Croc's new i7 build

croc

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Currently I have a 939 DFI lp ut sli dr expert, with an Opty 175, 4 GB ddr RAM, a creative Audigy 2 sound card, and a gigabyte hd4850 GPU. Two older DVD drives, (IDE) floppy drive, and a 150 GB velociraptor along with a seagate 320GB 7200.10 drives are the drives. I'm using an Antec neo he550 for my PSU.

Overall a good system, but a little old... 4 years or so, and a little slow.

My proposed build would be along these lines...

MB, GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R X58, newegg, 199 USD, 339 AUD inc GST, 339 (in stock @ itestate.com.au)
CPU, core i7 920, newegg, 289 USD, 490 AUD inc GST, 459 (in stock @ itestate.com.au)
RAM, Patriot PVT36g1600elk ddr3 1600 3x2GB, newegg, 175 USD, 300 AUD inc. GST, 239 (in stock @ itestate.com.au)
HSF, Thermalright 120 extreme 1366,(? about 120 AUD)
GPU, Gigabyte 4870 1gb, newegg, 259 USD, 439 AUD inc. GST, 460 (in stock @ HBOutlet.com.au).

Total, 1617 AUD ex shipping.

(Interesting to find we Aussies aren't getting raped too bad these days...)

Anyway, will my neo he550 work with this proposed setup? It has the horsepower, but how about the connectors? I've never even seen a 1366 MB, nor a 4870 1GB GPU

Any creative suggestions on the build overall would also be welcome

Thanks,

Croc

PS: all AUD prices were located via staticice.com.au, just turned out that itestate.com.au were lowest price or near so for many of the items and I've done some business with them before.




 

croc

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The HD 4870 needs two PCI-E connectors with 6 pins each, and that's exactly what the NeoHe 550W has.

If you want to do Crossfire later get a Corsair 750W or PC Power & Cooling 750W, those have the juice and the 4 connectors you'd need.
 
I have the Sapphire toxic edition 512MB of that card, which is slightly different but the same basic setup, just overclocked and more software.

I can set my fan to 34% in Catalyst Control Center, at which point it blends in with my case fans and CPU fan at around 30db. That's very quiet for a card this beefy. Even at that fan speed, the GPU temp never gets past 60C under load. It's rated for well over 100C, as I recall.
 

croc

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What I ended up ordering...

HSF, Noctua NH-U12P SE1366
RAM, 6GB patriot 1600MHz
MB, Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R
CPU, i7-920
GPU, Sapphire 4870 1GB
PSU, Seasonic m12 super-silent 700W

Added the PSU after Proximon's comments prompted a wee search for reviews. My Antec Neo 550 is an older design, ineffecient, and some reviews suggest that its output is overly ripply, drifts a bit close to the limits, etc. Plenty of power for my current system, but Prox.'s right...

Also looked at the Anandtech review on dual GPUs...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517

Interesting read, almost made me switch GPUs to an HD4850 x2 2GB - then I checked the price. More than 100AUD difference.

edited for typo