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Some hardware questions

Post Date: 2009-11-30
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Niloh View Drop Down
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Posts: 8 		  Quote Niloh Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Some hardware questions
    Posted: 30 Nov 2009 at 12:34pm
Thinking about buying my next computer from here but I had a few questions I was hoping to get answered first.  I've been playing around with builds for a few days now and need some input.  Firstly the builds I've been making come to around $5,000 after discounts, while I can afford this I want to know if there is any way I can cut corners and not notice a real difference in performance.  Here is the the basic spec I'm playing with:
 
Digital Storm Hailstorm
Intel Core i7 960 3.2 GHz (Quad Core)
EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI chipset
12 GB DDR3 1600 MHz Digital Storm certified by muskin enhanced
1250W Enermax Galaxy EVO
1 TB Western Digital Hard Drive
Blue-ray Player/DVD Writer
2x SLI Quad (NVIDIA Geforce GTX 295 1.792 GB)
Razor Barracude AC-1
H2O: Stage 6: Sub-Zero LCS Dual Loop: CPU & Quad SLI/Crossfire Video Cards
 
basically I'm looking for a gaming beast that's gonna last me 5+ years.  Right now I have a 22" monitor that is native 1680x1050 but I am sure I will upgrade at somepoint in the future to an even larger one.  I was wondering what the difference for me would be between this Hailstorm case and the HAF 932, I couldn't find it listed somewhere and its nearly a $200 difference.  I was also a little concerned about supplying power since I have only a 120V line in my house, I'm currently running a 1000W power supply and dual NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB cards without problem and just want to make sure it will be the same.  Also I've read in some reviews of the 295 card that it is very heavy and there was some concern about the weight pulling on the motherboard.
 
Answers and advice are appreciated. Confused
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DST4ME View Drop Down
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 30 Nov 2009 at 1:14pm
Digital Storm Hailstorm
Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz (Quad Core)
EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI chipset
12 GB DDR3 1600 MHz Digital Storm certified by muskin enhanced
1000W Corsair HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition)
1 TB Western Digital Hard Drive
Blue-ray Player/DVD Writer
1x ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
Razor Barracude AC-1
H2O: Stage 6: Sub-Zero LCS Dual Loop: CPU & single gpu

you can change the hailstorm to haf 932.

the corsair is more metal, has hotswap bays, and is bigger.

the haf has much better airflow, but when you have LC on cpu/gpu, the airflow of the corsair case is all you need.

go with stage 1 oc, and memory fan kit only.

don't oc the gpu or ram, get the "ram fan only" for the ram.

don't need the os tweak either.

1 x 5870 is overkill for 1680x1050, but I gave it to you since you said you might get a bigger monitor.

if you don't want ati and don't care about dx11 support then go with 1 x 275 and then if you need more gpu power down the road, just add another 275, it will cost less, extremely easy to do, and 2 x 275 is better then 1 x 295.

what size monitor are you planning on upgradeing to?

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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satsunada View Drop Down
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Posts: 682 		  Quote satsunada Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 30 Nov 2009 at 1:14pm
Hmm.. if we're just cutting corners, go with the 920 instead of the 960 and just OC. With LC it should reach 3.7 or so easily and be cheaper. Don't get the 2 295's and in fact, don't even get one. If you're planning on upgrading monitors then you'll want to upgrade the graphics card then and not now, especially with nvidia's latest coming in a few months.  Get something to last til you get a new monitor, so like a 5850 or 275. You may want to scratch the blu-ray player as well, at least initially. Wait til the price comes down or just get it somewhere else. Do you plan on doing anything other than gaming that requires that much RAM? And you'll prolly be advised against the 1 TB drive, get a 500 and wait for SSD prices to drop and upgrade then.  One other note, the 295 is 2 GPU's in one card, so it comes in SLI but takes up one slot. For cooling, you only need the Dual SLI options ( i think) in the configurator
If knowledge is power and power corrupts, then total knowledge corrupts totally.
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Niloh View Drop Down
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Posts: 8 		  Quote Niloh Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 30 Nov 2009 at 1:30pm
When I upgrade the monitor I will probably go somewhere around 27-30 inches
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DST4ME View Drop Down
DS ELITE
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 30 Nov 2009 at 1:56pm
so at that point for nvidia you add 2 more 275. For ati you just add one more 5870.

the above is assuming that the bigger monitor's res will be 2560 x 1600.

at this time ati has the best solution so I advise you to go with 1 x 5870, and when you upgrade the monitor add another 5870.

if you endup with a res of 1900 x 1200, 1 x 5870 is all you need, so you would not need to add another gpu.

Edited by DST4ME - 30 Nov 2009 at 1:57pm

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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