New rig I'm buying (suggestions?)

everything looks good...though the case might be a tight fit for GPU and a big CPU cooler like the zalman might get in the way of ram slots-but not a big deal with 2 sticks


PSU is suffiecient..but not much room for upgrading..if you ever decide to add another gpu ull prolly need to upgrade the PSU

 

Look for a new RAM set up. No reason to spend a ton of money on DDR3 without running it in triple channel. I have been out of the loop for about a year, but the basics always stand true.

1) Dont skimp on a PSU, it could fry your system if you do
2) Go cheap with the case and HD if you are on a budget. Those are things that can be replaced later without sacrificing much.

As far as the 6-core processor...is it really needed? How many programs and such are compatible with a 6 core processor? Sure in the future they will be, but only recently have many things even been made to be 4 core compatible.

Do not get me wrong, it is a really nice rig, but I think you would see much more advantage from doing it a little differently in your budget. Unless you are getting sponsored or will somehow be making money with this rig, I would stick with 4 cores and a normal mobo, get a semi decent water system for cooling, overclock it to the nth degree, and you will blow the doors off a 6 core system.

Also, air cooling was a huge issue on the i7 systems when cranking the voltage, I have not even looked at the architecture of the 6 core processor, but I only imagine it would create much more heat.

 

You don't have to worry about triple-channel, as it is only supported by the intel LGA1366 slot for the i7-900 series and high-end Xeon CPUs.

As for memory, I'd rather go for a name brand, like Kingston or Corsair. 2x4gb is fine, but for speed, 4x2gb is better though slightly more expensive In either case, DDR3 is what you need, as it is twice as fast as DDR2.

Don't listen to the naysayers on 6 core CPU. Modern apps care little if you got 4 or 6 cores (or more for that matter), what they do care about though is available CPU power to run more processing threads. In that regard, more cores are better, always!

Been sniffing on a 6 core AMD CPU myself, as I'm thinking of upgrading my gaming rig. I see you have added a third-party CPU cooler, which you really need on newer AMD CPUs. Stock cooler do the job, but it is noisy, and is new already on the margins in capacity. When it gets older filled with grime and dust, that is bad news.

As for PSU, you should aim for at least a 750W from the get-go. PSUs loose capacity over time. After having a couple of PSUs blow up on me, I've learned the hard way that needed power is what the hardware uses under stress + 50%. That gives you headroom for later upgrades, and will ensure the PSU last at least 3 years, as degration is usually in the 5-10% of capacity per year.

If you intend to go SLI/Crossfire, just go for a 1kW PSU right away. If not, then ditch the SLI/Crossfire motherboard. Get a similarly specced single PCIe slot motherboard instead. Oh, and when buying motherboards, you can't go much wrong with Asus...

Happy gaming

 

You sure you need a 6-core processor? What applications do you use that will utilize the heavy threading? Are you sure something like an i5 2500k wouldn't be better for your situation?

 

A lot of applications come to mind. For me getting a 6 core CPU would be great for:

- Video-editing and compression
- 3D rendering and raytracing
- Virtualization for running other OSes/Sandbox for testing home-brewed apps
- Games (ARMA2, CoD:BO, BF:BC2, Civ5 and HoI3 are very CPU intensive)

In computing, just enough is always to little :

 

Wait for the bulldozer... 8 cores. Should be out in April I believe.

 

I'm not sure about BF3, but BF BC2 favors AMD/ATI graphics. Nearly all other games do well with nVidia, but not BF BC2, and I'm not sure BF3 will change that.

 

Umm, when BF:BC2 was released, the ATI owners in my clan complained about slow loading of maps, usually getting onto the server some 20-30 seconds into a round. It took a patch before Dice fixed that issue. When ingame the difference between comparable ATI and nVidia cards is neglible, but granted, ATI do deliver a slight edge in price vs performance. For the time beeing.

I'm an nVidia fanboy though. Better drivers, and physX/CUDA is the clincher for me

 

The Frostbite engine is its own physics engine, no need for PhysX, at least for BFBC, 1943, and BFBC2. Like I said earlier, a lot of games favor nVidia, just not Battlefield.

The Havok engine also has its own physics engine, no need for PhysX there, either.

I'm not really a fan boy, especially because I've never owned an ATI card. I've had an nVidia 5500, 8500, and I've been rocking the 260 for a couple years now. Looking into ATI for an unrelated reason (ATI cards don't enforce the EDID). AMD generally does offer more bang for their buck and I certainly love my PII x4 965. Stock 3.4 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache and 6 MB L3 cache. It has been treating me well and was very, very cheap.

 

if you're not afraid of overclocking (slightly) you can save an extra 20 bucks and get a 955 black edition, OCs to 965 clocks in a snap with 0 risk and no need to go into voltages or anything

 

+ rep for HKarmy, you best not be playin for LIFT though...cuz i will take that rep back brah

 

wait for the i5 2500k for gaming, but if you want AMD

Case

GPU

PSU

memory

CPU+Mobo

subtotal $843.93

or ~50 dollars cheaper for the phenom II 965