Summer 2009 build - any missteps?

B

BoySetsFire

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 28, 2004
Messages
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Here's what I bought at Microcenter(the 920 d0 stepping was on sale for $230, and I got them to pricematch in store for VelociRaptor 150 down to the price i would have gotten through the Egg AFTER mail-in rebate. hard to say no to that! ) or ordered online:

Antec 300 case (temporary solution, was on sale for $45, Microcenter)
CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W power supply
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Intel i7 920 d0 stepping CPU
XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V CPU cooler
OCZ Gold 6GB DDR3 1600 RAM
MSI R4890-T2D1G OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB vid card
WD VelociRaptor 150GB OS drive
WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB file storage drive

I also picked up a set of Grado SR60i headphones for music listening. I've already got Turtle Beach Ear Force X4s for my Xbox 360 and PS3, than I can move to the PC for gaming.

All told, about $ $1350 to my door. Not to shabby for a pretty [H] system, in my book!

I'm hella excited for the rest of my gear to come in. It's been almost 4 years since I've built a proper system. I've been using a MacBook Pro 1.83 GHz with2 gigs of RAM since they came out, so I'm looking forward to seeing just how much has changed since my last PC. Hah! Thanks for the advice, guys. Once I'm up and running stable at stock configs with the Xigmatek in place, I'll start with some basic OCing of the 920 and see what I can get out of it. I'm hoping to get in the 3.6 to 3.8 Ghz range.

As far as the case goes, I'm still hoping to get my hands on the Xigmatek Midgard Black, but it supposedly won't be on sale in the U.S. until the end of July. :( I'll keep looking at other solutions, but I saw quite a few of the popular cases in store at Microcenter, aside from Lian Li's and Silverstones, anyway, and wasn't that impressed. Heh. Ahh well!

FedEx can't get here soon enough!
Original post is below:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? gaming, high-end photo, audio and video editing
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? $1,250 shipped
3) Where do you live? Alexandria, VA, USA
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, psu, mobo, vid card
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? mouse, keyboard, card reader, dvd burner
6) Will you be overclocking? no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? 20" widescreen 1680x1050
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? less than a month
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? loaded
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? xp pro, win7 64-bit release candidate and will purchase win7 64-bit ultimate when it ships in october

GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz processor, stock HSF

G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 1100 (PC2 8800) RAM

MSI R4890-T2D1G OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB video card

WD Caviar Black 500GB 7200 RPM OS and apps

WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM raw image, audio, and video file storage

COOLER MASTER RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W power supply

Xigmatek Midgard Black case

ViewSonic 20" Widescreen 1680x1050 res LCD already have this and am happy with it, and i have a mouse and keyoard I'm happy with as well


Primary uses: gaming, high-end photo, audio and video editing, plus working through the training software for CCNA, MCITP-SA and various other IT certifications.

Some things I know: The video card(20" LCD only and power supply(not doing SLI/Crossfire) are overkill as currently configured, but I do plan on going Crossfire once that card drops in price even further and once I get a 30" LCD. I'm just trying to build in a little bit of headroom for down the road without blowing the budget.

I don't plan on doing much, if any, overclocking. That may change in the future, to extend the life of this rig, but it's not a current concern at all.

I will be running the latest Windows 7 64-bit Release Candidate on this machine and buying Win7 Ultimate 64-bit once it officially ships in October. All the extra RAM doesn't man much for gaming, but for editing large image, audio and video files, it's a godsend, so I feel it's warranted. Creative Suite 4 didn't like only having the 2 gigs of RAM in my Macbook Pro(1st gen mondel of the MBP, so it's limited to 2 gigs of RAM), so a little extra cushion here is alright by me.

I thought about Velociraptors over the Caviar Blacks, but the bang for the buck just isn't there. There's no way to justify the cost for me, this time around.

I can do all of this for just a hair over $1,100, plus shipping and taxes. Just waiting on some clients to settle accounts and I'm ready to pull the trigger.

Am I missing anything?​
 
Last edited:
only thing looks off is the 500GB Black, 500 GB is base on older tech and is not as fast as the 640 GB version.
 
i7 would be much better, as it performs much better than the amd quads... the 4 cores plus the hyperthreading would be would be benificial for your needs, well as going for that 640GB drive for the OS. you may even consider a second or more 1tb drives, as video files are relatively large aren't they? or will you be storing finished projects somewhere else? if not, you will likely run out of space pretty darn quick with all the stuff you propose to do with the rig... you also may not actually need crossfire if you are just editing video etc, even on a 30" monitor...
 
Core i7 man Core i7 observe man observe

CASE/PSU - Coolermaster RC 690 + Corsair 650TX both for $160 ($10 MIR on PSU)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.200608

CPU/VIDEO - Intel Core I 920 + Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB for $460 ($10 MIR on VIDEO CARD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.198947

MOBO - ASUS P6T SE LGA 1366 Intel X58 for $210 w/free shipping ($15 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131386

HDD/RAM - WD 6401AALS 640GB + OCZ Gold 6GB DDR3 1600 both for $168 ($20 MIR on RAM)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.199037

HDD - WD1001FALS 1TB for $100 w/free shipping (Storage Drive)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Total: $1,098.00 Boom!
 
I agree, for that budget, definitely go with an i7. HG's got you covered.
 
Is the Microcenter in Virginia far from where you are at? There is a Microcenter located in:

3089 Nutley St
Fairfax, VA 22031

They are selling the Intel Core i7 920 for $230 in store.
 
That Microcenter is not all that far from me at all.

Also, I've been out of the loop for about 4 years, since I went to full-time Mac/OS X use in spring of 2006. Hence me going with my old standby of AMD. I think Ill definitely be going with the i7 920.

That said, with the extra room around the proc, I'm willing to do a little overclocking and get an aftermarket cooler for the 920. Best of the best? Strictly air, here.
 
If it's just a little overclocking, The Xigmatek Dark Knight S-1283V for $40 will do fine. If you're looking at a really good HSF, look at the Thermalright IFX-14 for $70
 
The Xigmatek looks like the one for me, then. I've seen that the 920s can be taken up to about 3.8 GHz. is that realistic with this cooler?

Either way, I've really looking forward to this build. I will probably veer slightly from the combo deals you've got up there, but it will be pretty close. My budget might actuaaly hop up to about $1,500, if the wife is in a good mood. ;) In that case, I will probably go up o 12 gigs of RAM and a Velociraptor up front, and no secondary drives to begin with. I've got a few large external drives for spare storage, and I can add a pair of 1TB drives in a couple of months. We'll see though.
 
BoySetsFire said:
The Xigmatek looks like the one for me, then. I've seen that the 920s can be taken up to about 3.8 GHz. is that realistic with this cooler?

Either way, I've really looking forward to this build. I will probably veer slightly from the combo deals you've got up there, but it will be pretty close. My budget might actuaaly hop up to about $1,500, if the wife is in a good mood. ;) In that case, I will probably go up o 12 gigs of RAM and a Velociraptor up front, and no secondary drives to begin with. I've got a few large external drives for spare storage, and I can add a pair of 1TB drives in a couple of months. We'll see though.
Click to expand...

Definitely realistic. The i7 920's are amazing overclockers.
 
OhMyGod said:
get a SSD for the boot/os drive then
Click to expand...

i looked at SSD prices versus storage capacity and i just can't justify it yet. and the tech is still so new that i would rather sit out another round or three of it before making that leap.

looks like a 150gb veloci for me. :)
 
Minimum Transfer Rate
WD6401AALS: 59.4 MB/s
WD1500ADFD: 53.8 MB/s

Maximum Transfer Rate
WD6401AALS: 118.4 MB/s
WD1500ADFD: 83.9 MB/s

Average Transfer Rate
WD6401AALS: 98.0 MB/s
WD1500ADFD: 73.3 MB/s

Burst Transfer Rate
WD6401AALS: 125.4 MB/s
WD1500ADFD: 103.4 MB/s

New tech is always better...
 
You know those are Raptor speeds you listed It_shiro and not the velcoirapters.
 
Go with the Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB or 1TB HDD over the VelociRaptors. The long story short is that they're only 10%-20% slower in most benchmarks than the VelociRaptor.

Check out this thread of various HD Tune scores for a myriad of HDD configuration (though I believe that they also have a few SSDs thrown in).
 
bump for final system config and parts bought! copy and pasting this for the edited first post:

Here's what I bought at Microcenter(the 920 d0 stepping was on sale for $230, and I got them to pricematch in store for VelociRaptor 150 down to the price i would have gotten through the Egg AFTER mail-in rebate. hard to say no to that! ) or ordered online:

Antec 300 case (temporary solution, was on sale for $45, Microcenter)
CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W power supply
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Intel i7 920 d0 stepping CPU
XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V CPU cooler
OCZ Gold 6GB DDR3 1600 RAM
MSI R4890-T2D1G OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB vid card
WD VelociRaptor 150GB OS drive
WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB file storage drive

I also picked up a set of Grado SR60i headphones for music listening. I've already got Turtle Beach Ear Force X4s for my Xbox 360 and PS3, than I can move to the PC for gaming.

All told, about $ $1350 to my door. Not to shabby for a pretty [H] system, in my book!

I'm hella excited for the rest of my gear to come in. It's been almost 4 years since I've built a proper system. I've been using a MacBook Pro 1.83 GHz with2 gigs of RAM since they came out, so I'm looking forward to seeing just how much has changed since my last PC. Hah! Thanks for the advice, guys. Once I'm up and running stable at stock configs with the Xigmatek in place, I'll start with some basic OCing of the 920 and see what I can get out of it. I'm hoping to get in the 3.6 to 3.8 Ghz range.

As far as the case goes, I'm still hoping to get my hands on the Xigmatek Midgard Black, but it supposedly won't be on sale in the U.S. until the end of July. I'll keep looking at other solutions, but I saw quite a few of the popular cases in store at Microcenter, aside from Lian Li's and Silverstones, anyway, and wasn't that impressed. Heh. Ahh well!

FedEx can't get here soon enough!
 
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