Your thoughts on a i7 build

C

cooter

Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2004
Messages
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I have built about 9 of the computers listed below for work. These are for 3DSMAX, CAD, and basically all sorts of other 3D work. So far everyone that has one (unfortunately i don't have one) has absolutely loved the computers. They have also been added to our render farm during none working hours and cut render times down significantly!!! I just wanted to see what people have to say about the builds.

Keep in mind this is about performance and these will not be overclocked, ever! SLI is not an option. The graphics cards have to be NVIDIA, not by my choice (I would try to get a few ATI's) but because that what one of our main partners uses and so that is what we use....

Anyway here is what I have, let me know what you think:

Case: CoolerMaster 690
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137

DVD Burner: LG 22X SATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152

Hard Drive: WD Caviar Black 640
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365

CPU: Intel Core i7 940
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115201

Memory: 6 x 2 GB (12 GB Total) GSKILL DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231230

Video Card: XFX GTX 285
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150334

OS: Windows XP x64

One of the computers has the following sound card and is being used as an audio/video capture machine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102015
 
The main problem is that CPU: It's overpriced. It is only 270mhz faster than the Core i7 920 yet costs $281 more. That extra 270Mhz is not worth an extra $281, even if no overclocking isn't allowed/planned. So the Core i7 940 was a waste of money IMO. IN fact, since you said that you built nine of these rigs, you could've saved about $2529 if you had switched to the Core i7 920 and you still would have had the same performance.

Also any particular reason why you went with the Asus P6T Deluxe over cheaper X58 mobos like the Asus P6T or Gigabyte GA-X58-UD4P? In other words, what features did the P6T Deluxe offer that justified its higher cost to you?
 
Danny Bui said:
The main problem is that CPU: It's overpriced. It is only 270mhz faster than the Core i7 920 yet costs $281 more. That extra 270Mhz is not worth an extra $281, even if no overclocking isn't allowed/planned. So the Core i7 940 was a waste of money IMO. IN fact, since you said that you built nine of these rigs, you could've saved about $2529 if you had switched to the Core i7 920 and you still would have had the same performance.

Also any particular reason why you went with the Asus P6T Deluxe over cheaper X58 mobos like the Asus P6T or Gigabyte GA-X58-UD4P? In other words, what features did the P6T Deluxe offer that justified its higher cost to you?
Click to expand...

This. No one should ever buy a 940. Only stupid rich people running phase cascades should buy 965s. The 920 is the only i7 that even begins to make sense, price to performance.

The board costs too much for what it is, but if you're actually making use of the featureset that's forgivable. If not, it's just giving ASUS permission to pull the same crap again next time.
 
I agree with s-c and Danny. It doesn't sound like you needed the Deluxe version of the mobo, nor the extra 270Mhz. I also would have gone for a lower wattage PSU to save even more $. If those apps take more advantage of pro cards, then I would have put more money on such cards instead of high end gaming cards -- yes, I know they're the same GPU, but the Quadro drivers are optimized for openGL apps, IIRC. The WD6400AAKS is the best value, but if everything is on a fileserver and there was no need for a large capacity local disk, I probably would have done two for RAID0, for faster performance.
 
I agree with what Danny said. No real practical reason to go with the 940, especially in terms of price/performance.

Also, you mentioned:
Keep in mind this is about performance and these will not be overclocked, ever!
Click to expand...

Isn't that a bit of a contradictory statement, as an overclocked computer offers more performance relative to one that is not?
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I may be ordering some for our developers and they would have 920's and the non deluxe.
 
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