I need your final approval on my choices

[CW3SF 0]

Here are the main parts for my new computer. What do you think??

After reading much about going to using two cards in SLI, or not, Icame up with this set of hardware.

 

Motherboard------ P8P67 Deluxe, CPU --- i7 2600K @ 3.4GHz, Memory---- 16GB @1333MHz DDR3, Video Card ---- Ge Force GTX 580 (1536 MB ) , Hard Drive --- 256MB SSD @6GB/sec , OS ---- Windows 7, I wil use my five year old Dell 24 inch wide screen set at 1920 X 1200

 

I am quite sure that Falcon NW will be my choice to build this ( I have no interest do build my own). Most of the games I play are simulations ( flight & subs) and Civ 4 and 5. I would pop for the SLI with the other card and pay the price if it added a great deal. So far it seams that this my be the best answer for my needs now.

 

Thanks in advance for you thoughtfull comments. CW3SF

[Tamper 9]

Since you've asked for input, I'll be honest: If you're buliding a new rig, my personal approach has always been to spend as much on the new mainboard as possible toward "future-proofing". For example, even if budget constraints force you to use a lesser CPU right now, I'd spend more on a motherboard that supports a longer "upgrade path".

 

Having said that - regarding the motherboard you've chosen: I've used several Asus "top-end" boards for my own machine builds; they are as good a product as most anyone else makes. But that's an expensive, upper-end board - features like USB3 and SATA/6Gs (which are both great steps now in the upgrade path area). However, the PCIe slots run x8/x8 when both populated. Now, even if you've decided not to XFire/SLI right now, this is a fairly substantial limitation in terms of the future...if you find SLI is better supported down the road, for example, you'll be hampered in this area. Also, from what I gather, video cards aren't terribly restricted running x8 PCIe last I studied it - but that is/was somewhat dated info (6 months in PC terms can make a tremendous difference). I wonder if you've studied whether the newest video cards (like your 580) would be limited running on 8 PCIe lanes, should you decide to run SLI one day down the road (at which point a second 580 may well be cheaper then than buying the newest thing). The thing is, for what that top-end board is going to cost, I bet you could find one that offers USB3, SATA6 *and* will run both slots at x16/x16, for no more money. It would be worth looking into.

 

In my opinion, SLI can be worth it - but it's almost never worth buying two brand new cards at the same time just to run SLI. You are better off buying the best quality single card you can afford. As I said, later on that second 580 will probably be a lot cheaper - adding a second card later on is actually where SLI starts to be "worth it".

 

Also, that's a socket 1155 board. Now, 1155 currently supports core i7's, so that's good. But again, my personal recommendation is always to buy a motherboard that is as 'future-proof' as possible, so you have room to grow later on. In this case, the 1155's, while perfectly capable boards right now, will no doubt be eclipsed by the 1366 boards at some point down the line. Right now, nothing you could throw at the 1155 build would slow it down...but as I said, later on, you might wind up wishing you'd bought the basis for a machine that allows more of an upgrade path - and I'm going to guess it wouldn't cost a lot more (at least, whatever you spent extra would definitely be worth it, IMHO).

 

Finally, good to see you're going to SSD. It's a move everyone will make sooner or later, still kinda pricy for some. You don't mention which drive specifically you intend to use, and that can matter. Also, an SSD tht size is going to be fairly pricey, but even though everything will benefit from the speed, you could probably save a lot of money by getting a smaller SSD now, and a larger, conventional drive - run most everything on the platter drive and only the most demanding stuff on the SSD. The cost of SSDs is still fairly high, and a 256 GB drive appears to go into the $500 range. Meanwhile a good 64G drive can be had for a quarter that (about $125 or so), savings = $300-350. (minus another $50-100 for adding a conventinal drive, so your net would be $200-250). The 64G drive is plenty big enough to hold the OS and a game or three, and SSD's will do nothing but get a lot cheaper now that they're becoming "mainstream" (watch what I tell you, you'll see...)

 

Put the $200-250 or so savings toward a different motherboard and CPU (socket 1366 and supports x16/x16 PCIe slots, USB3 and SATA/6G), I honestly feel that's the better investment. I believe that, one day not too far down the road, you will be glad if you do it this way.

I also see 16G memory...now, that's a very impresive number, don't get me wrong - but there just isn't much today that will use all that. You could shave a few hundred off, I bet, by using 8 or 12G, still run triple channel 1333 ( w/12G) - and I doubt seriously anything you'll do for a while would suffer at all for the difference in 8, 12, or 16G (for right now - you can always add more later). 16G is just costing you a lot of money for very little return at present IMHO.

 

I hope this helps.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Tamper

[almccoyjr 7]

Unless you're planning on using your pc as power server or are going to invest in the time and software to properly setup a V.R.D. with the 16gb of memory, I'd change to 6(?) or 8 and invest the savings else where.

 

You're on the cusp of the crest just on the downhill side with the 1155 and at the beginning of the wave forming with 1366. When 1366 goes mainstream, just be prepared for any firmware and bios improvements to dramatically wane and then abruptly stop for the 1155 and supported procs.

 

If you're going to stay with the 1155, make sure that SLI is fully PCIe-16x supported and not 8x neutered.

 

USB3 and SATA6 are both excellent as is going with a SSD.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

plug_nickel

Edited January 20, 2011 by almccoyjr

[CW3SF 0]

Thank you both. Very well done "Tamper", I will look into the 1366 board ASAP.

 

The only "motherboard" I ever knew was the one My mom used in her kitchen.

 

SOOOO Keep the good advice coming.

 

 

CW3SF

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

The thing you've not mentioned, is the PSU?

 

You need to invest in a very good power supply as well

[carrick58 23]

wow, great information. I don't understand all of it, but i am very impressed.

[Olham 164]

Does anyone here run Windows AND his OFF from an SSD, and what experience did you make?

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there CW3SF,

 

If Parky is viewing the forum he is the GUY to get advice from. Very knowledeable.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

[Tamper 9]

Does anyone here run Windows AND his OFF from an SSD, and what experience did you make?

 

Hi Olham,

 

I actually did that, but only for a short while. Having given it some thought (after I set it all up, of course *lol*) I realized that it wasn't the way to go. I actually don't recommend installing an OS on an SSD, unless it's the only drive in the computer.

 

Even though Win7 is more "SSD friendly", OSes in general are still very bad at dealing with SSDs. Platter-based drives and SSDs are very different, and the OS (with some exceptions in Win7) still wants to treat all disks the same. I can explain why if you like.

 

Also, in my own experience, comparing OS and OFF on an SSD, vs. OFF on an SSD w/ OS on a different drive, any gain is negligable. The SSD makes OFF run better, period - and the OS isn't necessarily delaying OFF, so it being on another (platter) drive doesn't seem to matter all that much (to me, in the limited experience I had with it).

HTH

 

 

 

[Parky 8]

Hi there CW3SF,

 

If Parky is viewing the forum he is the GUY to get advice from. Very knowledeable.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

 

 

Awfully flattered that you think so old chap, but CW3SF is in good hands here with the likes of Tamper and Almcoyjr. Both of these guys really know their stuff! Excellent advice from both of them here (as well as UK's two cents). The suggestion to go with an LGA 1366 platform is spot on. Couldn't agree more. The views regarding how much RAM to go with is also right on the money (No pun intended). Any more than 6 or 8 Gig (depending on wether it's dual or triple channel of course) would be an unwise investment if all we're trying to do is put together a fast gaming rig. Perhaps on a high-volume server or a system that was going to be used to render a boatload of video, it would come in handy. In this case....nope.

 

One little thing I would like to add though. If CW3SF decides to go with the LGA 1366, he's going to be dealing with the X58 chipset, which the last time I checked, would indeed be the choice today for someone who's planning on running more than one graphics card (wether it be now or later on). The X58 is a great chipset in it's own right. In fact, I've put together 4 towers in the last year or so using the P6X58D Premium motherboard from ASUS. One for myself and three for other people. No problems at my end and the other 3 guys are happier with that board than pigs in poop. That board provides for x16 operations with two of three PCI-e slots populated, at which point slot 3 can be used as a PCI-e1x. If a third graphics card (an unlikely scenario?) is dropped into slot three, the lanes are then reduced to 8x. The point I'd like to make though is this; Most X58 based boards that I've seen suffer from one obvious problem. Once you introduce a 2nd graphics card to the mix, it effectively wipes out the possibility of using the regular PCI slot (not to be confused with PCI-E) for a sound card or other PCI compatible device. If one wants to run a dedecated sound card as opposed to relying on the onboard sound chip, it would be wise to make sure one chooses a PCI-e 1x sound card. Either that, or make damned sure you can still utilize the basic PCI slot once both graphics cards are installed.

 

Just as a point of interest, the aforementioned board also supports USB 3.0 and SATA3. Unfortunately, the Marvell SATA3 controller on the Premium board doesn't allow for RAID on the SATA3 ports. The P6X58D-E does, as it uses a later version of the same contoller. Not much difference between the two boards other than that and the 16 phase power design on the premium vs 12 phase on the "E" version. It should be noted that the "E" version does not have dual gigabit LAN either. It has only a single port. Slightly better chipset cooling on the premium along with the 16 phase power design would be a better choice if you were in to extreme overcclocking I suppose.

 

There are a handful of very good X58 based boards from the likes of Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA and others. I just happen to be a loyal ASUS user.....perhaps I should shaddup now.....starting to sound like a freakin' fanboi......lol

 

 

Cheers,

 

Parky

[almccoyjr 7]

Here are the main parts for my new computer. What do you think??

After reading much about going to using two cards in SLI, or not, Icame up with this set of hardware.

 

Motherboard------ P8P67 Deluxe, CPU --- i7 2600K @ 3.4GHz, Memory---- 16GB @1333MHz DDR3, Video Card ---- Ge Force GTX 580 (1536 MB ) , Hard Drive --- 256MB SSD @6GB/sec , OS ---- Windows 7, I wil use my five year old Dell 24 inch wide screen set at 1920 X 1200

 

I am quite sure that Falcon NW will be my choice to build this ( I have no interest do build my own). Most of the games I play are simulations ( flight & subs) and Civ 4 and 5. I would pop for the SLI with the other card and pay the price if it added a great deal. So far it seams that this my be the best answer for my needs now.

 

Thanks in advance for you thoughtfull comments. CW3SF

I will get specific now that others have chimed in. I understand your hesitation to build, but before you "write the check", you REALLY need to go online with some of builders and work some configurations. You really should examine the builder and the "bang for the buck" they offer. Start with Socket 1366 w/x58 chipset, I7***, Ram:6(2-channel) or 8(3 channel), PSU 750 minimum, GTX 5 or ATI 57/58 series.

 

I just took a quick peak and configured a couple of "basic" gaming pcs from Falcon Northwest and Digital Storm. Digital Storm simply blew away FNW on both base, mid and upper end systems in terms of "cost" and components offered. DS is but one of several custom builders.

 

There are several top notch builders that meet the criteria of superb service, product setup and warranty. You should workup a comparison to see who offers similar components to try and asses "best bang for the buck".

 

Another option is to see who you have locally and what they have to offer. The upside to this approach is that often they'll let you "watch" and learn. All you have to do is ask. that will give you a much better understanding of what you just purchased instead of just "turning the Key" and starting.

 

My 5cents worth.

 

plug_nickel

[CW3SF 0]

As Tony the Tiger would say you guys are GREAT.

 

Good information from all--- Thanks. I will go with the more advanced 1366 socket system motherboard. The power will be 1KW.

I will try to find some one in the Phoenix AZ area to build it--- and maybe look over his shoulder and get a little on the job training.

Could be fun also.

 

I was trying to get buy with a 256 SSD as my only drive--- but now some of you mentioned that Windows 7 does not work as well on the SSD drive.

 

So now that leaves me with installing a second drive and doing some thing like RAID or SATA. Only one issue-- I have no clue what they are and

what the do or how. Like I said, I am just an "old warrior" who likes to play games in my spare time.

 

Could some kind person tell me about the care and feeding of RAID and SATA, and just what in the heck they do.

 

Sorry to be such a bother. THANKS AGAIN CW3SF

[Tamper 9]

.

I was trying to get buy with a 256 SSD as my only drive--- but now some of you mentioned that Windows 7 does not work as well on the SSD drive.

 

So now that leaves me with installing a second drive and doing some thing like RAID or SATA. Only one issue-- I have no clue what they are and

what the do or how. Like I said, I am just an "old warrior" who likes to play games in my spare time.

 

Could some kind person tell me about the care and feeding of RAID and SATA, and just what in the heck they do.

 

Sorry to be such a bother. THANKS AGAIN CW3SF

 

I'm sure it's no bother at all, CW3SF...the folks responding here all share a genuine keen interest in this stuff, offer very good advice, and actually enjoy doing it :) Better still, when there's such a convergence of opinions as in the responses here, it's a 'gimme' you're getting good advice.

 

As to your question, good news: You needn't learn a whole lot at all to succeed in this case, pretty straightforward.

 

First, about SATA: No need to really know much at all here, SATA is simply the means that newer computers use to connect to hard disks and the like. Since it's been around for a while now, it's well-established and supported. Basically, to the user, it's totally transparent and doesn't require any special knowledge or care. (See...easy, right?) They'll plug everything up when the machine's built, and you needn't give it much more thought at all if you don't care to. Only thing to know, really, is that SATA/3G is more or less 'current', SATA/6G is out now, roughly twice teh speed (but more costly, of course). To get the speed benefit, you must have a motherboard drive controller that supports SATA/6G and a disk(s) that are SATA/6G.

 

Next, using more than one drive doesn't mean you have to use RAID. Simply put, RAID is a special configuration of hard drives that increases performance and/or security - but is not required at all. Even with more than one drive. You'll be just fine without it - and, should you have time/interest later on, nothing stops you from going to RAID if/when you want to give it a try.

 

Win7 on SSDs: Windows 7 is actually the first version of Windows to support SSDs (in a limited fashion) so that's a good thing. No reason at all you can't run the OS (even if not Win7) on an SSD, and it would no doubt speed things up. It is just my opinion that loading the OS on an SSD does entail knowing a bit more than usual, and some extra steps to keep things 'healthy', but there's nothing overwhelming - and if you're using Win7, it's even easier. Just that some folks would prefer not having to learn extra; they just want to use the PC without a bunch of technical stuff to learn. And that's fine, too. Really up to the individual.

 

Writing/erasing/re-writing to SSDs is what causes them to lose performance over time, so some maintenance is needed to optimize. If you do run Win7 on an SSD, you'll need to learn (just a little, promise) about a function called TRIM - this is a tool that helps keep SSD performance tuned up. SSDs (as you probably know) use a different mechanism entirely for storing data - and because of that, they require different treatment than conventional disks. But Windows 7 TRIM takes care of most of it. The other few items are well-known, and in fact will probably come with the documentation for your new SSD (or will be available on the manufacturer's web site). Basically, you change 2-3 settings in Windows, use the TRIM function, and never defrag the SSD...that's about it.

 

Also, now that SSDs are becoming more 'mainstream' there's no doubt that support for them will be even better - one day not too far off, it'll be completely transparent to the user, is my guess. (Like the OS will probably recognize which drives you have an do the proper configuration for you automatically).

 

On having multiple drives: SSDs are still expensive, on a cost-per-unit of storage space basis. So, outfitting a brand new build with amount of storage considered "adequate" these days, using only SSD, can get very expensive. Conventional hard disks go between $50-100 for 500G-1TB, depending on model, manufacturer...an SSD will cost $400-500 for 256G; quite a difference in cost and capacity there.

 

So, the idea is that conventional drives perform reasonably, and are inexpensive for fairly large capacity - SSDs are built for speed, but pricey. If you buy one big SSD, everything will *load* faster, but it's not necessarily going to *run* a lot faster. Once a program's loaded (depending on a lot of factors), it usually runs from your computer's memory (RAM), not directly from the drive...so, once loaded, the program doesn't benefit much from the SSD's speed. As I said, though, sims load lots of textures are therefore an exception, because they are constantly loading new stuff from the drive. My experience is that they benefit remarkably from SSDs, loading and running.

 

What you can do to compromise is use two drives, one each conventional and SSD. The conventional drive is cheap, and can be used to load/store most everything on a PC. Pictures, videos, music, even most games will be just fine on a conventional drive. For your favorite, speed-hungry games - especially those with lots of graphical textures to load (like OFF and most other simulators)...this is where the speed of an SSD pays off. You just want to reserve that (relatively small) amount of space for only what really needs it. The OS can be loaded on an SSD, and it will speed up most everything you use, but the gain won't be as substantial in my opinion as the gain you'll get with loading a game that needs top-notch performance. Examples:

 

Option 1 - Buy one SSD and load everything there: Everything speedier, but space is at a premium. Everything will load much faster, but won't necessarily see nearly as big a "performance" increase as the sims will.

 

Option 2 - Buy a smaller SSD and a conventional disk, load the OS and your 'fastest' games on the SSD, everything else on the regular drive: You'll get somewhat faster boot-up times (and to a lesser extent shutdown times). Most programs will probably load slightly faster (we're talking maybe 5-15% faster, but it really depends on a lot). Everything will still run as well as it ever would, and the stuff on the SSD will be much faster at any time it loads - which is a lot in most sims. You do lose about 8-10G for loading the OS on the SSD, and the considerations for keeping it healthy apply.

 

Option 3 - Buy a smaller SSD and a conventional disk, load ONLY your 'fastest' games on the SSD; the OS and everything else on the regular drive: The OS will perform adequately, just as it always has. It requires no extra attention and doesn't take up any space from your precious speedy SSD. The games on the SSD will load faster, stuttering will be all-but-eliminated (in my experience), and you'll have all the space on that drive to load as much in that space as you want (up to let's say 5-10 games average size today, on a 64G SSD). As long as you aren't installing/uninstalling constantly on this drive, you set the few options once and don't have to worry so much about the ongoing maintenance (TRIM). If you just install your games the one time, do a patch every now and then, etc., it will likely not require much 'clean-up' at all.

 

I do hope all this helps and makes sense - please feel free to ask any questions at all :)

 

Best of luck to you!

[CW3SF 0]

Thanks again Tamper. You guys are great!!!

 

Just completed a search and did alike computer builds with Falcon NW, Origin, & Digital Storm. About $1000 diff. from the high at Falcon to low at Digital Storm.

 

As you all know by now if any one will need expert Cust. Service it will be ME!

 

Who would you go with? I am in no real rush, so I will try to find a builder in Phoenix AZ. Otherwise out comes my AE Card.

If I don't spend it my kids will!

 

 

Thanks again guys CW3SF

[Tamper 9]

Wow! $1,000 difference - that's substantial...hats off to almccoy for the Digital Storm reference.

 

I've built my own computers since I first owned one, so I couldn't really comment on the online 'build houses' other than saying that there are numerous reputable firms, each with many satisfied customers. I am a little surprised that there would be so much difference in the costs, though...wow.

 

There are plenty of folks here who could tell you more, either from their own experiences or having helped others in the past, or doing their own system builds or sourcing one online. Parky, almccoy, B1rdogCT<sp?> all these guys have experiences with building / spec'ing parts, and knowing where to shop. And they all keep up with all this computer stuff, too.

 

I do agree with almccoy on the idea of using local shops, for myself. When I buy parts to build a machine it's almost always stuff I buy locally (Fry's and MicroCenter both on my way home...they love me and my wife hates 'em both *lol*), One reason I do this is 'return privilege' without the cost and time of shipping. I've almost never had to use returns, but when you do, it's more than just convenient. Plus, like al says, they probably don't mind showing you the build or maybe even letting you help (depends on the place).

 

Take care.