I've been in the Market for a new Machine, but decided I'd have more fun to build my own. I did this once before and liked the result...until I slowly canibalized that machine to build a few others. My current rig is a pure budget machine, so I'm looking to go higher end, primarily a speed machine to do some video editing, and some gaming.
I spent the last 4 weeks researching, and I think I came up with how I'm going to spend my summer. Before I pull the trigger, I'd like your opinion.
Case: ThermalTake Armor VA8003BWS Black w/ 25cm Side fan.
This thing has some incredible air moving options with the addition of pre-drilled holes for liquid cooling options in the future. Case is huge, but that allows for alot of future growth and room to play around.
CPU: Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo. I know that the price/performance to the E8400 is a little out of whack, but I'm going to OC..so I'd like to start with the fastest 45nm stock I can find.
Video: EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video. Best rated all around. Not too familar with Video Cards, btu I think this one has all the "must haves"
MB: ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard: Great OC capability, supports the faster chipsets. Built in RAID options.
Hard Drives: (2) Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive setup as RAID 0. Alot of pros and cons with setting up RAID. All my personal data will be backed up to network storage, so I don't have much concern about failure. I'm trying to squeek out some extra performance by using the RAID options.
Memory: OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory. Great latency, good reviews. and options to expand RAM by using only 2 slots
Heat Sink: Thermalright IFX-14 CPU Heatsink. Old roommate has one. Ugly as all heck, but if you have the right amount of airflow (which I will with about 5 fans) it performs like a champ.
I'll use existing keyboards/monitors/Powersupplys/etc. I have tons of them around from previous experiments.
I'm leaning this rig towards speed on some full load benchmarks over pure gaming. But have also designed for faster disk response.
Beefstew!
I spent the last 4 weeks researching, and I think I came up with how I'm going to spend my summer. Before I pull the trigger, I'd like your opinion.
Case: ThermalTake Armor VA8003BWS Black w/ 25cm Side fan.
This thing has some incredible air moving options with the addition of pre-drilled holes for liquid cooling options in the future. Case is huge, but that allows for alot of future growth and room to play around.
CPU: Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo. I know that the price/performance to the E8400 is a little out of whack, but I'm going to OC..so I'd like to start with the fastest 45nm stock I can find.
Video: EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video. Best rated all around. Not too familar with Video Cards, btu I think this one has all the "must haves"
MB: ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard: Great OC capability, supports the faster chipsets. Built in RAID options.
Hard Drives: (2) Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive setup as RAID 0. Alot of pros and cons with setting up RAID. All my personal data will be backed up to network storage, so I don't have much concern about failure. I'm trying to squeek out some extra performance by using the RAID options.
Memory: OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory. Great latency, good reviews. and options to expand RAM by using only 2 slots
Heat Sink: Thermalright IFX-14 CPU Heatsink. Old roommate has one. Ugly as all heck, but if you have the right amount of airflow (which I will with about 5 fans) it performs like a champ.
I'll use existing keyboards/monitors/Powersupplys/etc. I have tons of them around from previous experiments.
I'm leaning this rig towards speed on some full load benchmarks over pure gaming. But have also designed for faster disk response.
Beefstew!