1st build, which config? i7 960 v x6 1090t and much more help needed!!

Just to kick it off, the Antec CP 850 is different form factor than the usual ATX PSUs, so if you would like that you should check out Antec P183, P193 and 1200 which support it..
From you describe the i

I will point out that the Antec CP-850 is a CPX formfactor PSU, which is not compatible with ATX cases. The only cases it will fit in are the Antec 1200, P183 & P193. So either get one of those cases or change PSU.

Also the RAM runs at 1.7 or 1.9V according to what I've found from googling the part number. Which is a bit high for DDR3 in the first place IMO, and secondly Intel CPUs can be damaged by RAM voltages above 1.65V. So I would change that. Thirdly it produces more heat and will consume more power than a lower voltage set, albeit it not by much.
If you don't to plan to do anything extreme with this system then definitely don't get 8GB straight out of the gates. I would put the money saved towards a higher quality case that will be able to handle all the upgrading you are planning on doing. I suppose you could start off with a cheaper case until you've found something that you know you'll want to keep for ages, as a good case can be reused through multiple builds.

I don't know anything about that Seagate HDD really, except that it's unlikely to be any faster than the cheaper Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB, which is also known for being a quiet performance drive.

As for the graphics card, I'd discount the 5830 as it's hot, loud and power hungry compared to the 5770 and the GTX 460, the latter of which performs very similarly if not better than it. So now it's between the 5770 and GTX 460. I think it's logical that if you go to an AMD build it's best to stick with an ATI card if you want the option to CF, as AMD chipsets on AMD motherboards are likely to be better and more feature-rich (SATA6G & USB3) than Nvidia chipset motherboards.
hwcompare looks like it only looks at memory bandwidth, which is only one of many factors in determining the performance of a GPU.
The differences between card manufacturers can be clock speeds, size, fan, and then warranty & customer support. The size would be important if you were using an old or small case. Clock speeds aren't that important as it's possible to OC to match a pre-OCed card, altho one that's already more highly clocked will have been binned higher, so can probably OC higher again. I don't really care about warranties & customer support, so the only thing that I really think matters is the fan, which has an impact on the noise & temperature that the card produce.

I also don't believe that that Akasa cooler is a worthwhile upgrade from the stock Intel heatsink. Same for the Arctic Cooling Alpine 64GT over the AMD stock heatsink.

No, you don't need a soundcard, as onboard sound these days is pretty good. The only reason you would need to consider a soundcard is if you worked with audio on more than a casual basis.

The issue of heat. Heat shouldn't be a problem at stock speeds, unless the part was badly designed (such as GTX 465, 470, 480), or possibly it was a bad one out of the production line. A good way to avoid heat problems is to have a case with good airflow, which can be achieved simply by having at least one intake, two exhausts and tidy cables. A case with good airflow can mean that stock cooling of parts is perfectly adequate. When you start overclocking however is when you should really think about aftermarket cooling and more aggressive airflow. It's probably pretty hard to get components to overheat in a modern case that costs more than ~30 pounds that uses the fans that are installed.

As for which processor to go with, the i7-960 will beat the AMD 1090T in everything except heavily threaded programs, which tend to be video editing, rendering programs (and not all of them). How much depends on the program, and the only way to find out if it's significant is to see them tested, ie benchmarks/reviews. So I think the i7-960 might be the better choice, unless you want to upgrade CPU at any point, in which case an AMD AM3 build might be better. Another thing to be aware of is that Intel's Sandy Bridge processors (next major architecture change over Nehalem) are due out early next year, which might have an impact on the cost of current CPUs/parts. If you can wait five months it would be interesting to see what happens.

thank you very much all, its good solid advice and VERY useful! (especially about the PSU lol, missed that!) So given the feedback I have come up with this:

1 x Asus P6X58D-E, Intel X58, 1366, 6DDR3, 3PCI-Ex16, CrossfireX/SLI, 8CHHD Sound, USB3 & SATA6 ATX Mfr#: aP6X58D-E

1 x Intel Core i7 960 3.2GHz 8MB Cache LGA1366 Socket Mfr#: BX80601960

1 x Akasa Intel LGA1366 Copper Core heatsink with PWM Fan Mfr #: AK-980

1 x XFX 850W Black Edition Single Rail Modular Power Supply Mfr #: P1-850B-NLG9
1 x Antec TreuPower Quattro 850Watt Continuous Power 80+ Power Supply Unit Mfr #: TPQ-850GB

1 x OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Obsidian i5 Memory Kit 1.65V CL9(9-9-9-24) Mfr #: OCZ3OB1600LV4GK

1x M Storm Scout Case - 120mm and 2x 140mm Fans Included - No PSU Mfr #: SGC-2000-KKN1 or Antec 300 Three hundred

1 x Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort HDCP PCI-E Graphics Card Mfr #: 11163-02-20R

@agges - thanks I got the jist, technical problems aside.

@all I have changed the PSU - a choice of 2 - both 850W but one is single rail and one quad rail, both around the same price. I have no idea what that means or how one is better/more efficient than another :s Found the XFX black u mentioned.

re: the SSD - I have looked at that but atm the seagate is £60 for 1tb and the ssd is £100 for 60gb! My plan was - and you have confirmed it - to wait 6months until the prices come down. Then I will either RAID the other 2 drives or simply put one of the seagates in an external box, or my old Dell (which i use to stream movies / music thru my xbox)

Sound card - thank you - no more to be said!

@silvune and @ sp12 Excellent calls on the Samsung F3 - hadn't noticed it before, and have always had Seagate, found online for £42 (the Seagate was £60) exact same specs. RESULT!

@silvune. Sir, you speak golddust! Have swapped out the Kingston for the OCZ, a bit more pricey but as you note, designed for the ix systems and come in at 1.5v so should be no problems there.

I appreciate the point about the cooling fan, but I would like to put it in now as part of the system so save tinkering later on. Also (main reason) I do tend to keep my PC in a fairly warm room upstairs - the place where it is going is next to the airing cupboard (stores the house central heating - can't be helped) so for the sake of £12 better safe than sorry.

Didn't realise that cases were so important (a box that you put the bits in) I thought the glam expensive stuff was for the hardcore modders, so using the saved money on the HDD I went for that case - seems large enough. either that or the Antex 300.

I am going for the best chip I can afford at the moment...I appreciate all of your comments on that but a) can't / won't wait! There is always something better on the way, and b) the money I have is a rebate from the taxman, if I don't get the bits now I never will!!!

Given the comments I think the i7 960 will be excellent, and last for several years without any trouble. My old Dell P4 is still going strong after 5-6-7 years and as mentioned it can cope with anything I will be throwing at it, even if I do double up the other parts on the system.

Lastly the graphics card. I am quite happy with the 5770 1gb it seems a good solid card, capable of playing any game out this year or next, hdmi, multiple monitors and crossfire ready and at £135 its a bit of a bargain... or have i just erred?!

I'm not saying you shouldn't get an aftermarket cooler, I'm saying that that Akasa one is likely to be crap, it looks extremely similar to the stock LGA 1366 heatsink. So I recommend you get something else. Such as the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 or Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus.

I would go for the XFX 850W out of those two if they are infact a similar price, as it has higher efficiency, which means that it wastes less electricity/power/energy as heat, which means that the fan doesn't have to spin as fast to keep it adequately cool. The number of rails doesn't really matter, it's the quality that matters. BTW the Antec Truepower Quattro only has 768watts combined on it's 12V rails, so it is less powerful than the XFX as well. Not that you even need a 770W PSU for your build...

A 5770 at £135 is a good price thesedays.

So this is the spec I have ended up with.. total build £934 inc VAT and delivery:

1 x AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2HGz AM3 Black Edition Processor Mfr#:HDT90ZFBGRBOX
1 x Asus CROSSHAIR IV FORMULA 890FX Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard #: CROSSHAIR IV FORMULA
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler Mfr#: #: AC-FRZ-7PR2

1 x Antec 300 Three Hundred Case Mfr #: 0761345-08300-3 (tbc)
1 x OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHZ Gold AMD Memory Kit CL8 1.65V Mfr #: OCZ3G1600LVAM4GK
2 x Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Mfr#: HD103SJ
1 x XFX 850W Black Edition Single Rail Modular Power Supply
Mfr#: P1-850B-NLG9

1 x Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort HDCP PCI-E Graphics Card Mfr #: 11163-02-20R

1 x Best Value Samsung S-ATA Blu-Ray Combo Player (8X Read) Retail Mfr#: SH-B083L/RSBP

1 x Edimax Wireless N Draft 2.0 Pci Card manufacturer Mfr #: EW-7727IN


I completely flip-flopped on the processor... at the end of the day the intel i7 was £430 and the AMD £225, the motherboards were pretty much the same in both price and spec (Intel £153, AMD £162) and the RAM memory was almost identical (I: £86 v A: £83).

For what I am going to be using it for I cannot see any practical difference in paying an extra £200 for the admittedly slightly better i7 chip apart from bragging rights, and being totally honest, no-one I know would care in the slightest anyway!

In addition, the savings mean I could double on the GPU's (or have a good night out) and that as previously mentioned the AMD chip is likely to get a (little) bit more out of the ATI cards.

The only thing I need to confirm before I order is that all these bits will work together and they are the right specs - that again I haven't missed something completely obvious... The Toms Hardware forum seal of approval as it were...

Or one of those mobos:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/204311

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/197546

RAM: Don't buy OCZ, you can get this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/180490

PSU: 850W is way above the power you need, 650W can easily run your rig with two HD 5770 or even two HD 5850 (better buy one of those).

Now, how does one close/solve this thread?!

Well seeing as this is a discussion thread all you can do to mark it solved is to change the thread title.

It's not like any of the other mobos that were suggested would have been difficult to overclock. Infact the MSI would have been the easiest of the lot due to OCGenie - one of the better auto-OCing utilities.

OCUK is definitely a good site for cut-price specials.

Nice RAM.

The FAEX does boot about 2 seconds faster than the Samsung Spinpoint F3 according to this article, IMO the speed up is hardly worth it. And the interface makes next no difference to it's speed. The only drives that will make use of SATA III are SSDs, and they don't do it fully yet.

But overall it will indeed be a fantastic system. Just spending lots of time on this forum can make you nitpick like crazy. Good luck building, you'll be fine. Put the motherboard together (apart from the GPU), put the psu in, get a rough idea of where the cables go, put the mobo in the case and connect everything up.