*meow?*
That's the stuff you wanted.
Since the previous specs think the i7 920 (socket 1366) is the best thing since cases painted black on the inside... I did i7 860 (socket 1156) instead.
The i7 860 is equal to or better than the i7 920 and uses a motherboard which doesn't stick a Northbridge beside the graphics card to keep it warm.
The only worthwhile downside by comparison with an i7 920 would be that if you use two g-cards, besides the normal issues with trying to boost performance by using two cards, you gain slightly less performance. It's an electrical difference essentially between the two.
With one G-card, no difference.
The Asus Maximus III Formula motherboard I put with it is about as good as it gets for the 1156 socket and also comes with a decent sound card - not a cheesy onboard sound chip.
Also, it comes with some easy to use overclocking and power adjustment programs which work while the computer is being used, not from the bios. My mobo is the mATX version of it and it can swap between 4ghz, fans at full speed and 1.2ghz, all fans low/off in three mouse clicks. No need to restart your computer or have your cooling doing overtime on your overclocked cpu when you're surfing the internet.
Well I think it's neat anyway
As another plus point... this top of the range socket 1156 board for the i7 860 is £58 less than the equivalent socket 1366 board the i7 920 needs. Which means the mobo and cpu together work out as £31 cheaper than the i7 920 equivalent. Socket 1366 motherboards are filled with unnecessary stuff for most people and it shows in the price.
HDD, memory, PSU are all good.
Can spend more if you want, go solid state drives, buy (slower but more expensive) Dominator memory and get a 1KW PSU, but there's good and there's unnecessary. They won't improve the game at all. Enough left over to power anything else you put in.
CPU cooler is a top end variety and unlike the Noctua cooler which also fits the 1156 socket, it doesn't come with brown fans... Mind you, if you can live with that, the Noctua is an alternative.
Headset is pretty good, piles of cookies for it all over the place.
Ditto mowse.
Optical drive is black, does everything to anything that fits in there short of blu-ray.
Keyboard is also black, standard layout and has a few extra buttons.
Three very quiet fans to stick on the roof to assist in ventilation. The only air brought in is hoovered up through the base of the case - which when you consider it, isn't ideal - but these fans will shove air back out again with no problem and no noise.
The case fans already in there are 140mm which are larger and barely worth it to replace with 120mm fans if indeed there are holes for replacing with 120mm's.
Mowsemat. Black. Gaming, for the use of.
Thermal, latest MX formula, supposedly frosty stuff.
Windows 7, should be out before you need the build complete. XP is fine for me but I'll accept that you might as well use 7 on a new computer.
Decent set of 2.1 speakers. You'll use the headset for gaming so there's not all that much point to splash on an epic 5.1 setup that you'll need to stick all round your room. If you did want to, there's a choice of 3 @ £46, £67 and £240 yup, that's a serious price hike for the last one.
Printer takes ink in colour separate cartridges, better than buying bundled blocks. Aside from that, it's a printer/scanner/copier and I didn't feel like comparing all of them to pick one
So you've got almost £900-£1150 to spend on your g-card, any alterations you want to make to the spec or even to do something else with.
Have fun.
That's the stuff you wanted.
Since the previous specs think the i7 920 (socket 1366) is the best thing since cases painted black on the inside... I did i7 860 (socket 1156) instead.
The i7 860 is equal to or better than the i7 920 and uses a motherboard which doesn't stick a Northbridge beside the graphics card to keep it warm.
The only worthwhile downside by comparison with an i7 920 would be that if you use two g-cards, besides the normal issues with trying to boost performance by using two cards, you gain slightly less performance. It's an electrical difference essentially between the two.
With one G-card, no difference.
The Asus Maximus III Formula motherboard I put with it is about as good as it gets for the 1156 socket and also comes with a decent sound card - not a cheesy onboard sound chip.
Also, it comes with some easy to use overclocking and power adjustment programs which work while the computer is being used, not from the bios. My mobo is the mATX version of it and it can swap between 4ghz, fans at full speed and 1.2ghz, all fans low/off in three mouse clicks. No need to restart your computer or have your cooling doing overtime on your overclocked cpu when you're surfing the internet.
Well I think it's neat anyway
As another plus point... this top of the range socket 1156 board for the i7 860 is £58 less than the equivalent socket 1366 board the i7 920 needs. Which means the mobo and cpu together work out as £31 cheaper than the i7 920 equivalent. Socket 1366 motherboards are filled with unnecessary stuff for most people and it shows in the price.
HDD, memory, PSU are all good.
Can spend more if you want, go solid state drives, buy (slower but more expensive) Dominator memory and get a 1KW PSU, but there's good and there's unnecessary. They won't improve the game at all. Enough left over to power anything else you put in.
CPU cooler is a top end variety and unlike the Noctua cooler which also fits the 1156 socket, it doesn't come with brown fans... Mind you, if you can live with that, the Noctua is an alternative.
Headset is pretty good, piles of cookies for it all over the place.
Ditto mowse.
Optical drive is black, does everything to anything that fits in there short of blu-ray.
Keyboard is also black, standard layout and has a few extra buttons.
Three very quiet fans to stick on the roof to assist in ventilation. The only air brought in is hoovered up through the base of the case - which when you consider it, isn't ideal - but these fans will shove air back out again with no problem and no noise.
The case fans already in there are 140mm which are larger and barely worth it to replace with 120mm fans if indeed there are holes for replacing with 120mm's.
Mowsemat. Black. Gaming, for the use of.
Thermal, latest MX formula, supposedly frosty stuff.
Windows 7, should be out before you need the build complete. XP is fine for me but I'll accept that you might as well use 7 on a new computer.
Decent set of 2.1 speakers. You'll use the headset for gaming so there's not all that much point to splash on an epic 5.1 setup that you'll need to stick all round your room. If you did want to, there's a choice of 3 @ £46, £67 and £240 yup, that's a serious price hike for the last one.
Printer takes ink in colour separate cartridges, better than buying bundled blocks. Aside from that, it's a printer/scanner/copier and I didn't feel like comparing all of them to pick one
So you've got almost £900-£1150 to spend on your g-card, any alterations you want to make to the spec or even to do something else with.
Have fun.
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