New i7 build, need input/help!

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

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:

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

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/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116015

geofelt · Mar 29, 2009

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---

jjbtexas · Mar 29, 2009

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

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

geofelt :

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.

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

jjbtexas :

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.

jjbtexas · Mar 29, 2009

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

rescawen · Mar 29, 2009

+1 for 4870x2

and here is a good monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001280&Tpk=t240hd

350 = ur monitor 360 + 100 for TV (aint i a santa calse

) u save 110dollars

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109069

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

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148245

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/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136137

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/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826153007

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

jjbtexas · Mar 29, 2009

+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.

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

rescawen :

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/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135188

Microsoft x6 keyboard
Razer Lachesis mouse

Saphire 4870 x2 gpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102768

Samsung monitor w/ tv tuner (w00t!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001280&Tpk=t240hd

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

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

jjbtexas :

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

belial2k · Mar 29, 2009

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.

jjbtexas · Mar 29, 2009

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

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

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

geofelt · Mar 29, 2009

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-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0
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.

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

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.

jjbtexas · Mar 29, 2009

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.

geofelt · Mar 29, 2009

daidalas :

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!

daidalas · Mar 29, 2009

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

belial2k · Mar 30, 2009

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/raid-matrix-charts/benchmarks,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.

geofelt · Mar 30, 2009

belial2k :

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.

belial2k · Mar 30, 2009

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.

daidalas · Mar 30, 2009

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???

belial2k · Mar 30, 2009

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

daidalas · Mar 30, 2009

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

New i7 build, need input/help!

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