Planning on a build in December

[Pronam]

Ok, this is what I'm thinking might work. Not sure on the power requirement and voltage stuff, but think everything is compatable.

 

Windows 7 64 bit OEM (although 32 bit supposedly is more stable, 32 bit doesn't support more than 4gb of RAM, and I don't want to be giving microsoft more money than I need to).

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16832116754

 

 

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDZ955FBGIBOX - Retail

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16819103674

 

 

ASUS M4A77TD Pro AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16813131397

 

 

SAPPHIRE 100269HDMI Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16814102852

 

 

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C8D3K2/4GX - Retail

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16820104141

 

 

Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE ... - Retail

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16817371025

 

 

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16822152100

 

Which comes to roughly $960 before shipping. That's powersupply, motherboard, processor, RAM, OS, hard drive, videocard.

 

I'm planning on using my existing case, one of my seta hard drives, and a IDE dvd rom drive. Although my keyboard doesn't use a USB connection, my mouse does, so should be compatible. The videocard comes with VGA adaptors. My floppy drive isn't used much anyway, so can be retired.

 

Is there anything I'm missing, or any less than obvious issues with the choices?

 

I decided to go with ATI afterall since there didn't seem to be a good SLI capable board that worked with all the other components. The reality is that I would likely only ever be using a single card setup so this is really just making sure the board supports the card. With that motherboard, I can install it in the bottom (black (doesn't show too well)) slot without anything in the top (blue) slot if space is an issue right?

Indeed, it looks good. (copied it, as my post put another page in.)

[Illiad86]

no no do NOT put the graphics card in the black slot. The black slot is PCI-E x4 The blue one is the x16. The x4 slot is for Crossfire and I don't believe you can put a card in there by itself.

 

The card should fit in there just fine I believe....what is your case?? 4890s are a little beefy.

 

Other than that, you got a nice setup there :)

[Thor.]

Yea you can put a single card in the crossfire slot. It wont be in crossfire, that would be disabled. Acts like a standard 16x pci slot.

 

especially good if your plannning in going crossfire, also saves you some time in removing the card, dont have to.

[spammster]

you may wanna have a look at this one though (given its a bit outdated since the latest ATI card listed is the 4870X2) but it shows which cards work together (especially the newer ones don't require to be exactly the same model (though it is advised)

 

http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/charts.html

[Vagrant0]

Counting the days... Having to go though re-selecting some of the hardware.

 

Had a question about getting the most out of my harddrives.

 

I was planning to go with a single harddrive, but if I can afford it, I was thinking of using a 2 drive system like I currently have. By 2 drive system I mean that I have my OS and main programs on one drive, and my games, pagefile and main storage on the other drive. The advantage I've noticed with this is that it allows me to reformat my system without having to start over from scratch(IE: I only need to format one drive and can use the other for storing documents, updates, and essentials).

 

Basically, my questions are:

 

If I have to go with a drive with a smaller cache (say 16mb) on my system drive (due to being a smaller drive) would I make up for it by putting my pagefile and most non-system data on a drive with a higher cache (32mb)?

 

If I go with a single drive (7200 rpm 32mb cache), and make a partition to act as the second "data" drive, would things be faster than if I had used two drives as above, even though it's essentially one drive doing all the work?

 

In short... one of

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148337

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148395 system

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148445 data

 

Ignoring the obvious differences in price and storage space. Naturally, having 2 of the same 32mb cache drives would likely be the best option, but I'm asking this more for a matter of figuring out how important the differences in cache are as well as how they would be used. Not planning to use those choices, chose manufacturer purely because it had the options which relate to my questions.

 

Since my last post I have already purchased an external swappable 320gb 16mb cache drive and enclosure for file storage (prebuild backup), so storage space isn't really an issue.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Vagrant0

[WaLkAwaY]

I do not know if anyone covered this and if they disagree to each their own but here are a few little things I go by when doing a system. I buy the stuff and I have my friends build it while I help. I also have an unlimited income for computer parts, I am only mentioning this because as you will see I do not go for the 1200$ video cards and such or the most expensive computer I can build.

 

1. Stay away from overclocking. I don't care what anyone says about "it should be safe" every system is different in every environment. What may work fine in someones house that is 78 degrees all the time will not work in someones house that is 85. Besides do you really wan to spend 1000$ on something only to have it get damaged? Finally overclocking video cards even carefully in incriments... when you look at the video cards and you see the 9800gt, the 9800gtoc and such... remember the chip is the same. What they do is they take the chip over what it is rated until it fails and they then clock it down under that fail rate. So essentially if a chip can handle being overclocked they do it at the manufacturer and call it a 9800gtoc or XX whatever. It is the same chip though. If someone on here says differently I would want them to show me proof and not from a Wiki or Wikipedia it would have to be a reliable source. And if I am wrong I will admit it. My info comes from research and friends. It might work fine for a while but time will show you differently. And your stuff will last longer without the extra burden and heat.

 

2. I always get a nice, reliable, high end power supply. At least 1000w.

 

3. SLI... Everyone might say SLI is the way to go. That just might be because just the fact of being able to say I have two 2GB video cards in my system and it rocks. Honestly... Yes when you get up that high it may make a difference and I am sure it does in some games. Plus having 4 monitors would be awesome.... it would be even more awesome if most games could utilize even two. From a tech-no geek standpoint SLI is great just for bragging rights. Everyone I have ever talked to including myself (i talk to myself) has only had headaches with SLI and the headaches far outweigh any benefit you get for having SLI. Things that go wrong; Drivers, O/S support, software and games... the list goes on. Finally the number one drawback of SLI is space. Those cards take up a lot of space I have an ASUS A8n32sli deluxe MB with three open slots for other cards. While it was SLI I could only safely use one other slot, if I tried to use the other slots the cards were right up against the fans of the gcard and caused heating issues. Those big XXXXOC cards have some serious fans on them for a reason.

 

4. HDD while it would be ideal to get 1TB Raptors do you really need to transfer stuff that fast? I have found what works for me is have 3 -5 five 1TB drives and naming one drive Games and using that only for games and patches and updates and such. One drive for your system and O/S stuff and one drive for storage. Or whatever configuration you want.

 

5. DVD/CD RW drives are cheap just if you can get a new one. Unless you have been immaculate about it's cleaning.

 

6. Memory go as high as possible within your budget sometimes the fastest is not the best look at cas/latency

 

7. Proc. again sometimes the fastest is not really the fastest. I went with a slower processor that had higher l1 and l2 cache than the faster processor and was cheaper and it out performed that faster proc.

 

Those are my little tidbits for system buying that have never steered me wrong. Just my opinion. And I just use it for me so everyone is different.

 

Final note DO NOT OVERCLOCK YOUR HARD EARNED EXPENSIVE SYSTEM!

[Vagrant0]

4. HDD while it would be ideal to get 1TB Raptors do you really need to transfer stuff that fast? I have found what works for me is have 3 -5 five 1TB drives and naming one drive Games and using that only for games and patches and updates and such. One drive for your system and O/S stuff and one drive for storage. Or whatever configuration you want.

The question really isn't related to file transfers, but all around system speed. Mostly just trying to avoid any future potential bottlenecks and seeing what options are best. My knowledge of how partitions are utilized within the seek/read/write times is a bit limited, as is how the fullness of a drive impacts this. Kinda looking for a big technical looking answer here.

 

Thanks for the input, but most of that stuff is things which I have been putting into practice for awhile now.

[WaLkAwaY]

4. HDD while it would be ideal to get 1TB Raptors do you really need to transfer stuff that fast? I have found what works for me is have 3 -5 five 1TB drives and naming one drive Games and using that only for games and patches and updates and such. One drive for your system and O/S stuff and one drive for storage. Or whatever configuration you want.

The question really isn't related to file transfers, but all around system speed. Mostly just trying to avoid any future potential bottlenecks and seeing what options are best. My knowledge of how partitions are utilized within the seek/read/write times is a bit limited, as is how the fullness of a drive impacts this. Kinda looking for a big technical looking answer here.

 

Thanks for the input, but most of that stuff is things which I have been putting into practice for awhile now.

 

Ok cool, you are welcome. The only people I know that would be able to answer those questions would be a couple of people from SWAT. You can join the Ventrillo server and ask for BigBear or CDN. But you will probably wait for an answer here. Just thought I would offer though.

[Illiad86]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/unders...mance,1557.html

 

this is a good article explaining HDDs :)

[Vagrant0]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/unders...mance,1557.html

 

this is a good article explaining HDDs :)

Interesting, but doesn't make much sense. Why would the 8mb cache drives out perform the 16mb drives in nearly every test? Is this just an aspect with seagate drives? Seems kinda contrary to what should be happening if I understand it.