New here, looking for insight.

[MarkOne]

So lets work here , I read again the post from a printing ( quite a long text )

Here what I get out from the main use of the PC (it's to the OP to correct me if I'm wrong here)

Huge Multi-Display power, principally not used for gaming
Fast access time storage. Extra temporary storage with plan to use some king of server later ???? don't really know what he is planningThe OP will add SSD drives later

My sugestions :

If it was a principally a gaming rig , I will say to wait for the Fermi and buy 2 of them with an extra physx card if he need it , it will give him for sure the 3 DVI output for is 3 LDC , but it's not the main use of the rig, Nvidia GPU are pain on the eyes with long usage, I think he is better to loose a little bit on the FPS and go with ATI base on those facts . I will suggest if no one came here to talk about xfire with eyevision to visit the GPU section, we have member experienced with it. Because you need 2 GPU with your setup, and if you plan to game on 3 LCD you need eyefinity with 2 high end GPU to drive your setting ( all true we can ask CM if his 5970 is enough for his 3 lcd ) if the xfire do not work well, we back to square one and have to go the Nvidia way. that's if the op plan to play with his 3 LCD

Processing power: First of all you need x16 x16 x8 minimum with your need of GPU, especially that you will use high end card. Now let be Intel fan boy a little bit : the actual platform that jump to my eyes is the 1366 one, you have your GPU lanes , quite of a hell CPU power too, and also a sexa- core in the way, I ear about march , 6 gb of memory will be enough to start with . Since I'm not so fan boy I will welcome other to comment in AMD solution, I can't do it I have no experience with AMD, not because I'm Intel fan boy, but I start with Intel and always continue this way, because I'm use to it

The storage: Let's build your PC with focus on is main usage, the temporary extra storage is not the main thing.You plan to buy 1 or 2 SSD may be raid 0 : You don't need raid 0 with SSD, it's DAM fast, and with SSD you have to trim or use other device to clean the drive, or it will lost quite a huge performance. The trim function is not at best with many drive in raid 0
Don't add SSD latter, start with it right away, it's a pain in the ... to reinstall a Windows months later, using cloning from HD to SSD, is simply not the thing to do with SSD, due to the kind of controller it use
Buy a 80 or 120 gb SSD , put your OS in it, and the most important application that need fast acces time. that's it , Use a Black WD for the programs , forget the raid 0 even for the game, my reason is that I'm not pretty sure that SSD mix well with raid 0 on the same onboard controller. ( all true we can use the second controller that mainly all high end board have, but it will not be as fast) buy an other SSD for your game latter IF you need that kind of boost, wait to see if you like gaming, I spent quite a lot of money to game, and I do it 1 hour a week ( but I'm pretty good sharp shooter guy, don't play around if you see me someplace ) I will see later where you place few HD for temporary main storage

The case: unless you are the kind of crazy folder to put your thing strait on the bar or your washing machine or some kind of wood crate you need a case. well they know who they are
All case around $ 100 and more do the job, some do it betterOk enoght I have to work sometime time too

other members suggestion and correction : keep focus on the need of the OP


( I work real hard on this post , 1 hour and not for the $$$.$$. )

[SaskGoose]

Wow,

First off let me say thanks for the huge number of responses.

Originally Posted by martin_metal_88

I am just wondering. why don't just put a 965?? you will be sure to have a great quad that allow you OC instead of buying a fake quad that you are not sure how it will perform.You could also only use 4GB, exept if you want to do Virtual machine 8GB is totally useless. I see no case in your build. Have you look into some already or re-using a old one?

The preliminary reveiws of the 555 show it to be very likely to unlock and OC. I do not feel the extra money is worth it. As for 4 vs 8 i will need to look into it more, I thought a 64 bit OS could utilize it for encoding and such though i will mostlikly need to run xp on here too.

Originally Posted by MarkOne

I question the 2 blues drive in raid 0 for a little more than $ 100 you are in the SSD age

I was under the impression these are the drives that if partitioned to 100GB on the short end are near raptor performance. I am unsure as to wether i was going to do raid but the idea was to use this as a games drive once i add SSDs.

Originally Posted by Raserei408

Okay, here's my input:
If you're willing to buy a second 555 if the first doesn't unlock to a quad, just get a 955 or 965 and OC from there.
Swap out the motherboard for a 790FX-GD70, since it can run up to 4 cards (dual-slots even).
I typically don't recommend the HX750. Either save some dough and get the TX, or go all out and get the HX850.
Don't bother with 8GB of RAM. Get 4GB, and if you really feel like you're maxing it out all the time (unlikely) get 2 or 4 more.
The storage Caviar Greens are good, but only if you're using them only for movies, music, etc.
For the OS drives, get Caviar Blacks. They're faster, if a bit more expensive. However, I do recommend looking at some form of parity for them, since you'll be putting programs on them too. If you can add in a third for RAID 5 or back them up on your storage drives that would be best.
By the 6-port 5870 I assume you meant the one with 6 DisplayPorts on it? Here's the thing. You're not going to be able to play any games on six monitors with only a single 5870.

Oh, and the term is "hexa-core."

If the first one does not unlock it will be sent to live in the basement as a sever.

I am not sure i need 4 slots, i was think i may need 5879x2 at one time and the 9800gt as Phys-x but even then i would only need 16-16-8...i think this board does 16-16 or 16-8-8...neither would be suited so i may need to look into other boards.

Thanks for the Power recommendation...stuff always leaves me wondering. I will look into it.

So that's two that think no go on the 8GB, maybe i will have to see and if not put the spare in the basement too

The greens are stated as storage only.
I will relook at the hard drives...really i only just quickly grabbed the blues with out looking into it much.
I have thought about raid 5 but most say on the chipset raid is it not recomended and the budget does not allow for a raid card just now.

The plan is to play games on 3 monitors with one extra providing maps or kills or something. A 5 with add my TV to play movies while surf or not playing games. number 6 is a spare.

I prefer the Latin sexa to the Greek hexa no matter how squeamish it makes IBM.

Sorry i got no time to finish just now...off to work but i look forward to coming back later tonight to scour the forums.

Thanks again for all the info so far.

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by SaskGoose

So that's two that think no go on the 8GB, maybe i will have to see and if not put the spare in the basement too

I prefer the Latin sexa to the Greek hexa no matter how squeamish it makes IBM..

I"m using 8gb in the rig I'm using to answer you ( and no Martin this one will not fold anymore)

when you have more memory you can disable the page file , useful because it degrade the SSD fast.
I will prefer 6gb like you can do with the I7-920 , but in my 860 I have choice Between 4gb and 8gb . I fell a little bit short at 4gb, I use it as Workstation , on my I5-750 ( gaming) I use 4 Gb and it's more than I need. You can also disable the page file with 4gb, 8Gb just make more room for mistake

But don't quote me, Martin will tell you that I like to throw the money by the windows,(Linux, or OSx ) 4 Gb probably fit your need, anyway no need to reinstall the OS to add 2 sticks


The most important is to give us news , we like to have news of what member do with or without or suggestions

Sorry for the Greek, 5 years of Latin at school was enough for me, ya we have that at my high school when I was young
may be we can deal on one thing the AMD and Intel will be DAM good sexy cores

[Raserei408]

Few comments:
First, the board you chose does only operate at x16-x8-x8. The 790FX chipset only has 32 PCI-E lanes. I recommend that board for a few reasons; it's among the top OCing boards, it has 4 slots (whether you need them or not...and you can run a 5870 on x8 with almost no (if any) bottlenecking), and because it's about the cheapest 790FX board on the market.

Not sure if you can use the 4th monitor for maps, etc. The game would need to support that, and I've only heard of one game that did that (though I can't remember the name, sadly). As for the fifth, that could always be run on your 9800 GT. Not doing anything graphically demanding there anyway.

As for the hexa- vs sexa-core, I guess both would technically be correct, but they're calling it a hexa-core. Then again, not sure why since they've been using latin prefixes so far (duo, quad, etc.).

[Soultribunal]

The only Issue I have with MSI's board selection is their Customer Support (Or lack thereof) for a lot of Canadian Customers.

Asus does have 4 PCI-e Boards for AM3 as well and from my own personal experience with them I'd think it'd be a better choice.

ST

[Raserei408]

Well, I can't speak for the ASUS's OCing potential, but I've got a friend currently running the GD70 with his 955 at 4.0GHz, which is about as far as you'll get with that processor, I hear. It's also worth mentioning (if slightly irrelevant here) that the ASUS model can't run 4 dual-slot cards. Still, the MSI will at least give his cards a bit extra breathing room.

Also, the MSI has better connectivity and more SATAs; the ASUS only has 5 SATA ports, so the 4 HDDs and a DVD drive will max it out.

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by Raserei408

Well, I can't speak for the ASUS's OCing potential, but I've got a friend currently running the GD70 with his 955 at 4.0GHz, which is about as far as you'll get with that processor, I hear. It's also worth mentioning (if slightly irrelevant here) that the ASUS model can't run 4 dual-slot cards. Still, the MSI will at least give his cards a bit extra breathing room.

Also, the MSI has better connectivity and more SATAs; the ASUS only has 5 SATA ports, so the 4 HDDs and a DVD drive will max it out.

But all that Mate means nothing (going back to original thing you missed) if you can't RMA your board or it takes 2 months to do it.

ST

[Raserei408]

I tend to hold performance in a higher regard than RMA service.

[Perineum]

I certainly don't hold performance higher than RMA service. High Performance is a few % at best, big deal. MSI is not, in my opinion, synonymous with performance either.

[MarkOne]

SaskGoose I forget to ask you about the case ?

What are planing to use