$1500 i7 Gaming + Multi-tasking, please advice!

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Ok thanks guys, I'm picking the Coolmaster HAF 932 and Xigmatek Dark Knight per your suggestions to cool my 920 overclocking to 3.66GHz.

That leaves $100~200 to throw at a better GPU.

But before I go on, is there any online vendors that allows avoiding sales tax for California? (while having many free-shipping deals). 9.25% sales tax is quite steep, and if I can even get half of my components bought with no-tax free-shipping, that'd free up substantially more budget to play around.

Hmm, is it worth investing in an UPS?
 
I don't really know about the tax. I had looked before at buying from no tax vendors, but it seemed like they all ended up just charging more to compensate for the tax free buy.

$100-200 is a lot. Which gpu are you leaning towards?
 


The 275 would burn $100 (more than my currently listed 250 1GB), 285 would burn closer to $200.

I think I'll just whatever I can get with the leftover money once I decided on whether to get an UPS and any other accessories/upgrade first (even faster RAM?).

I'm gambling that the 250 will be able to run 2012 games at non-minimal settings with 1920x1200 resolution. Any more advanced video card would just be bonus.
 
I wouldn't try for faster RAM. I don't think you will notice any difference. that RAM is already pretty fast, not to mention you can overclock that too if you thought it needed to be faster.

Idk about that 250 running 2012 games. i mean it would run them, but i'm not sure how pretty it would be. depending on how much you want to spend, i would say gtx 275, ati hd4890, or gtx 285.
 


Didn't read thru this whole thread, so apologies if it has been mentioned before. I would try and get the D0 stepping of the i920 since it oc's very well compared to the older stepping C0. Look for the label code SLBEJ. The D0's are like the G0 steppings for the Q6600 - lower stock voltages and hence cooler if you don't oc. Anandtech got their D0 to 4.3Ghz on air, and somebody on XtremeSystems got an i975 (D0 of the i965) over 5GHz on air, which I find incredible :).
 


Will this label code show up on Newegg? Do they even sell the older stepping CO? It would be nice to have, even though i wouldn't dream of oc'ing that high any time soon.
 


Not even. You might want to look up some benchmarks. The gts 250 1gig runs just a few dollars cheaper than the gtx 260, yet is beaten out by the ATI 4870 512mb. The gts 250 512mb runs about even with the ATI 4850. Your talking about putting together a $1,500 build, yet your planning on using a low range vid card. Your screwing yourself is what your doing.
 


I have absolutely zero clue what the D0 / C0 / G0 thing is about, the few articles about overclocking I read on this site didn't really talk much (if at all) about it. Where can I read up on what it is about?
 
BTW, if for the video card I go with the 285, would 750W power supply still be sufficient? How about 700? Assume I will never go multiple video cards in future upgrades.

There's a good deal on the HAF932 case right now on newegg, it also has a combo-deal with a 700W PSU, not sure if I should just get the case alone now, or also grab the powersupply as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.188795

****
Another question: For Mobo, I don't quite understand the difference between P6T SE and P6T Delux V2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001315%2040000280%201070645357&StoreType=-1&CompareItemList=N82E16813131386%2cN82E16813131365&bop=And

I am making the assumption (correct me if I am wrong) that the difference in audio and LAN chipsets and two extra USB ports don't really matter (to the point of making a $80 difference anyways), in which case the only other thing I can notice is the PCI Express 2.0 x16 modes, which I don't entirely understand either.

Are there other differences that doesn't fit into the newegg tech spec format? Like maybe the more expensive Mobo has higher QA threshhold and so have a higher life expectancy or something?

****
Right now considering the following video card:

Recertified: EVGA 01G-P3-1280-RX GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card 90 day manufacturer warranty - $269.99 - $20.00 (promotion code) + tax (free shipping)

Recertified should be as good as brand new retail right?

or

BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Card - OC Edition, 1GB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, HDMI Support, VGA Support - $259.99 + $1.99 shipping (no tax)

or

EVGA 896-P3-1170-AR GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $249.99 + tax - $20 MIR (free shipping)
 
get a new ones. Open box/ recertified is good if you are lucky. sometimes the things just broke and you have to pay the shipping to return it. not preferable
 
For a UPS, I think the best units come from APC. Do some research at their web site. You do not need to match the wattage to your PSU. Your PC will operate at much lower wattages than the PSU rating which is a peak rating. You will also probably want to connect your monitor(about 100w) and modem. The VA rating determines how long you can run on battery power. If you want the UPC for line voltage conditioning and handling power spikes/drops, then only 5 minutes is enough and you don't need a high va rating. That gives you enough time to ride through a power glitch, or to shut down if power is out for a long time. For long run times, you need lots of battery power and a higher va rating.

APC also supplies a nice free application called PowerChute personal edition. It keeps statistics of outages, and shows how many watts are currently being used. As I am typing this, it shows 302 watts being used on my system. It includes a single 24" monitor. Under heavy load, it goes up to about 380watts, as I recall.

You might look at something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101138

I think I would avoid recertified units. They were returned for some reason. If they were defective, I would avoid them, but there is no way to know why they were returned. Some retailers will only give them a cursory test and put them back on sale. You should get a very good discount before it is a good deal. I would rather buy used on e-bay from an individual seller with a good reputation.
 

Thanks!



Does newegg have a good/bad/neutral reputation of testing returned stuff?



ooo nice tip. The only thing I found about i5 release date was "third quarter", and I have absolutely no clue what that means in terms of dates on the calendar.
 
ive read somewhere in the internet ( sorry i forgot the exact location ), i5 will be released on May 31st, 2009.. if you can wait, its only 25days from now..
 
about the refurbished product, my housemate did buy samsung t260HD at newegg at $300(refurb).. the item didnt even turn on. although newegg refund his $300, he has to pay $70 for the shipping. technically, he lost $70 for nothing. you may get a good deal for refurb, or you may get worse. IMO, play safe. buy new ones.
 
do you really need an UPS? just a thought. i never use any of those. and you are getting Corsair 750TX, it has built in power correction. unless your area always had blackout, you dont really need an UPS IMO
 


Back in 2002 or 2001, there was a blackout that killed the PSU of my desktop, even though I had a surge protector. And even after getting a new PSU, the desktop had been unstable (not sure if the motherboard might have suffered minor electrical damage or not).

I also hate losing my work in rare cases of blackout (not frequent, but has happened) or some clumsy person tripping over the wire.

Those are the primary considerations behind why I am interested in a UPS. Whether I really *need* it or not, not sure. But if in the end I have like $150 left in my budget, getting a UPS might be a better investment than say ditching the GTX 275 for a 285.

*********
A completely separate question:

I was thinking about buying the components separately, waiting for good deals and stuff. But I'm worried that if I only get some of the stuff first and not others, I might not be able to test whether the components are good/bad until some later components arrive, and that delay can hurt my ability to return items.

Things like hard drive and optical drive I can borrow a friend's computer to test, so I can order them as soon as I see a good deal. But I imagine getting a CPU or DDR3 Ram a month before getting a motherboard is risky if the CPU or Ram is defective, etc (I probably don't have a friend who has a motherboard supporting DDR3). Can a motherboard be tested before getting CPU and RAM?

So, what are the testing dependencies of the components in a system (I don't have any professional tools)? Can the computer case be "defective" and would it need some other component to discover the defect?
 
best things to do is gather all good deals and buy them all at once.. Those things are meant to be together. Many things can happen in one month. What is the point keeping a $300 mobo for one month for nothing? Im not sure if we can test individual components without the presence of the other.

Just buy all at once. If you like to wait, wait for public holidays such as thanksgiving, this coming summer( they sure have summer sale), back-to-school, black friday, good friday, every friday (weekend sale)

Those days, deals are like mushroom sprouting after a rain. :)

 
Many things have longer warranties. A cpu will be 1 year, ram and vga cards have lifetime warranties from good manufacturers. Cases, perhaps a year. Psu might be long. PC P&C has a 5 year warranty.

Cases are a good deal when you get free shipping. A case is heavy, and costs about $20 to ship.

The main problem with ordering piecemeal is that you might change your mind. Prices drop, and new units emerge.

When you order all at once from one place, you can combine shipping, saving some costs.


As to newegg, they have the best no hassle customer service around. They are marketeers, though, not necessarily pc people. They depend on others to assess functionality.

I would avoid open box(which might be missing parts) and refurbs if you are not comfortable with solving problems. As a new builder, I suggest you pass on such items the first time around.

I think the GTX275 is a better buy than GTX280. It has smaller mfg technology, and performs almost as well. Going faster gets you smaller increments of performance for your dollar.
 


seconded

 
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