[Torx]

im still up in the air about a new case, i want hot swappable sata slots, psu bottom mount with a separation panel and plenty of space to work in...
even though i wont be overclocking i still want to have that ability in the future. anything worth noting or i should swap? i like to try and keep the brand matching. I wanted to go radeon4870x2 but im hearing about how loud and hot it runs.. cant be havin that yo.

i wont be buying from newegg because they charge hella tax on me on top of shipping.. when i could probably just go down the street and pick it up, but unfortunately thats not possible. i wish i could goto the warehouse and buy it straight up


$293
INTEL BX80601920 Core i7-920 2.66GHz Intel® QPI 4.80 GT/s Socket 1366 Desktop Processor Retail at ZipZoomfly



$300
Newegg.com - Foxconn BloodRage LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards



$230
CORSAIR TR3X6G1600C8D 6GB PC3-12800+ (DDR3-1600+) CL8 Triple Channel Memory Retail at ZipZoomfly



$134
Corsair HX Series CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply at ZipZoomfly



$284
EVGA 896-P3-1258-A1 Geforce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 (2.0v) Video Card Retail at ZipZoomfly



$27
SAMSUNG SHS223F 22X SATA DVD Burner Black Drive Bulk at ZipZoomfly

TOTAL = 1268
as of 1-11-09

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Optional Buys
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$360
Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-V2110B Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases



$300 Swiftech Watercooling Ultima Kit
SWIFTTECH

[ShabazKillaX]

Personally I don't think the Raptors are worth it. Any flagship video card is going to be hot/loud. Are there any 3rd party heatsinks for the X2s? My Thermalright cooler works great on my 8800GTS. Might be worth looking into.

[demonizeZ]

I didnt think Newegg put tax. Every thing i ever bought i only had to pay shipping. Mostly i order from Newegg, using NY zip codes. They started the Tax BS, but they stopped because so many people complained...

As for that build...
The power supply is too monstrous. For the parts listed you can easily use 750Watt PSU. And if you sacrifice timing by 1 increment, you can get 6gig ram for 180ish $ by going with OCZ or G.Skill.

Any particular reason you are buying DVD burner with IDE interface?? Stick with sata if you can, make it easier to organize cable and gives you better air flow. For hard drive you can get a normal 72k rpm with 32 MB Cache. And get a small raptor for gaming and high data intensive programs. Cross check the graphics card if you can, with linux forum and see if its well supported. So in future if you decide to go with linux you dont have to do alot of fixing of drivers... Good luck on new build.

[Mr. Ali]

You are spending all that money and getting a fucking raptor? Jesus christ, get the velociraptor at least. That actually has very high transfer rates.

EDIT: Seconding the IDE drive, do not do this. Do you really want to spend a few extra seconds on bootup for the IDE controller to search for any IDE devices upon boot up, every time you boot? It takes longer since its not integrated into the chipset and is a separate IDE controller with its own bios.

[namelessentity]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ali

You are spending all that money and getting a fucking raptor? Jesus christ, get the velociraptor at least. That actually has very high transfer rates.

EDIT: Seconding the IDE drive, do not do this. Do you really want to spend a few extra seconds on bootup for the IDE controller to search for any IDE devices upon boot up, every time you boot? It takes longer since its not integrated into the chipset and is a separate IDE controller with its own bios.

lol @ a few extra seconds. Are you really that impatient?

[Torx]

i can skip the raptor and just get a good seagate or WD main drive.

i dont buy from newegg because they have a warehouse in my city, thus charging us tax.

its a monstrous psu but i want the extra leeway just in case i ever wanna throw another graphics card in there. I do want a 750-850 but corsair doesnt make one thats modular.

i was thinking about gskill, i might revise that as well. is there a particular set or product number i should look at?

good eye, i just copied the first link to the best reviewed cdrom drive didnt notice it was ide. i dont even think theres an ide socket on the motherboard. sata all the way of course as i intended.

[hans5849]

Why doesn't newegg just setup one big warehouse in Rhode Island, it would take up like half the state but no tax!

[Undertaker989]

I personally don't think its economically efficient to go i7 just yet. Sure, Intel priced the i7 920 Nehalem somewhat decently (not compared to a standard dual core for gaming however), but after you factor in the cost of the motherboard and Tri Channel DDR3 ram set (I'm assuming 6 gigs here), you are spending 350-400 more dollars to go i7 over a Core2 dual core setup - which is what games utilize anyway.

I'm very excited about the architecture though. In 1 to 1.5 years, when the total cost of the decision will be more respectful, I'll give it another look.

If you need an upgrade to play games - stick with the GTX and go w/ Core2 duo to save your money for the future. I agree with getting a good case and PSU - I'm doing the exact same thing. You may want to look @ the 12v rail layout on whatever PSU you are getting, especially if you are planning on going SLI/XFire (which is another thing not worth the cost, but that's for another time).

[Torx]

updated, managed to shave off ~100 updating the hdd, dvd drive, and ram

still up in the air about psu
cant seem to find a good modular ~850+/- sli ready psu thats cheap and looks good

[ShabazKillaX]

I wouldn't go with an 80gig hard drive. Even if you don't need the space a 500gig drive isn't much more and will have better read speeds due to the higher density.

[Torx]

no, i use a small drive for my main and games, another small drive for incoming files, then storage drives are separate 500gb or 1tb.

i dont heavily partition my drives like i used to because of my downloading/deleting/moving tendencies and habits

incoming drives seem to fail the most on me therefore i dont plan to mix and match incoming partitions with my crucial important os partition, therefore one single os drive (80gb) with a split os/temp partition set

updated the graphics card, i cant see an extra $170 for the 280 which will perform about the same as a superclocked 260 55nm. if anyones got an argument, let me know

[sims]

for the case, you might want to consider the antec 182P, i'm decently happy with it, its not very flashy. it does have great cooling and sound deadening in the case.

1000 is waaaaay overkill. I run an antec 500 watt on my quad core setup running at 3.3 with 4 hard drive's and several 120 and 80MM case fans, 2 IDE drives, sound card and overclocked 8800GT and its more then enought. PSU watt has been about nothing more then bragging rights for years now.

if you have your heart set on the I7 and DD3 and can afford it, go for it, but as mentioned you pay a huge premium to have the newest parts, the performance difference will be very marginal. a DDR2 system with a core 2 duo dual or quad core will be 95% as fast for probably less then 75% of the cost.

edit - don't make the mistake of getting IDE drives, I accidently did, my cable running would have gone alot more smoothly had I gone SATA. :/

for the video card - I can still play anything I've tried at full detail on my system with an 8800GT. I'd personally just go with something like a 9800GT or something in that range, you will again save a bunch of money that can be used to by you something fairly new a year from now when whatever card you go with now is going to be outdated anyways :P

Maybe I've gotten old, but the days where I was willing to spend the huge premium required to have the newest shit are behind me. its completely unnecessary. I build my computer over a year ago, without even using the newest parts out at the time, and games still haven't caught up. Most games these days are build with the 360 in mind first and a port over to computers second, the specs from the 360 are long long outdated by computer standards.

[gB dAvId x]

Does anyone own zipzoomfly? or is it is own company??

[Torx]

thats the thing, last time i upgraded was 5 years ago, i expect to do the same with a new build. 1000w should futureproof me for an sli setup. by the time i feel the need to sli that card to match with should be hella cheaper.

pc gaming is dead though its been two years and we havent heard about any new groundbreaking pc games coming out this year or for next year. kinda sad really.. but oh well.

[Bear]

I wouldn't consider it dead when major console titles are making their way to the PC. Just check out the latest games available on Steam for purchase.

PC Gaming is mainly dominated by roleplayers and FPSers. What do you expect? The mouse/keyboard is superior for both of these. Action games do much better on consoles but even those are making their way on to PC. Exclusives will be exclusives, not one system can have the best of both worlds.

[Torx]

yea i noticed that trend now that you mentioned it.
like bioshock.

i just read hardocp's review about the evga 3x sli board and they dont seem to pleased about it. so i might have to revise again. maybe gigabyte ud5

[ivanolo]

I know your disdain for Newegg, but check out the reviews for that mobo there. Most people seem pleased w/ it. I haven't read [H]ard|OCP's review, but I imagine whatever problems that mobo has can be fixed w/ a BIOS flash. It's a matter of patience.

You pay the price for being an early adopter; literally and figuratively.

Unless you're planning on running SLI on 3 cards, then that PSU is definitely overkill. Why don't you use a PSU calculator to figure out how much power you really need?

[Torx]

trust me, if i can find a nice 850w modular psu that looks good and has good reviews i would buy. everything ive researched has been either not modular, ugly, or bad reviews, or not FULLY modular.

[demonizeZ]

Originally Posted by Torx

trust me, if i can find a nice 850w modular psu that looks good and has good reviews i would buy. everything ive researched has been either not modular, ugly, or bad reviews, or not FULLY modular.

not sure if you checked this out, if not, then Ultra X3 800.

Here is the review for this power supply

hope that helps. GL

[Mr. Ali]

I just bought this power supply 2hours ago:
Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies


Hands down the best power supply brand. It has 1 single 12v rail (multiple rails are pointless and stupid), 8pin motherboard connector, 80PLUS efficient and has 2x PCI express ports.

Fucking excellent deal for $70 + free shipping + $5 tax - $20 rebate = $55 for the best 500watt power supply you can buy.

You should really consider a pc power and cooling brand power supply. They specifically only do non-modular power supplies and never do multiple 12v rails.

It can run 2x 4870's just fine if I needed it to, but for now it will run just 1.