Building a new PC, looking for a second opinion

[styggen]

Hi there , I've been tearing off my hair the past 2-3 months uncertain and frustrated over what to buy.

I've read through most of the guides from this site and others,when it comes to picking out hardware.
But I'm still unable to decided on what to buy, I've been back and forth between E8500 Q6600 Q9550 and I7 920 about a million times. I'm yet to come up with the argumentation that makes me choose either, but I'm currently leaning towards this build :

Case :
Antec Twelve Hundred Gamer Case (ATX miditower) 1 450,- NOK

PSU :
Antec TruePower Quattro 850W (SLI, 80Plus, 2x8Pin PCI-E + 2x6Pin PCI-E) 1 995, NOK

Mobo :
ASUS P6T Deluxe, X58, Socket-1366, (DDR3,ATX,SLI&CrossFireX,3xPCI-Ex(2.0)x16) 2 795,- NOK

CPU :
Intel Core i7 920 2,66Ghz (8MB, BOXED 4,8GT/sec) 2 695,- NOK

RAM :
OCZ DDR3 6 GB Intel® Extreme Low-Voltage (PC3-10666 3x2048MB 1333MHz. (7.7.7.20)) 2 175,- NOK

GFX :
ASUS Radeon HD4870 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 (DVI-I/HDMI, Dark Knight) 2 895,- NOK

HD:
Seagate 1,5TB S-ATA II 7200RPM (ST31500341AS Barracuda 7200.11 32MBcache) 1 250,- NOK

DVD :
Optiarc / NEC DVD-DVDR AD-7203S 250,- NOK

OS :
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic OEM (Eng version 64-bit DVD-versjon SP1) 795.- NOK


= 16 300,- NOK

Meaning : 2302 USD or 1811 EUR

Its a darn stiff price, but that's the price u got to pay when u live in Norway.
Anyways, there aren't that many different types of RAM,GFX,MOBO etc, but the "known" brands are available basically.

So if you have anything to add to this, other than fans and such, I would truly appreciate all the help your willing to offer.


What I'm looking for is a confirmation of good hardware choices and/or your opinion on what should be bought instead.
But as I mentioned earlier in the post, its not the selection you can find on newegg.com or w/e site you might buy from.

I've long thought about buying something less expensive like a E8500 solution, or a Q6600. But I'm not very good at OCing and such, even tho I have a friend who can help me out a bit.
I know from the choices I've made that OCing would be a very good thing for me to do, but the general idea is to be able to atleast play "bulk" on it until more demanding stuff comes out. Or until I know the art of OCing myself

Willing to listen to all sort of help you are throwing my way, I'm very open minded when it comes to this since its not my field of expertise.


In advance, sorry for the terrible English. I hope you can forgive me, and have nice Xmas
Obviously if there's any Scandinavian people replying, you can link suggestions from sites you know
F.ex www.komplett.no www.netshop.no www.mpx.no www.ps.no and so on.

 

[frozenlead]

Honestly, I'd look at a second 4870 or replacing the first with an X2. This is a massive system with just high end graphics. That's all, really. I don't really know what's available in Norway, so I don't really want to suggest parts you can't get a hold of.

Anyway, your english is better than most I know who've lived in the US their entire lives. Don't sweat it.

What are you using to cool that i7? Just stock?

 

[styggen]

Honestly, I'd look at a second 4870 or replacing the first with an X2. This is a massive system with just high end graphics. That's all, really. I don't really know what's available in Norway, so I don't really want to suggest parts you can't get a hold of.

Anyway, your english is better than most I know who've lived in the US their entire lives. Don't sweat it.

What are you using to cool that i7? Just stock?

Well in all honesty I thought I'd go with stock first,but as it seems I have another 500-600NOK to spend, meaning around 55-60 EUR.

Anyways, as for the x2 I'm kinda low on cash and it seems 4870 is good enough for most of the games out there.
Either its my eyes or my brain,but I'm really not that much of a graphic fanatic and I don't see an huge difference in running 4AA or 8AA f.ex. Haven't been able to do so with my machine but I've tried out my friends computers which are better than my current and I honestly can't see that much of a diffrence.

As for why I would then choose to buy such an expensive machine, its basically because I like having a stable good machine that can run pretty much everything right now and the coming year or two. I know that the hardware changes quickly and that's nothing to aim for and such, but I'm doing it anyways :/

When it comes to recommendations, we have most of the stuff out on the market, its just that we don't have 500000 different brands of RAM and such.

Sorry for my late responds, went to bed at a odd time

 

[Guest]

Seems like a nice build

 

[wizace]

Bang for the buck, $1200.00 US of course you will need the case, hard drive and OS (sadly you will have to use vista 64 bit or better for the DX10 and 64 bit Processor)
1ea MSI X58 Platinum SLI LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
2ea MSI N260GTX-T2D896-OCv2 GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

1ea CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

1ea Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail

1ea CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C9 - Retail

Or steeping up $4000.00 US still need case and OS

3ea ASUS ENGTX285 TOP/HTDI/1GD3 GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

1ea Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH160G1C5 160GB SATA Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail

1ea ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

1ea CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

1ea Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601965 - Retail

1eaCORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1866C9DF - Retail

 

[xthekidx]

Sounds to me like the primary purpose of this rig is to play games, is that correct? Will you be using this computer for Video editing, photoshop, graphics rendering, CAD, or anything of that nature? These are the fields that i7 CPU's excel in and if you use any of those apps, then buying an i7 is justified. However if you don't do those things and you just need this computer to Play games and surf the web and email, you are wasting a lot of money. Phenom II X4 and Core 2 Quads will do just about as well as the i7 in games if you kept the same GPU and comparable memory, but by going with a cheaper platform, you get to spend more on the GPU and overall your system will be much better than the i7 system and still cost less. (And before you call me a naysayer and such, take note of my signature; I own an i7 system.)

So if you will only be using this system for gaming, here is my suggestion to you.

CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9650

Mobo: Gigabyte EP45 UD3P

GPU: Saphire HD 4870x2 or 4850x2 (depends on the size of monitor you will use)

Ram: 4gb of low latency DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 or below running at 1.9volts or below) Mushkin, G. skill and OCZ are good brands that tend to have good deals, at least in the US, look around to see what is available.

PSU:Corsair 650tx, Antec EA650 650w, Seasonic or PC Power & Cooling in the 650w range. Any of those PSU's would be good high quality choices. If you wanted to run either of those GPU's in xfire, then I suggest you get the Corsair 850tx.

HDD: Do not use seagate drives, they fail all the time. Go for WD Caviar Black 1TB drives.

Optical Drive: Doesn't really matter, they are all the same basically. I prefer LG or samsung. Make sure it is SATA and not IDE.

CPU Cooler: Xigmatek S1283 Dark Knight for good performance at a reasonable price. This is absolutely necessary if you will overclock, you don't need it if you won't.

Case: Whatever you like, the Antec 1200 is great.

In the US this runs you about $1300 and it will absolutely play any game you want for the next couple years, if you play on a large monitor then you can add another card in xfire to play games that come out in 1.5 years. This system would kill that i7 that you spec'd out in your OP.