New i7 build

kronos_100

kronos_100

kronos_100

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Hi I’m looking to upgrade my system to an i7 system and would appreciate your views and any compatibility issues I’ve missed..

I’ll have around £1300 to play with and want performance/good overclocking potential and for it to be aesthetically pleasing. I may downgrade to the corsair Dominator 14400 (when they come into stock) and maybe get the 128GB Patriot Torqx SSD instead of the OCZ Vertex. I’m also aware the V10 isn’t the best CPU cooler for the money but its looks amazing...it maybe a tight fit though. The system will be running Windows 7 when it comes out.

Cheers

3915070031_bda3af1e13_b.jpg
 
Well its certainly an interesting idea for a spec, but not the best value (or performance TBH). Here are some ideas for modification:

For processor, the i7 920 is very similar, and if you overclock (which I would assume based on the cooler) they reach the same levels on air cooling.

This motherboard is brilliant for overclocking and has tonnes of features.

If you are considering an SSD, the intel ones are generally faster in real word applications, but the Vertex is still a very good drive.

Get this memory, that Dominator stuff is completely overpriced.

As for cooler, this one is the best bet for you. Add two of these fans and it beats the V10. If you want an air cooler, get this one (add the same two fans).

Also, if the PC is for gaming then you may want to consider a graphics upgrade. The 8800 Ultra is roughly equivalent to this card. The new DX11 cards (released at the end of this month) will be very much worth a look as they will be the fastest single GPU cards about.
 
Yeah I am waiting to see what the new generation of graphics cards are like before upgrading. As for the Gigabyte mobo I know it’s good but I’ve always stuck with Asus, other than my Striker II they’ve never let me down.

I was looking at the Patriot Viper but isn’t 16000 – 12800 going to be a big performance difference?. I wasn’t impressed with my 12800 OCZ when I tested them against some 1600 Corsairs.

The Megahalems is a beast though I hear the Xigmatek Thor's Hammer is close spec wise. Also how about Sharkoon Silent Eagle rather than Noctua NF-P12? In tests that seems to push more air and a lot quieter.
 
kronos_100 said:
Yeah I am waiting to see what the new generation of graphics cards are like before upgrading. As for the Gigabyte mobo I know it’s good but I’ve always stuck with Asus, other than my Striker II they’ve never let me down.

I was looking at the Patriot Viper but isn’t 16000 – 12800 going to be a big performance difference?. I wasn’t impressed with my 12800 OCZ when I tested them against some 1600 Corsairs.

The Megahalems is a beast though I hear the Xigmatek Thor's Hammer is close spec wise. Also how about Sharkoon Silent Eagle rather than Noctua NF-P12? In tests that seems to push more air and a lot quieter.
Click to expand...

I wasnt impressed with the ocz memory i brought so going to try different this build.
 
Hi,

I've been putting together a i7 build recently and have come up with this as a first pass. It has not been run past these forums for peer review yet, nor have I double checked everything yet. As I say, it is a first pass. Something here may help you.

I reckon the cost is about £1530, or for me £1.02 per day taking into account the expected lifetime of each component and the cost of each.

The Hitachi drive is for backups - I like to image important partitions, particulalry the system partition(s) as backups. I tend to create smallish system partitons of 20GB to 30GB then bigger partitions for games, pictures, music.

With cases it seems if you like black it is a good time to buy. Everything is black. I hate black. I also hate cases with windows and lots of silly lights everywhere. I detest case "styling". Google Lian Li PC6 or PC 60 to see the kind of thing I go for. The Corsair 800d case comes with a window but there is talk of plain panel coming available later.

I am a left handed mouse user, so the choice of mice is limited.

The keyboard is just a bit of fun.

I have tried to get a quiet result.

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz Nehalem LGA1366 Retail
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366) (2 fans)
OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Conductivity Compound
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1
Edimax EW-7728IN nMax 300Mbps Wireless Desktop PCI Network Adapter ???
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive - Black
Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Corsair Obsidian 800D (Black)
or maybe Coolermaster ATCS 840?
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant
Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard
Razer Lachesis Wrath Red 4000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail
Razer Destructor Gaming Surface
 
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EffBee said:
Hi,

I've been putting together a i7 build recently and have come up with this as a first pass. It has not been run past these forums for peer review yet, nor have I double checked everything yet. As I say, it is a first pass. Something here may help you.

I reckon the cost is about £1530, or for me £1.02 per day taking into account the expected lifetime of each component and the cost of each.


Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz Nehalem LGA1366 Retail
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366) (2 fans)
OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Conductivity Compound
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1
Edimax EW-7728IN nMax 300Mbps Wireless Desktop PCI Network Adapter ???
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive - Black
Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Corsair Obsidian 800D (Black)
or maybe Coolermaster ATCS 840?
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant
Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard
Razer Lachesis Wrath Red 4000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail
Razer Destructor Gaming Surface
Click to expand...

Everything here looks nice. Possibly skip one of the HDD and add an SSD for you boot drive..?
 
The spec looks completely overpriced for it's true potential. cmndr andi is correct in thses circumstances and I would highly agree with him with those corrections.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Agreed, everything looks good. Though you may want to have a look at the Corsair H50 cooler and consider waiting for the DX11 ATI cards.
Click to expand...

I did briefy look at the H50, but I am not ready yet for water cooling yet. My mum taught me that water and electricity don't mix. Sticking with air cooling means I tried to find a good case for cooling and good cpu cooler.

I have pretty much decided to not go for dx 11 yet. For me going to dx 10 is an upgrade from dx9. The video card I have chosen is powerful and will play almost anything at 1680 x 1050. When dx11 settles down and there are more games available I will almost certainly get a dx11 card and pass the 4890 on to one of the other lower spec computers in the house.
 
fizzle-187 said:
The spec looks completely overpriced for it's true potential. cmndr andi is correct in thses circumstances and I would highly agree with him with those corrections.
Click to expand...


Yes - there was no financial control in the component selection. Just lust for shiny new toys.

I tend to keep my stuff for longer than most so I was aiming at powerful general purpose machine that I can tweak later. I am particulalry interested to see if multi monitor gaming takes off at all with the new ATI cards due to be released soon.
 
To kronos_100 (the OP): The asus boards are very good, but unless you need all the features of the Rampage 2 Extreme, then the p6t would be a better value alternative.

in real world applications (like games and video encoders) the difference between 12800 and 16000 ram is truly tiny, when using a triple channel ddr3 x58 platform. the x58 platform has such massive memory bandwidth as it is that increasing the memory speed does not yield much more performance.

as for the thor's hammer cooler, it seems to be pretty good - but not quite as good as the Megahalems.

As for the sharkoon fan, i would need to see the review that puts it ahead of the noctua P12. I can imagine that the 2000rpm version pushes more air than the noctua, but its not as quiet. From the many reviews of the noctua p12 I have seen, it has the best airflow to noise ratio, hence the recommendation.



To EffBee: I think fizzle's comment was meant for the OP, your component selection seems to be very good value (though the G19 keyboard may be slightly OTT).

Though, if you don't plan to buy a DX11 card - then you may want to wait for them to be released. As all the DX10 cards should come down in price.

As for the H50, this cooler is unlike most other water cooling kits - as it is fully sealed and relatively painless to install. Plus it performs quite a bit better than the noctua u12p and is very quiet - all-in-all a great piece of kit.
 
To Kronos-100: Sorry - I accidentally seem to have hijacked your thread a bit :(. Might be useful stuff for you there tho'

To Cmndr_andi: I don't plan on buying till early october - have to wait for a financial plan to mature and pay up. The dx11 cards should be a known factor by then. The thing that worries me about a sealed loop water system is long term usage. I have no doubt it will be fine for a few years and the guarantee is 2 years as I recall - but pipes perish ove time and I like to keep my kit going for years. I'm just a bit afraid I guess. Thank for your very helpful input though.

To fizzle: sorry if I misinterpreted your comment to OP :(

to others: thanks for any comment re: my post here.

Finally: I was originally going down the Asus route for he motherboard but was VERY put off by extremely bad comments about Asus' after sales support. Gigabyte on the other hand seems to have a very good reputation fo after sales service. This won't matter if things go well - but if there is a problem you could be stuffed, OP, if you buy Asus. I believe where possible that after-sales support for products should be a key element in the decision making process prior to buying.
 
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