Extreme Gaming PC

[jdkean1]

I want to build a really nice gaming pc with the latest and greatest components possible, on a $4500 budget. I haven't been reading up on all the latest components, so I would like some advice on which components are the best to go with on that budget. Any help will be really appreciated. Thanks.

 

[daggs]

please you the sticky format

 

[megamanx00]

Take a look at this first

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-new-pc,2497.html

Now replace the motherboard/CPU/and RAM with an X58 board, I7 920, and a triple channel memory kit. If you have a bigger budget then perhaps you can step up the video card assembly to two Radeon 5970s.

 

[Alvin Smith]

Take a look at this first

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-new-pc,2497.html

Now replace the motherboard/CPU/and RAM with an X58 board, I7 920, and a triple channel memory kit. If you have a bigger budget then perhaps you can step up the video card assembly to two Radeon 5970s.

And here are better storage options that will help significantly (as storage is the GREATEST BOTTLENECK in any sysem.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=velociraptor&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233085

=Al =

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Actually the 2TB WD Black drives are faster than the VelociRaptor drives. In fact, any current 7200RPM drive with 500GB/platter density is faster than a VelociRaptor. The VelociRaptor drives are a huge waste of money and don't get you any better performance than drives that cost much less. Here's a $55 drive that outperforms VelociRaptor's.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive $54.99

I do agree that a SSD would be a good choice, but I would get an Intel drive instead of Corsair.

 

[Alvin Smith]

In all respects? Latency too? Spin up too ? (time to "auto-first-seek")

I can see sustained xfer rates being higher.

I don't want to start a debate, here, and I am sure you do not either but I will say this is (good) "news to me". If you can dig the benchmark link out of your handy archive, I would appreciate the spoon-feed. Otherwise, I will verify "all that" for myself, in time. I just remember how noticable the diff was, when I first installed.

I also heard there will be a SATA3 600GB vRap out this fall and it will be more dense.

I am perfectly willing to pay less for so much more. I just want to get the whole story before I stop hawking them, here and elsewhere. I expect you are prolly totally correct, tho. (latency too? really? shoot me a link!)

=thanks=

 

[coldsleep]

There are, in fact, some measures that the VRs win at.

All THG 3.5" disk benchmarks. The VRs do own read and write access time benchmarks, as well as a few others. The 500 GB platter disks, however, do better on the streaming reads/writes and on most of the throughput benchmarks. Once you start looking at the application-type-specific (PCMark) benchmarks, the 500 GB platter drives tend to be at or near the top. This means that for the majority of home users, there's no point in paying that much more for a smaller drive that isn't significantly faster.

The 500 GB platter drives also tend to be quieter, cooler, and use less power than the VRs. (Unless I'm mixing up which VR models are current or something.)

There is a tendency on this forum to confuse "best (no qualifiers)" with "best value" or "best price/performance".

 

[Alvin Smith]

There are, in fact, some measures that the VRs win at.

All THG 3.5" disk benchmarks. The VRs do own read and write access time benchmarks, as well as a few others. The 500 GB platter disks, however, do better on the streaming reads/writes and on most of the throughput benchmarks. Once you start looking at the application-type-specific (PCMark) benchmarks, the 500 GB platter drives tend to be at or near the top. This means that for the majority of home users, there's no point in paying that much more for a smaller drive that isn't significantly faster.

The 500 GB platter drives also tend to be quieter, cooler, and use less power than the VRs. (Unless I'm mixing up which VR models are current or something.)

There is a tendency on this forum to confuse "best (no qualifiers)" with "best value" or "best price/performance".

***********************************************************

Thank you so very much for this useful information, and without thae hostile (and quite pajorative) tone, that some folks need to use to assert their percieved status.

Polite, acurate, and seemingly without bias or agenda ... There is hope for this forum.

= Thanks = That (all) is pretty much what I thought. BTW He was way under-budget or I wouldn't have ...

 

[coldsleep]

Since this is a homebuilt forum, I think that the tendency is to focus on best value (that's not a bad thing), and the problem with VRs is that for a lot less, you can get disks that perform equivalently or better for all of your non-random I/O.

Or you can spend a little bit more (if you're not overly concerned about storage available) and get an SSD, which completely destroys the VRs at random I/O.

I'm semi-randomly picking the price-point here, but say, given a budget of $500 for storage, you could get a $300 80 GB Intel X25-M SSD and either a couple of Spinpoint F3 1 TBs or a single Spinpoint F3 2 TB. Well, or you could get a 120 GB SSD for $430 and get a 500 GB Seagate. Whereas if you go with a 150 GB VR ($160), you can afford to get about 3 TB of Spinpoints, and you're about $30-50 shy of getting 4 TB. (I think I did the math right there.)

 

[Alvin Smith]

There are, in fact, some measures that the VRs win at.

All THG 3.5" disk benchmarks. The VRs do own read and write access time benchmarks, as well as a few others. The 500 GB platter disks, however, do better on the streaming reads/writes and on most of the throughput benchmarks. Once you start looking at the application-type-specific (PCMark) benchmarks, the 500 GB platter drives tend to be at or near the top. This means that for the majority of home users, there's no point in paying that much more for a smaller drive that isn't significantly faster.

The 500 GB platter drives also tend to be quieter, cooler, and use less power than the VRs. (Unless I'm mixing up which VR models are current or something.)

There is a tendency on this forum to confuse "best (no qualifiers)" with "best value" or "best price/performance".

*********************************************

Hey! No fair !

I just pored over the 3.5" drive benchmarks and the 300GB vRap is nowhere to be seen !

I am (yes) going to ASS-U-ME that the vRap300GB has an additional platter which WOULD
** DOUBLE ** the heads/cylinder ... and you KNOW how that effects sustained xfer rates.
... Shorty? You ain't (quite) "all that" but, I'm still going to be nice 2U 'cause I respect your knowledge-base and I hope to learn much from you, either directly, or by lurking your threads. Let's just not allow opinions and philosophies "bend" the facts! ... Can you say "Science of Global Warming?".

= Al = Just learning, here.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

I was away for a while helping my mother-in-law with a computer issue. There are a lot of benchmarks out there that compare the current 500GB platter drives against the VelociRaptor drives. Tom's has their own, but there are even better ones out there. I'm at work right now, so I won't track them all down. Here's one to look over:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/2tb-hdd-7200,2430.html

 

[Alvin Smith]

What "your" benchmarks tell me (and why I stil think like I do ...

I hear you ... I get that cost/GB/performance/$$$ ... you win.

BUT (but, but) ...
1) The 300GB vRap OWNS random I/O and hangs tite, everywhere else ...
2) Reaches speed and boots faster (me thinks "much") ...
3) Storage has ALWAYS been THE most significan bottleneck on any system at any point in PC evolution ... This, not by a little, or a lot, THIS by (at least) a few orders of magnitude (100X) when compared to system mem ('speshly DDR3x3)
4) And, due to this HUGE drag on system throughput, xtra $$$ are WAY justified !
5) WD *IS* about to (fall 2010) release a vertical record (Hi-dense) 600GB SATA-III
6) Sequential Streaming is great for TIVO and Porn but not so much for games and renders and transcoding (lot's of back-n-forth, there) ... helps to have an extra drive to render to.
7) vRap, (even currently) makes a noticably faster boot drive and a FANTASTIC apps drive, as apps are always peeking and poking at various overlay files and data.
8) Do vRaps not have a 5Yr Warranty and greater MTBF ? (baring anomolous issues?)
9) Doesn't "Velociraptor" sound way cooler than "Caviar" ?


THANK GOD IN HEAVEN the SSDs are finally here and that all the initial refresh issues have been ironned out and that the prices are coming down !!!! HOORAY !!!

Yeah ... Get SSDs and limp until they get much bigger and cheaper (reel soon) !

The Corsair "P" series (P-128/P-256) have Indilink-Barefoot controllers and firmware has just been released that kills the last whimpers from detractors ... The cleanup and refresh is done in background, and only after extended periods of inactivity ... there is no longer much argument for SLC (or INTEL branding), from this point forward ... Look at the specs ... Fact is, ANY SSD which has licked the trash/refresh issue is golden ... That would be INTEL, OCZ(Vertex and better), Corsair (P-Series), Crucial (re-branded INTEL) and a few others ... any SSD with a barefoot cntrlr should be jus' fine. I think Samsung has "it"(that problem) licked, too,

I just LOVE those OCZ 4x SSD slot-RAIDS (PCIe) ... the specs make me swoon.

My point is that storage peripherals are such a huge "sore", it is worth putting extra money into speed, there ... Maybe not a vRap, tho ... days are numbered.

= Al =

 

[jdkean1]

Here is what I have come up with following your advice. Please let me know your thoughts and if you see any potential problems with this setup:

Case:

LIAN LI PC-P80 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case - $339.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112159

Motherboard:

ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer "Ultimate Gamer" choose 3Way SLI + PhysX at Real X16 X58 CEB Intel Motherboard - $334.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131390R

Processor:

Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition Bloomfield 3.33GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - $969.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115212

CPU Cooler:

XIGMATEK HDT-S1284EE 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - $38.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233023&Tpk=HDT-S1284EE

Memory:

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1866C9DF - $282.99 x2 = $565.98 = 12GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145232&cm_re=ddr3_1866-_-20-145-232-_-Product

Power Supply:

Antec TPQ-1200 1200W Continuous Power with PowerCache Technology SLI Ready CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - $279.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371032&cm_re=power_supply_1200-_-17-371-032-_-Product

Graphics Cards:

ASUS EAH5970/G/2DIS/2GD5 Radeon HD 5970 2GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Dual GPU Onboard CrossFire Video Card w/ Eyefinity - $699.99 - x2 = $1399.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121357&cm_re=radeon_5970-_-14-121-357-_-Product

Sound Card:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card - $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102019&cm_re=sound_card_pci_express-_-29-102-019-_-Product

Hard Drives:

Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $299.99 - x2 = $599.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136456&Tpk=WD2001FASS

Optical Drive:

LG Black 8X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 6X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner 8X Blu-ray Burner Model WH08LS20 - $179.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136176&Tpk=LG%20WH08LS20%20BD-RE

 

[Alvin Smith]

Wow ... "Dreamy ! "

I'll just get picky, since you are still here ...

1) You might could get along, just fine, with a 1KW PSU

2) I advise going to an O.C. forum and research coolers, and how to install them.
GOAL: Best derned AIR cooler that (smart) money can buy. (As opposed to just going with the best thing NewEgg might have in stock, on that day.)

But you look golden, at this point, as long as your budget is happy ...

3) you might want to limp on just one drive, until the bigger/cheaper SSDs get to the street. They are going to be releaed, in a month or two, and should come down in price as the summer drags out.

= Al =