kpross
join:2001-06-20
united state
| Build review please
I'm finally building a new system and would like a double check to be sure I'm not doing something stupid and for any opinions on what I've come up with. Here's what I'm considering:
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8D
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
5 x Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
MSI N260GTX-T2D896-OCv4 GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04
To give you an idea of my building habbits, I'm running an x64 with SLI 7800s. The system still runs okay, but after what, 4 years or so, I'm wanting a new one. The above will get me a couple years, during that time I'll add on another 260 with the PS listed, or by that time if they're still available get a new PS with a pair of 295s. I'm all about bang for the buck and running a system until I can't even run the low end eye candy stuff. The 5 HD is for a RAID 10 with one spare.
I play mostly FPS. Stuff like Fallout 3.
The monitor is another issue. Right now I'm running a 19" CRT and other than not being able to use higher res due to the size, I like the monitor. I'm a little skeptical about which LCDs will really do well for FPS between response time and input lag.
Thanks
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin |
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badtrip
East Bay
Premium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA
 ·Unwired Ltd
 ·Comcast
| A LCD monitor with 5ms or below should have no issues with gaming. I even had a 8ms Samsung LCD and it had no ghosting issues.
I don't like your choice of video card. For the amount of $$ you are likely spending, it may behoove you to get a more modern card like a gtx 285 or up.
The raid setup seems a bit much for my tastes but you may like RAID for the geeky thrill. If I was to choose between RAID and higher tier video card or SLi, I'd choose the video cards.
Otherwise, the build looks solid to me and I'm sure you will enjoy it. |
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kpross
join:2001-06-20
united state
| I've got a RAID 0 right now and love the load times it provides me. The only thing I've always hated is backups and rebuilding so the mirroring gives me a little wiggle room for that. But yeah it's a nerd thing too. 
I've been on the fence about the vid card as I'm not sure how much more I'll get out of a better card right now. Just to pull a number out of the air, Tom's shows the 260 running 76fps where the 285 is at 89. (»www.tomshardware.com/charts/gami···508.html) Is 13fps more worth $190 more right now, especially when I'm still looking at a monitor?
The idea was to either SLI the 260s later for a little boost or get a new board when the current "next gen' becomes second gen like a 295. The PS I selected has enough amps on the 12v rail for it. I've never spent the money on the latest & greatest vid cards, never seen the need for it. (kinda how I ended up still running a pair of 7800s) 
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin |
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badtrip
East Bay
Premium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA
·Unwired Ltd
·Comcast
1 edit | You should certainly look into a higher tier card. Like you, I'm all about bang for the buck and milking the system until it chokes on new games. But consider this, when you are ready to go SLi when vid card prices drop, the price differential between a 260 and a 285 will be a lot closer than they are now. Depending on how long you wait, the price differential may be trivial.
Thus for a $100 extra investment today (and you're probably dropping a good grand or more on this build), you will enjoy a large positive performance differential between a 285 SLi setup compared to a 260 SLi setup. Your rig will be viable longer in the long run for a small increase in cost.
I chose to spend the extra $$ on a 285 when I rebuilt in sept. because I get a performance boost now, I can wait longer to go SLi (allowing vid card prices to drop further before I buy) and when I do go SLi, I will have a 285 SLi setup.
EDIT: I say $100 increase over your $190 because I was able to find a gtx 285 for a couple bucks over $300 at Micro Center. There's deals out there if you're vigilant. Plus take a look at the tomshardware chart you linked to comparing the gtx285 and the 260 SLi setup. The 260 Sli only gives you 1.9 FPS more than the single gtx285  |
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Octavean
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY
| reply to kpross
An SSD or perhaps two or more will likely improve load times if that is a concern for you. I don’t think you can do better then that. For backup, a Windows Home Server or NAS should serve you well.
Overall I think you have a very nice system there. Given you mentioned your previous system and its 4 yr run I will point out though that if you had built a Core i7 system a year ago you might have gotten an extra year of use out of it. If people were building similar systems a year ago it should sound the alarm to look for a more recent video card at the least.
The resultant system I built from the parts the day the Core i7 first went on sale looked something like this (almost identical to the one you posted above):
quote:
ASUS P6T Deluxe (V1 naturally)
G.Skill 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Triple Channel Kit
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield
Corsair 750TX
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB + 750GB HDD
ChiefTek Server case
MSI GeForce GTX 260
NEC CD/DVD+/-R/RW SATA Burner
Initially I used less DDR3 RAM (1333), an OCZ 600W PSU and a 8800 GTS since they were on the shelf unused but they were quickly replaced. I only needed motherboard and CPU initially so at the time I completed the build for ~$630 USD. Now it would have cost about ~$400.
If I were doing it again, a year later, and I wanted to go with an LGA1366 platform over an LGA1156 platform I think I would probably substitute an HD 5870 or possibly HD 5850. Barring that I would probably just wait on the build pending GT300 release and availability. |
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weseler
join:2009-11-15 | reply to kpross
I play mostly FPS. Stuff like Fallout 3. |
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longstreet
join:2004-11-14
Plano, TX
1 edit | Personally, I would purchase less expensive memory unless you're a synthetic benchmark buff. Dominator memory is only used by people looking to pad synthetic benchmarks. (or did you really fall for that gimmick?)
Raid can be a pain to setup and drives are so fast these days (especially SSD) it's hard to make the argument for raid other than 0 or 1 on a home system (it's still cool admittedly. . . but moot)
If anything, I would consider raid 1 for simple mirroring incase the drive died or raid 0 striping for read / write performance, although it's not going to be as huge of a gain as you might expect.
Other than that, I'd put the money savings at the best possible video card. |
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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO
1 edit | reply to kpross
in put lag is over rated
the Dell 20 to 24 in models are great id look at them first
i picked up a 24" PVA based Dell a wile a go and love it |
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