Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion New PC Specs

I am ready to start ordering parts, but I wanted to see if there were any hardware guys who had some thoughts on this setup. What do you think of this system and do you have any recommendations?
Case - Suggestions?
Thermaltake Armor+MX VH8000BWS
Cooler Master 690 NVIDIA Edition
Power Supply - How many watts do I need?
CPU - Suggestions?
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
Motherboard
EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3
Video Card
EVGA 896-P3-1266-AR GeForce GTX 260 FTW Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
RAM - I think I may go with DDR2 until DDR3 drops down in price.
Corsair Dominator 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1142 (PC2 9136)
Corsair Dominator 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1800 (PC3 14400)
HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Monitor
SAMSUNG 245T-BLACK Black 24" 6ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen

The biggest question to ask you is what is your budget? And what brands do you prefer?
For me, I prefer Lian Li or Silverstone cases. It just depends on how big of one you want. You may want to check your local Best Buys if you want a full tower to see if they still have the Rocketfish case. It's a rebadged Lian Li that was clearanced out a bit ago for around $50. Closest best buy to me still had one about a week ago when I was there.
The Corsair 620HX is still a pretty kick ass power supply and easily handles my system with 2 3870s. I hear it'll handle 2 4870s with ease as well. It doesn't have native 8pin PCI-E connectors, which I think is what nVidia's high end cards use now, but there are adapters for that. Don't get a cheap one, make sure to read up on it and make sure it handles what you want. Cheap power supplies die quick.
I would take the E8400 instead as its a better "bang for the buck." Go with a quad-core if you don't plan on upgrading in many years.
Do you really need an SLI? nVidia chipsets for Intel have been buggy and continue to be so. If you only plan on having one card go with Intel. Only go with a nVidia chipset if you are die hard. Most high-end Intel boards allow you to crossfire ATi cards, and the 4870s apparently are doing extremely well against the the new nVidia cards at the price per performance.
Graphics cards depend on above choice really. If you get a nVidia board, definitely get a nVidia card so you can go SLI in the future. Otherwise its your pick but start with a single of the best you can afford. If you can afford 1 4870 or GTX 280 then get it. Add a second one of either later if you need it. The only reason I have 2 3870s is to push 1920x1200 and they were on sale and cheaper than 1 9800GTX when I got them.
Go with DDR2 right now as the price for DDR3 is absurd for its lack of performance. It may run faster but its latencies are slower, which means not that great of performance gain for the price difference.
If you can grab a cheap Raptor if you can find one as a primary drive and use a second drive for everything else. I just like to have my OS/apps on one drive and all the important stuff on a separate drive. That way if I have to reformat I don't lose all my shit again.
Once again, after a winded post, it really depends on your budget. If you want to go all out by all means spend top dollar. If you want to spend smarter and get a near-identical experience sans a couple FPS, then shop around to find some deals on quality parts that aren't top tier.
My system:
Rocketfish Full Tower
Intel Pentium E2180 2.0GHz @ 2.68GHz (stock cooling for now. might replace with an E8400 soon though)
Asus Maximus Formula SE X-38
2x1GB Buffalo Firestix PC2-6400
Corsair 620HX
2 Visiontek HD3870s in Crossfire
Windows XP SP2
Samsung 18x DVD/RW

My budget is between $1500 and $2500 for the machine itself, but I still want the best bang for my buck. I don't want to spend a lot on something that gives me a small percentage increase. That is why I agree with you and I will go with DDR2 memory.
As for a case, I want a Mid Tower and something that looks nice and professional. I am a gamer, but I don't want the case to look like a toy.
The difference in price between a E8500 and an E8400 seems to only be a $20.
I am going with a single card right now, but I would like the option to get another card if I need it. The reason I went with the motherboard I chose was because it supports PCI-Express2, which the new nVidia cards do. The motherboard I chose also supports DDR3, which I can upgrade to.
I've always used Raptors, but I was talking to the IT guy at EA and he said that they have high failure rate. Although I am still thinking about getting one to run windows.
I have always used ATI and I really wanted to build a nVidia machine this time.
Should I run 32 or 64 bit Vista? I am hearing that compatibility issues is just not worth 64 bit and if I stay under 4 gigs of ram I don't need 64 bit.

I do agree with you on the professional looks of a case. I'd just try to find something that fits your taste, is made out of aluminum and uses 120mm fans. Also I'd highly suggest a removable motherboard tray since you want to keep it at a mid-tower. I know I've cut my hands plenty working in smaller cases due to the lack of room.
I forgot Intel slashed prices last week. The price isn't too much more, like you said. If you are comfortable with overclocking then you can save some bucks and go that route. I've never had any serious, non-correctable issues from OCing, though that's just me. Depending on how much of an overclock comes into play the cooling solution though. From what I remember, the E8xxx are very nice overclockers even on the stock coolers.
That particular motherboard only supports DDR3. The 780i supports only DDR2. Beyond that I'm not familiar with the differences. I still don't think DDR3 provides another of an advantage for the cost. By the time it does, you'll probably be upgrading again.
PCI-E 2.0, at least didn't make much of a difference with the last generation of cards, but is standard at least on higher-binned X38, X48 and P45 motherboards as well. Just make sure whatever you get runs both cards at the full 16x, as that will make a bigger difference than PCI-E/PCI-E 2.0. Definitely make sure they don't run at 16x/4x.
Still just get the beefiest card you think you'll need and go from there. On the nVidia side eVGA is probably the hands down choice. Step-up plus lifetime warranty is fantastic. You could try out the GTX 260 and if it doesn't work then grab a GTX 280 within 90 days. Then down the road add another GTX 280 for less than MSRP now and be done with it.
On the ATi side, well no stepups or anything but Visiontek seems to be one of the only companies with lifetime warranty.
I don't have any experience with 64bit and more than 4GB of RAM. I know that 32 bit will only report something like 3.5GB. I don't know much of the particulars. If you get a retail copy then you get both, if you get an upgrade I think you can purchase the disc for 64bit for a couple bucks and OEM you might be stuck. Although I think I've heard that the licenses works for either...as long as you have the disc from somewhere.
I forgot to mention about that monitor...I've heard a lot of problems of it being loud. I have no idea why and no experience with it. It does use the same panel technology as my LG, which is fantastic for gaming and colors. It's a very good in between TN and IPS.
Western Digital warranties their Raptors for 5 years. I suspect the highest cause of their failure is lack of cooling. They do run a bit louder and a big heater than normal drives. Although when I ran 2 in RAID 0, it was lightning quick and I couldn't hear them over my ~70CFM 120mm fans.
All and all, your budget does allow you build quite a machine. The monitor will eat a big chunk of it but still parts are cheaper these days than a couple years ago.

That changes things if the motherboard only supports DDR3 and not DDR2. I'll have to check on that. If that's the case then I will probably go with:
EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI FTW

Alright well I just went through and added a bunch of stuff to a Newegg cart and this is the result:
LIAN LI PC-60APLUSII Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
It is an all aluminum design with a removable motherboard tray. It offers a 120mm in the front to bring in fresh air that also cools your hard drives. It has a side vent to help with the graphic cards (especially if you get two later down the road). I'm assuming its an 80mm on the top which will exhaust hot air as well as an 80mm on the rear that you can air duct from the CPU air if you want, it looks like.
Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
These are cheaper than the new VelicoRaptors and you might be able to find them somewhere else cheaper. Best Buy put these on clearance when they got the new ones but they are probably sold out at all their stores now.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
I like Seagate and they offer a 5 year warranty on this drive. You can replace it with another brand if you want, just make sure you don't get one of those new adjustable RPMs, I think Western Digital does it and calls it Green or something.
HP LP2465 Carbonite-Silver 24" 6 ms...ments - Retail
From the specs it looks like a really good 24" monitor. You will just want to make sure to get an MVA or IPS panel as they give you true 8-bit colors. The cheaper TN panels give you 6-bit, which is somewhere around 216,000 colors and dithers the rest to come up with the ~1.4 million or whatever is in 8-bit. MVA also give give good refresh rates and not much input lag.
EVGA 01G-P3-1280-AR GeForce GTX 280 1GB ...o Card - Retail
I firmly believe in the policy of best single card first then add a second later if needed. These GTX 280 start about $100 more than the 260 you listed so if you can spare the $100 get this instead. Don't fall for the gimmicky factory overclocked cards as I believe overclocking doesn't void your warranty with eVGA (I could be wrong but I know one of the big companies allows it. eVGA does allow you to change out the fan yourself without voiding the warranty. You just have to put on the original if you ever have to send it in for repairs.)
CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 Power Supply - Retail
Certified 80+, modular cabling and designed by a wonderful company (Seasonic actually makes them while Corsair designs them). I'm not sure if the 620HX can handle 2 260s or 280s but if it can you can save green here and go for the tried and trusted 620HX instead.
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM...400C5 - Retail
Corsair is great. Lifetime warranties and good products. 4GB is the limit when dealing with 32-bit operating systems.
EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Alright I choose this one over the FTW because I see very little difference, other than supported RAM speeds out of the box. I didn't see any 1200MHz 4GB kits of DDR2 so that's a moot point. If you absolutely need 1066 or faster, get the FTW and some faster RAM and it should only slightly raise your price.
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail
Alright like I said before I forgot that they did the price cuts so this is a great buy. Games with 2 games it looks like right now and World in Conflict is a blast.
$2,341.42 + shipping + any tax you might incur (I think you live in California so you would from Newegg at least)
Now if you need a copy of Windows Vista then tack that on. If you plan on overclocking the CPU pick up a good aftermarket HSF but I'm pretty sure people were hitting 4.0GHz on stock coolers with the E8200 and E8400. Your mileage may vary and not sure if you really need that extra boost or not.
You can probably find some of the parts cheaper at other places to save some cash just depends on if you have good experiences elsewhere.
edit: There's also $140 offered in different mail-in-rebates right now.

Thanks a lot for all the help.
Samsung T260 Rose-Black 25.5" 5ms
I ordered this monitor this morning. I am a big fan of Samsung after purchasing a 56" DLP and Samsung Speaker system. The Samsung monitor will match the other hardware in my place. I did a lot of research this morning and this appears to be the best for me.
I agree with both of the HDD options, and I will add those to my cart.
I'm going to go with a 750 watt power supply for now, until I decide to purchase a second video card later.
I'll look into the bench marks between the GTX 260 and the GTX 280. It may be worth spending the extra $100.
I am leaning towards buying the FTW motherboard and getting the faster RAM, which will be in stock in a week. I'm going to think about it though.
My only concern right now is whether to go 64bit or 32bit Vista. I was talking to a friend who told me that your video card RAM is subtracted from the total RAM that 32 bit OS can handle. If I have a video card with 1gig of RAM, I won't get any use out of 4gigs of system RAM.

I agree with pretty much everything said above.
My take, is that its best to stick with the Intel Chipsets right now. X48 if you want to Crossfire and P45 if you will likely just roll with one card. The P45 models still allow Crossfire, but not with both at 16x pipeline. Still pretty solid performance from either board. Both of those chipsets have DDR2 and DDR3 models that you can choose from.
NVidia's chipsets are far more buggy than the Intel offerings. SLI has no distinct advantage over Crossfire. ATI has a rock solid answer for every card NVidia has out. What made my decision in the end is that ATI came out with pricing that was kickass and NVidia had to cut prices to compete. To me, that means NVidia was happily gouging pricing until ATI stepped up and did things right.

I ordered the parts today. I should be up and running by this weekend hopefully.
1 x ($79.99) MS LOGITECH|910-000173 G9 LASR RT - Retail
$79.99
1 x ($28.99) DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S223Q/BEBN LS % - OEM
$28.99
1 x ($289.99) VGA EVGA 896-P3-1262-AR GTX260 896M - Retail
$289.99
1 x ($179.99) MS WIN VISTA ULTIMAT SP1 64BIT 1PK% - OEM
$179.99
1 x ($109.99) CASE CM|NV-690C-KWN1-GP BK RT - Retail
$109.99
1 x ($279.99) MB EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 775 780I SLI - Retail
$279.99
1 x ($169.99) PSU TT|W0116RU 750W RT - Retail
$169.99
1 x ($189.99) CPU INTEL|C2D E8500 3.16G 775 45N R - Retail
$189.99
1 x ($149.00) MEM 2Gx2|CORS TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF R - Retail
$149.00
1 x ($189.99) HD 1T|ST 7K 32M SATA2 ST31000340AS - OEM
$189.99
Anyone have any suggestions for speakers and microphone? I don't think I need a big 7.1 Speaker system on my PC. I was thinking about getting a 2.1 system maybe. When gaming, I'm sure most of you use headphones (any suggestions?). Also, do you think I need to buy a sound card or is the one built into the motherboard sufficient?

get rid of vista unless you know what you're doing, since you are getting vista you don't.