Project 'Joshua': Gaming & Number Crunching

ms9cw · 2 Nov 2011 at 18:56

At the moment this is not much more that a shopping list as I'm waiting for the money which will hopefully pay for it:

Case -- Coolermaster Haf 922 Mid Tower Gaming Case
Processor -- Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-990X (3.46GHz)
Motherboard -- Asus® Rampage III Extreme
Memory (RAM) -- 24GB Kingston Hyper-X Tri-DDR3 1600MHZ
Graphics Cards -- 3GB Nvidia Geforce GTX 590 x 2 (SLI)
1st Hard Disk -- 600GB Intel® 320 Series SSD
2nd Hard Disk -- 1TB WD Caviar Green WD10EARX
DVD/Blu-Ray Drive -- 12x Blu-Ray Re-Writer Drive, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply -- Corsair 1200W Pro Series™ Gold AX1200-80 Plus® Gold
Processor Cooling -- Coolit Eco II C240 Advanced Liquid Cooler
Sound Card -- Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
Operating System -- Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit)

I've self-built a PC a long time ago and am now wanting to have another go. I want a machine that will be great for gaming, but also a super number cruncher for Folding @ Home when I'm not using it.

ms9cw

ms9cw · 3 Nov 2011 at 03:31

I seriously urge you not to by anything made by Coolit. We used the Vantage, Domino and Eco at work and we worked out we had a failure rate of 60%. They seem to either just die or full on explode and leak coolant everywhere, ruining other components at the same time

Noted. Recommendations? I'm a noob when it comes to water cooling and so I want something that will be a complete kit and straightforward to install. Or I suppose I could always wimp out and go for this.

Is there need for that much RAM?

You can never have too much RAM

Surely as you're waiting for money it would be worth going SB-E?

Didn't know about them. Will investigate.

Why are you going for the CPU though? An overclocked 2700k will be better, unless you're just trying to inflate the price

Working on the basis that six cores/twelve threads are better than four/eight and one which goes as fast as currently possible, without stepping up to the Xeon CPUs.

ms9cw

ms9cw · 3 Nov 2011 at 20:42

.Max. said:
Here's some benchmarks between a 2600k and 980x (I know it's not the 990 but it's as close as I can find, There is minimal difference anyway)

I must confess to being surprised by these benchmacks. Here's more evidence for your claim:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

OK - Second change to the shopping list (change 1 being a different water-cooling option):

OUT ---> Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-990X
IN <--- Intel® Core™i7 2600K Processor (but will also check out the SB-E CPUs if they're out by the time the money to pay for this turns up)

EDIT: the money saved might also mean replacing the second hard drive with a second SSD

ms9cw

ms9cw · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:32

King Damager said:
With the processor change you might want to look into a different Mobo/RAM as well as they won't support 2600k

How about:

Asus P8P67 WS Revolution Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit x 2
(8GB instead of 24GB - but faster)

ms9cw

ms9cw · 28 Nov 2011 at 07:42

Choosing a case for my new creation has, so far, been the most difficult part of tyhe process:

1. Pre-fitted Watercooled Coolermaster HAF X Case - Leaking so returned for full refund
2. MYOPENPC BENCH Master - Ordered from the US, has yet to appear
3. Danger Den Extended Air Box - sent Extended Water Box instead

which leaves me with this:

The Coolermaster Test Lab

Anyway, with regards to my original shopping list, here's what I've actually brought:
Processor -- Intel® Core™i7 Processor i7-2700K (3.50GHz)
Motherboard -- Asus® Maxcimus IV Extreme-Z
Memory (RAM) -- 4 x 4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis DDR3 1600MHz
Graphics Cards -- 2 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC (855Mhz) 1536MB (SLI)
Hard Disk -- OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCI-Express Internal Solid State Drive
DVD/Blu-Ray Drive -- Pioneer BDR-206DBK 12x Blu-Ray Recorder
Power Supply -- Corsair 1200W Pro Series™ Gold AX1200-80 Plus® Gold
Processor Cooling -- Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Heatsink Kit
Sound Card -- Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
Operating System -- Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit)

I threw it all together over the weekend and ended up with this:

I did take some piccies while I was building it and I'll post them later, if you'd like to see them.

Does it works? Well, come back in a couple of years while I summon up the nerve to turn it on...

ms9cw