Final build before purchase- Please review

fadetoback

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After looking at parts for over a week now, I've come up with this final build. The goal of the build is a gaming machine with upgrade possibilities down the road.

ASUS P7P55D PRO LGA 1156 Intel P55 Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Core i5 750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80605I5750 - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.259878


COOLER MASTER Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-GP 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders w/ Tech Guarantee - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116677

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231279

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

EVGA 896-P3-1170-AR GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130475

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

COOLER MASTER Storm Sniper SGC-6000-KKN1-GP Black ABS Bezel, SECC Body ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119194

Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD/CD Rewritable Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030


The RAM- Is what I've chosen going to be the best bang for the buck or should I bump it up to a higher grade? And if so, what would you reccomend?

The system will be purchased on Monday so any input on this would be appreciated.

 
You have a good build going there. You need to combo it up though so you can take the cost down.

Here, I'l give ya an example.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.259677 Combo Discount: -$10.00 Combo Price: $109.98
COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
COOLER MASTER Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-GP 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.259577.22-136-319 Combo Discount: -$10.00 Combo Price: $174.98 Free Shipping*
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Retail
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders w/ Tech Guarantee - OEM | Includes free Windows 7 upgrade coupon
 

psycho sykes

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Scout and sniper!! I didn't know :ange: that Cooler Master is involved in any military business :non: ?!! :lol:

@Why_Me Check your PM Inbox.

Medo
 


http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268619-33-radeon-5000-soon#t1977656

This is all I can find on ATI's Big Announcement.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_16036,00.html

Where's all the press on this big announcement ?

Here's one that made me chuckle.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268619-33-radeon-5000-soon#t1977656

Here's more vaporware pronouncements from the other side.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/8/28/nvidia-plans-gt300-demos-for-late-september.aspx
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/5/16/nvidia-g(t)300-already-taped-out2c-a1-silicon-in-santa-clara.aspx

This site always seems to be pretty sure of themselves and gives some detail on the ATI

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/9/2/ati-radeon-58502c-58702c-5870x2-pricing-revealed.aspx

The top dog carries the name Radeon HD 5870X2, and we are talking about single-PCB, dual-GPU card that will retail for cool $599. ....For some odd reason, the $499 bracket will remain without a card. We expect that slot will be filled with a water-cooled edition of 5870, or more likely - 5870X2 once that nVidia launches their competing products. Aforementioned Radeon HD 5870 is set to go on sale for $379-399, while the cheapest entry into the 5800 series, the Radeon HD 5850 is priced in the $279-299 bracket.

Interestingly enough, I got an e-mail from newegg today about my inquiry as to where the Asus 295 GTX went as its no longer available on their site. Their response was that until they get the 1st shipment of they can't estimate supply quantities. So.....is it....

a) The 295 GTX is truly dead and out of production
or
b) There's a beefed up 295 or lower priced 295 is in the works.

Odd thing to me is there was a big blow in the press about competing press events on the 10th and I haven't read a single article about what was announced either of them.

 

psycho sykes

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Yes, They said the Sep. 10th is going to be a press conference and it was!!
But what I'm talking about here is the initial release on Sep. 23rd, 2009 ~
They may be delayed a bit by third-party manufacturers to make quantities that will saturate the market demands.
The price is just a rumor and i can confirm nothing here!
Also it won't hurt him to postpone the GPU selection till 1st October, Will it?!!

Medo
 

fadetoback

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How are you judging quality ? Given that the Raptors have a 25% failure rate over on the reliability survey over at storagereview.com, I'd be hard pressed to say WD has anything to offer on quality over anyone else. Note that the No. 1 ranking on that site is held by a Seagate 15k rpm drive. Despite my own experience, which has had more WD's fail than all other brands combined, I'd be hard pressed to say this is an indicator of brand quality because with just 65 machines coming thru here, there's simply too small a number to make a statistically significant evaluation.

One of the things that parallels reliability is running temperature. You'll note here that the Black run 11 % hotter than the 7200. If we are to be concerned about CPU life being affected by temperature, this should be far more of a concern in a device w/ rotating bearings and other moving parts.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/Drive-Surface-Temperature,1016.html

In addition to being at the top of the temp charts w/ one of the lowest temperatures, the 7220 also tops the charts in the sound department. The Black's 46.7 is screaming compared to the 7200's 36.07 db at idle. WIth each 3 dB representinga doubling of sound pressure level, that puts the Black at 8 times louder. Numbers are 41.23 (7200) and 52.60 when under high I/O (almost 16 times louder).

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/Sound-Level,1033.html

Power consumption (under workstation I/O) is 5.19 watts for the 7200 and 8.89 for the black.

Personally, I do feel that Seagate's experience w/ hi speed 15k drives lets them take advantage of trickle down engineering improvements and as the market share leader they can take better advantage of economies of scale. However, this only minimally affects my purchasing decisions.

http://www.tomshardware.com/gallery/chart-hdd-market-shares,0101-156592-0----jpg-.html

The key for me now is that the makers of the two NAS's I have chose to stuff 4 Seagate HD's into the units. Perhaps the NAS manufacturer felt they were the better drive, perhaps they just liked the 5 year warranty or perhaps Seagate just gave them a better deal. But with those around, I always have a spare 7200 series or 2 on hand ready to go. Seagate also allows me to cross ship a failed drive though I last did that in 1999. WD would not let me cross ship and a replacement took 3 weeks to arrive.

But mostly, I'm a performance hound and unless another vendor can significantly top the Seagate's in performance, I gonna keep ordering them because with the NAS's there's always a spare one handy and if I do need a warranty replacement, it's quick and easy. Sure I might consider getting Velociraptors but I could get more than 3 times the storage in RAID 0 for only 2/3 the price of one of those (that's 20% of the price per GB for faster performance) and there's still the Raptor's reliability history in the storagereview.com database.

The WD Green is a worthy alternative with regard to running temps but it's bit slow in performance. My big bugaboo with the Black remains that it's sound level and power consumption are high and it's running temp is 11 degrees higher than the 7200's which, all things being equal, gives the 7200 an edge for life expectancy.

I'm using the 7200.12's cause I'm comfortable with them. They are low power, low noise drives that run very cool which all bode well for life expectancy. They sit at or near the top in all performance categories, I have spares lying around and the company is easy to work with if you have a problem.

Here's a THG poll which has the Seagates edging out WD by just 1.3 % Again, the fact that Seagate has a 1% lead is insignificant, the point is that the users here feel that both are comparable in quality and reliability.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/203178-32-which-reliable-hard-drive-brand

Which Hard Drive would you trust your data on?
41.0 % 125 votes Seagate
39.7 % 121 votes Western Digital
7.2 % 22 votes Maxtor
6.9 % 21 votes Hitachi
5.2 % 16 votes Samsung


Now I would like to close by saying I'm not trying to change your mind. Just want to make sure that you have had an opportunity to review all the information before you make a decision. If the source of your decision was an unsubstantiated forum post stating "these drives are crap" post, wanted to give you the links containing the information that would enable you to make your own decision.
 
oops .... only thing I could find on the F3 "in English" is that performance is on par w/ WD Black's...if that synopsis holds, nothing to get excited about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-22-152-185-_-Product

It seems more server oriented from the descriptions much like the F1. My guess is them that it will also shine in the same I/O and synthetic benchmarks as the F1 did. There's a German site which ya can throw in babelfish that seems to confirm this tho the F3 lags slightly behind the 1 TB F1 at max rate and slightly better in min. rate. Note that the F1, F3 and Black all beat the 7200.12 here. Then again, they beat the 7200.12 in 5-8 outta the 36 benchmarks on THG too.

http://www.pc-experience.de/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=29290

Drive / minimum read transfer rates / maximum read transfer rates

Samsung F3 HD502HJ 500GB 63.7 MT/seconds. 101.1 MT/seconds.
Samsung F2 HD502HI 500GB 57.3 MT/seconds. 98.9 MT/seconds.
Samsung F1 HD322HJ 320GB 60.6 MT/seconds. 99.3 MT/seconds.
Samsung F1 HD753LJ 750GB 59.7 MT/seconds. 98.6 MT/seconds.
Samsung F1 HD103UJ 1TB 61.8 MT/seconds. 102.8 MT/seconds.
Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB 57.7 MT/seconds. 92.4 MT/seconds.
Western Digital VeloCiraptor 300GB 85.8 MT/seconds. 124.3 MT/seconds.
Western Digital WD1500ADFD RWS gate 150GB 81.7 MT/seconds. 117.9 MT/seconds.
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 65.6 MT/seconds. 103.9 MT/seconds.

Guess we'll have to wait for someone to go application user, gamer oriented tests to really get a handle on it.
 

psycho sykes

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Yes, But I'm only talking about it because it should be theoretically faster because it uses the world's first single 1TB platter.... Also I can't confirm this because i can't find any more info nor reviews.. Hope someone else does..

@JackNaylorPE Check your PM Inbox.

Medo
 

psycho sykes

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^ Which 22" LG ??
Please link to it.
The specified GTX275 should handle 19*12 Just fine.
You can get a cheap 9600 GSO or HD4350 and wait for the HD5850 for the same price or even the GTX375 for like $249.99+ They say it'll be like:
512 SP.
1-2GB 512Bit GDDR5
Physics, CUDA, GPGPU (Rev.2), DX11-SM5.0, GL-CL 3.1

Medo