New Core i7 build, need help

[memorygraf]

I am really thinking about building a new Core i7 system. I have most of the parts picked out. Just need you guys to look over it and tell me if any thing can be changed for the better. I mainly use this for gaming like BF: BC2, Crysis and multi-tasking.

MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188039

or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131641
I have always heard good things about ASUS and it is cheaper.

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

CASE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160
Can the PSU be mounted on top? Is it any better on bottom?

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320
Probably get 2 of these. I am not sure I should get these because I am currently using them in my current build and I think they might be causing me problems though I am not sure.

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145222

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130551
Still not decided on this. I am torn between this and the ATI 5870. I have always been an Nvidia fan.

I am not sure on the heatsink. Which one would be good? As for the PSU and the DVD drive, I am going to use them from my current build. The PSU is a Corsair 850HX. Would that be able to handle SLI with the card I picked out or with the 5870? I don't plan on doing SLI but you never know.

Is there any place I can cut on costs without sacrificing performance? All this comes up to a little more than $1500.

[David M]

I think you may want to switch over to an 1156 socket with a P55 chipset platform. The experts in here have not been recommending the X58 chipset because it is not as stable. Also, P55 boards in general cost less.

The EVGA boards have been found to not be as reliable as the ASUS boards. If you are looking for a gaming enthusiasts board then you may want to consider the Asus Maximus 3 Extreme or the Maximus 3 Formula. I have been very happy with the Formula. It has plenty of pretty cool features including some nice overclocking features.....although I found that in order to maximize the overclock, it must be done manually...which is pretty typical. Whats really cool is they provide the ability to overclock the CPU from another computer via a special USB cable at the BIOS level. This eliminates the monotony of having to constantly reboot the computer when overclocking.

http://usa.asus.com/ProductGroup2.as...yCKlQ4oSEtSu5m

For about the same price and performance, you could substitute the i7-920 you have selected for a i7-860. With an aftermarket cooler it can reach over 4 GHz, if you are into that.

Your graphics card is a good one but since it is brand new, the drivers are going to need some time to become more refined. I think that eventually the 480 will become a better card than it is now.

You will need to change your RAM of course if you take the 1156 route.

The WD Black series hard drives have been recommended here pretty consistently.

As far as your power supply goes, the power supply you have now (Corsair 850HX) will be able to power one 480 or 5870 card but definitely not two of them in SLI or Crossfire configuration. Their respective websites have a page that states which PSU's will power which cards. I would just stick with one powerful graphics card. Two graphics cards can cause problems. Plus there are not many reasons to go with two very powerful cards unless you have a very large monitor and want to play something like Crysis at full game settings. Once you get past 60 FPS, your eyes cannot tell any difference.

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by David M I think you may want to switch over to an 1156 socket with a P55 chipset platform. The experts in here have not been recommending the X58 chipset because it is not as stable. Also, P55 boards in general cost less. The EVGA boards have been found to not be as reliable as the ASUS boards. If you are looking for a gaming enthusiasts board then you may want to consider the Asus Maximus 3 Extreme or the Maximus 3 Formula. I have been very happy with the Formula. It has plenty of pretty cool features including some nice overclocking features.....although I found that in order to maximize the overclock, it must be done manually...which is pretty typical. Whats really cool is they provide the ability to overclock the CPU from another computer at the BIOS level. This eliminates the monotony of having to constantly reboot the computer when overclocking. For about the same price and performance, you could substitute the i7-920 you have selected for a i7-860. With an aftermarket cooler it can reach over 4 GHz, if you are into that. Your graphics card is a good one but since it is brand new, the drivers are going to need some time to become more refined. Eventually it will become a better card than it is now. You will need to change your RAM of course if you take the 1156 route. The WD Black series hard drives have been recommended here pretty consistently. http://usa.asus.com/ProductGroup2.as...yCKlQ4oSEtSu5m As far as your power supply goes, the power supply you have now (Corsair 850HX) will be able to power one 480 or 5870 card but definitely not two of them in SLI or Crossfire configuration. Their respective websites have a page on which PSU's will power which cards.

How do you overclock a computer from a different computer? I have never heard of such a thing. Do the computers have to be connected via a cable somehow?

What is the difference between the i7-920 and the i7-860? The i7-860 has a faster clock speed than the 920 so why would any choose the 920 over the 860? What kind of cooler do you recommend?

As far as the graphics card goes, I am not sure what I want. I have always been an Nvidia fan but I have heard some bad things about the new Nvidia cards. One is they use quite a bit more power than the 5970 and they put out more heat as well, up to 100 degrees. I have also heard the GTX480 is not that much better than the 5970.

For the HDD, It seems that the one I picked out has gotten alot of good reviews. But I am kind of hesitant because I am using 2 of them right now and I think they may be giving me trouble. I have already RMA'd them once and I am still having the same problems. I made a thread about it in general hardware called All kinds of problems.

[Khalil]

How do you overclock a computer from a different computer? I have never heard of such a thing. Do the computers have to be connected via a cable somehow?

I would recommend learning how to build a computer properly and knowing how to choose parts before worrying about Advanced Overclocking techniques.

What is the difference between the i7-920 and the i7-860? The i7-860 has a faster clock speed than the 920 so why would any choose the 920 over the 860? What kind of cooler do you recommend?

920 runs with tripple channel memory the 860 dual, for some applications tripple channel makes a huge difference, dual channel is all you need for gaming, so as David M suggested go with the 1156. The 1366 chipset is for advanced users who don't mind doing a lot of debugging and continuos adjusting. Again for you the 1156 is the way to go!

Finally Asus are a much better way to go when it comes to motherboards than any other brand!

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by Khalil I would recommend learning how to build a computer properly and knowing how to choose parts before worrying about Advanced Overclocking techniques. 920 runs with tripple channel memory the 860 dual, for some applications tripple channel makes a huge difference, dual channel is all you need for gaming, so as David M suggested go with the 1156. The 1366 chipset is for advanced users who don't mind doing a lot of debugging and continuos adjusting. Again for you the 1156 is the way to go! Finally Asus are a much better way to go when it comes to motherboards than any other brand!

I already know how to build a computer, I have built the one I am using now. And I know how to overclock, had my machine overclocked to about 3.4ghz. I just never heard of overclocking a computer from a different one.

I think I may go with 1156 then. I have always heard good things about ASUS. Any suggestions for the motherboard and memory?

[David M]

Asus calls it ROG Connect...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdl4Ufj9PxY

The 920 and the 860 have different sockets.

Clock speed is just one of the indicators of a CPU's ability to do work. The processors architecture is the other difference. The architecture determines the amount of work that can get done per CPU cycle.

There are lots of large CPU coolers out there with 120mm fans powering them. The favorites right now seem to be the Zalman and Noctua for the really large coolers. But keep in mind, once you get to a certain processing power with your CPU, the graphics card becomes the bottleneck and the 920 or 860 is plenty fast already un-clocked.

The newer Nvidia cards still use more power than the near equivalent new ATI cards but its not a huge difference. They all have power stepping which reduces the power demand when there is less of a graphics demand. Just make sure your PSU can handle it according to Nvidia or ATI. Also, make sure your case has adequate ventilation. Most decent tower cases now have plenty of ventilation. In my opinion, many are overkill in this area.

Is it a relatively new WD Black hard drive you have had to RMA?

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by David M Asus calls it ROG Connect... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdl4Ufj9PxY The 920 and the 860 have different sockets. Clock speed is just one of the indicators of a CPU's speed. The processors architecture is the other difference. The architecture relates the amount of work that can get done per CPU cycle. There are lots of large large coolers out there with 120mm fans powering them. The favorites right now seem to be the Zalman and Noctua for the really large coolers. But keep in mind, once you get to a certain processing power with your CPU, the graphics card becomes the bottleneck and 920 or 860 is plenty past already unclocked. The newer Nvidia cards still use more power than the new ATI cards but its not a huge difference. Just make sure your PSU can handle it and your case has adequate ventilation. Is it a relatively new WD Black hard drive you have had to RMA?

Yes the hard drives are brand new. I bought them from Newegg a few months ago and a couple weeks later had to RMA them. The main reason at the time was because of slow transfer speeds between the 2 drives. Still have the same problem with the replacements. Here is the thread on the problem as well as others: All kinds of problems

For the video card, how good would the 5870 be? I have thought about the 5970 but I don't want to spend that much and I am not too sure about the GTX480 being so new.

[David M]

Were it me deciding, I would buy the 5870 because it is a known thing. But that's just me. They are all good cards that I would be comfortable with purchasing. Just make sure you pick a quality card manufacturer. Use this link to avoid the card manufacturers with the less than stellar reputations.
Video Card Rating

I don't know enough about the specifics of the hard drives to give you an educated opinion.

[memorygraf]

I think I may go with the 5870.

What about a cpu cooler? I did not see any Zalman or Noctua for the 1156 socket one Newegg.

[Khalil]

Standard CPU coolers are good enough on the 1156 you don't need after market coolers. The 5870 is the way to go but make sure and stick to Diamond, Asus or HIS brands if you want to have excellent support.

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by Khalil Standard CPU coolers are good enough on the 1156 you don't need after market coolers. The 5870 is the way to go but make sure and stick to Diamond, Asus or HIS brands if you want to have excellent support.

Really you think the stock cooler would be good enough? I have never used one since I bought OEM but I have heard that the stock coolers were a piece of crap.

I have looked for OEM CPU's since I figured on buying an aftermarket cooler and I don't see too many OEM CPU's. Why is that?

[David M]

Most of the large coolers come with mounts for all the CPU socket configurations except for the really old ones. Go to the manufacturers website to confirm this. Newegg may or may not have this information.

If you do want to go with a large cooler, make sure it provides for enough clearance for RAM with large heat sinks. I bough RAM with very small heat sinks because I have no reason to overclock the RAM. 1600 RAM is quick enough.

As Khalil says though, the stock CPU heat sinks are sufficient. Unless you want to get in to some serious overclocking. But as I said, the stock clock speeds are plenty fast and its the graphics card that will bottleneck first for gaming.

The reason I clocked my 860 up to 4GHz is that Microsoft Flight Simulator is heavily CPU dependent (and RAM dependent) and less GPU dependent. The end result is that it made a pretty nice difference in frame rates.

[memorygraf]

I may stick with the stock cooler for now. I do plan on overclocking but nothing extreme, maybe up to 3.0ghz. If I don't like the stock cooler, I can always buy one later. I have looked at some Noctua coolers and some of those are huge.

Are there any ASUS motherboards that have full SLI? Some of them I have seen have 2 pci-e 2.0 x16 slots but only operate at 8x with 2 cards installed. Like I said, I don't plan on doing SLI right now but something may come up down the road. I just want to keep my options open.

[Khalil]

Full SLI?

[memorygraf]

Yeah where both cards operate at 16x speed instead of 8x.

I have been looking at dual channel ram and the highest speed I seen was 1200. Is that plenty fast enough? The one I picked out is only 800. Would that be fine? Looks like you can't get 6gb's of ram in dual channel. Would 4gb's be enough? I figured 8gb's would be overkill and too expensive. That is one reason I was going triple channel.

I am going to update my build in just a minute.

[David M]

Get the 1600 RAM. I like Corsair but there are other good brands. Any higher requires overclocking at the BIOS. You don't want to have to mess with that because it will not make any noticeable difference plus higher speed RAM costs significantly more.

Look on your motherboards vendor list for RAM. Those you know will work. Sometimes though these lists are old and there may be newer versions or kits that will also work.

The motherboards specs in the manufacturers website will state if there are any limitations with the second or even third PCIe slot.

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by David M Get the 1600 RAM. Any higher requires overclocking at the BIOS. You don't want to have to mess with that because it will not make any noticeable difference plus it costs significantly more.

I can not find any 1600 ram in dual channel. The highest I seen it is 1200. I like Corsair as well.

Most of the motherboards I have seen operate at 8x with 2 cards installed.

Here is my updated build:

CASE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115214

MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131482

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231201

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150487

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320

[David M]

Select a motherboard that uses the DDR3 RAM...its cheap enough now. DDR3 will work with an LGA 1156/P55 chip set if you select a motherboard that has all three. The board you have listed uses DDR3 memory.

You can only get the full blown unlimited second PCIe x16 slot with the X-58 chip set. So given that, don't worry about it. You are still going to have a very fast gaming computer. You want a gaming computer that is going to be reliable and fast...not just fast. If you want a computer that fully utilizes the second PCIe slot then you are probably going to have other problems. The X-58 is not ready for prime time.

I ran across the same thing when I built the computer in my signature. I was a little bummed the X58 chipset was having its problems. Therefore I went with the more reliable P55 chipset with the intention of buying a single killer 5970 in the near future. Perhaps you should consider the same?

[memorygraf]

Originally Posted by David M Select a motherboard that uses the DDR3 RAM...its cheap enough now. DDR3 will work with an LGA 1156/P55 chip set if you select a motherboard that has all three. The board you have listed uses DDR3 memory. You can only get the full blown unlimited second PCIe x16 slot with the X-58 chip set. So given that, don't worry about it. You are still going to have a very fast gaming computer. You want a gaming computer that is going to be reliable and fast...not just fast. If you want a computer that fully utilizes the second PCIe slot then you are probably going to have other problems. The X-58 is not ready for prime time.

Oh, I was thinking I had to use DDR2 memory. Since I can use DDR3, I am going to get different memory. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145222

Well then maybe I will not worry about SLI or Crossfire then. It would be nice to have but not important.

[David M]

For that board, you need DDR3 dual channel memory...not triple channel. Triple channel memory is for the x58 chipset.


I edited my last post....look up.

[memorygraf]

Well than I am confused. I thought DDR3 was triple channel and DDR2 was dual channel. I guess I learned something today.

How does this ram look? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145263

I would like to have a 5970 but I just don't want to spend that much right now.

[David M]

No, two different things. Look at the motherboards specs.
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_I...qmr&templete=2

[glc]

DDR"2" and DDR"3" have nothing to do with dual or triple "channel".

[memorygraf]

I did not realize that until today.

[David M]

Don't feel bad...it confuses many people at first.

[memorygraf]

I have decided to go with a LGA1366 build so I can keep my options open in the future.

Here is what I bought:

CASE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129043

MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128423
Had a hard time deciding between an ASUS and this board.

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

CPU Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608018

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145236

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150487

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320

I am going to use the Corsair 850HX PSU from my current build as well as the dvd drive. I would like to have gone the SSD route but they are too expensive right now. I am really anxious to see how big that CPU cooler is and what my temps will be. I will definitely be overclocking with this bad boy.

I hope everything goes together without a problem. I always fear getting something DOA but knock on wood, I have not had that happen yet.

[Khalil]

Poor choice for a motherboard IMO, you are probably in for a world of hurting. The platform to go with is the 1156 and I stand by that. Out of about 300 1366 builds only less than 10 did not give us a lot of trouble and we use Asus, best of the best.

[memorygraf]

Why do you think it is a poor choice? I had a little trouble deciding between the Gigabyte and a few different ASUS models. I hope I don't have a lot of trouble.

[Khalil]

The whole platform is finicky and quirky this is why Intel came out with the 1156, if you feel confident that you can deal with the potential problems then go for it if not then go back to the 1156, the 1366 performance if it works right will not be noticeable, the only time tripple channel could come in handy is if one was using it with newest rendering software otherwise it is a complete waste of money and the 1156 will match its performance any day of the week.
The i7-870 is the way to go.
Asus makes much better motherboards than Gigabyte and Gigabyte have very random support, sometimes you can get lucky and get someone on the phone and they are helpful but a lot of times they go by the way side and you can't reach anyone. Their RMA service can be a week or your motherboard can go in into an Abyss and not see it back for months.
Asus does not have these issues, there is always a human to talk to if you have a problem and their RMA service is simply the best.

[orbrit]

Originally Posted by Khalil Poor choice for a motherboard IMO, you are probably in for a world of hurting. The platform to go with is the 1156 and I stand by that. Out of about 300 1366 builds only less than 10 did not give us a lot of trouble and we use Asus, best of the best.

That alone is reason enough to avoid the 1366 chipset!

And that's from a professional system builder, not someone who just does it as a hobby.