mobo, but you can keep the RAM you've got in your list.

Also, why win7 ultimate? Do you plan on needing the features you get in it? Home Premium or Professional are cheaper, and there's very little you get for the extra money. Home Premium is missing the 'XP Mode' that Professional has. I've not had any trouble installing anything on win7 so far, so the XP mode seems a bit pointless.

I7 Board = Me being entirely new at this lol.
I am copyng discs but i have my reasons for why i need 3 of them.
Well some one suggested RAID0 with two F3's. My other idea was a fast HDD for Operating System & a big drive for storage as ill need the space.
Its mainly for gaming as well as media use.
Whys i5 better than the i7 for gaming?
An i just whacked in a random OSystem for time being as its no big deal untill i have the bits first..

4Play · 30 Nov 2009 at 13:38

The reason why the I5 is faster in games is something to do with the I7's hyperthreading, slows it down with games thus the i5 performs better. Your getting really good advice here and it seems to me like your allready set at what you want, so this thread is a bit pointless.

SMAndy · 30 Nov 2009 at 14:33

Yeah, it is the Hyperthreading of an i7 that slows it down for gaming...

Basically, Hyperthreading means that unused processing power is used to try and process another thread per core. This means the i7 can technically process up to 8 threads. This means 8 threads worth of calculations are in the chips 7MB L3 cache. (1MB of the total 8 is used to hold a copy of the L2). That leaves less than 1MB for each thread of calculations, which isn't a lot.

i5 has the ability to process just 4 threads, but has the same amount of cache. This means you've got double the amount of available L3 per thread. This means less data transfer between cache and RAM, speeding up the system.

Gaming barely uses two cores (arguably, dual core is as much as you need for a gaming system, any more is just nice) so having a quad core trying to process 8 threads, if 2 are used for the game, there are 6 more threads potentially being processed, so thats filling up cache that should be used on the game.

Hope that helps.

4Play, everyone starts somewhere. A thread asking for advice is never pointless, as it helps people to increase their knowledge. What they learn from a pointless post like this will stay with them forever, and help them choose systems in future... maybe even help them help someone else in the same situation.

Kovalinen · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:16

Ok but some one previously said to me that an I7 overclocked would surpass the I5 for gaming as well, i always had in mind to learn how to clock it but is this information true? an ty for the answer i was looking for SMAndy.

Hotwired · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:23

A stock i5 is more than enough for gaming and both can be overclocked (I've trundled my i5 to 4.4GHz but the gains vs downsides of overclocking are fairly pointless for games so I use 3.6GHz), you're not getting any further ahead by comparing an overclocked i7 to an i5.