Really need help, ordering my system tomorrow - 780i vs P35 question

[El Duderino]

I know these forums are often filled with posts like these, but I could really use some good advice. I've finally got my build pretty much good to go. I'm just really going back and forth on whether of not to get a board that will give me the option to go SLI down the road or stick with my original choice which is the Abit IP35 Pro board.

This is my first build ever. I'm going to be using this system for gaming as well as video editing using Avid Media Composer. I have a 24" LCD and would like to take advantage of the native resolution. I'm not one to buy the biggest and baddest GPU that costs $500+ so that's why I was thinking SLI might be an option I want to keep open.

So far, my build is this:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case (Already have)

-E8400 Intel CPU (Already have)

-EVGA 512-P3-N841-AR GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail ($229 after MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325

-OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply 100 - 240 V - Retail ($95 after MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002

-Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM ($170)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM ($110)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288

-SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe - OEM ($34)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151154

And my #1 seed mobo -
-ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail ($140 after MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127030

I haven't decided on memory yet as I haven't figured out my motherboard situation.

I've heard great things about the intel boards and not so great things about the nvidia boards. If I do overclock my system it will probably be pretty conservative since I've never overclocked anything except my GPU before.

Basically, if I get a 780i board I was looking at either the EVGA or MSI board. What I really need to figure out by tomorrow is if the extra heat, lower OC'ing capability, and higher price is worth having the flexibility of SLI over the Abit IP35. Will I need to get some extra cooling if I do go the nvidia chipset route?

I really appreciate any insight you guys might have on my situation and I'll take any and all opinions on my future build. Thanks!!!

Seriously, after trying to figure out what to do with this build I really feel like

 

[hughyhunter]

Your concerns are good... this is going to be your first build and you will be spending a lot of money.

Your choices look very good so far. However I would consider the 620hx corsair PSU. It's modular and looks great in Antec 900.

AS for mobo: Where did you hear that EVGA 780i motherboard was bad overclocker? I own it and it overclocks great. I've managed 4.5ghz stably for one 3dmark06 pass and run it 24/7 stable @ 4.05ghz. With my conservative overclock I run it @ 3.6ghz with only 1.2vcore. Now that's a great overclocker if you ask me.

I havent heard anything about heat problems either... Check out xtremesystems.org, them guys there know what the best hardware is... EVGA 780i board is an avid gamer/extreme system board. So are most P35. Which is a great choice for non SLI.

Just make your decision based on wanting SLI or not seeing a need for it in the future. NOt that you heard that the 780i wasnt a good overclocker. It's max FSB is probably only slightly lower than the P35 (525mhz compared to 535mhz... that's just a guesstimate) but you would only go that high for extreme benchmarking. I never go above 450 and I'm sure you wont either.

Here is a forum filled with positive (some negative) about EVGA 780i: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=170055

If you were to go with P35 get the DFI UT... that's a great overclocker. The ABIT is too though.

If you want to stick with ABIT maybe opt for 9800GX2 or 3870X2. I know it's nice to keep option open to multi gpu but really people should only consider multi gpu if right now you want faster than what the fastest single card has to offer. In other words if you wanted faster than 9800GX2 (because it's the fastest) than you would get two of them. The prob with waiting to get another is that there might not be one avail and you will be spending money then that you should put toward next high end card... so if you spend 300 on a card now and in a year the same card is 150 so you buy another you've spent 450 so far. But by then the fastest card on market will be 2-5 times faster than your SLI or crossfire set up... I would just get one high end now and call it good. Use extra money that you are going to save from not getting 780i and get a 9800GX2 or 3870X2. They will just keep getting better as drivers improve anyway.

 

[ocfun]

I don't have much to add because I've never run sli, but do know it will get hotter. I'd consider the Antec 900 case. I just got it and it has lots of fans that are amazingly quiet. Bigger fans mean they are more quiet and they move more air.. Other people do sli, so you probably can too. On the other hand you may be able to do without sli and still have decent fps on a 24 inch.. It just depends on the game and settings.

My other suggestion is not to get the raptor 150GB, but get western digitals new 600gb drive instead. What sold me is that every few reviews people are saying to skip the raptor and go with the 600gb because it's like 99% as fast. Some reviewers are saying it's faster than the raptor in most things. It's only $129 on sale too. 😀

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

Also the 500GB at $94

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

 

[lunyone]

I'd go with the p35 mobo and go with the 3870x2/9800gtx/8800gts (g92) as the GPU's to get, depending on your budget. The 3870x2 would be around $400, 9800gtx ~$300, & 8800gts (g92) ~$250. I would also second the 640gb HD over the Raptor. You get but loads more room and pretty much the same speed as the Raptor drive.

 

[fergie]

i have the evga 780i and had no problems at all.it's good to know you can throw in another graphics card in the future and i've found it overclocks very well.

 

[radium69]

I would go with the P35 mobo, i have a similar configuration like yours, abit ip35 board, gamexsteam Power supply, GTS 512, Raptor and 500GB Samsung Spinpoint,

the board is a really nice board, looks nice, works great with my overclocked Q6600 @ 3,2 ghz 400FSB.

Mostly the Intel chipsets are better than the Nvidia ones (don't know if this is true) But SLI is money wasting anyway.

Don't know but my build is already like 3 months old. And it runs very cool with my Thermaltake Armor case. The Motherboard runs very cool aswell!!!

Also the manual itself is very well explained and helped me deffinetly through everything.

it's also pretty cheap for it's features, so hey why not.

If you have free time check out the review on it.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ip35__pro/3.htm

Cpu overclocking on this board is easy-e. And I never did any overclocking before in the bios. But with a few programs and some help I got it very stable.

Cheers,
Radium

 

[blackened144]

I would agree with most here. Unless you definitely plan on going SLI, then grab a good P35 board. I have the GA-P35-DS4 and its stable as can be. I dont know about the Abit board myself, but I think it you cant go wrong with just about any P35 board from a good manufacturer.

 

[dagger]

The 535x4 on p35 and 525x4 on 780i are done by "teh 1337 p30pl3z" and you will not be able to duplicate it. In term of oc, the two chipsets are basically the same. You should be able to oc fsb to 1600mhz (400x4) on both without much trouble. Some people managed to run them at up to 1800mhz, but it's shaky, so you shouldn't bank on that speed. X38/48, which runs at 1600mhz natively, and oc to 2000+mhz easily without heat problems, is the way to go for high overclocking. It cost around the same as a 780i too. Still, 1600mhz = 3.6ghz in Q6600 (9x multiplier), and 3.2ghz for Q9450 (8x multiplier). So for mild overclocking both p35 and 780i will do fine. Compared to x38/48, p35 cost you less, and 780i supports sli.

@blackened144:
The P35-DS4 only costs $7 less than the X38-DS4. The x38 board is a much better deal with that kind of price. It's better to either find a cheaper p35 or go for the x38.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128064
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128089

 

[hughyhunter]

@ dagger... agreed whole heartedly... Go with the X38/x48 or 780i/790i if you are going spend the money. P35 is a budget overclockers board. In other words if I were going to get a P35 I would be getting the $80 Gigabyte board.

If you do decide to get 780i get two cards now! Two 9800GTX will cost the same as GX2. Then you can grab a third one once you know drivers are more mature and the price drops a few dollars. That would be a bad ass graphics platform for under a $1000.

However if you are on a budget grab the MSI neo P35 board, single GTS and call it good for a few years.

 

[El Duderino]

Thanks for all the input! It really is a big relief to have you guys a good knowledge base going into this build.

Ocfun... thanks for the hard drive advice. The SE16 Caviar HDD as opposed to the Raptor sounds like a great idea and didn't even thnk about that as an option before now. After reading up on them, it seems like they really are the best way to go as far as my hard drives are concerned. So, thank you for that!

As far as my choice on my motherboard, I think I am leaning towards the 780i setup since I just have a feeling I'll be kicking myself not being able to have the option to SLI. With the low prices on the 8800 series right now, SLI seems to actually be pretty affordable and a good alternative to the single high end GPU's that are out right now.

Hughyhunter... the dual 9800GTX doesn't sound like a bad idea, but I'm still not sold on the 9 series as of yet and I don't quite have that kind of budget either. I could essentially grab two 8800GTS's (or GT's) for much less and probably be just as good for what I need. I have a feeling that something much better might be coming along pretty soon and grabbing a 9800GTX might not be he best investment.

BTW, I noticed you have a extremely similar setup to what I am looking at. How do you like your current setup? IS the Antec 900 pretty adequate for cooling your components?

Again, thanks for the help. Didn't think this would be such a hard decision. I mean, damn, I've spent hours just trying to decide on a PSU and still haven't gotten anywhere. I think I way over think this stuff...

 

[hughyhunter]

I love my set up... wouldnt have done anything different. Love the 900 case. Great cooling and air flow Here is a few pics:

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[huron]

hughyhunter...you painted the 900, huh? It looks good.

What did you do to clean up the PSU cables on the blue build? Did you mod at all?

I think you and I are going to have almost exactly the same build once my parts arrive. Nice choices.

 

[hughyhunter]

hughyhunter...you painted the 900, huh? It looks good.

What did you do to clean up the PSU cables on the blue build? Did you mod at all?

I think you and I are going to have almost exactly the same build once my parts arrive. Nice choices.

Thanks man... I did do some modding. All my cables are hidden in the back panel. I am going to re-paint as I think I can do a much better job. Maybe get some metalic deep blue look to it. The entire case should look pretty cool when I'm done. I post avidly on xtremesystems.org, I'll give you the proper forums where if you get involved there you will have a pretty awesome mod.

This is where I got the idea to mod the case:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126395
This is the best how to paint thread I've read:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108396

 

[El Duderino]

I think I've finally got my build together. I'll probably be placing the order tomorrow. I'll gladly take any opinions on this setup whether they be positive or negative.

If I am wavering on anything still, it's mostly the PSU. Been going back and forth between the PC Power & Cooling and the Corsair (only picked Corsair because of the 6+2 PCI-E pins, but I have no clue if that is really going to be needed down the line, but I've heard nothing but good things about the PC&C)
Again, this will be going into an Antec 900 Case and I'm also using an E8400 CPU. Decided I'd like to keep the SLI option open and will likely grab another 8800GTS soon. Thanks again for the advice. 😀

 

[hughyhunter]

Oh man... go with the EVGA 780i not the XFX. EVGA is winner of customer choice awards, same price, and I own it and can say it's great.

I like OCZ memory but would go with something a bit faster like reaper or reaperX. Great OCZ products and still EPP or SLI ready.

I have the PCPC but would also consider the corsair. The only reason I would go with corsair over PCPC is due to modular feature on 620hx. Other than that they are both great products.

Awesome that you are going with E8400. I have mine o'c right now to 3.6ghz with only 1.2v, that's amazing if you ask me.

 

[El Duderino]

Kind of funny you said EVGA over the XFX. I actually stopped in to Fry's Electronics and found the EVGA 780i for $10(woohoo! ) cheaper than Newegg had it. Plus they had a 30 day return policy, which sold me right there.

The Corsair PSU I'm looking at isn't modular, but it's 750w also. Trying to make this as "future proof" as I can with my budget.

 

[hughyhunter]

Kind of funny you said EVGA over the XFX. I actually stopped in to Fry's Electronics and found the EVGA 780i for $10(woohoo! ) cheaper than Newegg had it. Plus they had a 30 day return policy, which sold me right there.

The Corsair PSU I'm looking at isn't modular, but it's 750w also. Trying to make this as "future proof" as I can with my budget.

Good deal! I didnt know FRY's carried "new" tech!? That's a steal though... and you didnt have to pay shipping!

 

[htoonthura]

I love my set up... wouldnt have done anything different. Love the 900 case. Great cooling and air flow Here is a few pics:

I see your rig in your signature. I am curious how fast you can calculate super pi 1M. If you know, please share the info with me.

 

[hughyhunter]

It's been awhile but with a 4.5ghz overclock I was getting sub 10 seconds. Dont know exact decimal value but it was about 10 seconds. Right now at 3.6ghz (went down from 4.05ghz to save some energy money... seeing if it makes a diff... temps are very low right now so it's easing my comforts of making this rig last a few years) 11.something seconds.

 

[hughyhunter]

It's been awhile but with a 4.5ghz overclock I was getting sub 10 seconds. Dont know exact decimal value but it was about 10 seconds. Right now at 3.6ghz (went down from 4.05ghz to save some energy money... seeing if it makes a diff... temps are very low right now so it's easing my comforts of making this rig last a few years) 11.something seconds.

OOPs... double post

 

[htoonthura]

It's been awhile but with a 4.5ghz overclock I was getting sub 10 seconds. Dont know exact decimal value but it was about 10 seconds. Right now at 3.6ghz (went down from 4.05ghz to save some energy money... seeing if it makes a diff... temps are very low right now so it's easing my comforts of making this rig last a few years) 11.something seconds.

OOPs... double post

that is fast.