New System Build

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23 Mar 2009
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Hi all,

Plan to build a new system in about 5 weeks and done a bit of research but thought i would ask on here about peoples idea's and suggestions. Want to spend about £1500 but have £200-£300 headroom but not really preferable.

So... Here's what i've got in mind...

Lian-Li PC-V1110B Aluminum Super Mid-Tower Case - Black (No PSU
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler
MSI Eclipse SLI Intel X58
Corsair Dominator 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Corsair TX 850W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply
G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD

*Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - LATER DATE IF REQUIRED AS I HAVE A HD PROJECTOR*

Any suggestions & recommendations on saving a little or better H/W welcome.

I do have a question though, In the real world though is 1 SSD better than 2 WD Velociraptors in RAID0?

Thanks in advance people :)
 
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This will be my first build from scratch, though have fully taken apart and modded my current pc. Any comments on the proposed spec?

Sony DRU-860S 22X DVD±RW DL & DVD-RAM Serial ATA Black Drive - Retail
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case - No PSU
Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI Dual slot cooler HDTV Out PCI-E
Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable - Blue 18"
Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM
Anti Static Matting 61cm (24inch) Wide x 104cm (41 inch)
Anti-static Wireless Wrist Bands
Plexus 19 Piece Tool Kit (Silver & Black)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - DVD - 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 940 3GHz Socket AM2+ 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 790X Socket AM2+ 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Arctic Cooling (AC-FRZ-64P) Freezer64 Pro Socket 754 939 940 CPU Cooler
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition

I'm going to cannabalise my current 650w psu.
 
Soldato
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Location
Brighton, UK.
This will be my first build from scratch, though have fully taken apart and modded my current pc. Any comments on the proposed spec?

Sony DRU-860S 22X DVD±RW DL & DVD-RAM Serial ATA Black Drive - Retail
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case - No PSU
Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI Dual slot cooler HDTV Out PCI-E
Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable - Blue 18"
Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM
Anti Static Matting 61cm (24inch) Wide x 104cm (41 inch)
Anti-static Wireless Wrist Bands
Plexus 19 Piece Tool Kit (Silver & Black)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - DVD - 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 940 3GHz Socket AM2+ 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 790X Socket AM2+ 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Arctic Cooling (AC-FRZ-64P) Freezer64 Pro Socket 754 939 940 CPU Cooler
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition

I'm going to cannabalise my current 650w psu.

I would say if your going PhenomII X4 you may as well go with DDR3 and a better graphics card. Alternatively you could go the other way and downgrade to a PhenomII X3 and save some cash and overclock it.
 
Associate
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being an am2+ socket and not an am3, the 940 lacks a ddr3 controller, so you can only use ddr2 memory and it will only work in a am2/am2+ motherboard
 
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OP
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23 Mar 2009
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61
haha, got an invasion of my thread :) Its all good though :)

Id look at changing the mobo personally, either a gigabyte UD5 or asus P6T

Well i origionally had a UD5 down but never owned a Gigabyte and always had a soft spot for MSI and reviews seem to have them out as pretty much the same boards??? As for ASUS, i wouldnt touch them with a barge pole sincer my encounter with them!!! Lets just say when it fails, YOUR SCREWED! Customer service just doesnt exist, period!

As im buying in 5 weeks (student loan :)) i have time to change to newer/better things but just after other peoples advice and experience to refine it all for when i come to purchase :)

Thanks
Ian
 
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Bristol
formatuk. You're system is pretty good. What I would say was unless you are planning on putting another 4870x2 in there the PSU you have is overkill.

Something like a HX620 is more than enough or this CoolerMaster Silent Pro Modular 700W. Modular is worth paying for in many cases, though unless you have tons of hard drives you should have plenty of room in that case.

Other things to consider;
This OCZ memory has the same latency and is cheaper but still with lifetime warranty
The G. Skill SSD you've got is out of stock and you might want to consider getting either a 30GB or a 60GB for you're OS and getting a 1TB Samsung spinpoint (or similar) for your programs and storage.
Would save you money and provide more storage.
Operating system. Guess you have you're own - don't know if you're a student of technology - if you are you can normally get different operating systems free from you're technology department for the time you are in university. It's worth a look.
 
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Funnily enough i am a student of Music Technology at Keele Uni. I have 2 500GB WD RE2's already which i can RAID-0 to 1TB so no need for 'storage HDD' and have been looking at 2x30GB Vertex's to RAID-0 to 60GB and get a massive speed increase. The PSU is just in case i get another 4870X2 in te future so keeping my options open. I originally had the OCZ's down but know someone who had issues with OCZ memory before but that was a while ago. And the Vertex's are OCZ anyways also.

Thanks for help :)
 
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I do know the OCZ had problems with some older chipsets, though I don't think they effect the x58's so much.
Maybe consider a raid 1 rather than raid 0? Dunno its upto you, though its safer if you have sensitive data you don't want to loose.

Dunno if music technology would provide you with an operating system, though it might be worth asking your technology department
 
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OP
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Right, What i have now after a lot of research is as follows:

Lian-Li PC-V1110B Aluminum Super Mid-Tower Case - Black (No PSU)
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler
MSI Eclipse SLI Intel X58
OCZ Reaper 6GB (3 X 2GB) DDR3 PC3-15000 (1866MHz) Tri-Channel
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Corsair TX 850W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply
2x OCZ Vertex Series 30GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
Razer DeathAdder Blue 1800dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse
Cherry Black CyMotion Expert (USB/PS2) Keyboard - Black

*Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - LATER DATE IF REQUIRED*

I get this coming in at about £1700-£1800 without monitor which is right on my maximum margin, But i think im getting best bang for buck without going silly. I'm hoping for good things from this system. Just need wait 5 weeks now! Prices may drop though and maybe even new/better options by then.... D0 stepping... :)

Thanks everyone who's helped and im still open to suggestions of cause :)
 
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