Bottleneck?

[LLv34_Snefens]

I'm beginning to get tired of limitations of my 2004-vintage CPU and found a new high performance setup I'm thinking about buying. As you can see it has 6GB as standard, but possible to double that, but I'm not even sure that the RAM is the bottleneck here. Maybe the CPU instead?

- INTEL i7 920, Quad 2.66GHz, 4.8GT/s, SOCKET 1366 (D0)
- GIGABYTE Motherboard X58A (with USB 3.0 OG SATA3)
- 2 x GTX480 in SLI (1536MB DDR5 RAM x2)
- 1000GB HARDDISK SAMSUNG F3, 7200RPM (32MB CACHE)
- 6GB DDR3 1600MHZ KINGSTON "TRIPPLECHANNEL" HYPER-X
- 24x SATA +/- AND DVD-RAM DUALLAYER DVDBURNER (SONY)
- 1000W 80+ AND SLI CERTIFIED POWERSUPPLY, COOLERMASTER (80A, 12v)
- CASE, COOLERMASTER CM690 (NVIDIA SLI OG CROSSFIRE APPROVED)
- 7.1 SURROUNDSOUND CARD

[Dragon]

Here is your biggest bottleneck:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137



 

[Spikes]

It's a good case. I love the CM690 II Advanced. Lots of neat features. Look into NZXT cases too.

Nothing is a bottleneck there. You can OC the i7 quite well with a aftermarket cooler. 2 480's are overkill, can I have 1?

[gyrene81]

You were doing good until you got to that hard drive... 

You would be much better off one of these for your primary drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

And one of these as the secondary/storage drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284


A Samsung or Pioneer DVD burner would be better than that Sony too.

[Bino]

Snefens, I recently put together a new machine built around the i7-930 CPU, ASUS P6X58D-E mobo, and a single ATI 5850 graphics card.  I see a solid 85 FPS during *everything* but the big simultaneous FSO takeoffs, when it only drops down to about 70 FPS.

The i7-930, rated at 2.8 GHz, clocks very easily for me to 3.4 GHz, using a Zalman CNPS9900ALED after-market heatsink.

Also, based on Skuzzy's posts in here about power supplies, I bought a SeaSonic X750.  It even comes packaged like a bottle of fine Scotch, in a black velvet drawstring sack!   

[Tigger29]

You were doing good until you got to that hard drive...  

You would be much better off one of these for your primary drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

And one of these as the secondary/storage drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284


A Samsung or Pioneer DVD burner would be better than that Sony too.

Wow... literally a $5 difference between the two... just buy two of the first ones and RAID them together.

Or you can go SSD...

Although I do love my velociraptor...

Twin GTX480's are WAY overkill for just about... everything..  might be better off losing one of them and spending it elsewhere...

regardless though, it's a very nice system...

[Chalenge]

Twin GTX480's are WAY overkill for just about... everything.. 

Except for FSX

[skribetm]

the only bottleneck w/ the build is the storage.
ssd or hw-based raid0 should rectify that.

also, three of these should work best with your SLI'd video cards.
anything less would also be a bottleneck on the visual end.

[Dragon]

also, three of these should work best with your SLI'd video cards.
anything less would also be a bottleneck on the visual end.

You'd think they would throw in free shipping on those. 

[MADe]

I have in use almost what you describe.

I use a CoolerMaster HAF 932, I recommend it highly.
Your ram choice should be at minimum 1600MHz ram, Affects how you OC the system with QPI.
I would consider at minimum a WD Velociraptor HDD.
I use SSD's in a RAID 0 array, sweet. I would use a single SSD for OS and games. 1 ms seek time, less wattage, silent.

[LLv34_Snefens]

Thx for the input guys.

I'll be getting a SSD drive, and also going with the i7 930 CPU instead since price difference is less than 20$. The site I'm purchasing through have the HAF922 instead, but that looks nice as well.

[MADe]

Thx for the input guys.

I'll be getting a SSD drive, and also going with the i7 930 CPU instead since price difference is less than 20$. The site I'm purchasing through have the HAF922 instead, but that looks nice as well.

I would suggest Newegg.com, but you are international. Shipping could kill you, altho they shipped my last purchase for free??????????????????
Make sure the SSD has a cache on it. Windows 7 works best with SSD's, if you go XP you need to prep the SSD for XP install.! Check out the manufacturers forums for proper use of SSD. Mine work great but I made sure I did my homework. I am not a puter professional.

[Krusty]

Nothing wrong with the spinning drive you listed. I have it personally and it's a wonderful drive. I specifically AVOIDED the Western Digital 1TB drives because of alarmingly HIGH negative reviews, drives dying after a few months, DOA drives. They have serious issues right now. The F3 was the best by far out of the newegg reviews (and I pored over them dilligently before hitting the "BUY" button).

If you want that for storage and a faster drive, you can get a couple smaller faster drives for RAID (if you're comfortable) or get a velociraptor or something with a rep for being reliable and fast as your primary boot disk.

I'm toying with the idea of 15,000 RPM SCSI (SAS) RAID in my next major build, but outside of that something like a 10,000 RPM SATA drive is what I'd look at.

[LLv34_Snefens]

I just noticed that SSD's are 2.5" and the HAF 922 only have 3.5" bays. Should I get a converter or how does that work?

[Krusty]

Many folks just rest them on the bottom of the case or "sit" them inside a 5" bay without securing them. No spinning, so not much vibration. Less maintenance.