Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: ghoulish on June 13, 2010, 09:14:21 AM
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OK, I'm getting ready to drop some serious cash on a gaming system.
Below are the parts I'm planning on buying as of today. Purchase time in about a week.
I'm hoping this system will last more than six months before someone ups the graphics requirements on Half life or Aces high II.
Obviously I'm looking to run all graphics at highest settings, and on 3 22" screens.
Have I missed anything important here? I don't want to finish building it only to find out I boneheaded something and only get half the performance I expected.
Thanx in advance for your time and comments
OCZ Technology Gold Series XTC Cooler 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 (PC3-10666) 240 Pin DIMM Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Technology Barracuda 1TB 7,200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Samsung 22x DVD±RW Burner with Dual/Double Layer Support OEM
Microsoft OEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM
BFG Technologies EX1200 1200W ATX 12V / EPS 12V Modular Power Supply
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Superclocked 1280MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Graphics Card
2 each SLI configuration
Cooler Master HAF932 High Air Flow Full Tower
AOC 2236VW 22" LCD Widescreen Display 3 Each
EVGA X58 SLI LGA 1366 X58 ATX Motherboard
Intel Corporation Core i7-930 Processor Boxed
Total cost |$2,265.08
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OK, I'm getting ready to drop some serious cash on a gaming system.
Below are the parts I'm planning on buying as of today. Purchase time in about a week.
I'm hoping this system will last more than six months before someone ups the graphics requirements on Half life or Aces high II.
Obviously I'm looking to run all graphics at highest settings, and on 3 22" screens.
Have I missed anything important here? I don't want to finish building it only to find out I boneheaded something and only get half the performance I expected.
Thanx in advance for your time and comments
Asus Computer International P7P55-M Socket 1156 P55 mATX Motherboard
OCZ Technology Gold Series XTC Cooler 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 (PC3-10666) 240 Pin DIMM Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Technology Barracuda 1TB 7,200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Samsung 22x DVD±RW Burner with Dual/Double Layer Support OEM
Microsoft OEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM
BFG Technologies EX1200 1200W ATX 12V / EPS 12V Modular Power Supply
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Superclocked 1280MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Graphics Card
2 each SLI configuration
Cooler Master HAF932 High Air Flow Full Tower
AOC 2236VW 22" LCD Widescreen Display 3 Each
EVGA X58 SLI LGA 1366 X58 ATX Motherboard
Intel Corporation Core i7-930 Processor Boxed
Total cost |$2,265.08
Why have you picked (2) MotherBoards?:
Asus Computer International P7P55-M Socket 1156 P55 mATX Motherboard
EVGA X58 SLI LGA 1366 X58 ATX Motherboard
do you need (2) video cards to actually run (3) monitors?
with those Nvidia high end videocards, I thought I read on this forum somewhere that the failure rate was somewhat high......
"eyefinity by Ati" offers use of like 3 to 6 monitors with just one video card ( may need to double check that ), could save you some money perhaps???
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OPPS! Going with the SLI mobo. The other one wasnt deleted out of the shopping cart I cut and pasted from. Post edited.
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I will check out the Eyefinity stuff. Just hadn't considered it actually.
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have you researched SSD drives? Tweaktown has some good articles and a few system builds on their site for reference.
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have you researched SSD drives? Tweaktown has some good articles and a few system builds on their site for reference.
Ya those sound really cool for games that are hard drive intensive "half life 2". I think I will check some of those out.
I don't think they would make a big difference and AH though. Once the game is loaded and you're flying I haven't noticed much drive activity.
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My advice would be definitely check out ATI and eyefinity. Build looks good though.
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My $.02:
Instead of that single 1 Tb drive I'd put in 2 HD's. A smaller (possibly SSD) drive for the OS and applications, then a larger traditional drive for data storage. I'd also partition a portion of the larger drive to allow you to mirror the main HD (OS and apps) onto for quick recovery in case of a failure.
Lightscribe might be cool for the optical drive if you're into that kind of thing.
I'm not sure I'd buy a BFG PSU. At this point I'd probably look for a Seasonic or Corsair (only because the Corsair's seem pretty highly rated by users). My preference would be a non-modular single rail.
I've never seen the need to buy an overclocked or superclocked video card. You can do it yourself if the standard version's not cutting it which I doubt will be a problem with what you've selected. It would void the warranty though so there is that to consider.
Again, brand preference but I probably wouldn't buy AOC monitors. I'd more likely stick with soemeone I knew like Acer, Samsung, LG, Veiwsonic, etc.
[EDIT] Dont the LGA1366 CPU's need triple channel memory? Answer: Yes, they do. Looks like you're buying 6 Gb triple channel memory instead of what you chose.
And there you have it.
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BE is spot on, except that for the kind of money your spending I'd put in 2 traditional drives, so you can mirror the data storage as well.
Speaking of brands, I have nothing specific against EVGA motherboards, except that I've never seen mention of them, and I'd be going with an ASUS or possibly a Gigabyte.
And as much as I at one times disliked ATI for driver problems (except for lowend upgrades for PCI-based systems) ATI is all I'm doing these days.
<S>
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"I've never seen the need to buy an overclocked or superclocked video card. You can do it yourself if the standard version's not cutting it which I doubt will be a problem with what you've selected. It would void the warranty though so there is that to consider."
With EVGA overclocking doesn't void the warranty so long as the OC doesn't cause physical damage to the card. Unless they updated the warranty info since I last checked the main concerns an OCer would worry about are covered. OC is covered save for the above, and using a third-party cooler is covered so long as the original is replaced when returning it. :)
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My $.02:
Instead of that single 1 Tb drive I'd put in 2 HD's. A smaller (possibly SSD) drive for the OS and applications, then a larger traditional drive for data storage. I'd also partition a portion of the larger drive to allow you to mirror the main HD (OS and apps) onto for quick recovery in case of a failure.
Lightscribe might be cool for the optical drive if you're into that kind of thing.
I'm not sure I'd buy a BFG PSU. At this point I'd probably look for a Seasonic or Corsair (only because the Corsair's seem pretty highly rated by users). My preference would be a non-modular single rail.
I've never seen the need to buy an overclocked or superclocked video card. You can do it yourself if the standard version's not cutting it which I doubt will be a problem with what you've selected. It would void the warranty though so there is that to consider.
Again, brand preference but I probably wouldn't buy AOC monitors. I'd more likely stick with soemeone I knew like Acer, Samsung, LG, Veiwsonic, etc.
[EDIT] Dont the LGA1366 CPU's need triple channel memory? Answer: Yes, they do. Looks like you're buying 6 Gb triple channel memory instead of what you chose.
And there you have it.
Thanx, I think I got a nickles worth. I'll swap for triple channel RAM.
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BE is spot on, except that for the kind of money your spending I'd put in 2 traditional drives, so you can mirror the data storage as well.
Speaking of brands, I have nothing specific against EVGA motherboards, except that I've never seen mention of them, and I'd be going with an ASUS or possibly a Gigabyte.
And as much as I at one times disliked ATI for driver problems (except for lowend upgrades for PCI-based systems) ATI is all I'm doing these days.
<S>
I'm glad I posted this, and thanx for your reply. I'm gonna do some serious comparisons on the Eyefinity and Nvidia solutions.
Since internal space wont be an issue, raiding the drives may be a good idea and cheap insurance of a HD failure. Thanx again
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I'm glad I posted this, and thanx for your reply. I'm gonna do some serious comparisons on the Eyefinity and Nvidia solutions.
If you decide to go with an ATI card then you'll want to switch motherboards. I hear the Nvidia chipsets don't play together well with the ATI cards even in a single card set-up. I don't have first hand experience with this though. In an SLI or Crossfire set-up the motherboard needs to support it and I don't think there's any motherboards that support both.
I've got a C2D in an Nvidia (Evga) 780i motherboard with an Evga card. I've loved this motherboard... very flexible and user friendly BIOS.
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I have been looking at drives, and from what I have been reading lately of seagate drives I would go with a WD black. Seems to be a high failure rate of seagate drives, referred to the click of death.
This is coming from a person who always used maxtor then switched to seagate after they bought out maxtor.
The WD black is a bit more expensive, but not by alot of money.
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Unless there is a manufacturer that backs their cards as well as evga does...nothing wrong with sticking to the 470s. The new cards scale much better (the old criticism of SLI only giving 10-15% increase is no longer valid) and evga warranties cannot be beat.
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If you decide to go with an ATI card then you'll want to switch motherboards. I hear the Nvidia chipsets don't play together well with the ATI cards even in a single card set-up. I don't have first hand experience with this though. In an SLI or Crossfire set-up the motherboard needs to support it and I don't think there's any motherboards that support both.
I've got a C2D in an Nvidia (Evga) 780i motherboard with an Evga card. I've loved this motherboard... very flexible and user friendly BIOS.
BE, since the lawsuit between Nvidia & Intel flared up EVGA has been using Intel chipsets on all their enthusiast mobos which will support both SLI & Crossfire setups. This started w/ the X58 series. I also believe that Intel has made this a requirement in order to use their chipsets that they support both platforms.
Check out the EVGA website......you'll find quite a few folks running ATI Crossfire as well as Nvidia SLI setups on EVGA X58 & P55 mobos. The early EVGA x58's (I believe the Classified series w/ the NF200 chips on them) are the ones that you would need to steer clear of.
I currently am using the EVGA 780i FTW mobo w/ a EVGA vid card myself but I plan to go to an Asus Maximus III 1156 ROC mobo so I can go ATI or Nvidia in the future. This mobo is the only enthusiast-grade mobo I could find that has no onboard sound (uses a seperate PCI-E 1x sound card) built into the mobo.
:)
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Speaking of brands, I have nothing specific against EVGA motherboards, except that I've never seen mention of them, and I'd be going with an ASUS or possibly a Gigabyte.
Any of those is good but EVGA puts out some seriously kick butt mobos and their warranty is absolutely the best in the business right now.
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Seagate Technology Barracuda 1TB 7,200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
WD Caviar Blacks are second only to the Velociraptor
And dollar for dollar is the best Bang for buck including the VR
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive $109.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136592
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533
Nice drive. Fast, reasonably quiet. I have one in mine and haven't had any problems that I didnt somehow create. I'd buy another in a heartbeat
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You will like the setup you have chosen. Only real difference from mine will be the vid card. I run hires and everything maxed out. 60fps rock steady in heavy furball on Titanic Tuesday.
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Any of those is good but EVGA puts out some seriously kick butt mobos and their warranty is absolutely the best in the business right now.
+1
I used a P55 for my last build. Layout makes cabling easy and BIOS is very user friendly. Easy overclock utility works well.
I too would recommend a second hard drive.
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You will like the setup you have chosen. Only real difference from mine will be the vid card. I run hires and everything maxed out. 60fps rock steady in heavy furball on Titanic Tuesday.
That's exactly what I'm looking for then.
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That's exactly what I'm looking for then.
Noticed you're in SE Michigan, you need any help putting it together? :rock
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6gb RAM should be your minimum for it. The 930 won't even break a sweat for most programs I run.
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If you're building a new rig with Windows7 I would not make one without a 100gib Intel x25G2 or OCZ Vertex2 SSD for OS and games. The bootup times will be drastically reduced.
You like to defragment often? Well consider this, SSD has access times of 0.1 ms. Fragmented or non fragmented. Your regular drive can have fragmented (average) access times of 40 ms and defragmented 34ms. Fragmentation means your drive is forced to jump around the disk to read all the data. This jumping is very unefficient in HDD:s and extremely efficient in SSD:s. So its like polishing a turd basically if you allow that in comparison.
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Noticed you're in SE Michigan, you need any help putting it together? :rock
Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll do the build solo. :salute
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This jumping is very unefficient in HDD:s and extremely efficient in SSD:s. So its like polishing a turd basically if you allow that in comparison.
POLISHING A TURD! :lol :O :confused: :x :old:
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if I may......run..don't walk away from that vid card choice. it sounds like a smoking system...and it deserves the very best card out there now......the ATI radeon 5800 series. I'll NEVER use an Nvidia card again..ever. this 5800 card smokes...give it a look.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__fGE9uGYw5A/SsJfKK_Zc_I/AAAAAAAAAWU/ZdgCLDckLHg/s400/ATI+Radeon+5800+series.jpg)
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OK, thanx to everyone who contributed to my query. Below is the system I'm buying today or tomorrow at the latest. All the components are available at my local microcenter.
I've dropped the new monitors as I've got three right now that will work.
Also gone is the BFG power supply. I found one that'll do just fine for less cash. I did check thoroughly on my power requirements for this set up, its 955W peak.
Found a new motherboard with great specs and less cost.
Decided against an SSD right now as I'm not running any HDD intensive games, I can always add that later.
Went with a no frills case as I'm not planning on showing off my build skillz.
The tray kit is just for fun.
I'm not into overclocking so I traded to the reference 470 graphics cards.
Included triple channel memory.
To the ATI folks, I did look seriously at the eyefinity cards, hard. I went with the Nvidia because it'll give me 4 dvi connectors and no display port adapters are needed. Also, the card I really wanted was $700. That's a lot of lettuce for a single point of failure. In any case it was a close run thing. Time will tell if I went the right way or not.
Intel Corporation Core i7-930 Processor Boxed
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (PC)
EVGA X58 SLI LE LGA 1366 X58 ATX Motherboard
IOGear Long Range Media Center Desktop
Barracuda 500GB 7,200RPM Hard Drive
OCZ Technology 6GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) Obsidian Triple Channel Memory Kit (Three 2GB Memory Modules)
22x DVD±RW Burner OEM
XION AXP Mid Tower ATX Case
Thermaltake USA Inc Xray 5.25" Drive Bay Kit
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280MB PCIe x16 2 EACH
XION Power Real 1100W ATX Power Supply
Total: $1,952.39 :banana:
All this will be driving a 26" center monitor and two 21" side monitors, TrackIr, X-52 HOTAS and CH rudder pedals. I've got a couple sets of surround speakers with sub-woofers so at some point I'll be hooking up the integrated 7.1 sound system. Prolly while the wife and kids are away.
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I've used the EVGA MB for last 2 builds, the on board restart button is a great feature.
Get the BIOS updated ASAP, before installing Windows preferably or at least before installing the second VC. Very important to do this to remove the headaches.
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OK, it's bought and built. Loaded the 64bit version of windows7, and having problems getting the SoftTh software to work for AH and Half-life(I may have to reload with the 32bit version). Other than that, working out pretty good.
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OK, it's bought and built. Loaded the 64bit version of windows7, and having problems getting the SoftTh software to work for AH and Half-life(I may have to reload with the 32bit version). Other than that, working out pretty good.
If you do that you're only going to see a shade over 1Gb of system RAM because your video cards are eating all the allocation. If you need to go to 32 bit you're probably going to want to get rid of one of those cards and even that's only going to leave you with about 2Gb of system RAM.
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Yes.. the LAST thing you want to do is revert back to 32 bit software. It just won't work with your configuration.
SoftTh is all but abandonware right now... the author isn't spending time updating it because he's waiting to see how Eyefinity and Nvidia's "Vision Surround" technologies will fare. I would say either invest in triplehead to go, or see if you can find a beta download of Nvidia's version of eyefinity (http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-technology.html).
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Post pictures please.
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Newest card drivers did the trick! Only able to check it out for a couple of minutes. Ran 3 screens with everything maxed fps 100-145. Woooot!
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(http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm288/larryo340/funny%20gifs/this_thread_is_worthless_without_pi.gif)
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(http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm288/larryo340/funny%20gifs/this_thread_is_worthless_without_pi.gif)
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OK, OK.. give me a day and I'll get ya some pics, Geeesh, I CAN take a hint.