Building New Rig ($3000) - any input welcome!

Hey everyone,

So after some recent thinking, I think it is time for me to upgrade my rig.

Some history. . .

I like to get new setup every 3 - 4 years, essentially building a beastly computer and then doing a small mid-life upgrade.

With a $2900 - $3000 (potentially a little more, depending on how well I do in the stock market ) budget in mind, and a building date of May or June of this year.

From my old rig, I intend to keep:

Creative X-FI (PCI)
Logitech Z5500 5.1 system
Keyboard/Mouse
Viewsonic 19" LCD


For the new machine, I think I will be going 64bit with Windows 7 Pro.

Main uses: Multimedia (gaming, audio editing and video) + MS Office use.

I have been using XP for as long as I can remember.

I have not used Vista.

I'm also likely going the Intel/NVIDIA route.

Now, for the new:

Case:

I have no idea. Full Side tower for sure.

My ideal case is: light, roomy, nicely ventilated, easy to open, stylish.

Currently, I use a Thermaltake Shark Silver.

Thermaltake Xaser VG4000BNSB is the best I can find.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=thermaltake_xaser-_-11-133-080-_-Product

My issue: TOO HEAVY?

My current case is 15lbs, this one is 35lbs. Seems ridiculous. I'm not exactly a small guy, but this new one might be a real pain to move around.

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PSU:
CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007&Tpk=CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W

Seems like a decent PSU. Rebranded Seasonic, I believe?

Two 12V rails, but I think that single vs. multiple debate is pretty pointless?

Good expandability, in case I want to to SLI.

Modular is a requirement - I hate messy cases.

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Motherboard:

ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6X58D_Premium_LGA_1366-_-13-131-614-_-Product

Seems absolutely nasty.

My requirements:

Room for 2x audio cards (I have a PCI one, I'll order a PCI-E 1x)

Otherwise, general reliability and expandability are a must.

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Processor:

Intel Core i7 960 @ 3.2GHz (Socket: LGA 1366)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115224&cm_re=i7_960-_-19-115-224-_-Product

Need a beastly CPU and GPU.

This seems like a good candidate for the CPU without going broke.

On the other hand, aren't several new CPUs due to come out from Intel around the summer? (when I intend to build)

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Cooler:

ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118046&Tpk=ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED

Seems like a great air cooling solution.

Currently, loving my Zalman cooling my E6700.

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RAM:

Corsair Dominator 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 PC12800

Seems like either 6 or 12GB is the way to go based on RAM design?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145271&Tpk=corsair dominator 12gb

Will also work on the motherboard without OC, I believe?

Crucial Ballistix has let me down majorly on my last build, so I'm staying away from Crucial for a long time.

How do Corsair, Mushkin and G.Skill (perhaps also OCZ) compare? If they rebrand, what brand chips do they use?

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Video Card:

BFGTech GeForce 295GTX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143192&Tpk=BFGTech GeForce 295GTX

Beastly GPU, a requirement.

However, as with the CPU, aren't new ones due around summer from NVDIA?

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Hard Drives:

Here's where I hit a brick wall.

I used to love Seagate, but their 1.5TB drives are impressive at one thing it seems: failing.

I do not think I will follow the fast OS HD, slow data HD method.

I frequently back up a lot of data (music, mostly) between both HDs, and a faster "OS" hard drive will not cut it.

I'm thinking ideally I need 2x 1.5TB drives @ 7200 RPM. I'm all ears for suggestions here on brands, etc.

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Blu Ray / DVD Drives:

SAMSUNG BD-ROM SATA Blu-ray Combo Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9&Tpk=SAMSUNG BD-ROM SATA Blu-ray Combo Drive

Figured I Could use a main Blu ray drive that would also read DVDs for movies.



SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ck_SATA_Model_SH-S223L-_-27-151-188-_-Product

And a good DVD writer.

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Audio Card:

Thinking that Creative X-FI 7.1 Pro is the way to go...(Need PCI-E 1X card)

I do a lot of gaming and music recording on the PC (I'm a DJ)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...19&cm_re=Creative_X-FI-_-29-102-019-_-Product


So yeah, open for any opinions, suggestions, etc.

Thanks in advance.

Save some money and get a bigger monitor =P. The 295 will be obsolete by the time May-June rolls around with new Nvidia cards on their way (Mid March).

I would swap the 960 with a 930 and use the saved money to get a Solid State Drive, this way the hard drive will not be the bottleneck of your computer. Use the SSD for your OS, games, and main programs. Then buy another hard drive for storage needs.

With 3000+ why not.

If you want a beastly GPU go for the ATI HD5970, it smokes the 295. If you want an nVidia card, the new 470/480GTX should be out by the month's end, or sometime in April. I 2nd Marshmallow's suggestion to get a SSD, but instead of the i7 930, go for the 920. By Brolloks recommendation it is not worth the extra $30, because of the added multi when using turbo.. 22 multi = bad, 21 multi = good. You should easily be able to take an i7 920 D0 to 4+ ghz with the right cooling. If you're looking for storage with high speeds, the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is taking over the top right now.. beats out a WD black in read/writes, gotta be close on access time though. Kick that Zalman cooler to the side and look into the Thermalright Venomous-X.. can't beat it for air cooling on a i7. Everything else looks fine, and you may even save some dough.

It's not worth 30 dollars more it's less than 10. get the 930 instead of the 960.

One HD5870 is probably good enough to go everything but the HD5970 option is always there. Don't get the GTX295. +1 for SSD that's a no brainer at your budget, also the WD Caviar Blacks are good HDDS, might want to think about them. Finally, downgrade the PSU to HX850. You don't need 1000W

Don't ever pay more for a CPU than 920/930, because they overclock so easy to far beyond any other i7 at stock. If you want to go NVidia wait for the new cards that are coming 26th of March. The GTX480 is most likely the strongest single-GPU card that has ever existed. Get an SSD and Something like an Samsung F3/Western Digital Black HDD. I'm loving my F3. My PC boots in 44 seconds from the moment I press the button until I'm fully loaded into the desktop. I think that's about as fast as a HDD will go.

Another note on the CPU: You COULD get an i9, those are coming pretty soon. I don't know exactly when though. They have 6 cores and 12 threads and they'll probably be very futureproof. I don't know much about them though so this is just a note to look into. They might be unpayable even with $3000, I don't know.

Good luck with your build.

Marshmallow64 said:

Save some money and get a bigger monitor =P. The 295 will be obsolete by the time May-June rolls around with new Nvidia cards on their way (Mid March).

I would swap the 960 with a 930 and use the saved money to get a Solid State Drive, this way the hard drive will not be the bottleneck of your computer. Use the SSD for your OS, games, and main programs. Then buy another hard drive for storage needs.

With 3000+ why not.

Click to expand...

This post says it all.

1. Don't get an nVidia 295.
2. Get a SSD. You will regret it if you don't. They make that much of a difference. Get 1TB drives for backup. Maybe think about using some spare cash for cloud (online) backup solutions.
3. I haven't seen too many benchmarks on the 960 but I would think the difference from the 920 isn't going to be worth the premium.

the 930 will become the mainstream and hte 920 will cease to exist.. however, alot of motherboards with the i7 run a whole lot better on odd multipliers than on evens.. so as paradox420 said.. 21multi=good, 22multi=bad.. the 930 will turbo into 22 and could cause you a world of issues (not always the case, but why risk it)

if you were going anywhere above the 920 go right for the top end.. no use in getting the middle chips as they are usually only overclocked versions of the 920 with some added features or unlocked multipliers. IMO i'd go with 920, find a D0 and call it a day for the chip

for mobo, go with your suggestion or the evga classified E760 or the gigabyte UD5 or UD7

for ram go with the g.skills.. depending on mobo what you pick may not work.. mushkin is also good.. the rest can be picky.. for instance EVGA mobos don't always like OCZ ram, and can be hit or miss with corsair

vid card.. see above the 295 will be obsolete in no time, go for 58xx or 59xx ATI or wait for nvidia 400 series (at a huge price jump!)

hdds same as above, 64GB SSD for main OS/Apps 1tb WD blacks for storage..

PSU 1k is way overkill, even for a system with 3 gfx cards! Maybe drop that down to an 850 to have overhead to play with unless you just really need that kind of power (which this system doesnt need)

cooler (HSF) skip the zalman.. they work good for c2ds and such, but the i7 is a heat monster.. stick with tried and proven hsfs like TRUE 120 (venomousX i think it is now) prolimatech, noctua, xigmatek

Thanks for the input guys:

Here's my update:

1) SSD I'm convinced - well done. Talked to some friends too, seems it's the real deal. I'll consider a 64 - 80GB one for OS purposes only + 2 1TB+ storage drives.

How good are "green" drives? Are they are fast as 7200RPM? I know they are variable speed, but that's the deal?

2) No input on case? I'm all ears here, check out my choice - and suggest something lighter yet sexy and roomy.

3) Mobo - I liked the Gigabyte UD7 - but I'm not convinced 100% that it's better than the P6X58D. User reviews on newegg seem to point to the ASUS. Seems that it doesn't support DDR3 1600 either, which is bad, cause I like that $400 12GB pack of Corsairs

4) Video card - I'll wait. This is a May - June build.

5) CPU - I might wait for a "cheaper" 6-core. As far as lower clocks on the current quad cores, I'd consider it too. I'm really not much of an overclocker though, so good stock speed is important.

Desmondo said:

Thanks for the input guys:

Here's my update:

1) SSD I'm convinced - well done. Talked to some friends too, seems it's the real deal. I'll consider a 64 - 80GB one for OS purposes only + 2 1TB+ storage drives.

How good are "green" drives? Are they are fast as 7200RPM? I know they are variable speed, but that's the deal?

2) No input on case? I'm all ears here, check out my choice - and suggest something lighter yet sexy and roomy.

3) Mobo - I liked the Gigabyte UD7 - but I'm not convinced 100% that it's better than the P6X58D. User reviews on newegg seem to point to the ASUS. Seems that it doesn't support DDR3 1600 either, which is bad, cause I like that $400 12GB pack of Corsairs

4) Video card - I'll wait. This is a May - June build.

5) CPU - I might wait for a "cheaper" 6-core. As far as lower clocks on the current quad cores, I'd consider it too. I'm really not much of an overclocker though, so good stock speed is important.

Click to expand...

Take newegg reviews with a grain of salt, people here are knowledgeable and are generally giving the best advice out there. As stated a 19inch monitor is a joke if you are getting such a powerful system. Might as well get a big high res screen so your video card actually gets utilized.

My case recommendation: CM690 II
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119216&cm_re=cm-_-11-119-216-_-Product

The only benefit of a green drive is they are cheaper if you are trying to save some money. They are lower power drives but that doesn't seem like a concern in this build. I'd go with a WD 1 TB black: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2136284&cm_re=wd_black-_-22-136-284-_-Product


If you haven't used a computer with an i7 920 I'd suggest you do before you decide to drop a lot of extra money on the 6 core. The processor is a beast and will handle your needs with ease. These chips can be overclocked to 4GHZ with ease, you are on "ocforums" so of course everyone is going to push you to go that route. All it requires is a good CPU cooler and some bios tweaking and you get a performance a huge performance gain at almost no cost.

"green" drives are usually also 5400rpm and best suited for backups/data storage not mainstream use

if you have a lot of overhead left in your budget w/o the chip.. get a 980x!!

updawg said:

Take newegg reviews with a grain of salt, people here are knowledgeable and are generally giving the best advice out there. As stated a 19inch monitor is a joke if you are getting such a powerful system. Might as well get a big high res screen so your video card actually gets utilized.

My case recommendation: CM690 II
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119216&cm_re=cm-_-11-119-216-_-Product

The only benefit of a green drive is they are cheaper if you are trying to save some money. They are lower power drives but that doesn't seem like a concern in this build. I'd go with a WD 1 TB black: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2136284&cm_re=wd_black-_-22-136-284-_-Product


If you haven't used a computer with an i7 920 I'd suggest you do before you decide to drop a lot of extra money on the 6 core. The processor is a beast and will handle your needs with ease. These chips can be overclocked to 4GHZ with ease, you are on "ocforums" so of course everyone is going to push you to go that route. All it requires is a good CPU cooler and some bios tweaking and you get a performance a huge performance gain at almost no cost.

Click to expand...

I'm not really interested in a massive monitor. My 19" LCD is pretty top notch - it's a Viewsonic VA926 - $300 when I bought it. I would consider picking up a 1080p monitor eventually, 22" or so - eventually for movies. I will likely get dual-monitors, since I do a lot of stock trading and internet-related research and equity forecasting.

My main needs are ability to handle top first person shooter performance.

I would like to OC, and I will likely do so this summer, since I'll have extra time.

In terms of cooling, I'm not really sure if I want the massive Venemous-X. I'm really picky about case space. Wouldn't the Zalman suffice for mediocre OCing? Zalman supposedly has some great thermal paste too

Thanks for the case recommendation. I'll consider that one too - not a great looker, but looks like it's nice and roomy/adaptable.

I'm a little surprised, my initial Thermaltake isn't standard for water cooling? Not that I think I'll ever get it, but still. . .

About the green drives: My music/video and games will be on them - I'm assuming if I get the SSD - that'll be OS only.

7200RPM should suffice for gaming performance, no?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...167023&cm_re=Intel_SSD-_-20-167-023-_-Product <-- How's this for an SSD?

Desmondo said:

I'm not really interested in a massive monitor. My 19" LCD is pretty top notch - it's a Viewsonic VA926 - $300 when I bought it. I would consider picking up a 1080p monitor eventually, 22" or so - eventually for movies. I will likely get dual-monitors, since I do a lot of stock trading and internet-related research and equity forecasting.

My main needs are ability to handle top first person shooter performance.

I would like to OC, and I will likely do so this summer, since I'll have extra time.

In terms of cooling, I'm not really sure if I want the massive Venemous-X. I'm really picky about case space. Wouldn't the Zalman suffice for mediocre OCing? Zalman supposedly has some great thermal paste too

Click to expand...

The monitor resolution will force you to be CPU bound. No reason buying a GTX 295 or a 5970 if you're on a low resolution monitor, even standard 22" resolution (1650x1080) is borderline. This is especially true if you plan to game. i7 920 is the only way to go, just take the recommendation and skip the 930. You'll need it at 4 Ghz +, if you plan on keeping your monitor and dropping in a monster video card. Which is why you should skip the Zalman, you'll need more than "mediocre" OCing, if you want to keep your monitor. If you plan on a 6 core, the Zalman definitely won't cut it.

Honestly... if you have a $3000 budget (which is much more than you'll need) buy a 24"+ monitor or 2.

i7 920 w/ a proven i7 Cooler
EVGA E760 Classified
HyperX 2000mhz CL8 6GB
Intel SSD for OS (Caviar Blacks or Seagate 7200.12's for storage)
5970 now (or wait for Fermi)
2- 24" High resolution montitors
Lian-Li X2000 maybe

I don't recommend getting 2000MHz RAM. Just get Corsair Dominator GT's 1600MHz CL7.

I do advice getting 1920x1200 or a 2560x1600 monitor in there..

No i9's guys... i7 980x is the 6 core monster... Will there be i9 stuff sometime????

Anyhoo, get a biger monitor, ditch that zalman cooler (its quiet and performs better than stock, but its not great), and then get w/e the best bang for your buck card is out when you build this a couple months from now.

Honestly, with how quickly things change, you are best revisting this when you are about ready to purchase.

baris_ said:

I don't recommend getting 2000MHz RAM. Just get Corsair Dominator GT's 1600MHz CL7.

Click to expand...

Are you speaking from experience? Or have a reliable source on which to base this suggestion? I know the HyperX 2000 mhz CL8 that I recommended, use Elpida Hyper IC's, which are arguably the best IC's available. Do you know what are in the GT 1600's?