New i7 Build - £800ish Budget

[Warmen]

CPU : Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM + World In Conflict PC Game

tandard choice for a budget i7 build.

Motherboard : Asus P6T SE Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

No need for sli, so the SE is fine, and £25 cheaper. Proven to be a decent overclocking board with a good layout.

RAM : Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel (PVT36G1600LLK)

Graphics Card : Asus ATI Radeon HD 4870 Glaciator+ 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £108.99

Good enough for 1280x1024, plan to crossfire it at a later date

Case : Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Case - Black (No PSU) - £54.99

Slightly more roomy with better cooling and layout than the antec 300.

PSU : PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad-Crossfire PCI-E 750W Power Supply - £83.98

Decent brand, ample power and connectors

CPU Heatsink : Prolimatech Megahalems Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775/1366) - £43.99

Reviews show it to be matching if not outperforming the mighty TRUE, easier to get ahold of aswell.

CPU Fan : Scythe Kaze Jyuni 1900RPM Slip Stream 120mm Fan x2 - £13.78

Dual fan setup for the megahalem

Thermal Compound : OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Conductivity Compound - £3.44

Reviews show it outperforming AS5 by quite a margin

HDD : Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) x2 in Raid-0 (32kb Striping) - £77.98

Budget wont allow for raptors or ssd, so this seems like the best option.

Optical Drive : LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM - £18.99

Total - £826.09


System will be used for gaming (1280x1024 atm, by xmas should be upgrading to 1920x1080, at which point i'll add a second 4870 for crossfire), audio editing/recording, video editing/encoding and general use.

Plan to overclock the CPU to 4ghz.

Any suggestions?

 

[Helloworld_98]

swap the megahalem and the two fans for a Noctua NH-U12P as this will save you a bit of money and perform about the same if not better while being quieter.

just get a single Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB instead of the dual 500GB's, it will be more stable and cost less.

pay the extra £7 for the Coolermaster silent pro 700w, it's about as good as the PCP&C but it's modular, and it helps in cases this size a fair bit, especially when using a crossfire setup.

get a couple of high airflow fans to go in the case, the Noctua 1200rpm's if you can afford them.

that's pretty much it, however I would consider getting two 4770's now and then with the money you were going to use for the second 4870, buy one of the 58xx series cards.

 

[Warmen]

The noctua is just as expensive as the megahalem with 2 fans, and apparantly doesn't perform as well. Not sure if i want to lose the raid-0 performance for the sake of £10. All important data will be backed up, so stability isn't too big of an issue.

I can't seem to find cheap 4770's anywhere, ~£80. I can find 4850's for £65, although two of these would push the price beyond what i want to spend really. Surely the 58xx cards will cost a bomb for the first few months?

 

[Helloworld_98]

^ if the 58xx cards follow AMD's current strategy then they'll have cut the cost by a third within the first month.

the prolimatech seems to do about the same if not slightly worse than the Noctua, and with those two fans the prolimatech will be very loud whereas the noctua is known for it's low noise levels.