Building a Beast

neoviper

Hello folks,

Alright this is my first time posting with you fine folks so id just like to say a friendly hello.

Now for some business, Im a novice builder with only some experience with graphics cards / Ram etc the standard bread and butter stuff of building rigs and im looking to replace my old Alienware which has served me well over the last few years but has now started to feel slugish and well old while playing some of the more demanding games.

So what im looking for is a mammoth agian which will serve me well for 4+ years while being future proof enough to upgrade as and when needed.

Whats ive come up with myself is what ive listed below, Its only a list as i know to do some shopping around etc for prices.

What some of my major questions would be:

1 : Should i water cool this? I do work with water cooling systems for a living so it wouldnt or shouldnt be too much hassle or would it?

2 : The graphics card. My thinking behind this is to get another one much later on. IS it worth it? Would 2 275's be better?



Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7, X58

Socket-1366, SLI&CrossFireX, DDR3, ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6Gb/s,



Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-920

Quad Core, 2.66Ghz, Socket 1366, 8MB, 130W, Boxed w/fan



Corsair H50 Hydro Series CPU Cooler

Socket 775/1156/1366, AM2/AM2+/AM3, 120mm Fan, 1700 RPM



Corsair Obsidian 800D Big Tower Black

Fans: 1x 140mm Front, 1x 140mm Bottom, 1x Rear 140mm, 4x SATA Hot-swap



Corsair HX 1000W PSU

ATX 12V V2.2, 80 Plus, Modular, 6x 6+2-pin PCIe, 12x SATA, 140mm Vifte



EVGA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB PhysX CUDA

PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI, HDCP, single PCB version



Corsair Dominator DHX+ DDR3 1600MHz 8GB

Kit w/4x 2GB XMS3 modules, CL8-8-8-24, for Core i5 and i7, 1.65V

Any input anyone has would be massively appreciated and id love any advice at all.

Thanks kindley
Neoviper

uberpixie

neoviper wrote: »

What some of my major questions would be:

1 : Should i water cool this? I do work with water cooling systems for a living so it wouldnt or shouldnt be too much hassle or would it?

2 : The graphics card. My thinking behind this is to get another one much later on. IS it worth it? Would 2 275's be better?

1) PSU is total overkill, even a 650-750 will last you 4 years. (unless you plan on wasting money and going some crazt tri sli or soemthing)

2) gfx card is a waste. 295s are rare as hens teeth as Nvidia have stopped selling them, the radeon 5870 is cheaper and better and Nvidia's new line is out shortly which will hopefully bring back some competition into the gfx market as ATI have the performance/price sweet spot atm.

3) The water cooling you have chosen in a self sealed job, so maintenance free for the first while anyhow, a custom water cooling setup would be more expensive and would require a lot more TLC and planning. Air cooling is a lot less hassle and gives very good performance (and is pretty quiet once you pick the right case and silent fans) unless you are pushing for extreme overclocks. If you want to go water cooling go for it, just put the time into planning it properly.

4)On sli: skip x2 nvidia 275s. SLI is generally a waste of time and gfx card performance increases in jumps such that your SLI setup is slower than x1 half dacent card after a few months. X1 good gfx card will always be more consistent in games and less trouble than x2 ok ones in SLI/Xfire. Not all games support SLI or Crossfire and you can be waiting a long time for support for some games if it ever even arrives, some games just don't scale well with SLI/Xfire.

5) the ram you have picked is not a tri channel kit, for icore7 you put the ram in triples so 2gig x 2gig x 2gig for 6 gig of ram. The kit you picked is four sticks of ram which is fine for icore5 for a dual channel setup, you would experience a smalldrop in bandwidth going this way with an icore7 setup.

8 gig of ram is total overkill atm, 4-6 gig is more than enough for the next while, although I do see the point of just buying a large amount of identical ram at the start and never upgrading it again.

6) you don't have windows 7 and an SSD to run it on listed :-)

neoviper

Hey thanks for the reply was just the kind of stuff im looking for.

Think i will take your advice onboard and swap for the ATI card the only reason i went for the nvidia one is ive had problems with ATI in the past and swore off them.

The water cooling was just a thought as i was curious as to how hot the cpu would get if i clocked it? If anyone has any experience it'd be really helpful.

As for the ram it was more a case of that was the bundle that caught my eye i could throw in 12gb if it'd mean id never have to buy ram ever agian.

yeah yeah drives come after ive got this

Anti

Most of the components you linked i currently use. And can confirm the 1000w psu is complete overkill, but my god its awesome and so quiet. The case i also have, best case EVAR !! As for the cpu cooler, got that too and its great. As for the ram i currently have 8 gigs, and nothing im using even needs it, but its nice to have all the slots filled up.

Drop the nvidia card too as said above, the 5870 is a monster, and inside sources tell me ati are about to drop a card that will make the fermi cards look like a wet cheese sammich !

IrishGrimReaper

Anti wrote: »

and inside sources tell me ati are about to drop a card that will make the fermi cards look like a wet cheese sammich !

Link? You're not talking about the 'refreshed' cypress are you?

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17274/1/

leninbenjamin

Don't bother with the i7 unless you have need of it. There aren't a huge amount of apps out there that make use of the hyperthreading, and there are still some that are near incompatible with it! An i5 will give the same performance for most home uses.

And I agree with everyone saying to drop the GTX295, Nvidia's price performance ratio is exceptionally poor at the moment compared with ATI. HD 5870 is the way to go.

As for the case, it has pretty poor airflow. It's designed for watercooling so stick with the H50, and even then you'll need to upgrade the stock fans. If at any stage you decide to go with aircooling though you'll probably want to consider a different case. So perhaps from a future upgrades perspective it might be better to stick with something like the CoolerMaster ATCS 840?

Thornography

I just built a system very similar to yours.

1. Corsair H50 Hydro Series CPU Cooler - Absolute beauty of a CPU cooler. The only noise its ever made was the swoosh sound of the water being let out of the rad on its first start up. Not a peep since. Took all of 10 minutes to install, Its that damn easy and good. Keeps my i5 running at 4GHz (Overclocked from 2.66) with temp at high load of 23degrees. Yup, 23degrees. You CANT go wrong with this cooler.

2. Forget the i7, get an i5, Cheaper, does the exact same job minus slower multi-threading.

3. If you have the money, Get the GTX295. I have the same one you just posted (EVGA) and it has completely turned my gaming world in all the right ways. I plan on getting a second one in a few months time also. Radeon only perform better at higher resolutions, So if your like me, and not playing on a 42inch plasma tv, The GTX295 blows the radeon away at smaller resolutions.

Deano12345

Thornography wrote: »

I just built a system very similar to yours.

1. Corsair H50 Hydro Series CPU Cooler - Absolute beauty of a CPU cooler. The only noise its ever made was the swoosh sound of the water being let out of the rad on its first start up. Not a peep since. Took all of 10 minutes to install, Its that damn easy and good. Keeps my i5 running at 4GHz (Overclocked from 2.66) with temp at high load of 23degrees. Yup, 23degrees. You CANT go wrong with this cooler.

2. Forget the i7, get an i5, Cheaper, does the exact same job minus slower multi-threading.

3. If you have the money, Get the GTX295. I have the same one you just posted (EVGA) and it has completely turned my gaming world in all the right ways. I plan on getting a second one in a few months time also. Radeon only perform better at higher resolutions, So if your like me, and not playing on a 42inch plasma tv, The GTX295 blows the radeon away at smaller resolutions.

What did you use to test load ? Prime 95 ? LinX ?

Also,GTX295 is usually beaten at 1900x1200 (which is quite a 'normal' res used quite a bit,like 1920x1080) by the 5870.Drivers for the 5 series havent matured yet either so performance will improve.

Just to add to that point above,I'd probably go for the 800D if I was WC'ing,but the ATCS if not (The ATCS makes a great WC case too).

neoviper

Thanks to everyone for their input very kind of you all.

Between the i5 and i7 i wanted to go for the i7 as i thought myself that the 1366 chipset would be a safer future proof move but a gamble as i know only the i9 is confirmed to be the next chip using that socket whereas the i5 chipset has 5? i think new chips supposidly on the way.

As for the case im pretty much sold on the 800D as i just love the way its built and its overall size and look. Ive also decided to just add the H50 and replace the stock fans with something a little better maybe a few Scythe S-FLEX and a fan speed controller as the room im in does have an air con unit i can flick on if im having an intense gaming session and need to lower the temp.

So beyond the i5 vs the i7 fiasco the only other thing i need some suggestions with is the GTX 295 Vs Radeon 5870 everyone seems to be split

Deano12345

neoviper wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for their input very kind of you all.

Between the i5 and i7 i wanted to go for the i7 as i thought myself that the 1366 chipset would be a safer future proof move but a gamble as i know only the i9 is confirmed to be the next chip using that socket whereas the i5 chipset has 5? i think new chips supposidly on the way.

As for the case im pretty much sold on the 800D as i just love the way its built and its overall size and look. Ive also decided to just add the H50 and replace the stock fans with something a little better maybe a few Scythe S-FLEX and a fan speed controller as the room im in does have an air con unit i can flick on if im having an intense gaming session and need to lower the temp.

So beyond the i5 vs the i7 fiasco the only other thing i need some suggestions with is the GTX 295 Vs Radeon 5870 everyone seems to be split

Go i7 if you want to go Gulftown

Have a look at the CM ATCS 840 (as suggested above) or maybe this

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=578755

leninbenjamin

Thornography wrote: »

I just built a system very similar to yours.

1. Corsair H50 Hydro Series CPU Cooler - Absolute beauty of a CPU cooler. The only noise its ever made was the swoosh sound of the water being let out of the rad on its first start up. Not a peep since. Took all of 10 minutes to install, Its that damn easy and good. Keeps my i5 running at 4GHz (Overclocked from 2.66) with temp at high load of 23degrees. Yup, 23degrees. You CANT go wrong with this cooler.

Those temperatures are physically impossible unless you're PC is sitting in a fridge tbh.

Thornography wrote: »

3. If you have the money, Get the GTX295. I have the same one you just posted (EVGA) and it has completely turned my gaming world in all the right ways. I plan on getting a second one in a few months time also. Radeon only perform better at higher resolutions, So if your like me, and not playing on a 42inch plasma tv, The GTX295 blows the radeon away at smaller resolutions.

Why piss away near €500 on a graphics card if you're not going to play at high resolutions? Heck a 4770 would do if you wanted to play maxed on on low res. Secondly, it's a dual GPU card instead of a single GPU so there are much more likely to be problems down the line with it. For example, support can be very poor for SLI until games have been released for a number of months. Finally, the 295 doesn't do enough to justify it's price premium. The 5870 is too expensive for me, but at least that includes DX11 support so it'll have a better resale worth down the line.

Deano12345

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Why piss away near €500 on a graphics card if you're not going to play at high resolutions? Heck a 4770 would do if you wanted to play maxed on on low res. Secondly, it's a dual GPU card instead of a single GPU so there are much more likely to be problems down the line with it. For example, support can be very poor for SLI until games have been released for a number of months. Finally, the 295 doesn't do enough to justify it's price premium. The 5870 is too expensive for me, but at least that includes DX11 support so it'll have a better resale worth down the line.

Not to mention it runs HOT !

marco_polo

neoviper wrote: »

So beyond the i5 vs the i7 fiasco the only other thing i need some suggestions with is the GTX 295 Vs Radeon 5870 everyone seems to be split

No contest here the HD 5870 is cheaper, cooler, pretty well matched in performance and has loads of driver releases still ahead in its lifetime.

Spacedog

I recently finished (almost) my i7 920 build. I have nothing against ATI but always liked nVidias approach to software. so I can relate to you there. nVidia have a new card coming out in the next few months codenamed the GF100. if future proofing is your goal, as was mine, i recommend you buy a cheapo gfx card to tide you over until these monsters come out...

preview here

leninbenjamin

Spacedog wrote: »

nVidia have a new card coming out in the next few months codenamed the GF100.
preview here

Ah, the legendary Fermi... good to see Nvidia are still using their mouth piece to irrationally scare people off purchasing ATIs.

Fermi sounds great, but no one knows where it's at, even Nvidia, which is why no one should bank on it coming out any time soon. It's early development was NOT promising, and before Christmas there was even talk that it would struggle to keep up with the current batch of ATIs, let alone the upcoming revision AMD have planned. I haven't time to read that artice, but i noticed it still doesn't include benches, so this thing could be a long way off yet. It seems to be the typical scenario of executive led promises too much development. I hope I'm wrong, because it does sound great, but I'm expecting to be disappointed.

Btw, I say this as an Nvidia owner before accuses me of fanboi leanings. They make great cards, but they over promise in terms of their marketing.

Effluo

Spacedog wrote: »

nVidia have a new card coming out in the next few months codenamed the GF100. if future proofing is your goal, as was mine, i recommend you buy a cheapo gfx card to tide you over until these monsters come out...

preview here

And ATI have a card which is supposed to better Fermi's best offering. They'll only release that of course when Nvidia finally get their Fermi out!

If you wait it's always gonna be the same, "New card coming out next month", oh "better cpu coming out next month". IMO Waiting for tech to release is just a wee bit silly, although saying that Fermi's release could in fact drop the prices quite a bit(but more than likely they won't drop by much) and the op obviously isn't too mad on how much he ends up spending!

Better on power consumption, better value, higher frame-rates + runs cooler all this attained with non-mature drivers.

Choosing a high end gpu has never been so easy.


Also on the i7/i5 debate.
Futureproofing, it just doesn't really exist. IMO There are no mobo's suitable for upgrading, because by the time the new cpu comes out even though you have the same socket, the chipset you have is going to be old and the ram is going to be slow!
So get whichever one performs the best right now and actually for every component, get the one that performs the best.
It's a pretty good formula.

Burgo

There are benchmarks floating around,afaik on anandtech and hardware canucks, but they should be taken with a pinch of salt :P

Effluo

Burgo wrote: »

There are benchmarks floating around,afaik on anandtech and hardware canucks, but they should be taken with a pinch of salt :P

Tomshardware have pushed it this time me thinks!
So biased towards Nvidia it's not even funny

Terry

I have nothing useful to add except to say that the build sounds awesome.
Like yourself, I'm just used to the bread and butter type stuff. Did my first complete build last week and it works perfectly.

Kudos to you.

RoyalMarine

your gonna freekin love ur new case!

wait till you see the box it comes in. and then you realise the case is almost that size!

neoviper

Agian thanks to everyone whos replied you've definitly helped to ease my mind on a few issues. I can finally get cracking on ordering bits and pieces.
Cheers folks.

Effluo

You might wanna check out ebuyer.com for prices they trump komplett on most things

Solitaire

Effluo wrote: »

Tomshardware have pushed it this time me thinks!
So biased towards Nvidia it's not even funny

Check out the comments there

I particularly liked the comment analogising Fermi to Duke Nukem Forever

And the link to remind us all about how "awesome" nVidia really are. Check out the bile at the end after nVidia launched a personal attack on the writer!