New pc - Specs good?

rexehuk

rexehuk

rexehuk

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Hello all,

New to the forum, although not new to PC building! I have been out of the scene for a while though and would like some thoughts on my system build I have just bought + things I should look to add such as cooling.

So what did I buy?

  • i7 920 D0 Stepping @ 2.66
  • Asus P6T Intel X58 (Didn't go for v2 cause of minor changes not warranting a £50 cost)
  • 2 x Asus ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
  • Tagan PipeRock TG800-BZ 800w
  • OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz)

All of these will be going in my trusted Thermaltake VA8000BWS which i think is ok for these components?

Firstly I want to know if the PSU is going to take the load? I may overclock my CPU, although haven't looked at extremes... possibly OC it to 3Ghz.

Secondly what cooling options should I be looking at? I put off Aftermarket cooling for now to see what stocks run at, but what coolers can you recommend for the i7 & the GPUs as I think my pc is going to sound like a fighter jet with stock coolers!
 
for cpu maybe look at fenrir which i have got, sunbeam or the true.
the gpus will be quite loud, i have one 4870 and sounds quite loud.
apart from having 2 cards you have the same setup as me, its a fast setup and easily goes to 4ghz with a couple of tweaks... would be interested to know if your bios etc matches mine as we have the same board but i seem to have settings missing.

Im pretty sure your going to enjoy the pc ;)
 
That PSU will be fine, although 3gHz won't even make a 920 blink ;-) For the cooler there are basically 3 choices to consider

Noctua whatever-it's-called - quietest of the bunch and very effective for the price - superb noise:temperature
Titan Fenrir - Coolest of the three, slightly noisy but the best air cooling you can buy
TRUE (Thermalright Ultra Extreme) - attach it to a Noctua P12 fan and it's nearly as quiet, while being nearly as cool as the Titan; expensive, but probably the best of both worlds

I'd recommend the TRUE or noctua, the Titan is best for those who value performance over noise. Noctua is slightly cheaper and quieter, TRUE is slightly cooler running.

Any of the above three should give you 4gHz (it's a very rare 920 that doesn't, on decent cooling) and likely more.
 
Thanks guys... this is one of my most powerful upgrades ever, I have been wanting to play crysis for too long on my benq fp241w.

How hard is it to OC the i7? Any good guides online you can point me to? And thank you for the cooling recommendations, I have seen a lot of talk about the Noctua, will it fit in my case? Might be a silly question given the size of the va8000!

Any ideas about cooling the GPUs? So far aftermarket scene looks fairly quiet for the 4890? I did see one by Artic cooling - http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=101 but would I be able to fit one of them to each card and still run in crossfire?

And onion, I will be glad to tell you the bios when it comes, maybe you can help me set it up? No doubt that the boxes will be open within 30 seconds of them being delivered.
 
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I've not done it myself, but it's apparently ridiculously easy :-) There's at least one guide in the overclocking forum.

I may be totally wrong on this, but can't 4870 coolers be used on the reference 4890s? Wait for someone to confirm or deny that before you buy any though :-)
 
Another quick point... worth running RAID? I was going to do it for this pc... raid config with two 500gbs maybe? What kind of advantages would I gain from this?

I will also be running systemwide drive encryption, would raid perform better in this environment?
 
Looks good.

Agreed with the above cooler suggestions - personally I would go for a TRUE, but the others certainly have good points.

The Asus P6T is a solid board and a good deal. The v2 you mentioned is actually the P6T Deluxe v2, a board with more features. However, if you don't think you will make use of them - then staying with the standard P6T is a good bet.

In terms of PSU - that wattage should be plenty, 750W would happily do you . However, if you are going to pay that much for a power supply - I recommend having a look at corsair, PC Power & cooling and Be Quiet! models.

Two 4890s in crossfire is certainly a potent combination. However, if you want better power consumption and future upgradeability a GTX 295 would be a good choice. If you want to go for the gtx 295 - I would recomend waiting until next week to buy, the new single pcb version is about to roll out (reviews already out). It should cost less, runs cooler and allows for 3rd party coolers.
 
cmndr_andi said:
In terms of PSU - that wattage should be plenty, 750W would happily do you . However, if you are going to pay that much for a power supply - I recommend having a look at corsair, PC Power & cooling and Be Quiet! models.
Click to expand...

Only chose the targan cause it was one of the best modular designs and seemed to hold it's rails fairly well, my old ST65F (Silverstone) I think thats the model was good but cables ruined my pc!

As for the 295, I figured the £350 price tag for a single GPU was less scaleable than 2x4890's considering I wouldn't buy two 295's @ 350. This would give me better GPU performance for a considerable time. Although If I wanted a long term solution the 295 would have been a good choice, slotting in a 2nd when the price becomes right.
 
The gtx 295 seems to scale pretty well - and expect the £350 price tag to tumble. I say this because nvidia released the gtx295 as a may to trump the 4870X2 and not to make them in massive quantities. However, their sheer performance created massive demand- hence the new single pcb card. As its only on one board they can make them cheaper and in larger quanties, a recipe for lower retail prices :)

Here is a review which compares two 4890s in crossfire compared to a gtx295 and many other cards. The performance of 4890CF and gtx295 is close throughout - and the gtx295 wins in several games.
 
Re raid - it depends what you want

Raid 0 is definately faster, and is great for non-sensitive data (OS/apps etc which can easily be re-installed if a drive goes)

Raid 1 is good for protecting against disk failure and is better than no backup - if a disk goes you've always got one ready to run, but it's definately NOT a substitute for proper backups, you have much less chance of losing the data due to drive failure, but far more due to the array being corrupted.

Considering you're wanting to encrypt, raid0 will give you faster access assuming your CPU can decrypt fast enough - however I presume that you encrypt important data and need to make sure you backup regularly.

Edit: considering the OP states
"I have been wanting to play crysis for too long on my benq fp241w."
Then 4890 crossfire seems the best choice from that TPU review - it deliveres about 5fps higher in crysis than the 295 (at the resolutions in question, anyway) and it's the only game given in which the frame rate difference is important (who the hell notices the difference between 185fps and 180fps, but 30-35 is a difference?

Okay, it doesn't apply for future games necessarily - but certainly a great choice :-)
 
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Thank you for your help Audi and Andi, cleared a lot up for me :)

On a seperate note, still undecided on what OS to run.. I have XP 64 / Windows 7 64, would windows 7 present me with any issues when playing games in crossfire?
 
I managed to get Vista x64, which is probably the best option?

I can't wait for this pc, I feel like a small child again. Going to game as much as I can before heading back to University for my final year :)

Cheers for the help.
 
Will do. Have to clean my desk first, unlike others I cannot show myself to be unclean :D

A student, that cleans? You must think I'm mad. I will post benchmarks etc I suppose once it's up and running and let people know how the config runs.

Oh btw, I can't see the pricing forum? I will be selling my old components for dirt cheap such as the silverstone st65f which is a fantastic PSU :)
 
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