DDR3-1600 CAS8 RAM is not best bang-for-buck. You can get Mushkin or G.Skill DDR-1333 CAS9, which is for all intents and purposes not any slower on Sandy Bridge, for just $45-50 for 2x4GB.
This has been mentioned several times in this thread. But you won't listen. Are you building a best bang-for-buck rig or are you building an I-want-to-waste-money-cos-I-won-the-lottery rig?
And why do you want to get a Thermaltake PSU? Do you not take recommendations seriously? You can get XFX Core Pro850W for $90 after rebate. Or the modular Corsair TX850M for same price as your Thermaltake. Finally if you're really looking to save money then you wouldn't be even considering an 850W PSU. You'd be happy with a 550W unit that is perfectly able to power your 6950 for half the price. The chances that you'll ever go dual-GPU are slim.
And WHY oh WHY do you want to spend money on a 7200RPM 2TB drive? Two 7200RPM 1TB drives cost $40 less! God's sake.
Sorry for bursting out on you but I just gotta tell you how it is.
DDR3-1600 CAS8 RAM is not best bang-for-buck. You can get Mushkin or G.Skill DDR-1333 CAS9, which is for all intents and purposes not any slower on Sandy Bridge, for just $45-50 for 2x4GB.
This has been mentioned several times in this thread. But you won't listen. Are you building a best bang-for-buck rig or are you building an I-want-to-waste-money-cos-I-won-the-lottery rig?
And why do you want to get a Thermaltake PSU? Do you not take recommendations seriously? You can get XFX Core Pro850W for $90 after rebate. Or the modular Corsair TX850M for same price as your Thermaltake. Finally if you're really looking to save money then you wouldn't be even considering an 850W PSU. You'd be happy with a 550W unit that is perfectly able to power your 6950 for half the price. The chances that you'll ever go dual-GPU are slim.
And WHY oh WHY do you want to spend money on a 7200RPM 2TB drive? Two 7200RPM 1TB drives cost $40 less! God's sake.
Sorry for bursting out on you but I just gotta tell you how it is.
Alright. A 750W PSU would be enough for dual 6950. Even a quality 650W would do the job unless you overclock. The second card adds only 160W to power consumption. But 850W wouldn't be overkill though especially if you OC. See e.g. http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6950-crossfirex-review/14I'll admit that I can be a bit thickheaded at times. I incorrectly remembered Thermaltake as one of the recommended brands in this thread. I am going to take your advice and switch it out for the modular Corsair (I very well may go dual 6950 within the next 6 months when I get my check for the spring semester).
Is a 64mb drive $40 faster? No. The difference is probably so small you wouldn't notice it. And since you're using an SSD for a system drive, the performance of your HDD(s) is secondary. Finally, it's a gaming rig, fps doesn't benefit from HDD performance.That HDD has 64MB cache, and the only way I can see two 1TB drives being faster would be in RAID0 (I wish Intel supported raid 5...)
Alright. A 750W PSU would be enough for dual 6950. Even a quality 650W would do the job unless you overclock. The second card adds only 160W to power consumption. But 850W wouldn't be overkill though especially if you OC. See e.g. http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...irex-review/14
Is a 64mb drive $40 faster? No. The difference is probably so small you wouldn't notice it. And since you're using an SSD for a system drive, the performance of your HDD(s) is secondary. Finally, it's a gaming rig, fps doesn't benefit from HDD performance.
Post your complete setup and we'll gather the boys to approve it
You've still got the 1600MHz CAS8 ram there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231311 This for $46 + free SDHC card, vs $70 for what you had listed there. The 1600MHz CAS8 ripjawsX is about 0-2% better, but 50% more expensive. It's not a whole lot of money I know, but I feel I should still point it out.
Everything else looks great, but the Sapphire Toxic 6950 is out of stock. You should probably opt for a dual-fan 6950 instead, perhaps the XFX this time? People say bad things about Sapphire's warranty service, even though their cards are high quality. I don't know how XFX deals with their customers but they offer lifetime warranty.
true, thats why they sold out so quick!I'd go for XFX then, there's not really much speaking for the Toxic. Better cooling, better warranty and service. When the Toxic is back in stock I don't think it will have the same discount on it as it used to.
To be fair, the Seagate is cheaper at the moment. It's fine IMO.HDD : Would rather have a Samsung F3 1TB or two instead of the Seagate. SATA 6Gb/s and the extra cache don't matter.
And the MSI mobo probably is a better overclocker than the Asrocks (would like some data on this though). After all you have to make some compromise between quality and price... I think this is where the OP's mentality is coming from. He wants high quality stuff, but he doesn't want to sell his mom to afford it. He's obviously got a budget, yet if he's happy to pay that extra bit of cash for a better built product while staying within budget, then let him. All through this thread it's seemed to me that he's not looking for the absolute best value, but for a compromise.
Indeed, I simply was assuming the MSI would overclock higher, and used that to drive a more general argument. If there's no reason to go for the more expensive board, then buying it is not reasonable.
Your point is valid though. We need to keep in mind it's a gaming build. What's the best way to spend money in that regard, that's the question.
An 8+4 power phase design is not quite the same as a true 12 phase, but it is close enough. Honestly though, once you get to 10 or so, the number of phases matters less than the cooling on the VRMs. Also note that the power delivery circuitry really only matters for the CPU and memory. The GPU get the majority of its power from the PCIe power connector.
The Extreme3 does support Virtu, same as the MSI, not that you want to use it. EAX is of questionable utility IMHO because it's now been reduced to just an API. The normal software sound engines can do just as well.
So is 8+4 or straight up 10 better? (The ASRock being 8+4, and the MSI being 10)
Also, don't some games only support certain surround functions via EAX?
~newParadigm
It's not as simple as one being better than the other. The 8+4 phase will be slightly more efficient and the 10 phase will have slightly more even power delivery. The design doesn't matter that much either way though, the overall quality of the components that make up the phases is more important.
Some games only support certain environmental effects via EAX.
OK< so then 10 is 'better' for OCing, and 8+4 will make your electrical bill lower. I guess then I'm going to stick with the MSI board, as they are known for better quality, as well as having the power scheme more tailored to what I am planning on doing. Also, their components are 'military grade'. I know them saying that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but an independent review rated the caps in that board as very good.
Also, I have a very nice surround system (JBL 4800 floorstanding speakers, Harmon/Kardon 500w RMS amp, JBL dual 5'woofers/titanium tweeter center, and infinity bookshelf rears, no sub yet as the sub channel gets routed to the JBL fronts, which do the bass perfectly fine) so I want ALL the effects that I can get. I will probably be upgrading to a discrete sound card at some point.
What is a good card currently available for that? Is there anything out on the market right now that has either DTS or Dolby Digital Live encoding (like soundstorm did...) I wish that I could get a nForce 2 Soundstorm discrete sound card....
Hey, it's your money to waste.
Finally, somebody with a legitimate need for a discrete sound card! You'll obviously want to do DD Live or DTS Connect to your receiver. A $50 Xonar DS will encode to DTS in real time.