Best DICE pot that won't kill my coin?

[MX5J6]

I will do some more research into RAM and chips and mobo's. Which 755 and mobo would you suggest I start with? i don't know anything really about the 775 socket so I could use all the help I can get. I really only started getting serious into computers like a year ago.

I do plan on running multiple GPU's in SLI/Xfire so would you recommend i get a bigger PSU too?

I am answering these kind of mixed up but i am being talked to while trying to type this up so bare with me. i will stick with a boot SSD for my test system and will look into a good thumb drive.

I will also look into getting some used parts to save me some money.

Or I will look into just getting a solid 7970 after reading yuor edited post. Would a refrence be good? As you won't be using the stock cooling anyway, is there really a need for a high end 7970 that I won't be using all parts of?

 

[Bobnova]

If you intend to bench it on extreme cooling, the MSI lightning is really the only choice for a top end GPU.

775 wise, the P5Q series is (almost) all good. It's not OMGOMGOMGOMG fantastic, but it's a good starting place. The Gigabyte EP45-UD3P/UD3R revisions 1.0 and 1.1 are very good. The 1.6 is meh.
You'll want D9 ram for that, crucial ballistix with clips on the heatspreader are your best bet.

Crossfire wise, if you're benching the GPUs on air that 850 should still work for you. If you're running them on DIce/ln2 you'll want larger. Getting a solid 1kw unit isn't a bad idea if you know you want to do cfx/sli benching in the future.

 

[MX5J6]

Well with the money I'll save from getting cheaper parts I can probably find a good priced 1000W+ psu.

As for the gpu I will go with the lightning then as I heard it was the best for extreme cooling as well.

I shouldn't have any problems plugging a new 7970 lightning into an older 775 board will I?

 

[ssjwizard]

Another excellent platform for a novice benchmarker is AMD Socket 939, most of the CPUs have piles of HW points to be had for even 3-5th place, theres not a huge amount of competition at the level of DICE for those chips, and since they cant go LN2 cold you dont even have to compete with that factor.

Bigger PSUs are going to put out a cleaner power at low levels, although design of the unit has just as much to do with this as well.

You may want to check the classifieds here, if you dont have access you just need to take a peek at the rules and get your access setup, and youll have a world of discount parts at the tip of your credit card.

 

[Janus67]

Well with the money I'll save from getting cheaper parts I can probably find a good priced 1000W+ psu.

As for the gpu I will go with the lightning then as I heard it was the best for extreme cooling as well.

I shouldn't have any problems plugging a new 7970 lightning into an older 775 board will I?

The lightning would work just fine in the socket 775 board, now with that said:

One thing to note is that 3D benchmarking pretty much requires a high end CPU as well at a fast speed to get respectable scores. It isn't worth running 3D benches on pretty much anything older than a Sandy Bridge (with the preference towards Ivy Bridge, and small exceptions for Gulftown processors (or their SB-E brethren))

As was recommended, check out the classifieds section, I know that there are some very cheap graphics cards (like $15) which are great for just doing 2D benchmarking (which is what you would be doing on pretty much every platform and is a great way to get into it before making the plunge for 3D).

For 775 motherboards:

To quote Seebs (xSebaSx):

These are the ones that I would be on the lookout for:

P965 chipset
- Commando
- P5B-Deluxe
- P5B-Deluxe Wifi/AP

P45 Chipset
- P5Q-Deluxe
- P5Q-Pro
- P5Q-E
- GA-EP45 Extreme
- GA-EP45-UD3P
- TPower I45

X48 Chipset
- REX
- P5E3 Premium/Wifi-AP @n
- GA-X48-DS4

Any of those will do extremely well for you. The REX (Rampage Extreme) is pretty much the crown jewel of the 775 motherboards, I'd say if you can find one for less than $200 it was a good deal (I lucked out and got one bundled with an E8400 for $185), but it isn't required for getting into benching your first pieces. The UD3R/UD3P that Bobnova recommended are excellent boards as well.

My first CPUs that I benched cold were strips from old Dell machines (E6300 [$20], E6550 [$35], E8400 [$65], Q6600 [$100]). Those chips gave me a good taste for how to go cold then I moved onto what was my current system (at the time), and then continued on with buying SB and now IB.

 

[wagex]

i wouldn't recommend the dragon evo pot for dice benching i have one and i have problems pulling my c2q's down low enough when pushing lots of volts i have to power down the system and let it chill for a while then boot up and hurry with my benches, im sure ln2 would be a different story i believe its designed for ln2 im sure if i got some ln2 i could get my gold cup back i just get get me a darn ln2 dewar

and +1 to the post above me for 775 benching i use a p45x3 deluxe ....thing i dont like most about it is being unable to disable cores, but shes never gave me any problems even pushing over 2 volts into my q8300 which is still living lol