First build, what do you think????

[bryan240g]

I am researching components for my first build next month, please share your thoughts. This will be a pure gaming machine, run on air for awhile then I will give watercooling a try later on. Oh and I am not too concerned with prices, but will probably spend around $2000+ on this build. My only concern is that I am buying top notch components, and they all play well together.

Case: SILVERSTONE SST-TJ07-BW Black
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163067

Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower W0155RU ATX12V / EPS12V 1000W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153056

Mobo: EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 ATX Intel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188025

CPU: Undecided, deffinitely a 45nm cpu, either a quad, or dual core, like I said undecided. It WILL be OC'ed, on air for starters, then water later on.

Memory: Uncertain, suggestions welcome, but it must be DDR3 as that is what the mobo excepts.

CPU cooler: ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

Graphics Cards: (2) EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card I ALREADY OWN THESE!!!! Running in SLI

Case fans: Undecided, but I need 4 120mm fans, I want good ones, and as quiet as possible.

HDD: (2) WD Raptors 10,000 RPM, running in Raid 0

That's it for now guys, share your thoughts please.

 

[dagger]

Nice system. You're so rich, I'm jealous...

Everything looks nice and high end, except 2 GB just won't be enough. Not sure if you play games, but Crysis alone will eat up 2+ GB, imagine what future games will do. Then the OS, especially Vista, hogs ram too, not to mention programs that may be running in the background = death by a thousand cuts. Once ram rans out and your system digs into page file, it'll lag down everything. Remember, even the fastest SCSI harddrives are far slower than the slowest ram. Your 10,000rpm drives won't help much. It's better to get cheaper, slower ram of the right amount, than not enough expensive fast ram. New high end PCs today should have at least 4GB, ideally 8GB.

Also, if you have money to burn, why not get 2 45nm Harpertown quad core Xeon processors on Skulltrail server board for an OctoCore solution? It's not that much more expensive, especially if you drop the unnecessary parts like the 1000watt powersupply.

 

[gondo]

The case is overkill but it's a good case nonetheless.

I don't like hte Thermaltake PSU. I'd go for an Antec TruePower Quattro.

CPU, try an E8xxx series. Unless you want quad core.

Why only 2GB of RAM? I'd go 2x2GB for 4GB total. The prices are very good on RAM now.

The Zalman cooler is no longer the best like it used to be. There is better out there for better prices. Check Frostytech.com for reviews and choose for yourself.

Graphics cards you already own so all the power to you.

Why 2 Raptor drives? Consider 1 Raptor drive as a primary for your OS and programs for speed. Get 2 if you really wanna scream in RAID. But you need a backup drive. A Seagate 500GB or 750GB.

Oh yeah the motherboard. I love Abit and use them exclusively. But at least you didn't go for Asus . Honestly I never used EVGA boards.

 

[bryan240g]

Actually I am not rich, but electronics are something that I do not skimp on. I am a firm believer that you get what you pay for. Thanks for your input, I still have a month or two until the tax refunds come in, so until then I will keep researching.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

This gets covered at least once a day but in this day and age, the RAID 0 Raptor's only shine in two areas:

a) Boot time
b) huge numbers of database access of small files.

1. The Raptor's are in the 12th percentile in storagereview.com's reliability survey.....that means 88% off all drives have show themselves to be more reliable than the Raptor.

2. A single Samsung F1 (or a Seagate 7200.11) will be faster in gaming than RAID 0 Raptors. Look at the Samsung review on the TH site and the RAID 0 article on storagereview.com Both are linked here on the forums at least once a day. The RAID article showed a game benchmark increase from 519 with one drive to 529 with two drives in RAID 0.

If, as was suggested, you are considering the Antec PSU, consider this:

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=81900

For the cooler, TH's review points to the Thermalright IFX 14 w/ scythe fan.

The fastest DDR3 RAM is gonna cost ya about $110 - $225 / GB

(2 x 2 GB sets below)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145198
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227286

(2 x 1 GB)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145187

And I'd dual boot XP / Vista since the 2nd OS is free and you may find use for the extra framerates.
http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2007/09/24/downgrade-your-vista-to-xp/

 

[spencercpu1983]

I don't like the Thermaltake or the Antec TruePower Quattro.
If you really need 1000 Watts and don't want modular cabling. I would look at these.

SILVERSTONE OP1000 ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V 1000W Power Supply - Retail $269.99 + free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256010

or if you want the best

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR EPS12V 1000W Continuous @ 50°C $459.99 + shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703007

 

[lunyone]

Like your budget, but where is the monitor? This item can/will decide how much GPU power you really need. If you have LCD w/1440x900 resolution than SLI/Xfire anything will be a waste. This will also be the case with the PSU, since your looking at 1kw of PSU. Most SLI/Xfire rigs will only need around 500-600w of power, so not sure why you want to waste your $ on that much overkill. I'd probably go with a Corsair hx620w/tx650w, PCP&C 750w Quad or something like that for a SLI setup. So if you could let us know what monitor your going to be using, we can tailor your requirements to better suit your needs.

 

[bryan240g]

i have the gateway fhd2400 24", and i want to run everythig at native res.

 

[spencercpu1983]

The Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz is available at newegg for only $299.99 and free shipping but probably will sell out soon.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115040

The Q9300 is only about 7% faster (overall performance) than the Q6600 because it only has 6mb cache.
The Q9450 should be available soon and has twice the cache (12mb) and runs at 2.66Ghz stock so it might be worth the wait.