My Build At Long Last, More Or Less The Final Revision.

[wevsspot]

Miek,

 

If you are set on gear in the Intel i5 750 and socket 1156 price range, I recommend that you take a look at the AMD side of things, specifically;

 

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103851

 

Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128441

 

G.Skill Ripjaw Series DDR3 1600

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231303

 

You cant go wrong with either the WD Blacks or Samsung Spinpoints - but my nod would go to the 1Tb WD Black drives, simply because I've used a few of them now and they are outstanding - plus WD customer service is awesome!

 

Great choice on the power supply.

 

Not sure why you're leaning towards the nVidia 470 card - as I would be looking into a 5870 that you could get for a little less than $50 more than you're paying for the 470 - but that's just me.....

 

Other than that you've got a great looking list started.

[Miek]

$1100 USD or CAD?

 

In CAD.

 

And to above: I may actually end up going AMD. If you look above, I have to cut the budget a little because I accidentally destroyed my brother's Samsung Omnia. >.>

[The Smith]

In CAD.

 

And to above: I may actually end up going AMD. If you look above, I have to cut the budget a little because I accidentally destroyed my brother's Samsung Omnia. >.>

There are very solid AMD boards around the 100-150$ mark that will work just as well as the other more expensive 890FX boards, if you ever decide to go that route. Personally, I really like the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO. Also, having onboard graphics can always be useful, especially for troubleshooting. If you buy NVIDIA, you can as well take an SLI board like the MSI NF980-G65 or the ASUS M4N98TD.

[Miek]

The only concern I have about AMD/NVIDIA is that the NVIDIA chipsets tend to be lousy. However, if I have graphics card installed, onboard video would be disabled and I *think* that would at the least lessen any chance of instability.

 

Is the 980a good with SLI? I've heard that it can be "iffy" at best.

[IVIYTH0S]

Are you sure you'd ever even SLI down the road?? I've had two nvidia chipsets in the past and both are experiences I nor others I talk to, should ever go through unless they 100% will be using SLI

[Miek]

I don't know. It'd depend on what I eventually want to do. That's partially why I was leaning toward Intel. If I do go SLI? It's fine. If I don't? That's also fine, because the P55 can do both.

 

Payday's tomorrow. I'll see how things shape up after giving my brother money for the phone, then I'll post back. I may well still be able to go Intel.

[Nyt]

The 1055T is definately a better choice for being futureproof for longer since games in the future will use them . It is on par in price and performance with the i5 , i too am upgrading but im getting the 1055T and Crosshair 4 formula to pair with my Gtx480. It would really be a waste to SLI since the new revisions come out and will have better performance. Its like getting a Gtx260 and then getting another when fermi comes but you can just get a 480 which has more features and performance.

[Miek]

Question: Would it be a bad idea to put components into my case as soon as I get them? I only ask because the areas where I'd actually have enough room to build are dusty enough that if I left the MOBO on the box, it would probably choke the fan on the CPU cooler. -.-

 

Also, would it be an asset to get an anti-static wristband?

 

And I'm starting to feel a little lost/undecided on some things again... But here's basically my most recent configuration:

- NZXT Tempest EVO / Cooler Master Storm Sniper

- MSI P55-GD65 (worth it to upgrade to GD80?) / EVGA P55 LE 123-LF-E653-KR

- evga GTX470

- Corsair HX750

- Intel Core i5 750

- Noctua NH-U12 (may drop down to NH-U9B due to smaller size, less weight on the motherboard and will still cool very well)

- Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB / Samsung Spinpont F3 1TB

- Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA

- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

- Zonet ZEW2500P Mini USB wireless b/g adapter (I'm on a wireless g network).

 

Total: about 1500 CAD. That's kind of a rough average with a bit added to it as a buffer, I guess. Effectively, though, I have 2000 CAD to spend on a PC (that price includes shipping).

 

Please post feedback, etc. Sorry if this post is "rambly" or incoherent in any way... Party last night, it's been a long day (work sucked)... I'm going to bed.

[railmeat]

Alright. I'm ready to pull the trigger on a purchase soon, AND my budget went up! However, despite that, I didn't go overboard because I don't want to get more than I'd really need. My budget now is $2000 (give or take $100) Canadian in case anyone was wondering.

 

Here's a list of parts I've chosen:

• Cooler Master Storm Sniper
  
• Some LGA1156 board. Please recommend one (preferably with Realtek based audio)
  
• Intel Core i5-750 @ 2.66GHz
  
• Noctua NH-U12P SE2
  
• evga GTX470
  
• Corsair HX750 750w modular PSU
  
• 2GB of...? (I am using 2GB as a starting point. I can add more later on. If I do so, I'll probably add a substantial amount. Maybe even 8GB)
  
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD (May change to Samsung Spinpoint F3)
  
• LG 24x CD/DVD driver/burner
  
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
  
• D-Link dwa-140 usb wireless adapter
  

 

I'll post the final price via Newegg later on. I just listed this from the top of my head.

 

Please post your thoughts about this. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

nice setup

[joel.monteiro]

i would not consider the i5 750,get the amd 1055t and 890gx gigabyte or asus and get the corsair TX750 w,u will save some cash and get more performance @ stock ,if u want to spend the cash u saved and ur not an nvidia addict get the 5870 more performance.

[The Smith]

The only concern I have about AMD/NVIDIA is that the NVIDIA chipsets tend to be lousy. However, if I have graphics card installed, onboard video would be disabled and I *think* that would at the least lessen any chance of instability.

 

Is the 980a good with SLI? I've heard that it can be "iffy" at best.

Yeah the NVIDIA chipsets for Intel systems were not that great... The 980a though is very nice. It SLIs very well also. The 750a will do 2x8 like an LGA1156 CPU, or 3x8 if you add in the NF200, which then becomes the 980a. The only complaint I have against these chipsets is that they cannot go as high as the AMD boards on the reference clock, from my experience. But yeah, as others just said, nothing prevents you from using an AMD board with an NVIDIA graphics card.

[Miek]

i would not consider the i5 750,get the amd 1055t and 890gx gigabyte or asus and get the corsair TX750 w,u will save some cash and get more performance @ stock ,if u want to spend the cash u saved and ur not an nvidia addict get the 5870 more performance.

Why not the i5-750? If it and the are basically on par in price and performance, why not get my personal preference? If I were going to go AMD at this point, though, I'd go straight to the 1090t black edition.

 

And I'm keeping the 750HX due to being modular. I'm not concerned about the $44.00 I'll save. A modular PSU will make cable management easier and I want to maximize airflow without worrying about hiding cables away. This will be my first build, and I want it to be as smooth as possible. I'm not saying by any means that the 750TX is a bad PSU. It's actually exceptional. I just want one that's modular.

 

And I will be getting the GTX470. Fermi is very good with DX11's tessellation. The 5870 is about $200 more than the GTX470, so I don't know how that's saving money.

- 5850: avg. $320 on Newegg.

- GTX470: avg. $ 350 on Newegg.

 

Again, going with the 5850 would offer similar performance but only realistically save me about $30 (depending on the model I get). Besides, I want to go NVIDIA on this one. I've used ATI all my life and I want to try out the green camp (and PhysX).

 

 

However, I don't think it's safe to say that anything is 100% concrete right now- I'm going to keep playing around with parts on Newegg (making them into a wishlist) to see what I come up with.

 

I'll create four separate builds:

- Intel/NVIDIA

- Intel/ATI

- AMD/NVIDIA

- AMD/ATI

 

Then I'll post them here for review.