i need some help/advice

[moe13]

I'm sure you all get a lot of these posts, but i need some help.

Trying my first build. I've read everything i can find from books, forums, and sites and have come to the specs below. I'm looking for some real world advice from people who have done this far more than me.

As far as what i'm looking to do with this computer - i'm looking to future proof for a couple years so i won't have to spend much more in the near future, some gaming (mostly platforms for me, but i'll be spending lots of time with Diablo 3 when it comes out), media storage and disc ripping (stream a lot to my TV), photoshop, and the basic web/email/excel uses for work.

I also am in no huge rush to build this, this is more for a new hobby than anything else so i plan to watch flyers and sales over the next month to 2 months to gradually grab parts when i can get some good deals. (primarily looking at prices from newegg, bestbuy, amazon, and microcenter)

Specs i'm looking at:
Antec nine hundred case
Antec TPQ-850 850W Continuous Power ATX12V / EPS12V
Intel® - Core™ i7-950 Processor
ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED cooler
ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 (OR premium OR rampage III extreme if on sale)
G.skill 4x3 DDR3 memory pack
Crucial Technology 128 GB Crucial RealSSD C300 Series Solid State Drive CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 (for boot drive and main programs)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB (x2) (storage)
LITE-ON Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM
MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) - OR:
EVGA 012-P3-1472-AR GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi)
Samsung 23" display - any, i have always had good experience with samsung
speakers? not sure yet, don't need anything too expensive
Netgear WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router

Windows home premium



my other main question - Windows 7. I currently use a 3+ year old system with vista and have not spent much time with Windows 7 ... does it make sense to get professional or ultimate? or will i be wasting my money. (if this goes well my next plan is to try a media center with Ubuntu, but i'm not ready to make that leap yet for my primary system)

any help and advice is GREATLY appreciated!

[jdeb]

drop the gskill memory, go with crucial,corsair, kingston, or adata approved for board and the seagate hard drive, go with a western digital cavair black. If you want to deviate from the stock cooler than go with a cooler master hyper v212+. the EVGA is a nice choice on the video card. Asus makes a great 23" display. for speakers, a little more insight would be helpful. not sure on the router, always used a linksys wrt54gl

[moe13]

thanks for the help!

is the western digital really worth the extra $$? ... half a TB less space for 8 dollars more..

[rwest]

Seagate had some major issues a while back which has kinda thrown them to the back burner with alot of techs. That's why you're gonna see better buys with thier drives.

Seagate still has loyal customers and the problems they had was really with only a small portion of the drives they offer. Still many folks are still gun shy of thier products(myself included).

The current most reccomended drive is the Western Digital Black. Value wise the Seagate is the winner hands down... but I personally wouldn't do it. I'd get the WD Black. You could get the Seagate and probably be fine. But are you willing to take the chance of being the guinea pig - for $8 less and a half terabyte more?

Seagate needs to rebuild thier customer base of trusted customers, so their drives are currently less expensive. Most likely thier latest drives are fine, but I haven't bought one to know for sure.

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by moe13 thanks for the help! is the western digital really worth the extra $$? ... half a TB less space for 8 dollars more..

5 year warranty verses 3. More reliable, recommended hard drive on this forum.

[glc]

I'm not a fan of the X58 chipset - it can get quite fussy and quirky. It works really well for an enthusiast who is willing to learn how to tweak it. I've been recommending the P55 platform instead, and it's considerably cheaper for a very minor performance difference.

However - both the P55 and X58 are going away. If you have a few months to wait, I'd seriously consider waiting for the new Sandy Bridge to become mainstream. I don't like being an early adopter, but this one may be worth waiting for if you are going to be spending the kind of bucks you appear to be ready to do.

I'd also wait for the rest of the Nvidia 500 series to be released - the 400 series Fermis are less than optimum.

[moe13]

Thanks all for the advice!

Rwest and Jdeb - definitely makes sense, all things being equal i would go for the price, but i am willing to pay for superior quality so i'll definitely look into the WD.

glc - i was thinking about waiting but my concern was that the prices on them when they come out this year will probably be considerably higher than the P55 or X58. Like i said above, price matters, but quality more so ... do you think that the quality and performance difference will be enough to justify the {most likely} considerable price increase? -- (that was also my thinking around the Nvidea 400s, i figured maybe i would be hitting a sweet spot for price/performance in the next couple months)

thanks again all, i really appreciate the thoughts

[cantputt04]

Actually the Sandy Bridges aren't going to be much more expensive than the chips they're intended to replace. For instance, i7-950 is what, 300? The new i7-2600 is going to be 300 as well, 320 for the unlocked version. In a couple of months though, the older chipsets will most likely be down some more.

Then again, the E8400 (which I used to build with in 08) is still ~170... I bought it for like, 190 back then. While at the same time, the i3-540 is only $100 and outperforms said E8400. I think the performance / price for Sandy Bridge will be better than the now adays (not saying it's bad at all).

But yes, I'd wait.

Also, 12GB of ram is kinda pointless, here's an interesting read all about that.

Then again that article is a bit dated and kinda invalid, unless I guess all your stuff is on SSDs... I don't know. Just sayin :/

[jdeb]

Micro Center will be selling the new stuff starting Sunday but I would wait until the dust settles a little.
Micro Center | 2nd Generation Intel Core Processors

[moe13]

thanks a lot, for some reason when i was putting this list together i was thinking the new Intels would be much more expensive. If i switch over to one of the new CPUs and new mobo there won't be any conflicts in my above configuration right?

thanks

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by moe13 thanks a lot, for some reason when i was putting this list together i was thinking the new Intels would be much more expensive. If i switch over to one of the new CPUs and new mobo there won't be any conflicts in my above configuration right? thanks

double check the QVL for the ram on the motherboards website, if available. I looked and it is not available yet, the dust has not settled yet

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=iT2FJPCMOGBHClu4

[glc]

We don't know that yet. It's best to wait and pull the trigger on everything at the same time.

When a new platform is first released, they usually bring out the high end parts first, then gradually add the mainstream versions.

[cantputt04]

Also something to note, your setup uses triple channel memory. Sandy Bridge (at least as of right now) supports dual channel only... So if you were to build that now, you'd need to replace the CPU Mobo and ram at the very least... Kind of an expensive upgrade if you ask me.

[moe13]

very true.

at this point i'm going to have to give it a couple weeks i think and then take a look at where the prices go. If the i7 950s don't go down in price, the new processor might actually work out cheaper (microcenter's deal with rebate is offering the CPU around $250 after savings) and the mobo fairly similarly priced.

i'll have to just wait and see for now