New Rig Build - Your Input Please!

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firefuze

510 posts

Ultimate Geek

#75284 15-Jan-2011 21:13

Its time to build up a new rig

Below is the setup I am looking at. Curious to know everyone's thought and or experiences with the below. Also a big question is, Do I jump on the Sandy Bridge band wagon now, or wait for a 6 or 8 core i7 Sandy Bridge which are rumored this year (could be some time), OR wait patiently for the much hyped AMD Bulldozer range?? Argh!!

CPU: Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge

MOBO: Gigabyte P67-UD5

GRFX: ASUS ATI 6970 1 at 16X or 2 with Crossfire at 8X speed?

HDD: 3.5" High Speed SSD at least 120GB - SATA 6GB/s? - Opinions?

RAM: 8GB DDR3 - Opinions?

CASE: Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl

COOLING: Water Cooling Setup

PSU: Something decent 800W Plus

Already have a LED monitor, Rig will be used for gaming as well as a bit of video editing work. Your thoughts?

aionwannabe

147 posts

Master Geek

#427630 16-Jan-2011 13:39

i must admit that this year is a tentative one in terms of new cpus honestly there cant be a heck of alot in terms of improvement in any of the new cpus its more a nudge race to make things more efficient and considering i lasted 5 years on a 65nm dual core amd its not gonna hurt to have something 8 threads and unlocked multiplier for say 3 years. Unless Quantum computing makes a leap in the next year :S

In terms of water-cooling i do suggest the Corsair-H70 its one small unit and very maintainable (and very cool). Unless your one for full water-cooling setups this is a very effective way to go.

Honestly im a bit of a scrooge when it comes to SSD's because im used to having PCS for years at a time though i assume SSD's have made great leaps in terms of resilience. Just as a clear up its SATA 6Gb/s (gigabits) which is 600MB/s (correct me if im wrong) and they certainly needs that headroom.

8GB should do the trick, id get a kit that supports rates higher than 1600 considering this isnt exactly a mid-range system

keeping that in mind make sure your psu is modular its alot more professional and makes cooling easier if you dont have a slab of cords hanging about

I cant speak much in terms of graphics cards or your motherboard though it seems to serve its purpose well

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Mprezd

119 posts

Master Geek

#427877 17-Jan-2011 09:58

firefuze: Its time to build up a new rig

Below is the setup I am looking at. Curious to know everyone's thought and or experiences with the below. Also a big question is, Do I jump on the Sandy Bridge band wagon now, or wait for a 6 or 8 core i7 Sandy Bridge which are rumored this year (could be some time), OR wait patiently for the much hyped AMD Bulldozer range?? Argh!!

CPU: Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge

MOBO: Gigabyte P67-UD5

GRFX: ASUS ATI 6970 1 at 16X or 2 with Crossfire at 8X speed?

HDD: 3.5" High Speed SSD at least 120GB - SATA 6GB/s? - Opinions?

RAM: 8GB DDR3 - Opinions?

CASE: Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl

COOLING: Water Cooling Setup

PSU: Something decent 800W Plus

Already have a LED monitor, Rig will be used for gaming as well as a bit of video editing work. Your thoughts?

As much as I am a fan of AMD I would suggest that the nvidia range is probably better for video editing than then AMD range. CUDA support could be useful for you - perhaps review the software you will using and whether it will make use of it. CUDA is only available on nvidia cards. If you are keen on AMD though, you could always get an HD6950 and try and unlock it.

SSD - most would be 2.5" - not 3.5". Get something like this: http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=13188 I'm still personally a fan of the intel drives for an os, but the sandforce controlled drives are doing very well these days.

Motherboard wise, the asus boards seem to be getting much better press than the gigabyte ones. I'm waiting for bulldozer though - even my x4 955 is fast enough so I don't see the need to go for intel - plus support for the little guy!

You could also look at AMD's x6 range as well.

Probably one of the best psus on the market: http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=11861 I'm not sure why you think you need 800w plus though? What do you plan on running in terms of hardware?

b0untypure1

1425 posts

Uber Geek

#427898 17-Jan-2011 10:37

sandy bridge? HELL YES !!!! good build !

b0untypure1

1425 posts

Uber Geek

#427900 17-Jan-2011 10:37

get one good ati graphics card only crossfire if u after after eyefinity

firefuze

510 posts

Ultimate Geek

#428208 17-Jan-2011 20:49

Thanks for the input above. Sandy Bridge seems to be the best option at the moment. I just don't want to dive in then find Bulldozer range announced weeks later! As I have been a loyal AMD fan in the past but currently nothing touches the Sandy Bridge range. I have been looking at the 1090T X6 but its well overdue for a update now so not much point investing in, They are great value for money though.

As for the graphics card I wont be using high end software. Typically encoding movies, ripping, personal AVCHD video file editing etc. So I don't think CUDA would help much with more basic software.

The PSU looks like a great option, thanks.

Only run crossfire for eyefinity? no advantage of running for crossfire for single screen gaming?

Mprezd

119 posts

Master Geek

#428233 17-Jan-2011 21:58

firefuze: Thanks for the input above. Sandy Bridge seems to be the best option at the moment. I just don't want to dive in then find Bulldozer range announced weeks later! As I have been a loyal AMD fan in the past but currently nothing touches the Sandy Bridge range. I have been looking at the 1090T X6 but its well overdue for a update now so not much point investing in, They are great value for money though.

As for the graphics card I wont be using high end software. Typically encoding movies, ripping, personal AVCHD video file editing etc. So I don't think CUDA would help much with more basic software.

The PSU looks like a great option, thanks.

Only run crossfire for eyefinity? no advantage of running for crossfire for single screen gaming?

crossfire you won't see a benefit unless you are running over 2550*1660

thorax

75 posts

Master Geek

#428242 17-Jan-2011 22:24

firefuze: I don't think CUDA would help much with more basic software.

You can use CUDA with free software such as mediacoder.

Also ATi has a similar technology called Direct Compute which is supported too.

firefuze: Only run crossfire for eyefinity? no advantage of running for crossfire for single screen gaming?

There are some definite performance gains, some cards scale better than others.

Also a better card could be bought for the cost of two lower-ended cards.

Two cards means, twice as much power required, twice as much heat and twice as much noise, and those 6970's, are pretty power hungry one card would typically be (22w idle to ~280max), (Heat ~60deg idle, 95-100 load). noise wise they are not to bad actually as fan runs quite low even at high temps, but putting the fan at anything over 50% is just nasty.

D1023319

524 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#431774 27-Jan-2011 12:12

Interesting comments but I suppose the answer depends on if you want a general or gaming PC..

Yeh - Sandy Bridge 2500k looks they way go go even for desktop PC's with speed and low power usage but I find the on chip GPU confusing.

Most suitable motherboards except for a few micro atx boards dont have on board graphics - hence more noise and power in your box after insertinga graphics card.

I did read that Sandy Bridge will be upgraded with better GPU next year so hopefully a greater range of motherboards will be available then.

To me thats the key issue to avoid the next for a discrete graphics card.
then again - what will be announced next year

Also came across this US site with PC recommendations.

http://www.custompcguide.com/budget_htpc.html

Cheers

wreck90

780 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#431778 27-Jan-2011 12:23

If Asus can resolve the 'cold boot' problems in the P8P67 boards, that could be a better mobo? Hopefully just a bios issue, but, i'm holding off a purchase until there is a solution.

I have a ocz vertex 2 120gb SSD, it seems really good. But, maybe i could have got away with 80gb?