New i7 build, need input/help!

Hello Hello, This is my first post here and also my first pc build. Cannot wait to move up from my old pentium 4 to this monster!!! Anyways, i'm tryin to make a new computer w/ I7 processor for no more than $2000. Systems main use will be gaming/daily workhorse but also will use for photoshop pretty regularly.

Here's what i'm sure on:

1. Want a dual monitor setup. Already own Samsung SyncMaster T220 so need 1 more comparable screen.

2. Want to do lowlevel overclock of I7 920 to 3.2-3.6ghz.

3. Can spend up to $2000 but would love to cut it down w/o compromising performance if possible.

4. I am decently tech savvy but no expert, so i'd love to learn why you think i should change/upgrade/downgrade certain parts so's i can become skmarter!

.........now, onto the build! :bounce:

Cooler Master Storm Sniper $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119194

EVGA Geforce 295 $540
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130449

EVGA X58 Motherboard $270
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188046

Intel I7 920 $280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115202

BenQ 24" HDMI Monitor 1920x1200 $360
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824014173

Corsair 750W PSU $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006

OCZ Gold Ram 1600mhz 6 gigs $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227365

TWO WD Caviar Black 750GB HD setup in Raid1 $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136283

Saitek Keyboard $35
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6823175103

Samsung DVD optical drive $25
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151173

CoolerMaster V8 CPU Heatsink $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103055

Artic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound $7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835186020

Antistatic Wrist strap $4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6899261005

SUBTOTAL $2,133.85

Alllllrighty then....other items id like to include if affordable are....

BLURAY reader
OCZ Vertex SSD 60GB
Windows Vista 64bit(can install XP to save $ if needed)

That's about it. Thanks all in advance for your interest and kindness!

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Forgot to add that i'm gonna need TV tuner as i will have no regular TV for viewing. Looking at Hauppeburg pci-e 1x card for $100.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815116015

Reply to daidalas

Looks reasonable.

1) With 6gb, you will want a 64 bit os, otherwise you will see only half of it. To include tv capability, get vista home premium 64 bit. The included media center application has worked well for me.

2) The value of raid-1 for protecting data is that you can recover from a hard drive failure quickly.
It is for servers that can't afford any down time.
Recovery from a hard drive failure is just moments.
Fortunately hard drives do not fail often.
Mean time to failure is claimed to be on the order of 1,000,000 hours.(100 years)
Raid-1 does not protect you from other types of losses such as viruses,
software errors,raid controller failure, operator error, or fire...etc.
For that, you need EXTERNAL backup.
If you have external backup, and can afford some recovery time, then you don't need raid-1.

3) Today, many MLC SSD drives have a random short write performance issue. The intel X25-M seems to be the only one with a proven good controller.
I think that by the end of the year, things will get sorted out with new products. In the mean time, I can recommend the WD velociraptor as the best performing conventional hard drive available.

---good luck---

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to geofelt

you could get a 4870X2 and save $110. The 4870X2 will perform as good as the 295 in most games and you won't even notice a difference in photoshop at all

geofelt is right, your a lot better just getting a normal HDD like the WD 1Tb and an external drive for backup.

other than that the build looks great

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jjbtexas

geofelt wrote :

Looks reasonable.

1) With 6gb, you will want a 64 bit os, otherwise you will see only half of it. To include tv capability, get vista home premium 64 bit. The included media center application has worked well for me.

2) The value of raid-1 for protecting data is that you can recover from a hard drive failure quickly.
It is for servers that can't afford any down time.
Recovery from a hard drive failure is just moments.
Fortunately hard drives do not fail often.
Mean time to failure is claimed to be on the order of 1,000,000 hours.(100 years)
Raid-1 does not protect you from other types of losses such as viruses,
software errors,raid controller failure, operator error, or fire...etc.
For that, you need EXTERNAL backup.
If you have external backup, and can afford some recovery time, then you don't need raid-1.

3) Today, many MLC SSD drives have a random short write performance issue. The intel X25-M seems to be the only one with a proven good controller.
I think that by the end of the year, things will get sorted out with new products. In the mean time, I can recommend the WD velociraptor as the best performing conventional hard drive available.

---good luck---

Hi geofelt, thanks for the pointers, did not know i needed vista 64bit to take advantage of all 6gb of ram. also did not realize raid1 wasnt good backup option. think i will use external drive to backup as u recommend and get 1 velociraptor for putting on os/games.

Reply to daidalas

jjbtexas wrote :

you could get a 4870X2 and save $110. The 4870X2 will perform as good as the 295 in most games and you won't even notice a difference in photoshop at all

geofelt is right, your a lot better just getting a normal HDD like the WD 1Tb and an external drive for backup.

other than that the build looks great

hey, i read somewhere that 4870x2 isnt as good as gt295, but if its close to as good i could use the xtra 110 for other parts! thanks! will do a bit more research.

Reply to daidalas

you are right it is not as good but the 295 is not worth the extra $110 in my opinion. Also, look up the games you want to play, the 4870X2 wins out in FEARD and Mass Effect but will lose against others. i personally dont think it is worth the money but definitely do some research

Reply to jjbtexas

+1 for 4870x2

and here is a good monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] Tpk=t240hd

350 = ur monitor 360 + 100 for TV (aint i a santa calse ) u save 110dollars

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6823109069

here's 20 dollars more, Microsoft x6 is by far the most superior keyboard on market beside g19

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820148245

saving money on ram will help u for a blu - ray 1080p is definitely worth it. Stay on xp and wait for windows 7

here is a blu-ray, i bought one as well

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136137

BTW heres gaming mouse for ur monster, whats the point for gaming when you have a monster but not the tools to optimize it !!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6826153007

hope u like my advices, 4870x2 does blu-ray better than GTX295 and gaming mouse + keyboard are definitely worth it. Blu-ray is the future get it! 3 gigs of ram vs 6 gigs only has 10 percent gaming difference, and u must thank me for saving 110 dollars for tv turner and monitor

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to rescawen

+1 for the monitor, my only other note is that is a blu-ray burner and if you dont need one of those right now you can just get a reader for $90 or so. Also don't get an OEM BD Drive right now because you will have to pay more money for a software to play the disc. just get retail which should come with the software.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jjbtexas

rescawen wrote :

+1 for 4870x2

and here is a good monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] Tpk=t240hd

350 = ur monitor 360 + 100 for TV (aint i a santa calse ) u save 110dollars

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6823109069

here's 20 dollars more, Microsoft x6 is by far the most superior keyboard on market beside g19

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820148245

saving money on ram will help u for a blu - ray 1080p is definitely worth it. Stay on xp and wait for windows 7

here is a blu-ray, i bought one as well

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136137

BTW heres gaming mouse for ur monster, whats the point for gaming when you have a monster but not the tools to optimize it !!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6826153007

hope u like my advices, 4870x2 does blu-ray better than GTX295 and gaming mouse + keyboard are definitely worth it. Blu-ray is the future get it! 3 gigs of ram vs 6 gigs only has 10 percent gaming difference, and u must thank me for saving 110 dollars for tv turner and monitor

thankyouthankyouthankyou! Love the monitor idea, it matches one i already have and saves $, yeahhhh! like keyboard and mouse idea too, think im gonna get the following changes now.

ASUS 6x blue ray drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135188

Microsoft x6 keyboard
Razer Lachesis mouse

Saphire 4870 x2 gpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102768

Samsung monitor w/ tv tuner (w00t!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] Tpk=t240hd

should come out about even w/ earlier post and have pro gamer mouse+tvtuner included+bluray reader included!

Reply to daidalas

jjbtexas wrote :

+1 for the monitor, my only other note is that is a blu-ray burner and if you dont need one of those right now you can just get a reader for $90 or so. Also don't get an OEM BD Drive right now because you will have to pay more money for a software to play the disc. just get retail which should come with the software.

thx didnt know i needed retail bluray. its only $20 more so gonna upgrade!

Reply to daidalas

Instead of an expensive velociraptor drive you could raid 0 two caviar black drives for better performance and more storage for less money. And for permanent backup storage of important files its hard to beat DVD-Rs for the price. You can get a spindle of 100 for $15 - $20 bucks on sale at the big box stores, each disc is 4.5GB of storage, so thats 450gb of storage for $20...and you never have to worry about any failure, once its on there you got it forever.

Reply to belial2k

+1 for RAID 0. i would RAID 0 2 WD Black 640 for an extra 280gb

Reply to jjbtexas

any advantage to raid 0 2 wd black 640gb vs 2 wd black 1tb? newegg has black 1tb's for $100 this weekend

Reply to daidalas

There is generally no real world(vs. synthetic transfer rate benchmarks) performance advantage to raid of any kind.
Go to www.storagereview.com at this link: http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki- [...] iveVsRaid0
There are some specific applications that will benefit, but
gaming is not one of them. Even if you have an application which reads one input file sequentially, and writes
it out, you will perform about as well by putting the input on one drive, and the output on the other.

While there, check out their performance database, and see how the velociraptor compares in the benchmarks that apply to you.

Message edited by geofelt on 03-29-2009 at 10:14:45 PM

Reply to geofelt

Geofelt, i'm gonna go with the two 1tb caviar black's and leave them as they be. thx for the link on raid0 very interesting.

got another question...
will my copy of photoshop cs3 and adobe bridge cs3 for windows xp work in 64bit vista? if not think i may wanna keep xp since software is sooo expensive.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by daidalas on 03-29-2009 at 10:20:18 PM

Reply to daidalas

do u really need 2000gb of space? if ur worried about the price of the OS just drop one of the TB's and get 64-bit home premium.

Reply to jjbtexas

daidalas wrote :

Geofelt, i'm gonna go with the two 1tb caviar black's and leave them as they be. thx for the link on raid0 very interesting.

got another question...
will my copy of photoshop cs3 and adobe bridge cs3 for windows xp work in 64bit vista? if not think i may wanna keep xp since software is sooo expensive.

I am no expert on those particular products, but the only type of programs that do not run in 64 bit vista are old dos based 16 bit programs, and some utilities that fiddle with protected parts of XP.

There may be some versions that can take advantage of the full 64 bit addressing space, but what you have should work as well, or better.

Good deal on those WD 1tb drives!

Reply to geofelt

good idea, no i dont think i need all that space. currently have 400gb of stuff and im sure it will be a while before i get up to more than 1tb.

current build is @ Subtotal: $2,221.34
-70 after MIR

think i can get another 30 or so off w/ combo deals too though

Reply to daidalas

I don't want to start an argument over raid 0 performance, but this chart has all the data you could ever want on the subject. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] rks,9.html

It clearly shows performance boost gained in all areas by raid 0, including doubling performance over one disc setups. It is not the best solution for servers or other areas that need total redundancy, but it is far superior from a performance aspect.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to belial2k

belial2k wrote :

I don't want to start an argument over raid 0 performance, but this chart has all the data you could ever want on the subject. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] rks,9.html

It clearly shows performance boost gained in all areas by raid 0, including doubling performance over one disc setups. It is not the best solution for servers or other areas that need total redundancy, but it is far superior from a performance aspect.

My caveat in suggesting that raid-0 may be disappointing is excluding synthetic benchmarks, which the link refers to. The problem is that in real desktop applications, lots of unpredictable stuff is going on. That increases the positioning penalty that raid-0 has, negating the data transfer benefit of two concurrent i/o operations.

Reply to geofelt

I understand, and agree real world does not follow synthetics perfectly, but that can be said about any measurement or piece of hardware. There are too many factors on an individual system for specs to bet met perfectly, but it does give us a nice starting point. As I said, I don't want to hijack this thread, but many of my customers swear by raid 0, and my point was for the price of a velociraptor there are cheaper raid alternatives that offer great performance and more storage. Even an antique 5200rpm 8mb cache drive won't often bottleneck a computer while running most apps, but since we can now get great performance for low prices on better drives I never recommend one of those to my customers. On the opposite end is SSD...sure you can get blazing fast boot times, but are they really worth the additional price for most people? I was only referring to his decision on possibly getting a velociraptor...price, performance, and storage capability would lead me to recommend a raid 0 with DVD for backup redundancy at the price point he is trying to reach.

Reply to belial2k

just crunched some numbers, and i'm leaning torward getting a 4870 instead of the 4870 x2 so's i can afford to get a good second monitor. will this seriously affect gaming and multi-monitor multitasking performance???

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to daidalas

what resolutions will you be running? the 4850x2 might be a good compromise between the two and is currently in the $270 range

Reply to belial2k

monitor 1(Samsung T220)@ 1680 x 1050, monitor 2 (Samsung T240HD)@ 1920x1200

Reply to daidalas

daidalas wrote :

just crunched some numbers, and i'm leaning torward getting a 4870 instead of the 4870 x2 so's i can afford to get a good second monitor. will this seriously affect gaming and multi-monitor multitasking performance???

A second monitor is one of the most useful and satisfying additions. I like the idea.
Games are usually directed to the main monitor, so there is little effect on performance.

On a 4870, look for a unit with a good double slot cooler. It will send all of the hot vga air out the back of the case, instead of letting all or some of it recirculate--heating up both the vga card and the cpu. You may have to pay more for a good stock cooler. Some double slot cards do only a partial job.
Here is a good example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161264

Alternatively, consider a GTX260-216. The stock coolers on most of them really are superior. The card is about equal in performance to a 4870.
Here is a good example from EVGA at the same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130433

Either card will be a good value, and give you satisfying performance.

Reply to geofelt

at 1920 x 1200 you might have to lower details in some games with the 4870 or 260, but should run most just fine, whereas the 4850x2 should run everything with high detail with no problems. If you go with a single 4870 or 260, you can always crossfire or sli in the future if you decide you need to upgrade.

Reply to belial2k

just a thought if you can support it logistically, if you have a decent tv you can use it as your second monitor, especially if you plan on using your computer as part of a media center. Route all your desktop apps through your normal desktop monitor, and send games, movies, ect to the larger tv. All the cards that have been mentioned will support tv out through d-sub or one of the dvi outs.

Reply to belial2k

4850X2 is the way to go unless you think you will crossfire later then i would go with a 4870

Reply to jjbtexas

think i'm gonna up my psu to a corsiar 850w, get a evga gtx 260 216 overclocked cause it comes with call of duty, and sli later if i need to. thanks everybody for your help! ill be sure to post back with pics/report once the comp is done. planning on ordering early next week.

Reply to daidalas

Reply to daidalas

i love how you went from a 295 to a 260 but i think in the end its best. what is your total at now?

Reply to jjbtexas

WOW you are quick to answer. are you psychic or something?

also with that extra $80 you might just order some more case fans or BD discs or something

Message edited by jjbtexas on 03-30-2009 at 05:52:39 AM

Reply to jjbtexas

yes jjbtexas, i am, but only when it comes to computer hardware =D

Reply to daidalas

hardware psychic ehh? when is ATI coming out with its HD5000 series then? :lol:

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jjbtexas

jjbtexas wrote :

hardware psychic ehh? when is ATI coming out with its HD5000 series then? :lol:

hmmm.....good question....... :sweat:
my inner fung shueie seems to be saying that they shall be available when.....
nvidia releases their 10000 series :kaola:

Reply to daidalas

darn you

Reply to jjbtexas

wait for 4890 or GTX275 and get one, also get xfire or sli later on

Reply to rescawen

the 275 wont ever happen IMO. The 285 will just drop in price and they already have the GTS250

Reply to jjbtexas

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/G [...] ,7421.html

but hey i could be wrong

Reply to jjbtexas

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New i7 build, need input/help!

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