Like everyone else who posts a new thread in this section, I'm working towards building a new system. (...and like nearly everyone who post a new thread in this section, I too am a recently registered user...)I haven't had a new desktop since 2003 and I'm looking forward to getting back to piecing together a system. Everyone's priorities when building a system are different, with some people trying to achieve maximum performance regardless of cost and others simply trying to create the least expensive system that will meet their needs as they can, with most people falling somewhere in between these two extremes. Personally, I feel the best measure of a system is a combination of cost/performance and future upgradbility. I tend to buy the second or third from "top-of-the-line" in an attempt to get the most value for each dollar. That is the
m.o. I hope to follow for this build.
As I haven't made any meaningful upgrades to my now-ancient system and it wasn't cutting edge to begin with, I need to start from absolute scratch and purchase all-new everything, including monitor and probably UPS (the only possible exceptions are my mouse and speakers). I'm looking to spend around $1,500 before tax (including a new monitor, not including future upgrades I discuss throughout like additional ram and a second video card). I have previous experience refurbishing and rebuilding/upgrading older systems, but this will be my first from-scratch build. I also have no experience with liquid-cooled systems, so I was definately planning to stick to air-cooled, which I figure I can probably handle. (Note: I have purchased no parts so far.) I expect to do some beginner/intermediate overclocking, but have only "book-smarts" from reading about OC and have never done it first-hand. As such, I would not be opposed to some kind of auto-overclock functionality for on the system components, though it is by no means a requirement.
After digging around online and spending what felt like 2 months getting sort of up to date on new motherboard and graphics options, I came to 2 conclusions: 1) I don't care if the system is CrossFire or SLI-based; I'm no fanboy and am really just interested in bang-for-the-buck and 2) At some point in the future I am going to want to add that second video card and I want to get full power out of it without having to upgrade my motherboard, suggesting that 2x PCI-E 2.0 (16x) is probably the way to go. I found myself rather torn between going with a DDR2 and DDR3 motherboard and would ideally get a hybrid that can support either, making a future change smoother once DDR3 comes down further in price. The problem is, I haven't yet found a motherboard that has support for both DDR2 & DDR3 and is also 2xPCI-E (16x) enabled that wasn't outrageously priced. The first compromise I made was to drop the DDR2 & DDR3 hybrid and go with DDR2 in the form of the
DFI Lan Party Dark X38-T2R motherboard.
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As it is a CrossFire board, that leads me towards purchasing one of the
HD4870s right away and then another in six-twelve months or so when everyone's forgotten about them and they're less than half the price...
NCIX.com - Buy Diamond Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI-I Video Card - 4870PE5512 In Canada.
I do a bit of video and graphics editing and am looking to get back into gaming fairly seriously, so I figured pumping up a
Q6600 processor would probably be sufficient. I have heard only good things about its overclocking potential, and I like the flexibility the quadcore appears to provide. The price on the Q6600s seems to have jumped back up this week in Canada, but I'm sure it won't last. I figured I'd go OEM and install my own fan/cooling system.
I expect to start with 4 gigs of PC2-6400 (800mhz) RAM and double to 8 gigs at some point in the future. Perhaps something like this:
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 EPP NCIX.com - Buy Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 EPP Dual Channel Memory Kit - PDC24G6400LLK In Canada.
I wasn't thinking that a screen larger than
22" made very good economic sense, so I was drawn to something like this
Acer:
Acer X223WBD 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms, 2500:1, WSXGA+(1680x1050), DVI, Black ET.EX3WP.001 in Canada at TigerDirect.ca
I haven't dug particularly deep into cooling options and deciding what needs to be cooled will sort of depend on what components I end up with, I suppose, so more research is definately needed there...
In terms of a case, I'm not too concerned with a flashy look to show off or having a particularly unique case, but there is always the question of fan volume, but I don't think I'll be watching any movies, so that's not too much of a concern. I haven't heard much in the way of criticisms of the
Antec 900 other than they're too popular and everyone seems to have one, which I am okay with. I guess the only other issue is finding a case/motherboard combonation that won't have any issues with the physically large video cards I'm looking at buying... I haven't picked up the impression that a full-tower is likely necessary, and that a mid-tower will do, but I'm posting these musings in hopes of getting feedback, so I'd love to know if anyone disagrees.
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For a power supply, I need something that will be able to deal comfortably with two HD 4780s at some point in the future. I was thinking a
Power & Cooling or
Corsair in the
750-1000w range, but I'm not sure if that's too much overkill... For example:
NCIX.com - Buy PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad 750W ATX V2.2 EPS12V 24PIN SLI Active PFC Power Supply Black - S75QB In Canada.
The hard drives I was looking at are pretty run of the mill. I couldn't really justify a Velociraptor, so I was thinking something pretty standard like a pair of
500 GB 7200.11 Barracudas or something...
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I haven't really given much thought to optical drives other than that a Blu-Ray player seems rather unecessary, but there's so little difference any more that I'm not too worried about not having picked out my particular DVD+/-R yet...
Hopefully my verbosity has allowed readers (if anyone was actually willing to brave the sheer length of the post) to get a better idea of how I am thinking and what I'm looking to do (rather than being a complete and total waste of time).
Thanks for any help you choose to give, especially in the motherboard/ram/videocard realm, as nailing down what motherboard to use has been a most unpleasent experience so far. Talk about an orgy of choice; its really rather overwhelming to decied when one still figuring out what all the technological advances have been.
Best regards,
-Greg P.
(Edited for formatting & typos, because I'm annoyed by things like that...)