Building My Affordable Dream System

[ssmith232]

First off, my experience is about three years in high school computer networking, and also building lab computers. I am new to the forums, and I have read the post so here are the answers to the questions as requested:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Gaming... Nothing Else.. It will be my own little home away from home...

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
Luckily, I am about to graduate college and have received a nice bonus from the parents. However, I would still like to keep the system under 4,000.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
US-Preferably New Egg..

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.
Intel, nVidia, EVGA, WD, and Antec

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I'm only carrying over my old faithful Mx-518... Still works like the day I bought that mouse.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
I have read many Core i7 threads and I know quite a lot about the products I want. The areas I would like to have recommendations are: The MoBo, Cooling System, power supply, and if anyone sees anything else please let me know.


7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
This system will be overclocked.....

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Within the next two or three weeks. With all parts ordered by 4/01/09.


Okay, so now that all of the questions are answered here are my current specs:

Core i7 965 Extreme
Antec 1200 Case
EVGA Classified Motherboard
EVGA GTX285 SSC in tri SLI (3)
EVGA 9800GT for the physics
WD Caviar 1TB
WD Caviar 640GB
WD Raptor 150GB
Sony Optiarc DVD/CD RW
LG Blu-Ray Disc Burner GGW-H20L

Things I am not for sure on:
RAM
Cooling System (Air or Water)...
Sound Card
Power Supply(Can someone tell me what all this will take?)

I have a copy of Windows 7 64 bit so the operating system should not be a problem. Let me know what your recommendations would be. Thank you in advance for the time.

SAS

 

[ssmith232]

Oh I also failed to mention I will be using a 24" monitor that I already have for this setup.

 

[alpha88]

A couple of thoughts:

You're spending a premium to get the absolute best motherboard, cpu, triple SLI - even though they are not necessarily cost effective. I understand wanting the best stuff (that's what I'd get if I had unlimited money), but realize that you could get parts for $1000 less, that I bet you couldn't tell the difference while playing a game.

However, you selected an 'old' 150 gig raptor + a 640 and 1tb. Spending extra money here will actually improve the performance of your system. If you're going to go out all out on triple sli, i7 765 extreme, then you should pair it with an SSD or two. You'll really notice the difference.

Also, what size monitor are you using?

 

[ssmith232]

I will be using a 24" monitor at 1920x1200 resolution I believe. How much more effective would the SSD's be over the standard 10,000RPM raptors. The reason I am staying away from the SSD's for the most part is because I don't really know what brands are the best over the long term. What would be your suggestion?

 

[imported_wired247]

I'd stay away from the sony optiarc burner. I have one and I often think about replacing it. It has difficulties with some CDR's, DVD-/+R's, especially older ones. There have been no firmware updates for the thing either so might as well get a different one.

Go for the 300GB Velociraptor for your system drive and applications/games installation. Then just use 1TB Caviar black drives for any additional storage, I don't know why you're messing around with different capacity HDDs.


RAM - start with 3x 2GB DDR3 1333 or at the most, DDR3 1600 for now. You can always upgrade later. It's highly doubtful you'll need more than 6GB, and RAM is only going to get cheaper so there's no need to overkill it with 12GB right off the bat. Make sure it is low as possible voltage (to play nice with the integrated memory controller), and remember that CAS timings make no practical difference so don't be suckered into paying more for something you don't need.


Sound card... take your pick of any X-Fi card you like. Although I would hold off on the sound card if you are using windows 7. The sound drivers can be more trouble than they're worth while win7 is still in beta. (this is particularly true for Creative drivers)



I am not convinced the physX thing is worthwhile... and I'm also not sure you will be able to fit the 9800GT in the lowest slot on that mobo since the GTX285 coolers are rather bulky. I could be wrong though.

Since you're already spending so much I would skip the water cooling and just get yourself a nice thermalright ultra extreme (TRUE) CPU cooler.

For power consumption you're looking at almost 700 watts under load (see anandtech article about multiGPU). I would recommend getting something like a corsair 850W just to have plenty of headroom for your components, you definitely don't want to cheap out on the PSU.


Other than that, congrats on graduating. You may meet some haters on this site who will get pissy that you are going to to spend all that on a brand new over the top PC, but if this is what you want to do with your money, don't let them stop you...

frankly that's not the most extravagant graduation present I've seen, so enjoy it... I'm sure you deserved it.

 

[alpha88]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...el/showdoc.aspx?i=3403

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I would gear a case choice towards water cooling for later on down the road, trust me, you'll be happy you did.

Check out Mountain Mods for a nice h20 case

 

[ssmith232]

wired247- I will scrap the optiarc, but do you know of any other good basic dvd burner? I mean they are all relatively inexpensive. The HDD's were kinda of an idea from a friend. Run the 1TB only for movies and other large files. Use the Raptor for the OS and for Games. Place everything else on the other WD. As far as the RAM my idea was to go with the 6GB as well. As far as the other graphics card fitting I confirmed with EVGA and they are telling me that the other card will fit with room to spare on the Classified MOBO. I know that is difficult to imagine, but it looks like a massive motherboard. The power supply calculator thing told me I needed almost 1500 watts. I thought no way, but you think 850 will run this all just fine? Oh and thank you for the nice piece at the end, and would like to add there are way more expensive rigs on this website and I appreciate all the positive help I have received to this point.

 

[ssmith232]

Alpha88- I will definitely take a more serious look at switching to at least on these SSD's, however my only concern is the capacity. Should I wait?

 

[imported_Redmist]

I wouldnt waste a dime on a 9800gt for physics, I wouldnt use any card for physics, those 2 285's in SLI is more than enough for any game there is.
I wouldnt waste time and money on having multiple harddrive, I would get one large fast drive and not have to worry about raid setup.

I understand your happy and building a once in a lifetime gaming system but the video card and hard drive thing your trying to do is just silly.

 

[TotalLamer]

3 GTX285's will absolutely fit on a Classified. One of the main selling points of that board is that you can run Triple SLI, another GPU for PhysX, AND a sound card. It will all fit.

 

[ViRaLRuSh]

Originally posted by: Redmist
I wouldnt waste time and money on having multiple harddrive, I would get one large fast drive and not have to worry about raid setup.

I'll have to disagree here. Having your OS and apps on a totally different (and faster) drive is easily the best way to go. In his case, a good SSD like an Intel X25 as the OS/App drive...and a caviar 1TB for basic storage.

 

[DSF]

I would be going higher than 850W with four graphics cards. I don't have specific numbers, but even if you were only going to pull 700W (which is doubtful) you don't want to be running your PSU that close to max load.

If you don't get a specific answer here I would try the PSU forum. Several knowledgeable people there, including a couple members and a mod who work in the industry.

You can spend your money however you like, but Tri-SLi plus a PhysX card is a waste on a 24" monitor. If you're willing to spend $4000 on a computer, at least $800-1000 of that ought to be on the monitor.

 

[roid450]

Just know Win 7 is only gona work till July I believe, or August, unless you or someone finds a way to "Crack" Win 7 to work for a long period of time.

get at least a 1000Watt PSU to be safe, I think a 850 might be pushing it. as for Physx, its BS< my GTX260 alone runs the Unreal 3 games just perfectly fine at the same time it renderes the game. I used to have a 9800GT for physx and noticed no difference, the GTX are already very powerful cards that should have no problemr unning Physx, and AFAIK only Unreal 3 and GRAW2 use physx, along with some other less mainstream or known games.

I agree with DSF above ^^^ Id get a 26" dell 2500 resolution monitor if I was you OP, games should look better on such high res over a 1900 res monitor. :thumbsup:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index....iew&id=11298&Itemid=37

 

[ssmith232]

roid450- I have checked out the monitor models that dell currently offers, and I am unable to find a 26" dell model with a higher resolution that 1920*1200. It seems the next step up requires a 30" screen. In my particular location a 30" screen would be abnormally large considering the distance. If you happen to know a model number or have a link I would be happy to take a look?

 

[Farmer]

I'm going to make some assumptions, so bear with me. Maybe dump the tri-SLI, you wont notice it over 2-SLI or even a single GTX295. Who cares if you can run Crysis at 200FPS instead of 100? If "futureproofing" is your reason, consider this: more likely than not, once the next generation of GPUs arrive, one of those cards will probably be able to match or trump your 3 card setup, at a quarter of the price. Build your rig to play the games you want to play now, not 3 years from now.

Maybe dump the Blu-Ray burner, you may never use it, a reader is fine. Maybe dump the i7 extreme, unless you can honestly justify $500 for an extra few frames. A 9800GT for physics? I don't think that'll be of much use. I know how these things sound great on paper and look wonderful when you browse pictures online. I'm all for fueling the economy, but we are approaching Alienware levels of overkill here.

If Anand's recent article means anything, instead, spend that money on a RAID SSD setup. You will certainly notice the performance increase every single time you turn on your computer.

After all this time, I feel that mid-range builds that can be updated every few years are far better than all-out spend a wad of cash now builds. Like a lot of people have already said, the marginal increase in performance is met with a huge increase in price when you come to the very top end of things. Surely, if you've got $4000, it doesn't mean you have to spend all of it on a computer. $2000 and a nice vacation sounds good to, or save that $2000 for an upgrade two years from now.

That's just my opinion.

 

[roid450]

Originally posted by: ssmith232
roid450- I have checked out the monitor models that dell currently offers, and I am unable to find a 26" dell model with a higher resolution that 1920*1200. It seems the next step up requires a 30" screen. In my particular location a 30" screen would be abnormally large considering the distance. If you happen to know a model number or have a link I would be happy to take a look?

Your right, I thought I'd jsut seena 26" a few weeks ago at 2500x1600

and yeah a 30" is a lil big if its 2-3 feet in front of you, an option is to wall mount it 4 feet away from ur desk or so.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: ssmith232
roid450- I have checked out the monitor models that dell currently offers, and I am unable to find a 26" dell model with a higher resolution that 1920*1200. It seems the next step up requires a 30" screen. In my particular location a 30" screen would be abnormally large considering the distance. If you happen to know a model number or have a link I would be happy to take a look?

I hear you on that. I've got no interest in a 30" monitor in my current position, even if I could afford it. What I'm saying is that if you don't have a huge monitor your Tri-SLi setup is basically wasted money.

 

[Insomniator]

Originally posted by: Farmer
I'm going to make some assumptions, so bear with me. Maybe dump the tri-SLI, you wont notice it over 2-SLI or even a single GTX295. Who cares if you can run Crysis at 200FPS instead of 100? If "futureproofing" is your reason, consider this: more likely than not, once the next generation of GPUs arrive, one of those cards will probably be able to match or trump your 3 card setup, at a quarter of the price. Build your rig to play the games you want to play now, not 3 years from now.

Maybe dump the Blu-Ray burner, you may never use it, a reader is fine. Maybe dump the i7 extreme, unless you can honestly justify $500 for an extra few frames. A 9800GT for physics? I don't think that'll be of much use. I know how these things sound great on paper and look wonderful when you browse pictures online. I'm all for fueling the economy, but we are approaching Alienware levels of overkill here.

If Anand's recent article means anything, instead, spend that money on a RAID SSD setup. You will certainly notice the performance increase every single time you turn on your computer.

After all this time, I feel that mid-range builds that can be updated every few years are far better than all-out spend a wad of cash now builds. Like a lot of people have already said, the marginal increase in performance is met with a huge increase in price when you come to the very top end of things. Surely, if you've got $4000, it doesn't mean you have to spend all of it on a computer. $2000 and a nice vacation sounds good to, or save that $2000 for an upgrade two years from now.

That's just my opinion.

I don't know what planet you are from that has systems running Crysis at 200FPS, but you will certainly notice a difference with tri sli over x in that game.

Text

 

[Farmer]

Insomniator:

Yep, sorry, I didn't look things up to check my facts. I wasn't being factual I guess, just trying to make a point regarding overkill.

 

[imported_wired247]

There is no overkill. There is only price to performance ratio ... this system is going to be rather high.

Even 4 GPUs doesn't break (or barely breaks) the 700W mark... so 3 GPUs will be more than fine with 850W. See for yourself.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3520&p=11


What's this business with 1000W...

Assuming this system will somehow use 700W at load (which is an overestimate already) I don't think it's necessary to provide yourself 40% headroom. If you bought a quality 850W (still 20% headroom) with enough amps on the 12V rail then everything should be fine.


Rule of thumb with PSU's. If the PSU has enough connectors for what you would like to attach, it probably won't blow up on ya

 

[imported_Redmist]

nevermind, please delete me