Happy Birthday to me.. but I need your help!

[olddude]

Happy 66th Birthday to me. As I slip into my second childhood I spent the last year preparing for this build… reading OC forums daily and building two lesser machines for experience. Now it’s time (I don’t have an excess of time left)

My goals: Quiet, set for the future (AMAP), fast, cool running and under $1700.

Use: Nothing over the edge, no big time gaming but I want the ability to try it if I want, maybe some video tape conversion. I will not overclock at this time but I want the option if I want. Otherwise its normal old guy stuff… surfing, Office work, blah blah .

I already have an Acer P235Hbmid Black 23" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor.

Set in Concrete: Intel I7 930 chip, GPU under $200 (we all have our limits , but I really need help here as my other two builds had no GPU’s), 6 gigs RAM, modular PSU.

Almost set in concrete: I have narrowed the case to the Coolermaster Cosmos or the new Coolermaster HAF DX case (My son in law has the Cosmos and I’m impressed with the size and how quiet it is… but I get aroused (well as much as I can without chemical aides ) with the new HAF XD... but I am concerned on how quiet it might be in comparison. Whatcha think?

Anyway here’s my list at this time. I appreciate any comments as to compatibility of parts and alternatives for bang for the buck and anything I forgot.

Coolermaster HAF X $199

Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930 $290

CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler $80

ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $240

XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card $168


Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V version 2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC $109

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $167

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ $150

Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB Bare Drive $70

Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B - OEM $20

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM $95

Total $1559

With The Coolermaster HAF X instead of the Cosmos case
COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case for $200 increases total cost $30 to $1589

This last year of learning and doing from information I got from OCforums has been a lot of fun for me and I'm in awe of the debth of talent here. This is my last effort based on that year of learning. Give me your best shots as I rely on them.

Thanks

 

[David]

Hey, welcome to the forums

Nice to see someone 60+ with a keen interest in computers - my dad is 62 and hates the things!

I can't comment on the choice of board, but everything else looks ok. I would perhaps recommend a few changes though.

The i7-930 is the top end of the scale - an i7-860 would be cheaper and provide almost as much power. If you downgrade to an i7-860 or i5-7xx chip (the i7-9xx series is fine for lots of heavy numbercrunching, but overkill for light gaming and general use) you can use the extra cash to get a bigger (ca. 100 GB?) SSD and upgrade to a Western Digital Black (rather than Blue) which is a bit quicker.

From what I've seen, the 5770 is a good GPU for gaming (if you plan on a little gaming), so not a bad choice there.

 

[jamesman32]

Welcome to the forums!

Good choices all around on the hardware. The case is really a personal choice, although I think I prefer the Cosmos due to the clean lines and sound dampening qualities. Plus, you won't be running a hot graphics card, so you may not need the extreme cooling capability of the HAF.

Also, a note on the graphics card. You may want to wait another few days until the Nvidia GTX460 is officially released. It's rumored to be around $200, so that may be a good option for you, depending on it's performance in comparison with the 5770

Happy building!

 

[CompuTamer]

Looks pretty good to me.

The H50 cools about as well as High end air cooling, but does so quietly, so i'm sure you'll like that.

The Cosmos has some sound dampening in it, so that would help a good bit with keeping your system quiet. Since you don't really have any components that put out much heat besides the CPU (which the H50 will handle just fine) you should be okay on cooling with the Cosmos. I've never had the case myself, but everyone that's had it around here loves it. The case is a personal choice though, so i'll leave that up to you

to the forums, and hope you have fun with your build!!

 

[Roachgod]

If you run any older xp productivity software you may want to upgrade the os from 7home premium 64 to win 7 pro 64. It has xp mode to run the older software. I personally havent tried it myself since i'm still kicken vista for now. I'm sure some of the fellas on here can steer you a little better on this subject. Good luck with your build.

 

[olddude]

Hey, welcome to the forums

The i7-930 is the top end of the scale - an i7-860 would be cheaper and provide almost as much power. If you downgrade to an i7-860 or i5-7xx chip (the i7-9xx series is fine for lots of heavy numbercrunching, but overkill for light gaming and general use) you can use the extra cash to get a bigger (ca. 100 GB?) SSD and upgrade to a Western Digital Black (rather than Blue) which is a bit quicker.

I know you are right and that for my use a cheaper chip would be more than fine, but, but but.... its a testosterone issue here. I just can't see showing some guy my setup and saying...its only an I5 530 but its pretty fast. Really though I picked the 1366 socket for future proofing and that led to the I930 chip. Economically for me its not a good decision but that is why I made it. But your suggestion of a WD Black is a good one...thanks for that.

Welcome to the forums!

Also, a note on the graphics card. You may want to wait another few days until the Nvidia GTX460 is officially released. It's rumored to be around $200, so that may be a good option for you, depending on it's performance in comparison with the 5770

Happy building!

I will look into the new card as I can't buy until my insurance coughs up thier share of my new hearing aids, which should be in two weeks. BTW guys wait till you get that rush of laying out $6000 for hearing aids because you didn't use ear protection when you were younger.

Looks pretty good to me.

The Cosmos has some sound dampening in it, so that would help a good bit with keeping your system quiet. Since you don't really have any components that put out much heat besides the CPU (which the H50 will handle just fine) you should be okay on cooling with the Cosmos. I've never had the case myself, but everyone that's had it around here loves it. The case is a personal choice though, so i'll leave that up to you

to the forums, and hope you have fun with your build!!

IMO you have hit the issues between the two cases head on. The Cosmos's rep for being quiet is well earned. I have heard it may lack in GPU cooling but my son in law has two GPU'S, an I920 and a cheap cpu cooler and has no temp problems. He does not overclock though. I go back and forth everyday. Sex appeal VS noise supression.

If you run any older xp productivity software you may want to upgrade the os from 7home premium 64 to win 7 pro 64. It has xp mode to run the older software.

I don't have any older programs that I know of that won't run in Win7, but thanks for the heads up. You have opened the door on whether there is any other advantage to win7 pro. I know I always chose win xp pro because of the networking advatages over vanilla XP. But I bought win7 home for my wife's build and it networked itself. Maybe there are other advantages though... I need to look at that.

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time so far to respond. I welcome all ideas to help me refine this build.

 

[WayOut]

Hey, to the forums!

Now about your case choice: I really like the Cosmos case. I think it looks really solid, and although I've never used one personally, I think they're pretty cool looking cases. However, if you're looking for soundproofing and GPU cooling predominantly, may I suggest the Silverstone FT01? It's a nice, aluminum case in all black, that is fully soundproofed and also has some pretty snazzy cooling features. I used one in a build for a friend with two GTX 470's, and at load, his computer was quieter than mine is right now, just surfing the web. I'd really recommend it, and after the Newegg rebate, I believe it'll be around the same price as your Cosmos case.

Besides the case, I think your build is really solid, and I hope you have fun putting the rest of it together! Good luck!

 

[olddude]

Well I did it!

I ordered it all today. The changes were:

Oz vertex 2 60 gig
Coolermaster HAF X case
WD Caviar Black HD

Wish me luck cause old guys need it LOL

 

[xoke]

Well I did it!

I ordered it all today. The changes were:

Oz vertex 2 60 gig
Coolermaster HAF X case
WD Caviar Black HD

Wish me luck cause old guys need it LOL

Good luck...everything looks great!

I read your other post, I'm sure the build will be quiet enough for you. And remember, you want your temps cold if your really overclocking, but the CPU is not gonna explode if you run it a bit hot for the sake of having some quiet sanity.