Building a New PC

[LHammonds]

Time to start ordering parts before it gets too late...at least the parts I have decided on.

 

Price-finding tools:

- www.google.com

- www.pricewatch.com

- www.pricegrabber.com

- www.nextag.com

 

NOTE: This list will grow as I edit this post to add more line items (usually only have 5 minutes to research and post between rounding up all the kiddos)

 

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard

- Staples - $54

- Amazon - $67

- Logitech - $80

- BestBuy - $80 (add tax)

- OfficeMax - $80 (add tax)

 

Antec CP-850 Power Supply

- Amazon - $126

- NewEgg - $140

- PriceGrabber Storefront - $127

 

------------------------- D R O P P E D -----------------------------

 

Intel X25-M 160GB Solid State Drive

- DROPPED - Due to unavailability and high price as well as a new 34nm that will be on sale soon which should drive prices of the 50nm down a bit.

- BHPhotoVideo - $473

- Buy.com - $477

- PCConnection - $488

- NewEgg - $540

- TigerDirect - $550

 

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s (qty = 2)

- DROPPED - Due to unavailability and high price. Will just use my existing SATA 2.0 drives and buy SATA 3.0 drives sometime next year as they become more plentiful.

- NewEgg - $300 (Cannot add to basket)

- Amazon - $310 (Not In Stock)

 

ATI Radeon HD 5970, 2GB, CrossFireX

- DROPPED - Due to unavailability.

- NewEgg - $650 (PowerColor, Not In Stock, Est: 12/21/2009)

- ZipZoomFly - $700 (HIS, Not In Stock, Est: N/A)

- Provantage - $607 (Asus, not in stock)

 

 

------------------------- O R D E R E D -----------------------------

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard

- NewEgg - $350 - ORDERED 12/23/2009

- Amazon - $345

- eCost - $370

 

Intel Core i7-960 OEM CPU (since I am getting a water cooler, I do not need retail version with fan)

- NewEgg - $590 - ORDERED 12/23/2009

- TigerDirect - $590

- CompUSA - $590 ($639 with tax)

 

Corsair H-50 CPU Water Cooler

- NewEgg - $78 - ORDERED 12/23/2009

- CompUSA - $80

- BestBuy - $80

 

Antec Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case

- NewEgg - $160 - ORDERED 12/23/2009

- BestBuy - $160 (+$6 shipping)

- PCConnection - $162 (+$13 shipping)

- Amazon - $165

 

Corsair Core i7 XMS3 12GB PC12800 DDR3

- Buy.com - $318 - ORDER CANCELLED (They could not get CC to process)

- NewEgg - $340 - ORDERED 12/24/2009

- Amazon - $340

- TigerDirect - $363

- CompUSA - $363

 

XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX Edition Video Card

- TigerDirect - $429 - ORDERED 12/29/2009

- ZipZoomFly - $430

- NewEgg - $436

 

Samsung 2343BWX 23" Monitor (qty=2)

- NewEgg - $190 - ORDERED 12/30/2009

- TigerDirect - $200

- CompUSA - $200

[Thor.]

Awesome Setup LHammonds, I'm jealous, man but you did inspire me to get a antec case.

 

like this one

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...9-043-_-Product

 

still my setup is pretty bad ass considering i have a quad to.

 

My dream is to go as far as getting a 6 core opteron

 

http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3571

 

Or even cell broadband engine, if they ever come out :P mainstream.

[species5478]

:blink: It's enough to make my head spin! :wacko:

[Retribution]

Time to start ordering parts before it gets too late...at least the parts I have decided on.

 

Price-finding tools:

- www.google.com

- www.pricewatch.com

- www.pricegrabber.com

- www.nextag.com

 

NOTE: This list will grow as I edit this post to add more line items (usually only have 5 minutes to research and post between rounding up all the kiddos)

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard

- NewEgg - $350

- Amazon - $345

- eCost - $370

 

Intel Core i7-960 OEM CPU (since I am getting a water cooler, I do not need retail version with fan)

- NewEgg - $590

- TigerDirect - $590

- CompUSA - $590 ($639 with tax)

 

Corsair H-50 CPU Water Cooler

- NewEgg - $78

- CompUSA - $80

- BestBuy - $80

 

Corsair Core i7 XMS3 12GB PC12800 DDR3

- Buy.com - $318

- Amazon - $340

- NewEgg - $340

- TigerDirect - $363

- CompUSA - $363

 

Intel X25-M 160GB Solid State Drive

- BHPhotoVideo - $473

- Buy.com - $477

- PCConnection - $488

- NewEgg - $540

- TigerDirect - $550

 

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s (qty = 2)

- NewEgg - $300

- NewEgg - $310 (Not In Stock)

 

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard

- Staples - $54

- Amazon - $67

- Logitech - $80

- BestBuy - $80 (add tax)

- OfficeMax - $80 (add tax)

 

Antec Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case

- NewEgg - $160

- BestBuy - $160 (+$6 shipping)

- PCConnection - $162 (+$13 shipping)

- Amazon - $165

 

Antec CP-850 Power Supply

- Amazon - $126

- NewEgg - $140

- PriceGrabber Storefront - $127

 

Grand Total So Far: $2749

 

ATI Radeon HD 5970, 2GB, CrossFireX (qty = 2)

- NewEgg - $650 (PowerColor, Not In Stock, Est: 12/21/2009)

- ZipZoomFly - $700 (HIS, Not In Stock, Est: N/A)

- Provantage - $607 (Asus, 4 in stock)

Uh, you're going to have 4 GPUs? Seems like EXTREME overkill to me.

[LHammonds]

Uh, you're going to have 4 GPUs? Seems like EXTREME overkill to me.

Not if you have a highly detailed model of the Batman tumbler opened in Blender. ;-) The higher res I go with models, the more and more difficult it becomes to handle them. On some models, I have the components split among many different view layers and if I ever have them all visible at once, it has to be in wireframe mode to keep it from turning into a slideshow...something I do not care for in a developer workstation. Granted, I may still have to optimize how I do things but I don't think I will be "forced" to spread my model components into so many layers just to maintain a respectable performance level. ;-)

 

In all actuality, I will probably get just one card and get the other sometime in the future...maybe 2 years from now...or just before they "disappear" from the marketplace.

 

LHammonds

[Retribution]

Also, I'm thinking of getting the same case. Are you sure it will fit a single Radeon 5970? On its Newegg page, it says it has room for a 10.5" video card, and the 5970 is a full foot long.

[Vagrant0]

Also, I'm thinking of getting the same case. Are you sure it will fit a single Radeon 5970? On its Newegg page, it says it has room for a 10.5" video card, and the 5970 is a full foot long.

It's only a problem if you plan to install a harddrive.

[Thor.]

Really what about the 295"s, same deal?

[LHammonds]

Also, I'm thinking of getting the same case. Are you sure it will fit a single Radeon 5970? On its Newegg page, it says it has room for a 10.5" video card, and the 5970 is a full foot long.

The Antec 1200 has 12 drive bays that are modular. If a drive bay gets in the way of the video card(s), you simply remove the drive bay. There are plenty other drive bays to use. This is why I opted for a full tower.

 

Here is the NewEgg quote:

Even the largest 10.5” graphic cards like AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 x2 and Nvidia’s 9800 GX2 fit into any of the 7 expansion slots within its cavernous interior without limiting hard drive placement within any of the 12 bays.

The clarification is that a 10.5" card will allow you to keep all the drive bays in place. Anything longer and you will have to remove one of the 3 drive bays...thus loosing 3 hard drive slots reducing the maximum available from 12 slots down to 9.

 

Here is a quote directly off the Antec 1200 page:

 

Maximum video card size: 13.5"/343mm (Note: some video cards may require removal of the adjacent hard drive cage)

Download the mechanical drawing PDF file to see exactly how the drive bays look and relate to the case and motherboard position.

 

LHammonds

[LHammonds]

I talked with NewEgg.com using their chat utility and asked if they could price-match so that I could buy everything from them. Unfortunately, they don't price-match but I was able to negotiate a $25.00 credit once I placed my order.

 

This is what I purchased from them today:

 

$77.89 - Corsair H-50 CPU Water Cooler

$574.99 - Intel i7-960 3.2 GHz CPU

$159.99 - Antec 1200 Case

$349.99 - Gigabyte A-X58A-UD7 Motherboard

$22.51 - Shipping

--------------------

$1,185.37 - Order Sub-Total

-$25.00 Credit

$1,160.37 - Order Total

 

I tried to purchase the Intel X25-M SSD from Buy.com but during the checkout process, they removed it from my cart and said it is not available. So I only could buy the RAM.

 

EDIT: Buy.com order canceled. They could not get the CC processed. Oh well, we will never know why it kept failing (re-typed everything 5 times during the course of the day...matched exactly what I typed in for NewEgg. Go figure)

 

This item was canceled at Buy.com and ordered via NewEgg.com as follows:

 

$339.99 - Corsair Core i7 XMS3 12GB

$0.00 - Shipping

--------------------

$339.99 - Order Total

 

Try as I may, I simply cannot acquire an ATI Radeon HD 5970. So instead, I went with the next model down which was available and grabbed the best deal I could find which was at TigerDirect.com as follows:

 

$429.00 - XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX Edition Video Card

$0.00 - Shipping

--------------------

$429.00 - Order Total

 

I wanted a better monitor than what I have and more than just one. So I did some research as to what would be a good fit for the video card I selected and went with my favorite monitor manufacturer...Samsung.

 

$379.98 - Samsung 2343BWX Monitor (qty=2)

$0.00 - Shipping

--------------------

$379.98 - Order Total

 

-----------------------------------------------

$2,309.34 - Grand Total (so far)

 

 

 

EDIT: 12/28/2009 - All items shipped. Seems that the case will arrive 1st since it has already made its way to Texas. The ram has not left TN and the rest of the items are in transit from CA. Can't wait to get this puppy up and running. I already have a Win7 image configured on a hard drive so I can skip the initial 15 minutes setting it up. :geek:

 

EDIT: 12/29/2009 - The Antec case arrived at my house (so I am told). All of the other components have arrived in Texas today so if the timeframe remains the same with these as they did with the case, I should have all the components by this time tomorrow and no later than Thursday.

 

EDIT: 12/30/2009 All PC parts have arrived but monitors still in route but that is no problem at all. It may be a couple of days before I can set aside some time away from the kiddos to build it.

LHammonds