Help spend my birthday money for new comp!

[IAmMoen]

Alright so I just had my birthday and I think I am looking at between $500 and $600 to build a new computer.

A few things to consider:

I do use photoshop and other photo editing programs. When I have photoshop open along with a couple canon utilities my 2gb opty setup chokes so I am looking at either 4 or 8 gigs of ram.

Right now I have a 3870 and I have no real reason to upgrade that so I am thinking cpu/mobo/ram combo.

I have DFI expert and am spoiled with how many sata ports it has. Definitely need the ability to do at least raid 0 across two drives with raid 1 on a couple others, raid 5 ability would be nice.

I have been thinking about getting a pII 920 or 940. I have even toyed around with the idea of waiting for a 945... What do you guys think?

 

[The Doors]

Well, in my opinion the i7 920 is a very good choice due to Price/OCability ratio, I'm Really pleased about, and the upcoming D0 rev are Very promising.

All X58 Mobos basically support many Sata ports, mine for example which is on the budget side has 6+2 ports all RAID capable, and due to ICH10 you could setup a Matrix Storage Raid too for speed and reliability.

Going on the Ram side at least 6Gb (3x2Gb) are needed being Mobo Ddr3 based, with a Max of 6 modules (24Gb) in 3 channel mode.

Adriano

 

[IAmMoen]

Well, in my opinion the i7 920 is a very good choice due to Price/OCability ratio, I'm Really pleased about, and the upcoming D0 rev are Very promising.

All X58 Mobos basically support many Sata ports, mine for example which is on the budget side has 6+2 ports all RAID capable, and due to ICH10 you could setup a Matrix Storage Raid too for speed and reliability.

Going on the Ram side at least 6Gb (3x2Gb) are needed being Mobo Ddr3 based, with a Max of 6 modules (24Gb) in 3 channel mode.

If you had to do your comp over right now would you do anything different?

 

[Yakooza]

Well, in my opinion the i7 920 is a very good choice due to Price/OCability ratio

He was talking about the phenom 2...

 

[IAmMoen]

He was talking about the phenom 2...

Thats true but I didn't say that it had to be. I would probably prefer to stay on amd if possible but if everyone says that the 500-600 price point has better intel offerings I would go with them.

 

[Yakooza]

AMD Phenom II X3 720 + Biostar Mobo - $185 w/MIR

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W - $70 w/MIR

OCZ Reaper 4GB(2X2) - $33 w/MIR

Seagate 640 GB Hard drive - $70


Dvd+R/Cd+R drive - $22

The only thing missing in this setup is a case. Sorry, I can't find a good one atm. This comes to $478 after shipping and tax. $418 after rebates. This leaves $182 for a case. Its too much for a normal build if you ask me. I wouldn't spend $70-100 on the case. This leaves $80-110 we can put on the other parts.

Don't take me too seriously though. Im quite a newbie and haven't even gotten my first build done yet! Researched a lot on the parts I picked out though.

Thats true but I didn't say that it had to be. I would probably prefer to stay on amd if possible but if everyone says that the 500-600 price point has better intel offerings I would go with them.

$600 for an I7 rig? Don't think its possible.

 

[IAmMoen]

I guess I should have been a bit more clear on what I need to buy.

Things I have:
Cooler Master Stacker case
OCZ gamextreme 600w psu
6 assorted harddrives
2 dvd drives
ATI 3870

Things I need to buy:
CPU
Motherboard
RAM

Looking for the best possible combo. So with 500-600 bucks I should be able to get a true quad instead of a clipped tri (although I can appreciate what they are capable of).

 

[kevlar93]

AMD Phenom II X3 720 + Biostar Mobo - $185 w/MIR

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W - $70 w/MIR

OCZ Reaper 4GB(2X2) - $33 w/MIR

Seagate 640 GB Hard drive - $70


[URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152"]Dvd+R/Cd+R drive - $22

The only thing missing in this setup is a case. Sorry, I can't find a good one atm. This comes to $478 after shipping and tax. $418 after rebates. This leaves $182 for a case. Its too much for a normal build if you ask me. I wouldn't spend $70-100 on the case. This leaves $80-110 we can put on the other parts.

all he said the needed was mobo/cpu/ram

 

[kevlar93]

i7 920
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

OCZ ram DDR3 1600 6Gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365

DFI Mobo SLI/crossfire
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136066

That comes out to $618 shipped with $20 MIR a nice $600.
If you went with the phenom it would be cheaper.
There might be better combinations. look around.

 

[Yakooza]

all he said the needed was mobo/cpu/ram

Dammit...Go I7 if your gonna spend all $600.
You may be able to save some good green buying a Cpu, mobo combo.

 

[jabob2787]

Dammit...Go I7 if your gonna spend all $600.
You may be able to save some good green buying a Cpu, mobo combo.

I agree with everyone else here. Go with an i7 if you can. It will at least futureproof you with a socket 1366 mobo. therefore if you want to upgrade again in teh future you can just upgrade the CPU and thats it. until something else comes along of coarse. I wish you luck IAmMoen

 

[IAmMoen]

I agree with everyone else here. Go with an i7 if you can. It will at least futureproof you with a socket 1366 mobo. therefore if you want to upgrade again in teh future you can just upgrade the CPU and thats it. until something else comes along of coarse. I wish you luck IAmMoen

So an AM3 setup wouldn't be as future proof as a 1366 setup? Is that the general consensus?

 

[jdf_warrior]

8gb of ram is overkill. Trust me. Unless your doing something stupid, you'll never get close to using 8gb of ram. Granted, ram is cheap, but I wouldnt go all out for 8gb of ram on that budget, I'd stick with 4gb or so and push some more money toward a mobo or cpu

 

[IAmMoen]

i7 920
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

OCZ ram DDR3 1600 6Gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365

DFI Mobo SLI/crossfire
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136066

That comes out to $618 shipped with $20 MIR a nice $600.
If you went with the phenom it would be cheaper.
There might be better combinations. look around.

I like the ram and the proc but I don't really need a matx board. Actually I would prefer to stay away (gives easier airflow around components).

Is there a particular south bridge I should be considering? I know the x58 is the northbridge I should aim for but is there a SB that is by far the best at all?

Edit:
Ok so it looks like the ICH10R sb is the way to go if I am not mistaken. I have been looking at thesee 2 boards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188046

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362

 

[The Doors]

Both are good choices, but the Gigabyte could go up to 24Gb ram, EVGA 12Gb 'only', and being photo editing memory hungry task with images of 150Mb nowdays, could be good to have more room available!

For the previous question, well, no should not consider something different of an i7 right now, even if last month when I got mine, was tempted by Phenom II force

 

[kevlar93]

I like the ram and the proc but I don't really need a matx board.

that was to keep you in budget i actually did not notice that it was a microatx till you commented.

 

[juane414]

So an AM3 setup wouldn't be as future proof as a 1366 setup? Is that the general consensus?

Both AM3 and LGA1366 are both brand new sockets, so I don't see how one would be more future proofed than the other. AMD seems to being going the "backwards compatible" route lately, so it's possible that if you buy an AM3 system now, you could potentially buy a next gen socket CPU in the future that would be compatible with your motherboard. As it stands now, you can use AM3 CPUs with an AM2+ motherboard.

Intel obviously has the better offering at this point, but anything is going to be a massive improvement over what you currently have. A Core i7 at 4.0Ghz might beat a Phenom II X4 at 4.0Ghz, but with enough ram both would be awesome for Adobe Photoshop. Gamers always say that you should get the most powerful system, because what is good enough for games now won't be good enough for games in the future. When it comes to Photoshop... I don't know that CS4 is that much more demanding than CS3, or that future versions will be more demanding yet.

I prefer to spend less on things that are good enough than spending more on the best of the best. I know that every few months I get the urge to buy something new anyway. I'd rather save a hundred bucks and buy some new hard drives or a new monitor a few months down the road.

 

[Enablingwolf]

8gb of ram is overkill. Trust me. Unless your doing something stupid, you'll never get close to using 8gb of ram. Granted, ram is cheap, but I wouldnt go all out for 8gb of ram on that budget, I'd stick with 4gb or so and push some more money toward a mobo or cpu

Photoshop thrives on RAM. The more you toss at it in terms of RAM the smoother it gets. Especially if you have a large number of layers and work paths open. It is just one of them things with image manipulation or CAD.

If he goes with i7. He wont be using 8 gigs. It is in multiples of 3, 6 or 12. His sweet spot will be 6gigs.

If you use CAD rendering or do encoding along with Photoshop. Go for the Intel. It is a monster platform with that type of stuff. Hey AMD has a particular smoothness to them and are fun to tinker with. Though the AMD offering is no sloutch.
I am rather pleased with using the i7 my wife has. It is the first Intel in ages I actually like, a lot. I lean toward AMD for the fun stuff. But that i7 920 of her's just gets media jobs done really fast. So much faster, that I actually do not mind leaving my Linux machine to use her Vsta machine. For CPU intensive media projects. I have yet to top out her 12gigs of RAM.. It is like an endless well.

 

[juane414]

Ok so it looks like the ICH10R sb is the way to go if I am not mistaken. I have been looking at thesee 2 boards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188046

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362

If it's between those two I say go for the EVGA board. If EVGA and Gigabyte make their motherboards with the same quality as their graphics cards, then the EVGA would be better quality in my opinion. I've owned comparable Nvidia cards made by both companies and the EVGA was superior. Gigabyte makes some darn good mainboards from what I've heard though, and EVGA seems to be a more recent arrival to the MB area.

BTW: I will probably have to shun you for not buying AMD

 

[IAmMoen]

Ok been doing a lot of thinking and perhaps I will go with an am3 setup and use the extra dough to look into perhaps updating my hdd's so that I could do a good raid 5 (admittedly probably money better spent).

One of my biggest issues with what I was seeing from the amd offerings is not a lot of sata ports and raid until I found the am3 version of the gigabyte board I was looking at in the above posts.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128377

But it doesn't say a darn thing about crossfire at all which is perplexing because the dfi board that is similar has the same nb/sb combo and it has trifire capabilities. I will have to do a little searching around to see what xfire and/or sli capabilities the gigabyte has.

Another issue is that I want a am3 quad core and I like the idea of having more l3 cache which would mean the 945 or 925 (instead of the 810) but where the heck is it? If I recall correctly it was supposed to be released this month and have seen ES versions around but no release dates really set in stone.

As far as the ram goes I know that 4gb would be ok and that 8 would be overkill but I want to anyways. I know some of you think that is a waste and will hurt my overclock and that is all probably true but still. Saying, "I quadrupled my ram," is so much cooler than saying "doubled"