What components to complement an i7 system?

Tuscan · 14 Jan 2009 at 19:06

Hi all - its been a very long time since I posted here. So long ago in fact, that technology has moved on...a lot.

I'm looking to self-build an i7 920 based system to replace my 5 year old (yes, its THAT old - but served me really well). A 920 is more than sufficient for my general needs - I am not a gamer, but I may like to do some video work on the new PC.

What I would like though is a quiet, air cooled PC, with potential to maybe do some over clocking. That means a passively cooled graphics card too.

Could anyone kindly recommend a graphics card that is 1 Gb and <£100, that would go well with say an Asus or Gigabyte motherboard, decent (without being OTT) memory - I would guess 2-4Gb, and a pair of quiet 500Gb hard drives (presume SATAII 300 spec with 16Mb cache).

Finally, what wattage PSU would be required - and which OS would people go with for this? I was thinking 64 bit version of XP Pro, but would 64 bit Vista be better or worse (noting that is actually less expensive than XP).

Budget (ex VAT) is £450 for CPU and Mobo, <£100 for graphics, £100 for 2 x HDDs in RAID, plus ? for memory.

I'm sorry to ask what is probably a boring question - but like I say, thinks have changed quite a lot. Just hope that this system lasts as well as the old one, which has been an excellent Athlon XP with 1Gb of RAM!!!

Thanks.

scrowe · 14 Jan 2009 at 22:34

I've been in exact same position as you, last build 4-5 years old, so I've been reading up.

My final build was much more expensive than your budget but I think it meets all your requirements in part, some of my bits below:-

Case Antec Sonata III £92 (Quiet |Case inc. Energy Saving PSU)
Fan Antec TriCool 120mm Double Ball Bearing 3 speed fan £9 (Optional)
CPU Intel i7 920, Socket 1366 £235
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 iX58 £200
Memory 6GB (3x2GB) CorsairXMS3, DDR3 PC3 £143
Hard-Drive 500 GB Western Digital Green £46 (1Tb version available)
Graphics 1GB Gigabyte HD 4850, PCI-E 2.0 £150 (Passive Cooler)

I'll be running Vista 64-Bit

Tuscan · 14 Jan 2009 at 22:46

Thanks for that. That looks like a smiliar, if not slightly higher, spec. I probably would not go for more than 4Gb RAM, and as I'm not a gamer, I would go lighter on the graphics card. You may have convinced me to take the Vista 64 path. I guess that Windows 7 is not a long time off in the grand scheme, but perhaps XP is a false economy when it costs more, may not make as efficient use of the rig's power/potential.

with thanks.

alien.46.uk · 15 Jan 2009 at 00:30

If you're goin Vista, I would stick with 4Gb RAM minimum.

Vista will eat up 2Gb without qwarm.

Slashiem · 15 Jan 2009 at 00:34

What will you be using the PC for? Thats the most important question.

Tuscan · 15 Jan 2009 at 14:27

Thanks chaps.

The PC would be very general in use. I use it for home and office: therefore the usual Office 2007 applications, heavy email use, account keeping, playing, ripping, burning DVDs (may try ripping Blu Ray when the time comes), iTunes, desk top publishing, photo editing with potential to video edit too - including archiving old Hi8 analogue video onto DVD. Perhaps the very occasional time, but as a father of a 2 year old - I doubt I'll be playing many games for a while unless they are with/against him!

Last machine lasted me 5 years. I run Diskeeper 2008 and NOD32 on my old PC (and laptop) and it has kept everything running very nicely indeed. I have not had to reformat and reintsall XP for 4 years as the machine has been faultless.

Big requirement is quiet air cooling, at least whilst not overclocked - and reliability. I leave the machine on from morning till night so I can remote access it using Logmein. I also like something that fast boots and also has RAID for data security, just incase a drive goes **** up if you know what I mean.

Was also wondering whether a decent SSD drive may be good for the OS and keep data on the RAID. Would that mean a fast boot up??

Thanks again.

scrowe · 15 Jan 2009 at 20:50

Here's a link to my original thread

I also went SSD drive, but quite expensive still, and a few niggles. I only finally went with it once I learned that the niggles can be overcome with the right config.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17962891

All your requirements are exactly as mine, Quite , Energy Efficient, SSD for OS, Data in quiet Raid1 drives. I just think you'll be limited with your budget.