New build with i930

[syamspillai]

Hi guys,

I am planning a new build (my first one) with the compenents as mentioned below. Sorry about the MBO, only the below mentioned 2 of them available at present. Any suggestions on improvement would be of great help.

CPU - Core i7 930
Motherboard - Evga X58 SLI3 or Asus P6TD Deluxe
PSU - Thermaltake 750Watts (I am getting one for US$ 170 but the vendor says its cable management and another one for US$ 195, which should i go for)
GPU - GTX460 1GB (i have EVGA,Zotac & XFX available, which one would be better) - or HD5770 (for price sake)
RAM - 6 GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (Corsair & OCZ available, Corsair being cheaper, which one should be OK)
HD - WD 1TB 5400 rpm (I am yet to decide whether to go for 7200 rpm)
Corsair H50 for cooling (is it required if I dont overcloak?)
Optial Crive - Yet to decide (any suggestions?)
Yet to decide on the case, most probably Thermaltake HTC

Being my first build, I got suggestions from guys that it is better to go for P55rather than X58 chipset. X58 would bemore complicated it seems. Wht do ya guys think?

[flanzig1]

The X58 chipset can be finicky to get to run stable, so a first time builder, would go with the 1156 socket. If you do go with the 1156 then you want the ram in dual channel sets instead of triple channel. Would go with the Corsair XMS.
PSU: Look to Corsair or Antec-
Mobo: Asus
Don't need the Corsair CPU cooler, the CPU will come with one
Optical: LG/Asus/Lite-On
GPU: stay way from XFX,EVGA should OK

[Khalil]

To start I agree with the advice you got and would forget the X58 chipset, go with a P55 instead.
The key to all this is the words "First Build" the X58 is not for first time builders.

[syamspillai]

thanks for the info. Can you suggest a good P55 MOBO? Actually just out of curiosity,why would you say X58 build would be more complicated than P55?

[glc]

Asus P7P55D-E Pro.

The X58 is an enthusiast's chipset. There are a lot of bios settings that need to be tweaked to make it stable and reliable, and there are a lot of little component incompatibilities that plague it. It honestly is not worth the slight performance difference. The P55 chipset is the mainstream chipset.

For a CPU, look at the i7-860, 870, or 880.

The EVGA 460 1gb is an excellent choice. For ram, I prefer Corsair (not the Dominator), Crucial, Kingston, or A-Data. 1333 is fast enough if you aren't going to overclock. You should be looking for a Western Digital Caviar Black drive - which is 7200 rpm. Opticals - Asus, Sony, Lite-On, and LG are all good brands of DVD burners.

Thermaltake PSU's aren't bad, but the best ones out there are Seasonic, and other brands made by Seasonic, such as most Corsairs and some Antecs. I really like the Corsair modulars (HX series) for easy cable management.

[syamspillai]

Thanks for all the feedback, Now I am really confused...I had made up mind to go with an X58 chipset but with all your comments I need to rethink. If it's going to be difficult to set up and run a X58 system (me not being a pro), I think I will have to switch back to P55.

I am gonna check the market for the components for P55 as you have mentioned above.

[syamspillai]

Well checked the market & came out with the following stuffs available
MOBO - P7P55D-E Pro
CPU - i7 870
GPU - Same as above EVGA
HDD - Only WD 1TB available in the market is Green, which I am not so interested coz its 5400 rpm, Seagate has got 1TB which I might go with. Was thinking to use raid0.A 500GB as a seperate one & 2 x 350GB on raid0,now is this going to be faster than a single 1TB?
PSU - Corsair 650 watts TX
RAM - Corsair (2 x 2GB) 1600 abailable is with the heatsink which is so highly priced, Kingston (2 x 2GB) 1600 is available with the heatsink for a cheaper price. Should I be picking one with a heatsink, coz the ones without are damn cheaper.

[glc]

You don't need heatsinks on ram unless you are going to be overclocking it. You also only need 1333 speed ram if you aren't going to be overclocking.

I would not recommend RAID. Keep it simple. What you could do is look for a smaller WD Black (500gb) for your OS and software, and then put in a larger Green as a second drive for data.

[syamspillai]

Thanks for your feedback...WD Green 1TB is actually 5400 rpm. should that be an issue?

The problem I have now is with the case, I am not able to get a decent case, not able to get Antec or Coolermaster in the market (tried through Amazon, would take atleast 40-50 days to get it !!!) . The only branded one I have is Thermaltake HT case(well I would prefer an HT case coz could get some good airflow), which is actually an overkill coz of the brand. Now I have cheaper chinese cases in the market which costs only 1/4th of thermaltake cases. Still searching out for other options...

[glc]

For a data drive, 5400 is fine.

Some of the cheap Chinese cases are fine - you need to actually go look at them and handle them.

[syamspillai]

Hi guys,

I am all set with stuffs, managed to get a Thermaltake case aguila, solid & looks good as well. I have a small doubt with regard to PSU.I might oc my cpu as well as the gpu(GTX460 1GB) a little bit. I have 700watts of power supply from thermaltake. Will this be enough for the same?

[flanzig1]

The Thermaltake PSU is an OK PSU but would keep any OC on the mild side(no voltage adjusts).

[glc]

Why didn't you get the Corsair?

[syamspillai]

Corsair was finally not available, only 500watts..Was able to pick Thermaltake 700watts instead of the same. Is it ok to oc with it?

[syamspillai]

Once the build is over, I am planning to oc to atleast 3.6-3.9 Mhz (i7 870) that's is once I get a good cooler (currently on stock cooler), Not much interested in ocing the RAM, might oc GPU a bit as wel. I am using a raid0 array, hope it would enable my speed. Now my query would be is my thermaltake 700watts enough for all this?

[glc]

Overclocking with a RAID 0 is very dangerous. Be prepared to lose the array.

[syamspillai]

Hi Guys,

I managed to set up my pc, but one problem. Though I am using i7 870 cpu, CPUZ screenshot says multiplier as x9, because of which core speed is only 1203 Mhz. Where as the actual core speed for i7 870 is something above 2900 Mhz. What could be the reason for this?

[glc]

Speedstep. Run the CPU hard and it will run at full speed.

[SARGE]

Originally Posted by glc Speedstep. Run the CPU hard and it will run at full speed.

What does that mean? You know what I got, or I can refresh, and everything running as installed, despite its capability to o/c. The manual is in depth, I will say that.

[David M]

It means that when you put a big load on a CPU, Speedstep it will increase the CPU's core speed by increasing the multiplier to help accommodate the greater load. Stepping down the core speed when not heavily loaded saves energy.

For overclocking, this feature must be turned off.

Originally Posted by syamspillai Hi Guys, I managed to set up my pc, but one problem. Though I am using i7 870 cpu, CPUZ screenshot says multiplier as x9, because of which core speed is only 1203 Mhz. Where as the actual core speed for i7 870 is something above 2900 Mhz. What could be the reason for this?

The 870 has a factory clock speed of 2.93 GHz. At this speed the multiplier or whats also called the BUS/core ratio is 22. 133 x 22 is your core frequency. Your multiplier is locked to never be able to go above 22 but it can be reduced by software in your BIOS that steps down your multiplier. What CPUZ is telling you is correct, it is being stepped way down at times to save energy. Don't worry though, it should be popping back up to 22 when you put a load on your CPU. Think of Speedstep as an engine throttle. Your engine does not need to be revved up all the time, just when you want to go fast, otherwise all you are doing is wasting energy.