New here, looking for insight.

[SaskGoose]

Hey there, Been reading the site on and off for a few years, being that i am building soon i decide to join up, i got some money burning a hole in my pocket and i am gonna buy a new rig soon as the Phenom xII 555 comes to Canada. Just want to post my Build to see what you all think.

Win 7 64 Running on:

Phenom xII 555 BE unlocked to ghetto Quad if i can, if not will buy another. - $120ish
Noctua NF-P14 - Owned
GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 - $200
CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W - $179 (enough?Too much?)
G.SKILL ECO 8GB 2GB x 4 @ 1600 - $254 (price recently went up $30 :()
Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARS - $123 x2 Storage
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS - $69 x2? OS drives...? = Raid 0 no TLER
a DVD-RW - Owned


One of these cards untill i can get a 6 port 5870
ZOTAC ZT-98GEY3M-FSL GeForce 9800 GT 1GB - $116
ECS NR9800GTE-1GMU-F GeForce 9800 GT 1GB - $111


The Upgrade path would be as follows:

The 5870 6 port (Rumored to drop around fermi release) with the Green 9800gt as PhysX -$600?
1/2 SSDs 60gb-80gb with sata 6GB possibly raid 0 (this summer? Under $300 each with trim?) - $300?
Sparkle Amp if it ever comes out and does not burn things down - $199?
Possibly a sexa-core down the road - $?
May Add Blueray at some time - $150?


This is a Multipurpose PC for my Home Set to be the Storage hub until i get a proper back-end.
For Raid i plan on using the on-board controller, much to the chagrin of many from what i read.
I hope to set up 3 monitors as my main a fourth as a secondary and have my TV connected. Currently i dont game but the plan is to start after i get the 5870 (I'm looking at you Batman). I do Trans-code alot.

Sorta bothers me that TLER was removed from WD drives and they want a premium for the RE drives, at 320GB the RE is $15 more at 1TB its $70, i think that's a bit high for something the old drives did fine. I would have been happy to run them in TLER even if it killed the warranty.

I would like to start buying pieces but i sort of need most of them at once to test for DOAs

All Prices are from newegg because its easy to navigate...i will shop around before i buy.

That's it, Thanks for reading.

[martin_metal_88]

I am just wondering. Why are you putting a big video card on a big rig with a CPU like that? why don't just put a 965?? Since you can have a X4 965 for under 200$ they are worth the price. And 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. For the rest it look fait to me. You could also buy the 5870 now, if you want to use 3 monitor then you don't need a 6 port card ( and no one know if you will be able to use the 6 plug at the same time like now you can't use the 4 ). 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?

[MarkOne]

for my part I question the 2 blues drive in raid 0 for a little more than $ 100 you are in the SSD age , just install non essential thing on another HD , anyway you will have no choice to shrink this 1,3 gb raid 0 array to may be less than 100 gb to gain performance, and don't even thing to use the rest of the array , because you will lost all the avantage of raid 0 if the head go read something in the other partion at the same time it work on the first one. And we know than Windows don't always ask for do so. The only time I will say go raid 0 will be for your game partition, but make sure you have back up and use black drive not blue one


Martin my friend it's a long time I have not see you in this section, you will notice some change

[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. They're the only 790FX board out there that's actually worth it, 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. Don't put any programs on them. SLOW! Also, make sure you set them in RAID 1; you'll lose the capacity, but your media collection will be very safe.
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. You'll end up needing two or three at least, which defeats the purpose of the 6-port one. If you can afford a normal one now, that's my recommendation. I believe with 2 in Xfire you can do six monitors. If not, get one now, and Xfire with the 6-port one when it comes out.

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

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by SaskGoose

Hey there, .

By the way Welcome to the board

[Raserei408]

Well, I would have suggested RAID 10, but I assumed 4 HDDs plus his storage ones was a bit much to ask for.

[martin_metal_88]

Originally Posted by MarkOne

Martin my friend it's a long time I have not see you in this section, you will notice some change

Haha what have change here:P And for the raid 5 if he is going to buy 3 X 1TB green then put them in raid 5 for storage security that is good but for the OS drive it's like shooting yourself in the leg with a .50 caliber. For OS and software you have 3 possibilities
1: SSD
2: 2X black edition in raid stripping
3: 1X black edition ( it give enough speed for much of us )

[Raserei408]

@Mark
First, you don't NEED an external RAID controller to run RAID 5, although it was misinformed of me to recommend it in this scenario.
That said, RAID 1 has no performance losses as compared to a single HDD, and, since it's written to at the same time as the primary HDD, it's basically as secure as it gets. In what way is a third-party software and an external disk any more reliable than a RAID 1 setup?

You can, in fact, run an Nvidia card for dedicated PhysX with an ATI card running graphics, it just requires using hacked drivers (or old drivers). It's not "legit," but it works, and it works very well.

As for the "sexa-core" joke, I understand it (I'm sixteen for god's sake) but it's incorrect. Plain and simple. The fact that you find it vaguely humorous does nothing to change that.

[MarkOne]

to saskgoose : Sorry for the mess.

You ask for feed back on your build : Here something that I think it will be the most helpfull in your case :

Visit the Storage section of the forum , you have guy especially helpfull there to ask question about storage and your PC is using a lot of them, enough to justify a tread just on that. The main problem I see with your PC, is your choice of hard drives, give a try to my idea of the storage section.

I can garanty you , that you will not have this kind of fight there. oh no , give it a try. you are well start with your build , we talk about a lot of money here, why not make sure to take the best of it.

Originally Posted by rjbarker

^^^ Boy oh boy...between the two of you guys its no wonder anyone Posts at all in this thread (its continuous bickering with you two)....to the OP....HWC is not normally like this...well in the past anyhow, don't give up on us!

ok fair enough, yes it was not like that 2 weeks ago, just a question on my lips for quite a time, do you really need half a page for your signature

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by Raserei408;330895 That said, RAID 1 .....[B

it's basically as secure as it gets[/b]. In what way is a third-party software and an external disk any more reliable than a RAID 1 setup? ...

My main concern about raid 1, start when someone think his safe with it.

[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