That kinda money and NO SSD or Raptors?

well there is one SSD for the OS and 2x2TB drives for storage, why bother using raptors or ssd for storage?
 
I don't disagree with anything said here, and I hate to be "that guy", but is this really related to PC gaming?
 
I know it's just a matter of personal preference, but that Thermaltake Level 10 case is FUGLY
 
wrong forum brother

but yes, that's a humongous waste of money

i'd definitely have tossed in 2 160 GB intel SSD's in a machine that costs $5k
 
me personally i would have gotten a 256gb ssd and 1 of thos 2t hdd nice system but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY overpriced
 
It has a 160gb X25-M G2 SSD... no real need for Raptors with that drive.
 
Does that case give you a blowjob when you turn off the computer?

Look guys, it's old as time. You build your own or you get bent over and plowed for a gaming PC.
 
Pr0d1gy said:
Look guys, it's old as time. You build your own or you get bent over and plowed for a gaming PC.
Click to expand...

Why choose one or the other? In this case you can build your own AND get plowed! :p
 
It does have a SSD...

Did they change it since you posted or are you just not paying attention?
 
Sometimes when I read the various computer magazines out there I see custom built high end computers reviewed that have a list price of almost 10K! When you break down the parts list you could do it yourself MUCH cheaper with a little time and research.

Why anybody would pay 5K or in some cases almost 10K from a custom builder is beyond me.
 
I can almost guarantee that going from the HDD I have WD6400 (640GB that averages around 95MB/s transfer up to 118MB/s max), to an SSD, Raptor or something like that, you would notice very little difference in gaming. Definitely not worth the money you spend on it. That money could be put elsewhere to get more performance.

But yeah, if your going to drop 5K on a system you would expect the best of the best.
 
You are correct mostly bigdogchris, but it will make more of a difference in a game like WoW which loads heavily off your hard drive
 
Zinn said:
Why choose one or the other? In this case you can build your own AND get plowed! :p
Click to expand...

hahahahah The joys of living in America.

As far as the hard drives go, people who know hardware know that hard drives are the most limiting factor in modern PC's so for them not to use SSD's is perplexing.
 
I bet you could achieve the same performance with a 2grand computer. Actually, I know that you could.
 
2 x $200 Blu-ray burners?

Somebody at newegg is getting a bonus if somebody buys this combo.
 
sok0 said:
I bet you could achieve the same performance with a 2grand computer. Actually, I know that you could.
Click to expand...

Sort of. You can make one that will probably perform about the same in games and general tasks, but not quite as robust in regard to features. The best I came up with was this:

COOLER MASTER HAF 922 $89.98 at Newegg
ASUS P6X58D Premium:$309.99 at Newegg
Diamond AMD Radeon HD 5970 $599.99 at Microcenter
Corsair HX750: $149.99 at Newegg
Core i7 920 D0: $199.99 at Microcenter
Intel X25-M SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC: $219.99 at Newegg
G.SKILL PI Series 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800): 359.99 at Newegg
SAMSUNG 24X DVD+R: $24.99

Total: $1,954.91

The list above gets you the performance parts you need to do the job, but it will require overclocking on the processor and video hardware. Of course that's not a big deal.

Component Choices

CPU

Every 920 D0 I've ever seen could reach the same speeds as the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition with ease. You need to invest in a beefy CPU cooler, but even including that the savings is huge.

Video Cards/GPU

For the video cards you can't just buy a lesser model and unlock streaming processors or anything like that. The closest thing you can get would be a 5970 which is the same thing as two of the 5870's but with lower clocks. With overclocking you can probably get close to, or right about the same clocks as two 5870's. So right there you can at least get most of the way. It is also possible to overclock 5850's to a large degree, but you'd have to do that twice, and I'm not sure what your odds of matching two 5870's are going to be.

Motherboard

I could have opted for a cheaper motherboard, but it wouldn't have necessarily overclocked as well, nor been as feature rich so I struggled to keep that the same in my theoretical "just as good for 2K" machine. I did it but it wasn't easy.

RAM

As for memory Newegg chose the cheapest DDR3 2,000MHz memory they had listed on their site. In order to keep the amount of RAM at 12GB and get over DDR3 1333MHz speeds I had to compromise a bit here. There isn't a massive difference between DDR3 2,000MHz and DDR3 1,600MHz outside of benchmarking, and even then it depends on your actual settings as to what clock speeds they'll actually be running at. So there was some give on this part of the build but it shouldn't have a massive impact.

PSU

Here is where I was able to get some huge savings in the theoretical build. The PSU chosen for the Newegg bundle was actually overkill for that configuration and they could have gone wiht something far less expensive with almost the same power output. I am not sure why they chose that PSU other than it sounds powerful. Don't get me wrong it is a damned good PSU but I'd only choose it if I actually needed more than 1,000watts of power output. The I chose for the theoretical "same performance for 2K" machine had to be close to or at least 750 watts for overclocking everything so much. It would get the job done with some room to spare but I wouldn't want to use less than that. The HX750 was a good way to go I thought. It would be enough and allow some room for growth, though not much.

Case

Obviously cutting back on the case led to huge savings as well and like the PSU, it isn't directly tied to machines performance. So that was a no brainer. The case I chose was one that would actually house the 5970's 12" of length and not be a totally restrictive piece of crap. I hate the case I chose but it would get the job done. No question.

SSD

The choice of SSD in the combo is a damned good one. Supposedly the C300 outperforms The Intel X25-M but they only offer it in 128GB and 256MB sizes. Someone else may want to chime in here concerning other SSD's they may know about that are just as good as the Intel for less money, but I don't know of any. The Intel is still pretty close to the king of the hill with really the C300 being the first drive to really threaten that position. (I know the OCZ Vertex drives were better in some individual tests, they didn't quite beat out the Intel overall. Neither has any other drive that I know of excluding the C300.) SSD's at 160GB or better that offer near the performance of the X25 are still crazy expensive. I dropped down to an 80GB SSD in the build list above just to cut the cost down. Performance would be the same but capacity is cut in half. Frankly an 80GB drive doesn't get it done for a gaming build, but technically it would perform just as well.

HDD

In the theoretical "same performance for 2K as the Newegg Bundle" rig it would be hard to get the same performance and storage capacity as well. In fact I don't think you can do it. The video card, motherboard, RAM and CPU eat up most of the cost of the system alone. So additional storage drives were basically out at that point. Though this is something that can be added later, and again it isn't tied directly to system performance.

Optical Drive

I don't know why in the hell their bundle had two of them in the machine. I don't know anyone who does this anymore unless they just burn a ton of disks. This was obviously a huge waste of money. In any case a burner will set you back over $100 for something that can burn Blu-Ray. If that's not important to you, then obviously a $25.00 drive will do fine for loading software. If you do need or want to write Blu-Ray disks then the cost of the machine goes up again.

When all is said and done you can match or exceed the machine for less money, but I think the only thing you can do for $2,000 is match the bundle machine in games and general tasks. Outside of gaming performance the machine you build will most likely be far less robust and in some ways far less capable. This is especially true in regard to storage space. That of course kills the machine for nearly any type of professional usage.
 
^^^^^, that is pretty close to what I would have said for the 2000$ except I would have gone with a i7-860 and a maximus III (triple SLI not needed) . And definitely overclock the cpu imo. All you would need is an extra 40$ for a cpu cooler and 20$ for a good quality fan that is quiet.
 
sok0 said:
^^^^^, that is pretty close to what I would have said for the 2000$ except I would have gone with a i7-860 and a maximus III (triple SLI not needed) . And definitely overclock the cpu imo. All you would need is an extra 40$ for a cpu cooler and 20$ for a good quality fan that is quiet.
Click to expand...

Yeah and with a board closer to $200 you could easily use the difference to purchase a drive for storage. There is no question that you can get a damned capable rig for $2,000. Would it quite match the $4,600 Newegg bundle machine? No, not quite. Now the main reason I left LGA1156 and the Core i7 860 out was because even on its best day, clock for clock, there would be occasions where the LGA1366 setup would leave it behind. The difference in most applications is negligible but it does exist. I wanted to match the Newegg rig in power much more closely. If I was just building on a 2K budget in general I'd go with different choices than what I listed in my previous post.
 
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