Building a New PC

[Lurker101]

Avoid the X-Fi sound cards like the plague. They really don't like windows 7.

[LHammonds]

VIDEO

 

Primary Choice: ATI Radeon HD 5970 (possibly 2 in crossfire mode)

 

- NOTE: Seems that this card will be available for purchase on Dec 10, 2009

- Cost: $600

- Windows 7 compatible

- DirectX 11

- Shaders 5.0

- Max resolution: 2048x1536

- 2.0 GB RAM

- PCI Express 2.1 x16

 

Secondary Choice: NVidia GeForce GTX 295

 

- Cost: $500

- Windows Vista compatible

- DirectX 10

- Shaders 4.0

- Max resolution: 2048x1536

- 1.7 GB RAM

- PCI Express 2.0

- Min Watts: 245

- Max Watts: 440

[Pronam]

I'm an ati fan :)...Wow, you need all before the end of the year huh! That's annoy with the 300series waiting until 2010 :(. (The good ones then.) If you want to keep the thing for a while you should go for Ati, otherwise you could buy the 300 later. Thor. said that directx11 gives a small boost, it'll probably get bigger with tes5...The Ati's a 100 $ more. But also a year longer to keep with dx11 and shader model 5.0.

 

 

about the 5970:

# Maximum board power: 294 Watts

# Idle board power: 51 Watts

 

this is a (old probably) note though *Driver support scheduled for release in 2010 *

[Thor.]

So whats your Budget, i could help you out in prices and such, if want LHammonds.

 

Also the video card i would go with the 295, compared to the new Radeon nothing can be beat, since its already in sli :biggrin: My dream would the new 300gt coming out. man what a beast. Go for it, its up to you. I'm more of a speed freak other then make of the card.

 

Oh and windows is ok with the Creative Xfi's since i have one myself, works like a charm right away.

 

Other then video card whats your plans?

[LHammonds]

I am not concerned with budget at this point. I am putting together my Dream PC. Once I have all the components selected and finalized, I will the go on the hunt at various places looking for the best price at the most reliable vendors. Once I get the grand total, I will then determine if it is "too much" and start trimming back if necessary.

 

Because Win7 can support 2 CPUs, I looked for a mobo that could support two i7-960 processors but found none! I suppose it is too much of a heat or space problem. hehehe.

 

On prior PC builds, I have rarely picked the "top" dog and favored the line item just below due to price points. For example, I won't be paying double just to have the i7-965 ($1,000+) when the i7-960 and others are around the $500 mark.

 

My preliminary budget seems to be fairly high (not all tax numbers calculated yet) but I am not going to needlessly throw money at it. If I have left-over, I will probably spec out a NAS for use as a repository for a homemade DVR so I can spin movies/cartoons to all the rooms in my house. ;)

 

Also, I'm not opposed to NVidia but their line of cards are fairly outdated at the moment and I need to make sure this PC lasts for many years and buying hardware that is already "outdated" would probably not be a wise decision since all their cards are pre-Win7. But like I said, I will need to buy before EOY and as such, I'm almost shackled to ATI. I'd like to acquire their latest dual card and hope it does release on the 10th, but if I cannot get the money spent before 2010, it would be no good. I may have to go with an older card that is available right now. It all depends once I start the buying process.

 

It sure will be good to be able to fully mod once again!!!

 

EDIT #1: I also have a contact in a large vendor company that said he would be happy to see if he can get my components at cost once I finalize my part list. This will be another hoop I will jump through just before purchasing online to see if I can get a better deal through him on any components.

 

EDIT #2: The more I think about it, I think I will initially just have WinXP as a virtual PC to start off with until I run across a reason to make it a secondary boot OS.

 

LHammonds

[Erik005]

I can confirm X-Fi not working well with win7

 

On most motherboards the sound is excellent

 

Two 5970's you will need a big PSU

[Thor.]

Do you have the latest drivers or windows 7 drivers installed, that can cause problems.

[Erik005]

Windows 7 does not support dual sound card so it can be a pain to install

It works now but it still does not show up in the hardware menu

 

P.S

If you want a ati 5xxx series card order it as soon as possible I have been waiting for my 5870 for a month now.

[LHammonds]

Case

 

Primary Choice: Antec Twelve Hundred

- Cost: $165

- Full Tower

- 12 Drive bays (modular)

- Washable air filters

- 1 200mm fan (top)

- 2 120mm fan (rear)

- 3 120mm fan (front)

- 1 (optional) 120mm fan (side for graphics cards)

- 1 (optional) 120mm fan (middle for CPU or graphics cards)

- Water cooling platform for reservoir or pump

 

Secondary Choice: None yet

 

Related Items

 

Antec CP-850 Power Supply

- Cost: $???

- Has protection to keep from frying the PC in multiple scenarios

 

Corsair Hydro H50 CPU Water Cooler

- Cost: $80

- Install / Review Video

- Tom's Hardware: Corsair H50 Versus Rosewill FORT120

-

 

NOTE: Watt Calculators:

- Initial watt calculator results say the current-choice specs will require 734w.

- Initial NewEgg Watt Calculator results say a dual video + 4 hard drives = 1210 watt PSU.

 

NOTE #2: To calculate the expected cost for running your computer, this is the formula:

 

( (Watts X Hours Used / 1000 ) X Cost per kilowatt-hour

 

Example: If you use your computer 10 hours during the week and 6 hours over the weekend, that is 16 hours per week, 832 hours per year. So a computer that burns 500 watts and it costs $0.14 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), it will work like this: ( (500w X 832hr / 1000 ) X 0.14kWh = $58.24 per year

[Thor.]

You should try looking out for those "tri" crossfire or sli Motherboards, there awsome :biggrin: . Also nice case LHammonds :thumbsup: