New build Approx $2,000

[grither]

Hi gang, I am a member of Tom’s Hardware and heard great things about this site. I am in Winnipeg which doesn’t have a lot of great hardware stores. Memory Express looked promising however I can’t get anyone to respond to my request for a quote. So thinking of going with NCIX. Here is my proposed build:

Lian Li PC-A70F ATX case 229.99

I7 920 328.99

Gigabyte x58 Extreme motherboard 353.43

OCZ Platinum 6gb 240 pin ddr3 sdram 1600 pc3 12800 low voltage ram 174.09

Corsair 850HX modular power supply 229.99

WD Caviar Black 1tb 119.97

XFX 5870 429.99

Dark Knight Cooler 69.99

Sony Optiarc 25.70

Windows 7 home premium 127.39


Approx price at NCIX.com is around $2,100 before tax, shipping and price match. Hoping I can get everything down to around $2,000 all in with some price matches, for example pretty sure I can get $50 off the PSU alone

I have a couple of concerns I would love your thoughts on:

• Is everything compatible?
• The mobo may look like overkill but I really need a lot of sata ports. This one has 10, but haven’t seen any others with this many. Also am a first time overclocker but looks like this board has everything to make oc easy plus great cooling
• Not sure about ram- this was recommended on other boards. Anyone agree with this choice or have any other suggestions?
• Also not sure about the cooler… there are SOOOO many and just not sure which is best. Any other recommendations?
• I read about adding a $10 gift card to your NCIX cart to get free shipping… is this available all the time, or just once in a while?
• Any suggestions for price matching? I was going to use the link on the front page and also probably shopbot.ca but is there anything else I should be aware of?
• Should I consider using newegg.ca? it seems like a lot of the components I want are not available... guess I might go with NCIX and use newegg for price matching

Any and all feedback very welcome!

[shayan288]

If I were you id rather get a TRUE instead of a dark knight, otherwise everything looks good!

[grither]

thanks for the feedback... i wanted to get the cogage true spirit but can't find it anywhere in Canada!!!

do you know where I can get it?

I also saw it in the cooler review roundup from this site and it didnt sound the best....

[ayah]

I know memory express has them.

[headsh0t]

A fellow Winnipeger, welcome :) If no one at Memory Express is replying to you online just give the store a call they'll help you. Although last time I emailed them they replied like 5 minutes later, although it was a business day though. Memory Express will also price match anything NCIX has, but you have to pay GST + PST since you're not ordering out of province (like from NCIX). If you want it RIGHT NOW though, that would be your best bet. They have some good in-store specials from time to time too. Oh and NEVER goto CBIT. Very overpriced and the employees don't know squat. I will never buy anything there again. And ya, that cooler is a bit pricey. The True is pretty expensive too. Get a Vendetta 2 for 1/2 the price.

[grither]

wow i didn't think to look at ME for the cogage TS but you're right, they have them (although currently out of stock). kind of po'd at them right now for ignoring me!

any other comments on my build?

[Arundor]

Regarding the motherboard, you might also consider the GA-EX58-UD5. It also has 10 SATA ports but is a little less costly than the Extreme. Another possibility is to pair a SATA controller expansion card with a more budget friendly motherboard like a GA-EX58-UD3R.

On the topic of memory, I have never personally used OCZ so I can't comment on its quality, however there are few other options that are less expensive. G-Skill seems fairly well liked: NCIX.com - Buy G.SKILL F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit - F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ In Canada.

Good choices on the hard drive, graphics card and power supply. 850W is more than you need for your current build, but it does give room to grow in case you want Crossfire in the future.

About the gift cards, the free shipping promo only happens once in a while. That particular deal is not running right now, but you can get free shipping by buying MX-2 thermal compound: NCIX.com - Buy Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound Paste NON-ELECTRICAL Conductive 4 Gram - MX-2T In Canada.

And on the subject of pricematching, I usually look at shopbot.ca, pricegrabber.ca and pricebat.ca. There will be a lot of overlap between their results, but sometimes one of them manages to find a deal that the others did not.

[grither]

Originally Posted by Arundor

Regarding the motherboard, you might also consider the GA-EX58-UD5. It also has 10 SATA ports but is a little less costly than the Extreme. Another possibility is to pair a SATA controller expansion card with a more budget friendly motherboard like a GA-EX58-UD3R.

On the topic of memory, I have never personally used OCZ so I can't comment on its quality, however there are few other options that are less expensive. G-Skill seems fairly well liked: NCIX.com - Buy G.SKILL F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit - F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ In Canada.

Good choices on the hard drive, graphics card and power supply. 850W is more than you need for your current build, but it does give room to grow in case you want Crossfire in the future.

About the gift cards, the free shipping promo only happens once in a while. That particular deal is not running right now, but you can get free shipping by buying MX-2 thermal compound: NCIX.com - Buy Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound Paste NON-ELECTRICAL Conductive 4 Gram - MX-2T In Canada.

And on the subject of pricematching, I usually look at shopbot.ca, pricegrabber.ca and pricebat.ca. There will be a lot of overlap between their results, but sometimes one of them manages to find a deal that the others did not.

Thanks for the awesome info! I was torn between the extreme and the ud5.. I think they are identical except for addtl northbridge cooling on the extreme.

as for PSU I do want crossfire when the 5870s come down a bit in price...

As for the paste deal, this is really great- might have to accelerate my purchase! do you mind if I ask how you learned of this? If I buy in 3 weeks or so this deal may be done, but there may be some other cheap purchase that qualifies for total free shipping, but how would I know?

[Arundor]

You can find the current shipping deals by checking the "Hot Deals" section and "Shipping Deals" subsection of that. The shipping deals usually change on a weekly basis.

[ITaoI]

Get a megahalem it about the same(still questionable to me) i hope HWC does a review on this.

review look at the chart with tt thunderblade