Configuration InputPost Date: 2008-07-03 |
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Giblets 
Newbie 
Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4 |
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 Topic: Configuration InputPosted: 03 Jul 2008 at 3:56pm |
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I'm looking at the following build. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to keep the price around $2500.
 Ticket Number: 164000 Total Price with Instant Savings: $2,563.00 Direct Load URL: http://www.digitalstormonline Specifications: Chassis: Digital Storm 850Si Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition) Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz (1333MHz Front Side Bus) (6MB Cache) Motherboard: CLEARANCE PRICED: NVIDIA 680i LT SLI Core 2 Quad (Chipset: nForce 680i SLI) System Memory: 4GB DDR2 OCZ at 1066MHz (SLI-Ready Edition) Card Reader: Internal Digital Media Card Reader (Black) Hard Drive 1: 320GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA) Hard Drive 2: 320GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA) Raid Option: Setup hard drive 1 and hard drive 2 in a Raid 0 Stripe Configuration (Expert) Hard Drive 3: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card: CLEARANCE PRICED: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB TV Tuner: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: Air Cooled Stage 3 WindTunnel (Copper Heatpipe Heatsink & Additional Case Fans) Internal Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Green Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes) Modifications: LCD Temperature Display & Fan Controller Boost Processor: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my processor Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based) Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Benchmarking: - No Thanks Install/Test Game: - No Thanks LCD Display: Acer 22 inch (Widescreen) (Black) (High-Performance Gaming Display) Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: Logitech 2 Piece (Black Edition) Amplified Speaker Set Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Desktop 2.0 (Multimedia Keyboard + Optical Wheel Mouse) Mouse: - No Thanks my keyboard comes with a mouse External Storage: - No Thanks Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty |
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workingman
Senior Member 
Joined: 05 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 411 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 at 4:19pm |
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dont think vista supports raid.or if it does you may experience other problems...you may want to opt for a larger hd instead...could save some $
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Bismark
Senior Member
Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 120 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 at 6:17pm |
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Personally this is what ide go with under your budget constraint. This is 100 dollars more but I think your getting more for your money with it. Haveing the monitor in the build makes it a very tight squeeze in that range. http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=164028
Stepped up to a quad core q9300 Better MoBo 780i Dropped the raid set up for one large hard drive Added a lighscribe drive and a reader instead of 2 read and write drives stepped up to an 8800 gt because I've heard they preform better than the 8800 gts Added 64 bit vista left the monitor speakers and card reader in for 100 more than your build I think you step way up and get into more modern tech with some room to add later as you get the funds. Please let everyone know what your use is for the rig though that helps alot, to see where you have some wiggle room. |
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Asus Rampage Formula
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2 ATI Radeon HD4870 Crossfire 4GB Corsair DHX 1066 1000W Corsair HX DS 850Si |
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skyR
Newbie
Digital Storm Apprentice 
Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2220 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 2008 at 6:36pm |
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We need to know the following before offering suggestions:
- what you intend to use the computer for - if gaming, what type of games? - what is absolutely NEEDED in the config - do you plan to upgrade components in the future Both the 680i and 8800 GTS 640mb are EOL and aren't really good choices unless you pick it up off Ebay for an amazing price. No need for 1066MHz ram if you aren't overclocking. 4GB of ram will be wasted in 32-bit operating systems because they can only address up to 4GB of memory. Putting two drives in RAID 0 with no storage drive makes little sense to me especially when you have a card reader and two optical drives. I'm assuming you already have an external drive for storage. Assuming you do some sort of editing because you have two optical drives and a card reader. You would be better off with a quad core instead of a duo core. |
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Kliebor2
Senior Member
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 at 6:50pm |
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Wow Sky...
Info packed as usual and tersely to the point. In hearty agreement on the choice of video and MB, neither one is good for a boutique build at this point, even a budget one. The rest until we know your usage of the PC it is hard to throw together a build :) All your other components depending on your uses all could well have merit. Dave |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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Giblets
Newbie
Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 1:07pm |
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All, - I’ll change the MOBO to the NVIDIA 780i. To be honest I am not up to date on all of the latest and greatest PC Tech, 10 years ago maybe but not anymore. Technology is changing way to fast for me to keep up with everything. That is one of the reasons I posted to this forum looking for help. - RAID is one of those things everybody has an opinion about and mine keeps changing. I would love to do a RAID 5 array but that does not appear to be an option. I wanted to select the RAID 1 option but somehow selected RAID 0. My reasoning is to keep a backup of the photographs I mentioned earlier, but with a good DVD writer it would not take too many discs to backup lots o’ photos or use an external drive . So I am still thinking about this one. - What is the scoop on Quad Core processors? I have read/heard several different things about them, both good and bad. Are there applications that can take advantage of them? Do you really gain anything in typical day to day usage. - I did not know 4GB of Ram would be wasted on a 32-Bit OS. Thanks for the heads up. - Thanks for input on the Video cards. I will switch to the 8800 GT - Not sure why but I cannot access this link http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=164028 - How does DS compare to AW(Dell YUCK)? I have very similar builds at about the same costs? Thanks for the great input and here is what my current build looks like. Comments? icket Number: 164141 |
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schulni
Groupie 
Joined: 28 Jun 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 58 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 1:56pm |
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I looked at Alienware too, but frankly I think this forum says it all in terms of the difference between the two companies - especially now that AW is owned by Dell. Overall, DS is a better deal, more reliable, and tends to use higher quality components. AW also drops off considerably in terms of value at the higher price plateaus. In my experience, DS seems to stand by their products much better: they don't hide their customer reviews, their staff is readily accessible and shows up frequently on the forums, and a three year warranty is included. Initially, I had some of the same thoughts you did, but now I'm completely convinced DS is the way to go for the reasons above.
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Kliebor2
Senior Member
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 2:06pm |
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For the difference in price (minimal) I would go with the Q9450, especially with limited CAD and photo editing, the extra cache and speed will definitely stand you in good stead. The Q9300 in my opinion is not a very good processor.
Otherwise this build looks great. Dave |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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skyR
Newbie
Digital Storm Apprentice
Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2220 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 2:39pm |
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The Q9300 isn't being phased out... The Q9450 is the processor going EOL.
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skyR
Newbie
Digital Storm Apprentice
Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2220 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 3:12pm |
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I don't know why you deleted your post but it seems like you're correct.
Both the Q9300 and Q9450 will be EOL in a couple months... Makes little sense if you ask me. Why would you not EOL the Q9300 before the Q6600 -.- Edited by skyR - 04 Jul 2008 at 3:20pm |
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Kliebor2
Senior Member
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 3:13pm |
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The 9450 is EOL... but so are almost all of the current crop of quad cores... except the extremes.
I am just saying the 9300 is no where near as good as the 9450 twice the cache, better speed, and minimal extra cost it is a lot better. Dave |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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Bismark
Senior Member
Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 120 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 3:33pm |
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I agree the Q9450 is better than the Q9300 simply on the basis of the cache size. But the recent PC gamer recomends the Q9300 in there best bang for your buck build. Its not as good as the Q9450 but its a good processor for what your paying.
As the EOL stuff goes, from what I'm hearing the Q9300 will be renamed the Q9400 the Q9450 renamed the Q9500 etc, not sure if they are actually changing any designs or just renaming the chips. Heres a couple changes you could make keeping the same price but losing the LCD fan display and controller. Bumped you to a Q9450 processor swapped the regular dvd cd burner for a lightscribe burner Minor changes Edited by Bismark - 04 Jul 2008 at 3:44pm |
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Asus Rampage Formula
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2 ATI Radeon HD4870 Crossfire 4GB Corsair DHX 1066 1000W Corsair HX DS 850Si |
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Tyler Lowe
Newbie
Joined: 14 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 4:52pm |
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You fellas have me a little confused. Every benchmark I have seen conducted on a Q9300 has shown the reduction in cache size has a zero impact on performance. The testing I read indicated an average 7 to 10% performance increase from the Q6600 and considerably more overclocking room due to the die shrink and lowered power consumption (heat). The idea behind overclocking used to be to buy something cheap and make it as fast as something expensive. I do realize it has spread into the high end at this point and people like to buy expensive stuff and see just how high it can be pushed, but I don't see anything wrong with the Q9300. I'd rather overclock a cheaper CPU than skimp on other aspects of this build.
My guess was that the performance for a non overclocker simply looked too close to that of a Q6600, and the figures confused people. The Q6600 seems like it's a better chip because it has more L2 cache and it's only .1MHz slower. To the average consumer, the one is "only" .1GHz less, but the other number is 2 MB more, so it must be better.... right?!?! So why is the one with 2MB less stuff more money???
 (Picture the poor salesman at this point trying to think of a way not to spend the next hour or 2 in an exercise in futility explaining that one)
That's why I figure it's EOL. Not because it's a bad CPU, but because it doesn't work well with the Q6600 in the lineup. The Q6600 is massively popular, and cheap for Intel to crank out, and it helps to ease the demand on the new chips, so they let that go a bit longer. Edited by Tyler Lowe - 04 Jul 2008 at 5:01pm |
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workingman
Senior Member
Joined: 05 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 411 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 6:32pm |
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just wanted to say that as far as dell and alien ware are concerned..they seem to charge a lot for semi --high end equipment...their customer service is poor at best...and they will nickel and dime you to death as far as support is concerned...I had my doubts about DSO in the beginning..and have been hanging out for a bit on this forum..and I can honestly say this company has won me over...providing top notch computers with top notch service..and that's no BS from an Indian customer service agent...they got me even if they dont like me..lmao..
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!ender_
DS Veteran 
Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4219 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 Jul 2008 at 8:21pm |
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sorry your thread got a little highjacked gib
heres a little guide to read over if you like
based on the needs you posted, id suggest something more along the lines of
i dont know why you'd need 2 HDs for the computer you described, or stage 3 cooling if you arent overclocking. and if you arent overclocking or using stage 3 theres no reason to get a fan controller as it will be little more than expensive eye candy.
the 8800gt is certainly not better than the gts512, *especially* at stock settings
if you arent overclocking at all id definately suggest getting the 9450, worth the $ difference
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Bismark
Senior Member
Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 120 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 05 Jul 2008 at 12:37am |
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"the 8800gt is certainly not better than the gts512, *especially* at stock settings"
He had the 640 specced in the first build hence my suggestion of the 8800 gt |
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Asus Rampage Formula
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2 ATI Radeon HD4870 Crossfire 4GB Corsair DHX 1066 1000W Corsair HX DS 850Si |
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Giblets
Newbie
Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 08 Jul 2008 at 10:49am |
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All,
Thanks for the input. I placed my order today and can't wait to receive the new machine.  Ticket Number: 164585 Total Price with Instant Savings: $2,743.00 Direct Load URL: http://www.digitalstormonline Specifications: Chassis: Digital Storm 850Si Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition) Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz (1333MHz FSB) (12MB Cache) Motherboard: NVIDIA 780i Core 2 Quad (Chipset: nForce 780i SLI) System Memory: 4GB DDR2 Corsair at 800MHz Dominator DHX (High-Performance) Card Reader: Internal Digital Media Card Reader (Black) Hard Drive 1: 160GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA) Hard Drive 2: 500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA) Raid Option: - No Thanks Hard Drive 3: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition) Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition) Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX 512MB TV Tuner: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: Air Cooled Stage 2 (Silent Artic Cooling Heat-sink Upgrade (Copper Heatpipes) Internal Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Green Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes) Modifications: - No Thanks Boost Processor: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my processor Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) (For Enthusiasts) Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based) Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Benchmarking: - No Thanks Install/Test Game: - No Thanks LCD Display: Acer 22 inch (Widescreen) (Black) (High-Performance Gaming Display) Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: Logitech 2 Piece (Black Edition) Amplified Speaker Set Keyboard: - No Thanks Mouse: - No Thanks my keyboard comes with a mouse External Storage: - No Thanks Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty Regards, Digital Storm Sales Department Website: http://www.digitalstormonline Toll-Free: 1-866-81-STORM Email: [email protected] |
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Giblets
Newbie
Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 16 Jul 2008 at 7:29pm |
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You were all right. The wait is killing me. I want my BEAST now.....
 Estimated Shipment Date: 5-7 business days (Mon-Fri) from 7/15/2008 (Note: This is only an estimation. If problems are encountered during testing, we may have to hold your order for a few more days to ensure you receive a rock-solid stable problem free system. |
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SunfighterLC
DS Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1527 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 16 Jul 2008 at 8:38pm |
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Good machine...ill sell you a used 9800GX2 haha...By all means though try to get a GTX 280 soon. It will blow the doors of a 9800GTX. Plus their prices are really tanking. Id say mid august youll see the basic EVGA 280 going for under 400. Maybe even sooner..they are already 449.99 now.
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E8500@ 4.03Ghz
XFX 790i Ultra 1000W Corsair HX 2 280 GTX EVGA FTW 4GB OCZ Reaper 1800Mhz 250-80-300GB VR HD Logitech Z-2300 2.1 Speakers Asus Xonar 7.1 Hanns-G HG 281D 28" HDMI Monitor |
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This is going to be a multiple use computer. It will be used
for gaming (EQ, WoW, WZ2100, etc...), amateur photography and photo editing, I
do design work use Visio and some CAD type programs and the typical PC stuff
(Internet Access, E-Mail and MS Office Apps.),