Need Advice on a Intel Build

[Guest]

Hi, guys,

Sorry for the repeat. The following is my first time New Build spec. I mainly use it for high performance coding, office and watching movies. Your feedback is highly appreciated.

- CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06G £234.99 inc VAT

- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA X58A UD3R (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £145.21 inc VAT

- RAM: Corsair XMS3 (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3 12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel £99.99 inc VAT

- Cooler: Corsair A50 CPU Cooler £29.99

- Artic Cooling MX 3 Thermal Compound £6.99
-Samsung P2450H 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black [LS24LRZKUV/EN] £180
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 SUPER OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card with HAWX2 £164.49 inc VAT
Coolermaster HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC942) £129.99 inc VAT
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £71.99 inc VAT

Antec TruePower New Modular 650W Power Supply [76134] £69.99 inc VAT

Kind regards

George

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Looks like a beast. Not sure I would change a thing.

 

[ko888]

What about an SSD for the OS and applications?

 

[cadder]

You won't see much difference with an SSD, maybe it will boot a little faster is all. I've built several i5 machines for my office and the one with an SSD doesn't seem to be any faster than the others.

That is a very powerful machine, overkill for the tasks you mentioned, but if you have the money then it will work for you for a long time before you feel it is underpowered.

If you are interested in changing the HD system, you could put in a smaller HD for the boot drive and use the second drive for backing up files. An SSD would help with this but it might not be big enough. You could put in a standard 500GB for the boot drive and use the 1TB for the backup drive, or you could even get a 300GB velociraptor for the boot drive (the exact configuration I run at work right now).

 

[Deleted member 217926]

You won't see much difference with an SSD, maybe it will boot a little faster is all. I've built several i5 machines for my office and the one with an SSD doesn't seem to be any faster than the others.

That is a very powerful machine, overkill for the tasks you mentioned, but if you have the money then it will work for you for a long time before you feel it is underpowered.

If you are interested in changing the HD system, you could put in a smaller HD for the boot drive and use the second drive for backing up files. An SSD would help with this but it might not be big enough. You could put in a standard 500GB for the boot drive and use the 1TB for the backup drive, or you could even get a 300GB velociraptor for the boot drive (the exact configuration I run at work right now).

Not sure what SSD you have where you do not see a difference.......all applications that were hard drive limited are now instant. Windows boots in 14 seconds. No waiting for levels to load in game.......alltogether one of the most noticeable upgrades I have ever added.

Velociraptors are about at hte "waste of money' point due to falling SSD prices. ~$200 for 120GB is worth it in my opinion. Fits Windows, Office and all my games with about 30GB free.

 

[ko888]

My single 120 GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD handily outperforms my two 150 GB Raptors in RAID 0.

OS and applications definitely load much quicker.

 

[cadder]

> Not sure what SSD you have where you do not see a difference

We have 2 machines setting side by side- one has an OCZ SSD, the other has a velociraptor. Both run i5-750's at 3.5GHz. You can't tell any speed difference between them in normal use. One might boot faster than the other although again it didn't seem any faster to me, but we leave them running 24/7 so they are rarely rebooted.

My computer at home with an ordinary WD hard drive boots Win7 in less than 30 sec.

 

[Guest]

What about an SSD for the OS and applications?

That's a good suggestion. I would add one if it's not that expensive.

Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (SSDSA2MP040G2R5 £74.99 inc VAT

Or

Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (SSDSA2MH080G2R5) £138.64 inc VAT

Will 40GB big enough for Windows?

 

[jasper05]

That's a good suggestion. I would add one if it's not that expensive.

Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (SSDSA2MP040G2R5 £74.99 inc VAT

Or

Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (SSDSA2MH080G2R5) £138.64 inc VAT

Will 40GB big enough for Windows?

You're probably better off with at least 60 GB, 90 if you can afford it. Disabling hibernation after Windows install will also give you a couple extra GBs.
If you're choosing between those two mentioned above, I'd go with the 80. You may also want to check out OCZ SSDs.

 

[Guest]

Got this new option, OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £104.99 inc VAT

My budget is around £1200 in all, this is prob the best i can afford now. Will there be any further discount during the Xmas or on Jan for these components?
Prices above are all from Overclockers UK

 

[Deleted member 217926]

That Vertex 2 E is about as fast as any SSD ( I have the 120GB version ). And would be a great addition to your build.

Prices are already about as low as they are going ( In the US anyway ) so I wouldnt expect too much more of a sudden price drop although in the long term prices are gradually going down per gigabyte.

 

[Guest]

Many thanks for your advices, guys, just made my order. Cheers.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Glad we could help! Enjoy your new computer.

 

[jasper05]

Glad we could help! Enjoy your new computer.

anort-

I just bought a Vertex2 for a new build, but didn't start on it yet. Did you you install the Intel RST drivers with it? If so, How did it go...better performance?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

anort-

I just bought a Vertex2 for a new build, but didn't start on it yet. Did you you install the Intel RST drivers with it? If so, How did it go...better performance?

I used the default AHCI drivers for my SSD. They seem to work fine as all my benchmarks are correct for the drive.