New System with GA-X58A-UD3R and i7 930

Hi everybody,

Greetings from Los Angeles! I am new in this forum.

I am planning to build an Intel i7 system myself. Any suggestions to the system will be highly appreciated.

Following are the details of the system:

motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
cpu: Intel i7 930
ram: Kingston KHX2000C9AD3T1K3/6GX (also considering Corsair CMX6GX3M3C1600C7)
case: Cooler Master 690 II Advanced (also considering Thermalright Venomous X-RT)
psu: Antec Quattro 850 with 80Plus® Bronze Certification
cpu cooler: CoolIT SYSTEMS ECO A.L.C. (will add an additional fan for push/pull setting)
video card: ??? (still not sure if I should go will SLI or CrossFire X, one thing for sure I will either get one or two video cards not three)

I am not a gamer, mainly will use this system for 64bits AutoCAD, Revit Architectural and 3D rendering for my home office. I will start with Vista Ultimate because I got that a year ago but never get the chance to put together a 64bits system. Eventually, I will shift to Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate later this year.

Any advice? Thanks.

If youre not going to be gamming then it would probably be a bit of a waste to get two cards in SLI/CF... You would probably be happy with the performance from one decent card. I'm partial to the ATI line but its all about your budget.

Those tags at the bottom.. wow!

Anyway, welcome!

My advice would be to stay away from SLI/Crossfire if you are not gaming. Im not certain, but I dont think that those CAD programs and such can use SLI/Crossfire. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. With that said, you should probably go for a Quadro type card as that is specfically made for running the software you use.

EarthDog said:

Those tags at the bottom.. wow!

Anyway, welcome!

My advice would be to stay away from SLI/Crossfire if you are not gaming. Im not certain, but I dont think that those CAD programs and such can use SLI/Crossfire. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. With that said, you should probably go for a Quadro type card as that is specfically made for running the software you use.

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I'm pretty sure you are correct ED. Work station type cards like the quadro would definitely be better suited for that type of application. Quadro is nvidia's line of workstation videocards and FirePro is ATI's line. These cards are not cheap at all so make sure thats what you want it for....

Here is a list of PCIE 16X 2.0 work station cards at new egg

Kings107s and EarthDog,

Both of you are right. Instead of the SLI or CrossFire X, I should have thought about the NVIDIA - Quadro or the ATI - FirePro.

FX 580 is the top model within the Quadro entry level family, it is about $160. If I want to get something a step better, I will have to go to the mid-range level and pay $400. It's more than double! It's really hard to decide.

BTW, according to the Kingston's specification for the KHX2000C9AD3T1K3/6GX ram, the SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1333MHz timing of 9-9-9 at 1.5V. Is the 9-9-9 too slow? Though they claim it can be OC to 2000MHz (9-10-9-27 at 1.65V) but I don't think the i7 930 can support that. Also, I have no plan to push it that far anyway. Should I get the CORSAIR TR3X6G1600C8D Dominator (8-8-8-24-2T at 1.65v) instead? The CORAIR Dominator will cost me $30 more. Which one is a better choice?

JEDEC will always be a little different than what the manufacture states ussually because the voltage and timings have been changed. If you go with the voltages and timings the manufacture suggest the RAM will run fine.

As a rule of thumb, as the speed of the RAM goes up so does the latency. So your 2000MHz will have some of the highest latencies of all RAM. I would go for the corsair if I were you.

FWLAX said:

Hi everybody,

Greetings from Los Angeles! I am new in this forum.

I am planning to build an Intel i7 system myself. Any suggestions to the system will be highly appreciated.

Following are the details of the system:

motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
cpu: Intel i7 930
ram: Kingston KHX2000C9AD3T1K3/6GX (also considering Corsair CMX6GX3M3C1600C7)
case: Cooler Master 690 II Advanced (also considering Thermalright Venomous X-RT)
psu: Antec Quattro 850 with 80Plus® Bronze Certification
cpu cooler: CoolIT SYSTEMS ECO A.L.C. (will add an additional fan for push/pull setting)
video card: ??? (still not sure if I should go will SLI or CrossFire X, one thing for sure I will either get one or two video cards not three)

I am not a gamer, mainly will use this system for 64bits AutoCAD, Revit Architectural and 3D rendering for my home office. I will start with Vista Ultimate because I got that a year ago but never get the chance to put together a 64bits system. Eventually, I will shift to Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate later this year.

Any advice? Thanks.

Click to expand...

why have you cut and pasted this exact message in three different forums?
do you expect to get a different answer?

gigabyte products are garbage, avoid them at all costs.

You were going to pay for 2 GPU's in the original post, so Im not sure wh suddenly $400 is a lot to spend for a proper card...

and dont listen to fundip...he has a giant burr in his arse about gigabyte products. They are FINE and appear to have no higher problem rate than any other mobo mfg out there...

I've built three or four gigabyte systems and all have been running great so dont listen to that BS. The board's I've had issues with in the past were MSI boards.

Anyway.... ya why are you choking on $400, thought you were going to spend twice that...

Maybe he was getting significantly lesser cards but... it shocked me too.

@op, you wouldn't be sorry spending the cash on a proper quadro/firepro card... though it will not game as well as a ati 5870, the processors are geared for your specific 3d rendering apps (auto cad etc)

It will still be able to game moderately.. it just will not play everything at max settings.

400 is still considered cheap for a workstation card.. one of the pc's in my works project management office has a card that was about $5,000 at time of purchase.. 2x "good" graphics cards will run you easily at or over 400 and not give you the power to run your specified apps w/o possibly running a little sluggish

go for the 400-600 range in workstation card.. its worth it!

EarthDog said:

You were going to pay for 2 GPU's in the original post, so Im not sure wh suddenly $400 is a lot to spend for a proper card...

and dont listen to fundip...he has a giant burr in his arse about gigabyte products. They are FINE and appear to have no higher problem rate than any other mobo mfg out there...

Click to expand...

gigabyte customer support ammounts to cut and paste responses that do not help their customers. i spent $225 on a ga-x58a-ud3r that failed after five weeks and gigabyte just gives me the run around with an rma and blames the failure on all other hardware.

their motherboards may or may not have similar fail rates compared to those of other companies but when one of their products fails they will not honor the warranty. many have had this same experience.

so whenever someone asks about gigabyte, i am forced to advise them not to risk their money.

And many MORE others have had pleasent experiences...including me. Im sorry you and a few others have had bad experiences but Im sure others have had the same bad experiences with other companies. Thats no reason to **** on an entire company that makes great products.

EarthDog said:

And many MORE others have had pleasent experiences...including me. Im sorry you and a few others have had bad experiences but Im sure others have had the same bad experiences with other companies. Thats no reason to crap on an entire company that makes great products.

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have you ever dona an rma with gigabyte or dealt with their tech support?

No RMA, yes to tech support (but this is not the place to discuss this).

EarthDog said:

No RMA, yes to tech support (but this is not the place to discuss this).

Click to expand...

i disagree. the op asked if his hardware is good. about the motherboard, you say yes, i say no.

if you have used gigabyte tech support then you know that they just give you cut and paste responses that often have little relevence to the inquiry. just take for example the cut and paste response to all the 1 egg reviews at newegg that offer to provide personalized support.

gigabyte support is a joke, and i cannot take anyone seriously who disputes that. as for there products, maybe some have had success with them, but my personal experience is that they are poorly designed and made with the cheapest components which makes them prone to failure.

You have your perception from experience, and I have mine. I can tell you without a doubt that your opinion of gigabyte, specifically the quality of the parts, puts you in an extreme minority.

I have pushed plenty gigabyte boads to their limits and NEVER had an issue (P45). I also used a basic UD3R P55 for extreme cold and never had a problem either.

I just dont agree that your singular experience + a few others, that ALL COMPANIES ENCOUNTER, are grounds for crucifying their products as a whole. For god sakes we arent telling him to get Powmax 300W PSU!! Now lets move on.

PS - Sorry I attempted to dismiss this as relevent to the thread, you are right, it certainly is applicable (but see the above).

I have built couple systems with Asus mobo before but the last one was built ten years ago. Two months ago, when I started to put a configuration together, I was considering the Asus P6T mobo. Sometime last month, I saw the Asus P6T SE with i7 930 combo in the store for $330.00, because I was only looking for the P6T not the P6T SE and I was not familiar with the P6T SE so I didn't bother with the combo. After doing some research online, I realized that it's a good deal and decided to give it a try but the store went out of that mobo already.

This will be the first time for me to use Gigabyte mobo. I really appreciate FUNDIP's advice and I have no doubt about his experience with Gigabyte. Just like any product, some people praise it while some others hated it. For example, I don't like Dell computer at all. Period! My past experience with them has brought me to this conclusion. However, some of my friends just love it to dead.

I did some research about the GA-X58A-UD3R and it seems this mobo is pretty good for the money. As a matter of fact, I just went to store this afternoon and got the mobo with the i7 930 for $430 plus tax.

The reason I found it hard to decide on the video card, it has to do with my tight budget. I was thinking if I use SLI or CrossFire X, I can just start with one card and add a second one later on. Now as many of you point out I should use the Quadro or FirePro, this is something that I completely overlooked. Which means I have to pay it at once. Unless I will stuck with the FX580 for the next 3 to 4 years, otherwise, I feel like I am tossing the money away. At the moment, I tend to get the FX1800 but I am running out of $ and I don't want put it on credit.