Building a new rig, need advice

Pyro2008

Distinguished
May 23, 2008
59
0
18,630
Hi all, I just wanted some advice on whether to wait or to build a new rig now. I have been out of the loop for some time and not sure if anything major is just around the corner, usually leading to lower prices on the current stuff.

My current rig is as follows:

-Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz OC'ed to 3.6GHz
-CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
-ASUS P5Q Deluxe
-GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B Radeon HD 4870 X2
-SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA
-4 x G.SKILL 4GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
-Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
-ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3
-WD VelociRaptor 300 GB SATA
-3x Seagate Barracuda 7200 1 TB 7200RPM SATA RAID
-LG Electronics 8X Blu-ray SATA Writer Drive WH08

The burners, seagate hard drives and sound card are going to be recycled. Everything else will be given to my fiance for her computer and she will use on board audio or my older X-Fi card (this includes the velicoraptor).

Key things I want:

- SSD 80GB+ (OS install and whatever game I am currently playing)
- USB 3.0 (or opinions on this new technology)
- Intel i7
- Triple channel setup (is this very efficient or will any combo of ram suffice?)
- Case with hinged mobo tray but more importantly good cooling
- Efficient higher wattage power supply (if necessary or I could go with another Corsair HX 1000)
- Video card best bang for my buck (I will be buying one card now and then another a month a two later to run SLI or Crossfire)

Fan noise doesn't matter while playing games, however I would like a setup where I could possibly dial down quickly and easily when just surfing or watching blu-ray movies. For anyone with a 4870x2, I keep my fan at 50% and that is acceptable while gaming, 30% or lower for everything else. I would like to be able to control all fans though (case, cpu and gpu).

It is not essential to get a case with a hinged mobo tray but I am really looking for something with that design. I have googled and cannot find anything like it but remember seeing a rig a year ago or so, don't recall its name. A removable mobo tray is good too so long as it doesn't require the PCI cards to be removed.

Because the SSD will most likely be small (storage space) I will only install games I play often on it. Anything that I am done playing will be uninstalled or moved to a storage drive. A new heat sink will be need

This computer will be used 50% for gaming, 40% HD content (blu-ray or HD downloads) and general work/surfing.

I usually overclock my CPU/Ram to something well into a stable threshold but after that I never touch it. I usually dont overclock anything else.

My budget is all over the place. My target is something under $1500 but can go as high as $2000 if the performance is worth it and the convenience (total fan control etc) is there. I am also partial to anything with a lifetime warranty (like EVGA video cards).

Thanks for any help!
 

xiangjiao

Distinguished
Aug 4, 2010
98
0
18,640


ATI will be releasing their 6000 series graphics cards soon. Therefor there will be a drop in prices on their 5000 series if you decide that you want to buy one of those and crossfire. However, the 6000 series will not be able to crossfire with the 5000 series (duh) so you will not be able to take advantage of their new line.
As for bang/ buck I would reccomend getting ati hd 5850 which works nicely when crossfired (aprx $300 ea now). If you are willing to spend $100 more the hd 5870 is a great card; I belive strongest single GPU card otu atm. I would forsee you wanting to xfire 5870s later since the prices will drop for the second one.

As for the CPU, I would say to go for an i7 that uses lga1336. I would reccomend the i7 930 which is quad core 2.8ghz with hyper threading; many people also say that this card over clocks very very well. Anything above this I would say is overkill since I did not see you mention that you would be doing any video rendering or CPU super-intensive activites.

A great board to go with the lga 1336 socket would be the ASUS p6x58d-e. This is one of the few (I think only asus has this atm?) mobos which can take full advantage of it's usb 3.0 and sata 6gb/s WHILE in crossfire. Another highly acclaimed option would be the GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R, however with this mobo your usb 3.0 and sata 6gb/s will take a performance hit while using crossfire.

As for the RAM, to answer your question, I belive that all i7s in lga 1336 REQUIRE you to use triple channel memory.

As for the powerspply, you may as well stick with the corsair hx 1000w. Those are really nice modular PSUs.

I hope this answered some of your questions. Unfortuantely, I have no experience with hinged mobo cases :p but I'm sure some other enthusist could help you out.

Good luck
xiang
 

sp12

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
980
0
19,010
GTX 470/460 are on massive sales recently, currently the best bang/buck.

CPU for gaming would be 1156. i5-760 comes to mind. Beats the 930 in games for 90$ less.

That corsair 1000 is OK, but a seasnoic 750 gold would be more than fine for your needs, even SLI GPUs.
 

He already has a 4870x2. Those are piddly low end cards compared to what he has. A single 480 is only a minor upgrade for him.

He also already has a core2quad at 3.6GHz. Even an i7 930 wont get him much (maybe any) performance increase.



Its seriously not worth touching anything on that system until it breaks. An SSD would be the only noticeable upgrade.
 

sp12

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
980
0
19,010
I'll actually agree that it makes no sense upgrading that system, but wanted to throw those out over the 5870.

And he actually only has a Q2D (silly goose, Q6600>>>e8400, even back at launch), which means a quad would be an upgrade for modern games.
 

Pyro2008

Distinguished
May 23, 2008
59
0
18,630
Well, the main reason I started thinking about an upgrade is because my 4870x2 is dying, dual core cpu instead of quad and I wanted an SSD drive.

All things considered, had my video card not crapped out I probably wouldn't have considered upgrading for another year or so as it runs very well.

When considering buying a new rig, I was going to buy two video cards this time around. So if anything I would do 470 in sli which, as I understand, would beat the 4870x2 no question. This would also add redundancy, if on video card dies I have a backup and can just replace one card.

Another reason for starting a new rig is because I am going to get a new video card for my current rig and throw it on the side as a storage server.

I agree though, whatever performance increase I get is negligible.
 

TRENDING THREADS