Check out my first computer rig in 12 years, thoughts?

[what]

I must have made a mistake and bought 2 heatsinks, grrrr. But I can return the second one I suppose. What do you think?

GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $319.99

1 Patriot Viper Xtreme Series, Division 2 Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model $89.99

1 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
Item #: N82E16835100007 $9.99

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K $329.99

2 XFX HD-687A-ZNBC Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card with Eyefinity $499.98 ($249.99 ea)

2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822136533 $179.98 ($89.99 ea)

1 Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model AD-7260S-01 - OEM $26.99

1 D-Link DWA-556 PCI Express Xtreme Desktop Adapter
Item #: N82E16833127218 $56.07

2 COOLER MASTER Hyper N 520 RR-920-N520-GP 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 compatible $69.98 ($34.99 ea)

1 PC Power and Cooling PPCT860 860W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible $249.99


COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811119225 $199.99

Das Keyboard Model S Professional Silent 135.00

Samsung 23 in syncmaster px2370.

[SwoLy-D]

You what??!?!?!?
No, that's your name, you what.

[looks at the camera] Simpsons.

Please do us a favor and add them up and give us a total, please, oh, master PC builder comic guy? Thanks. I will hang up and listen.

[droxford]

Nice system!

I might suggest you add a media card (SDHC) reader to that setup. They're pretty cheap and VERY handy.

[what]

This is right around a 3000 dollar rig with my new ergonomic chair and the dragon speak premium edition software. Maybe even more, I stopped counting cause it got depressing.

[what]

Originally Posted by droxford Nice system! I might suggest you add a media card (SDHC) reader to that setup. They're pretty cheap and VERY handy.

thanks! I need some suggestions for my 5.25 in bays!

[droxford]

Originally Posted by what thanks! I need some suggestions for my 5.25 in bays!

I'm going the opposite direction. I've built my own PC's for 20 years and, a few months ago, I bought my first HP machine. I just can't get the parts cheap enough any more.

[Depressio]

I can't suggest this enough to computer builders: put the OS on a solid state drive.

[what]

Originally Posted by droxford I'm going the opposite direction. I've built my own PC's for 20 years and, a few months ago, I bought my first HP machine. I just can't get the parts cheap enough any more.

yeah, this is without windows 7 either. You'd think as much as I spent they'd give me a complimentary copy or something. I held off on that because there is a piece of software that I use that only works with xp and below and I heard that windows 7 xp support sucks. Not sure if that is true or not?

[what]

Originally Posted by TSchmal I can't suggest this enough to computer builders: put the OS on a solid state drive.

I heard that ssd's are basically no faster than a raid configuration. This motherboard I got basically has a built in raid automation which is what I plain on using. Raid 0, I think it is.

[Cowboy_Bebop]

Nice rig but should have waited a little longer to see what AMD Bulldozer will offer. You're going to love that Das mechanical keyboard. I have the SteelSeries 7G and it's fantastic. Can't believe people are still wasting money on the crappy $50 to $150 plastic rubber dome keyboard.

[Relentless]

[Depressio]

Originally Posted by what I heard that ssd's are basically no faster than a raid configuration. This motherboard I got basically has a built in raid automation which is what I plain on using. Raid 0, I think it is.

You've heard wrong unless you're talking striped across many IDE drives. Most people don't want an 8-drive RAID in their box. In other words, to match performance, you're going to need several more than 2.

Also, SSD's don't fragment, consume less energy, less space, and are completely silent.

[Cowboy_Bebop]

Originally Posted by TSchmal I can't suggest this enough to computer builders: put the OS on a solid state drive.

Meh stay away from the SSD drives. Better off getting the 10000rpm raptor. SSD have way higher chances of dying on you. My computer boot up in 30 secs and shut down like 10 seconds with the raptor.

[what]

Originally Posted by Cowboy_Bebop Nice rig but should have waited a little longer to see what AMD Bulldozer will offer. You're going to love that Das mechanical keyboard. I have the SteelSeries 7G and it's fantastic. Can't believe people are still wasting money on the crappy $50 to $150 plastic rubber dome keyboard.

Yeah, I hate those things. I just scraped my avant prime keyboard it was like 12 years old, and the button would stick. I am still getting used to the das, but it is pretty sweet so far.

[Cowboy_Bebop]

Originally Posted by what yeah, this is without windows 7 either. You'd think as much as I spent they'd give me a complimentary copy or something. I held off on that because there is a piece of software that I use that only works with xp and below and I heard that windows 7 xp support sucks. Not sure if that is true or not?

Windows 7 is fantastic. If you need XP support there's a virtual XP you can install in Windows 7 64.

[what]

Originally Posted by TSchmal You've heard wrong unless you're talking striped across many IDE drives. Most people don't want an 8-drive RAID in their box. In other words, to match performance, you're going to need several more than 2. Also, SSD's don't fragment, consume less energy, less space, and are completely silent.

That, I did hear was true, the less energy part.

But I was reading on the newegg website that the ssd's were raided or something like that. But I can google ssd's and I get all sorts of articles that seem to say that the ssd may be just hype. I don't really know myself, cause I haven't made a computer in 12 years so I don't know, just what I heard.

[doboyz]

Originally Posted by what I heard that ssd's are basically no faster than a raid configuration. This motherboard I got basically has a built in raid automation which is what I plain on using. Raid 0, I think it is.

SSD will still be faster than your 2 drive stripe configuration, this coming from someone who had striped 2 10k Raptors, and the SSD is still faster on load, reads and writes. What I would do is get an SSD for main boot OS drive, then either RAID0+1 your 1TB drives, and use that for storage. Good system you have there.

[hkEvo]

Very nice. The only thing I didn't like was that you're going with ATI for the video cards. Coming from experience (I had two 5870s), ATI's hardware is great but the software (drivers) isn't good. It's very hit or miss, especially with CrossfireX, because they really don't update them all too often. Since they stick with a once a month driver release for the most part, some games may have negative scaling with multiple-GPU setups and will stay that way until a Crossfire profile is released (hopefully) with the next new drivers. Basically, they take ages to fix problems and sometimes end up causing other problems because of it.

In my opinion, nVidia's driver team handles their drivers much better. I never had a problem with the nVidia drivers since before my 5870s (when I had a GTX 260) or after (I currently have a GTX 570).

[Mr. Brightside]

You haven't changed your computer in 12 years? Mind telling us the specs of your previous rig?

[Uprising]

Good time for memory. 15% off at newegg.com (all desktop memory)

Tax time.....when consumer goods sales sky rocket.