i7 biuld for $2500

[Eagle Eye]

Even if i have to sacrifise framerate? As far as i can see, samsung doesn't have a 2ms moniter bigger then 22"

I hope you don't think that framerate has any thing to do with response time.

Furthermore, by todays standards pixel response time has very little bearing on the qaulity of your gaming/movie experience. Things you should be looking at are colour reproduction, brightness and image clarity in your case a good 24" monitor is ideal since you have a videocard that is better suited for higher resolutions, but whatever you decide upon I certainly hope its not soley based on repsonse time.

Also, how do I know what % my capacitor aging is? I need it to find out what PSU to use

I don't see how the 2 are relevant of each other, explain.

Regards,

EE

[Digikid]

The ASUS has a bad slot layout IMHO. The EVGA got it right. Take a look at it and you will see what I mean.



As you can plainly see the ASUS board has one heck of a messed up layout. Their support is horrible as well. With EVGA you get 100x better support if you need it and you get a quality name brand and product. As far as the Seagate thing....no they have not got that firmware thing fixed yet. HDD are from YEARS ago are still failing like crazy....it is only a matter of time before your does that as well I suppose.

It is your system....your choice. I am just trying to get you some better quality parts. ;)

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by Digikid

The ASUS has a bad slot layout IMHO. ;)

If it were to slot layout I would take the Asus over the EVGA in a heartbeat. You aren't forced to have videocards so close together that they don't get air. You can use a PCIe soundcard and still have a videocard (unlike the stupid way eVGA did it.)

I am pretty sure the firmware issue only affects 7200.11. And every HDD company has failures. And Seagate doesn't have a higher rate of failure over any other company (besides the 7200.11 fiasco). 7200.7-7200.10's were all good drives. Hard drives are completely personal preference. Saying that HDD company A as a whole is better than HDD company B is really hearsay.

[MpG]

Originally Posted by Bubbzilla

Even if i have to sacrifise framerate? As far as i can see, samsung doesn't have a 2ms moniter bigger then 22"

Also, how do I know what % my capacitor aging is? I need it to find out what PSU to use

The difference between the 2ms and the 5ms refresh rates generally isn't perceptible to the human eye. At that point, you should be more worried about colour quality back-panel design.

And your cap-aging question suggests that you're using a PSU calculator site (Extreme Outervision, perhaps?). Take those with a grain of salt, as they occasionally throw up wierd answers, and are almost always sponsored by PSU-makers.

Pick your motherboard based on features (i.e. slots, connectors, etc). Right now, pretty much all the X58 boards have the guts to push an i7 to 4GHz, the more important factors are the CPU cooling, as well as luck of the draw on the CPU. Boards like the EVGA Classified are almost certainly overkill for your purposes.

[Jake_HT]

Originally Posted by lowfat

If it were to slot layout I would take the Asus over the EVGA in a heartbeat. You aren't forced to have videocards so close together that they don't get air. You can use a PCIe soundcard and still have a videocard (unlike the stupid way eVGA did it.)

I'll agree, the slot layout is fine. For 3-way SLI, it's not the board to have, but for SLI setup it's great. You can use either a PCIe or PCI soundcard with SLI.

EVGA Customer support is for sure way better than ASUS... no doubt about it. I bought mine through a local store so I wasn't so worried about that aspect.

And I'm still rooting for the WD Caviar black. Fast! And well worth the price. I don't think the seagate drives are worth the risk, even if they seem to have some firmware fix? Why not just get a super fast, reliable drive that is at a killer price?

[bojangles]

I agree with the monitor thing. I don't find any difference between 2ms and 5ms. A 24" is probably the best multimedia sweetspot these days. I personally have a 22" and I wish I had purchased a 24".

Also, the WD Caviar Black or even a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB is a great choice. Don't go with Seagate until this dilemma is cleared up or they release a 7200.12.

I'd personally go with the EVGA board due to the warranty. They both make awesome products though, so it's your choice.

Also, as a note, if you're buying a GTX 285 or 295, get a 24". It'll be wasted FPS if you don't.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by bojangles

Also, the WD Caviar Black or even a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB is a great choice. Don't go with Seagate until this dilemma is cleared up or they release a 7200.12.

NCIX.com - Buy Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA2 3.5IN 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB Hard Drive OEM *3YR MFR Warranty* - ST3500418AS In Canada.

They have been out since the beginning of January. Like I said above they are the fastest 7200rpm drives you can buy AFAIK.

[bojangles]

Originally Posted by lowfat

NCIX.com - Buy Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA2 3.5IN 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB Hard Drive OEM *3YR MFR Warranty* - ST3500418AS In Canada.

They have been out since the beginning of January. Like I said above they are the fastest 7200rpm drives you can buy AFAIK.

Wow I read Arthur_P's thread with his HD Tach pic and I am amazed. 1 platter HDD with 500 GB. Now that's insane.

[Bubbzilla]

I don't see where the eVGA board is so great hardware wise. I agree that the P6TD has a poor layout and that is mainly why I am questioning it. I probably would never use 3-way sli anyway. Even so, the gigabyte one seems better. Keep in mind i may not know what im talking about but doesn't the gigabyte board run faster RAM and have faster PCI-E?

Gigabyte

Support for DDR3 2000+/1333/1066/800 MHz memory modules

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2) (Note 3)
1 x PCI Express x8 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1) (Note 4)

eVGA

- 6 x 240 DIMM Triple-Channel DDR3 1333MHz+
- Maximum of 12GB of DDR3 1066/1333 MHz

1 x PCIe x16
1 x PCIe x8/x16
1 x PCIe x8

I read a review on the P6TD and it said that you could put in two 280/285/295 and a 9800 to run physics. Also, i don't think i will put a soundcardin it. Why spend the money? don't most motherboards already have them biult in? Ive had bad luck with soundcards. I bought a really nice one with my dell computer (Audigy II Z) and it craped out on me. Now im using a micro USB soundcard that came with my headphones. Besides, that lets me use it with my PS3.

About the psu calculator I am using the Thermal Take PSU calculator and the last option is Capacitor aging ranging from 50% to 10%. I seems to be important because no matter what i change it to it changes the wattage by at least 100W



As for harddrives, the 7200.11 500/1TB come with Vista Ultimate at TD for only $130 more. I have a few questions on OS. First, Ive heard that XP wont run the newer games as well because of its lack of DirectX 10. I really don't want to get Vista because its a piece of crap but i don't want to be stuck with something that wont run good games. Also ive heard that the 64bit version of XP is very unstable. I definintly need a 64 bit OS because i have 6GB ram and a 1792mb graphics card. I could also run XP for now and get windows 7 when it comes out.

[Eagle Eye]

I wouldn't advise doing an XP setup this late in the game only because XP to Windows 7 so I have read won't be an easy switch. Vista might suprise you, with some tweaking and the proper setup it runs as well if not better than XP it just takes getting used to where everything is, at least from my standpoint.

Please take the PSU calculator with a grain of salt listen to the opinions here they have far more merit than any stupid internet PSU calculator. Just so you are aware that PSU calculator is the same for many other websites, the author merely brands the calculator to whomever wishes to pay for its interface. My recommendation Corsair TX850 or higher and capacitor aging is not really a concern their likely to last far longer than the board will be useful.

The integrated sound will suffice should you not care about some features that aren't available in the packaged software from the motherboard manufacturer, honestly though I think you're selling yourself a little short compared to the rest of hardware you'll have in the system. You think your headphones sound good now connect them to a good soundcard and you'll hear things you thought not possible. You've had 1 soundcard die and you consider that badluck, there a number of people here that can tell you about real badluck with hardware, don't let one bad experience ruin it for you and a good piece of advice is don't buy a Creative card, nah j/k lol.

As far as layout is concerned I'm a bigger fan of the Asus P6T Deluxe simply because the the PCI and PCIE are better placed than the EVGA board and I also like that I don't have a huge NB cooler and MOSFET cooler to contend with when choosing my cooling options. Although, all things consider water is really the best cooling option for an i7 rig.

The HDD issue I am not going to get into much debate about Seagate don't care anymore, lately though I have been hearing a lot of good things about the Western Digital 640Gb Black Edition.

Good luck,

EE