Build Feedback PleasePost Date: 2010-08-09 |
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Murderfish 
Newbie 
Joined: 09 Aug 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3 |
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 Topic: Build Feedback PleasePosted: 09 Aug 2010 at 8:21am |
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Hello all, I'm getting ready to return from this wonderful country of Afghanistan and I decided to reward myself with an awesome new rig. This is my first PC, I've been using a laptop for the past 2 1/2 years so I'm fairly new at this. However, I did put in some time to read reviews on video cards and specific parts. Money wise as long as it's in the 3-3.5k range I'm not too worried. I'm mainly planning on using this for gaming (FFXIV, FPS, etc).
This is my build so far: Specifications: Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core) Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme (Intel X58 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s) System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested) Power Supply: 1200W Corsair Pro Gold Series (CMPSU-1200AX) (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) Expansion Bay: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (40GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: X-25V Edition) (Extreme Performance) Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (Model: Black Edition WD1002FAEX) Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition) Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks Internet Access: Killer 2100 (Maximum Optimized for Online Gaming) Lag and Latency Reduction Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology) Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Asetek Liquid CPU Cooler (240mm Radiator) (High-Performance Edition) H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Red) (Up to 6 Fans) Internal Lighting: - No Thanks Enhancements: - No Thanks Chassis Mods: - No Thanks Noise Reduction: - No Thanks Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended) Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based) Virus Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Benchmarking: - No Thanks Install/Test Game: - No Thanks Display: - No Thanks Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: - No Thanks Keyboard: - No Thanks Mouse: - No Thanks External Storage: - No Thanks Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty Anyways, my biggest questions are: Do I need liquid cooling? If it's not crucial or won't significantly improve my rig's performance is it really worth getting? I'm worried about the potential maintenance and increased difficulty of upgrading parts due to the liquid and added tubing. What do you guys think of the V12XT temp display? Anything that should be upgraded / downgraded? Any feedback at all would be great, thanks! |
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teaiewold
Groupie 
Joined: 26 Jun 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 216 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 8:32am |
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i'm here in afghan right now bro. glad to see you're making it back to the states.
there's a couple things i would change. you don't need the Killer 2100. it's not going to increase your bandwidth. it works good on old computers with slower processors but you won't see any difference with the rig you're getting.
the motherboard is little overkill. you could save some money on that. unless you plan on doing some tweaking after you get the pc you may never use that mobo to it's full potential.
the asetek is pretty crappy. you can get the noctua fans and get better cooling. either one would do.
do you plan on gaming at a resolution over 1900x1200? if so then you can SLI, if not you won't use the dual vid cards to their potential. one 480 will do just fine.
i'll be doing the same thing as you once i leave here. my present to myself is a whole new gaming setup, not just the rig.
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Murderfish
Newbie
Joined: 09 Aug 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 8:41am |
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Thanks for the super fast reply!
I guess I'll take out the Killer 2100 and save a couple hundred bucks and change out the liquid cooling. What kind of motherboard would you guys suggest? I decided on the rampage because of the great reviews it was getting, but I know little of motherboards myself. The monitor I'm planning to use is the Samsung XL-2370-1 23inch (I believe it's 1920x1200). I don't know if this is that great of a monitor or not. I read some good reviews on it but it was pretty difficult to check a lot of review sites due to the poor internet quality around here. I was thinking of getting SLI because it scales so well and I wanted to try and future proof it some. Thanks again for your time guys. |
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!ender_
DS Veteran 
Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4219 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 10:13am |
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the mobo is great but its about cost effeciency. if youre willing to pay for the brand or if you are into overclock tweaking and prefer asus then go for it, but the evga le is a very cost effecient choice
definitely drop the killer card
you do not need liquid cooling, the noctua u12p one of the best air coolers on the market right now, it will do all you need it to
id leave out the fan controller, you can do this with software or from your bios im up for the 2 480s if you want to get yourself high up there in video power and its in your budget just an alternate idea, you could also conisder coming down to a 750w and a single 480, and pocket the left over money for the next big video card that isnt out yet when youre ready to upgrade in 2ish years. thats the only way to keep up with the curve any more
rest of the build looks good
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teaiewold
Groupie
Joined: 26 Jun 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 216 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 10:17am |
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if you want to go with dual 480's get a 27 inch or larger monitor and run that shyt at 2560x1440 you know you got all that deployment cash :)
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Murderfish
Newbie
Joined: 09 Aug 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 10:54am |
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Well, seeing as how I don't know how to overclock stuff anyways, I guess I'll go with the evga LE board since it's a lot cheaper. Will there be a difference in FPS / video / audio etc quality? The games I'm mainly going to be playing for the next few years will be FFXIV (which has some pretty amazing graphics, so that alone looks like it's going to need some power to run), SCII (not worried about that requiring too much power), and FPS like battlefield and crysis.
Now that I think about it, whatever I buy now I'll probably stick with for the next 5+ years, since I'll be out of the military while I go to college, so I might as well get a pretty beastly rig now. I'll for sure take out the liquid cool though and go stage 2 air like you guys said, and leave out the fan controller doohickey. I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but do you guys know about any sweet monitors that will take advantage of SLI? All the reviews I could find were for 23-25 inch monitors. You guys are saving me a bunch of time by not having to spend hours waiting for reviews pages to load up, I really appreciate the help! |
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!ender_
DS Veteran
Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4219 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 at 11:52am |
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Well, seeing as how I don't know how to overclock stuff anyways, I guess I'll go with the evga LE board since it's a lot cheaper. Will there be a difference in FPS / video / audio etc quality?
no. (except sound quality can change if you use the mobo stock sound instead of a sound card)
You guys are saving me a bunch of time by not having to spend hours waiting for reviews pages to load up, I really appreciate the help! we are happy to help but its always a good idea to take a look around for yourself
there are a lot of factual differences but there are also a lot of opinions on these boards and you could miss out on something that matters to you if you dont look around
for example, i wanted a motherboard with 2 network connections to share internet with my gf sometimes and avoid a modem, but i didnt know you could even find these until i did some shopping
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