New Builder Needing Some Advice

[calvinblount1980]

Hi everyone,

So my current budget is at about $1,500. I am looking at the following components to make my first build. I would like to know what you all think.

Case: COOLER MASTER HAF932

PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro

Mother Board: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R

CPU: Intel Core i7-980

RAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6 GB

GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi)

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black

Optical Drive: Samsung CD/DVD Burner Black SATA

Would all of this work? Is there any area that I am over spending unnecessarily on or is there something I need to spend more money on? Your expertise will be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Khalil]

Welcome to pcmech
The 1366 platform is not for a first time builder it tends to have a lot of issues and bugs. What are you going to mainly use this rig for?

[calvinblount1980]

Originally Posted by Khalil Welcome to pcmech The 1366 platform is not for a first time builder it tends to have a lot of issues and bugs. What are you going to mainly use this rig for?

Hi Kahlil,

To be honest its going to be used primarily for gaming. I wanted to keep options open so I can upgrade easily since at the moment I am kind of budget tight right now.

[David M]

$1500 is plenty to build a fast gamer. Your budget is enough to play pretty much all the games at high settings and reach 60 FPS.

[Khalil]

I would go with an 1155 sandybridge platform, if you are into Nvidia get a GTX570 or 580, the 550 is not much of a gaming video card.
If you are open to ATI look at the 6970.
A nice processor in the sandybridge for gaming is the i5-2400 Intel® Core)

Make sure and focus on putting a big part of your budget into the video card, video cards carry 80% of the gaming load.

I recomend going with a 64 bit OS and 8GB of memory.

[glc]

This comes in just under $1500. The SSD is optional, you can save if you omit it, or get a cheaper, smaller one to use as a "cache" with Intel SRT. You can also save if you choose a lesser case.

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0, Black Interior and Four Fans-1x 230mm front RED LED fan, 1x 140mm rear fan, 1x 230mm top fan, and 1x 230mm side fan

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 BX80623I52500

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9

Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.D HDS721075DLE630 (0F13179) 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Newegg.com - Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner, Bulk Package 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model AD-7280S-0B - CD / DVD Burners

Newegg.com - ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card -OR-
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100311-3SR Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems

Newegg.com - Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Alternate case:

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Alternate SSD for caching:

Newegg.com - Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G3K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

[calvinblount1980]

Thank you everyone for your advice!! Very much appreciated.

[calvinblount1980]

Originally Posted by glc This comes in just under $1500. The SSD is optional, you can save if you omit it, or get a cheaper, smaller one to use as a "cache" with Intel SRT. You can also save if you choose a lesser case. Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0, Black Interior and Four Fans-1x 230mm front RED LED fan, 1x 140mm rear fan, 1x 230mm top fan, and 1x 230mm side fan Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 BX80623I52500 Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9 Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.D HDS721075DLE630 (0F13179) 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive Newegg.com - Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner, Bulk Package 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model AD-7280S-0B - CD / DVD Burners Newegg.com - ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card -OR- Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100311-3SR Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems Newegg.com - Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Alternate case: Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Alternate SSD for caching: Newegg.com - Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G3K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I do have one followup question about the PSU. At 650W, approx 600W will be needed to run this setup, but is the extra 50W going to give me enough leeway for things like external hard drives, and other connected devices, and the four fans in the HAF 932 case?

[glc]

It should be fine, but if you want a cushion:

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

Newegg.com - Antec EarthWatts Series EA-750 Green 750W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Continuous Power Supply

If you are even thinking about overclocking, you should wait till the i5-2500K is back in stock.

[calvinblount1980]

Ok, I got everything hooked up, installed the drivers that came with the mobo and I am attempting a RAID 0 config. The first time I tried, I set up raid in the BIOS, (did the whole Cntrl-I thing) and installed Windows 7 64-bit but my total drive space was not visible in Windows when I looked in Disk Management. So, I reinstalled Windows 7 first and attempted to set up raid after installing the OS. However, this time I am unable to boot back into windows because the OS was not found. Looking in the BIOS, my 700 GB drive (which i installed windows on the second time) is not recognized as a boot drive--so i think this is part of the problem. At this point, I do not know how to ask the question for help because I have no idea what it is I should be asking. Ive spent hours looking for posts similar, but I havent made any headway since the drive is seen in some BIOS menus and in SOME windows menus (depending on the situation).

The 700GB drive has never show up as a boot drive in the BIOS, it was recognized in the ISR (intel smart response Tech) utility that comes with the ASUS MOBO, but the remainder of the 700GB drive is not visible in Drive manager in Windows, or in "some sections of the BIOS". I only had about 268GB from the 800+ GB I thought I would see in my first attempt. My last attempt, I was unable to boot back into Windows...eventhough I know I installed Windows on the 700GB hard drive the second time around. If you can prob me a little more I can answer, I just dont know what to ask at this point that will help you help me diagnose the issue. I am sure i screwed something up in the configuration.

[glc]

Exactly what are you trying to do - set up SRT with the SSD and the HDD?

You need to start over.

Connect the hard drive, leave the SSD disconnected. Set the controller to RAID and install Windows on the hard drive. Then install the SSD and install the Intel RST drivers/software. In the RST software, enable acceleration and assign the whole SSD for a cache volume.

Make sure you are using the SATA 6.0 controller for both drives and set the HDD second in the boot order, after the DVD drive.

[calvinblount1980]

Originally Posted by glc Exactly what are you trying to do - set up SRT with the SSD and the HDD? You need to start over. Connect the hard drive, leave the SSD disconnected. Set the controller to RAID and install Windows on the hard drive. Then install the SSD and install the Intel RST drivers/software. In the RST software, enable acceleration and assign the whole SSD for a cache volume. Make sure you are using the SATA 6.0 controller for both drives and set the HDD second in the boot order, after the DVD drive.

OMG yeah. I have been following instructions from other sites and got so confused at the end. I got the impression that I needed to set up a raid array mostly because I got confused following the conversations in the threads....first they will start with an SRT then Raid then bunch of flaming then back to SRT. I finally figured out that what you suggested after I posted the desperate cry for help. I did what you said and got it to work at around midnight. BUT....after installing the drivers for the sound card, chipset, and LAN (all done at once) the system rebooted and could not boot back into the OS even though drive with the OS was listed second in boot order to the DVD. Do you have any idea what I could have done to cause this to happen? Should I have just installed all the drivers first then then make the SRT config the last thing I do?

[glc]

Install drivers one at a time to see what's causing the problem - or try doing the SRT last.

[glc]

I just reread the list - if you bought the Intel 510 120gb SSD, don't use SRT, use the SSD as a standalone OS/apps drive. Set the controller to AHCI.

If you bought the 40gb 320, I see what your problem is - you have to put it on the regular SATA 3.0 controller!