Project: Monster (Upcoming computer!)

+SaiN+ · Post by **+SaiN+** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:48 am

Well my computer is reaching its 5th year. Now that I'm finished college, and I'm earning some cold, hard cash and a much better income than working crappy jobs .. I earn enough to actually start building a computer. I plan not to pull punches, but I'm not pushing to go to insane levels (i.e., Core 2 Quad Extreme-- $1,145.00 processor) ..

Here are the stats so far, all from NewEgg..

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Case - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6811133021

PSU - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6817703009

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813128068 (If I go ATi) -- GIGABYTE nForce 780i

(coming in Jan, if I go nVidia card)

Video Card - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814130312 (nVidia) ATi 3870 HD X2 (coming in

Jan-Feb if I go ATi)

Memory - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820148070 (DDR2) --

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820146686 -- (DDR2) --

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820231149 (DDR3 -- I know I'm probably buying bad DDR3

RAM sticks, but I'd rather have a future-proof computer and be ready for DDR3 than stay with DDR2)

HDD - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6822136011 (2 of these-- RAID0 possibly..)

Optical Drive: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6827151153

CPU Heatsink - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6835154002 (maybe..)

CPU - Deserves its own little mini-category

Quad Core solution:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819115017 (Quad core desktop) --
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819117127 (Quad core server.. I heard server chips are

better built and take more OC abuse, and are built to remain on for long, long periods of time)

I plan to get the Quad-Core mostly for nerdly purposes. I do plan to sneak an application or two that would

benefit from four cores to expand on IT knowledge, i.e., running virtual environments with more than 1-2 OS

running at once in a virtual environment, for one

Dual-Core Solution
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819115028 (Desktop version: Really good Dual-Core that

beats the Quad-Core E6600 on a lot of benchmarks) --
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819117134 (and here's the dual-core's server equivalent)

Beats the Intel E6600 in benchmarks, but may choke when I try to push quad-core friendly apps on it.

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Any one of these are up for debate-- Especially ATi vs. nVidia and CPU solutions, which are the ones I'm fighting with the most. I've always chosen ATi cards over nVidia, they always seem to be a touch more innovative. This generation, they have a pretty advanced card over nVidia, but it suffers from a few weakpoints that, despite its much higher core and memory speed, cause it to underperform vs. the nVidia. Anyway, hit me up with facts, opinions, etc.. =3

Archangel · Post by **Archangel** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:43 am

Everything looks good.....As far as the video cards, this is from my experience.......ATI=Best picture....Nvidia=Best benchmarks. Your choice.

Also, I would go with 4 gb of memory instead of 2. Both Mushkin and Crucial are good (have used both in previous rigs.)

You will have a solid rig for the next 2-3 years.

+SaiN+ · Post by **+SaiN+** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:23 am

Being that I'm waiting until January - February to order these parts (waiting for the holiday mark-ups to go down!) do you think its worth investing in the Core 2 Quad Extreme processors?

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819115035

..I know its probably overkill, but word on computer nerd street says that Intel, knowing they have AMD on the ropes are keeping prices raised for good until AMD scares them enough to make them lower the prices. Anyone see this comin down anytime soon?

I just want to be uber-updated. :3

Archangel · Post by **Archangel** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:57 am

Actually, I'd get the cheaper Q6600 2.4 and oc it to 3.2 like I have. Best bang for your money. The reason is both Intel and AMD will be coming out with better CPUs next year and all that money you just spent on on a CPU will be greatly overshadowed by the new tech. The newer mobos coming out will also be changing with the new PCI-E 2.0 as with the new memory that will be utilized "DDR-3". So, right now as far as upgrading, I'd go on the cheap side that will give you great results as a performance machine that will run todays' games. Now is NOT a real good time to purchase high-end stuff as by Q2 the newer stuff will be availible.

It's your money..........

|bah|Ariel · Post by **|bah|Ariel** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:37 pm

If you want to be "uber-updated" look for a SSD to use as a system disc.

I myself are looking for one. As soon as the prize goes down i probably get one.

+SaiN+ · Post by **+SaiN+** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:15 pm

SSD is far FAR too expensive for me to get now! ..

But I will look into what I can get. The E6600 is definitely an attractive buy.. I love the idea of 4-processors, though the dual-core 3.0 GHz still looks like another route. Did OC'ing that processor require you to use water-cooling or did your air-cooling solution provide enough cooling?

And yes, I am aware of the DDR2->DDR3 shift.. Which is why I also asked if its worth getting a DDR3 mobo with a so-so DDR3 RAM kit or just stick with high-performance DDR2 RAM? All this depends on how quickly the DDR3 RAM prices will drop, though.. And with that, I'm not sure. As I said, this is the RAM I will purchase if I do decide to get a DDR3 board --http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820231149 ...

The only thing stopping me is that I believe its still not worth it. By the time DDR3-RAM becomes a necessity / standard to DDR2, my current mobo will probably be outdated and too slow. Same goes with PCIe 2.0 -- Though its good to be future-proof in this case. The same logic goes to ATi's graphics card that claims to support DirectX 10.1 and Shader 4.1 -- By the time it comes for games to actually use DX10.1 the card would be slow and outdated. Not to say its not a bad card NOW but it screams marketing ploy.

Some friends tell me that game developers are struggling to use DX10 at all. Then others tell me devs are on a fast-track to add DX10 so quickly, that all those people rushing to eat up nVidia's cards now are going to miss out on some extra graphical features that ATi is providing NOW.

Anyway.. I will not accept anything less than a PCIe 2.0 board. So that's already settled. =3

Archangel · Post by **Archangel** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:38 pm

Mine's air cooled....I'm using an Artic Cooler 7 which does a great job with the oc. Now, mind you, this is considered a mild oc of 20 %. You can go a great deal higher (almost 5 ghz with a dry ice setup), but, then your talking about water-cooling. Now water cooling is nice, but requires alot of maintenance as the fluid has to be changed about every 2 months to prevent algae from forming (additives only do so much). If your willing to deal with that, a nice water cooling setup should only set you back about $200-$250.

As far as, the build type, I'd stay with DDR2 for now as the new DDR3 mobos will be expensive and have some issues because of bugs (they always do when new and it usually takes a few BIOS revisions to work the bugs out). A build for around $2,000 (without monitor) should have enough decent hardware for it to last a few years as I've read of some big changes coming down the road in the next 2-3 years.

|bah|Ariel · Post by **|bah|Ariel** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:01 pm

Archangel wrote:Mine's air cooled....I'm using an Artic Cooler 7 which does a great job with the oc. Now, mind you, this is considered a mild oc of 20 %. You can go a great deal higher (almost 5 ghz with a dry ice setup), but, then your talking about water-cooling. Now water cooling is nice, but requires alot of maintenance as the fluid has to be changed about every 2 months to prevent algae from forming (additives only do so much). If your willing to deal with that, a nice water cooling setup should only set you back about $200-$250.

As far as, the build type, I'd stay with DDR2 for now as the new DDR3 mobos will be expensive and have some issues because of bugs (they always do when new and it usually takes a few BIOS revisions to work the bugs out). A build for around $2,000 (without monitor) should have enough decent hardware for it to last a few years as I've read of some big changes coming down the road in the next 2-3 years.

"Changing water every 2 months" . That was a little strange to hear.
My pc is water cooled , and has been that for 2 years . I only change water once in a year. I have no algae forming in my cooling system.

Archangel · Post by **Archangel** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:06 pm

|bah|Ariel wrote:
Archangel wrote:Mine's air cooled....I'm using an Artic Cooler 7 which does a great job with the oc. Now, mind you, this is considered a mild oc of 20 %. You can go a great deal higher (almost 5 ghz with a dry ice setup), but, then your talking about water-cooling. Now water cooling is nice, but requires alot of maintenance as the fluid has to be changed about every 2 months to prevent algae from forming (additives only do so much). If your willing to deal with that, a nice water cooling setup should only set you back about $200-$250.

As far as, the build type, I'd stay with DDR2 for now as the new DDR3 mobos will be expensive and have some issues because of bugs (they always do when new and it usually takes a few BIOS revisions to work the bugs out). A build for around $2,000 (without monitor) should have enough decent hardware for it to last a few years as I've read of some big changes coming down the road in the next 2-3 years.
"Changing water every 2 months" . That was a little strange to hear.
My pc is water cooled , and has been that for 2 years . I only change water once in a year. I have no algae forming in my cooling system.

Hmmmmmm........You must have a closed loop design then.
http://fredrik.hubbe.net/silence/waterc ... nance.html
http://www.koolance.com/technical/faq/i ... e_required
http://www.xybertechnologies.com/why-si ... puting.cfm

|bah|Ariel · Post by **|bah|Ariel** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 2:36 am

Hmmmmmm........You must have a closed loop design then.
http://fredrik.hubbe.net/silence/waterc ... nance.html
http://www.koolance.com/technical/faq/i ... e_required
http://www.xybertechnologies.com/why-si ... puting.cfm

Yes i have.