[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]I'm disappointing in you guys Tom's! You totally could have gotten a better build for the same price!Also, definitely no need for $600 worth of HD for only 2tb of storage performing worse than 1 SSD!MOBO- Gigabyte P55A-UD4P $184.99http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128409No idea why you guys didn't suggest the board a few bucks more that has USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0...[/citation]Sorry, but that board doesn't support two graphics card, USB 3.0, and SATA 6.0 Gb/s simultaneously. If you install two cards, it disables those controllers. Read the article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-performance,2490.html
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]PSU- Corsair 750TX $109.99http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006You guys said in your own review that a 5970 system can totally easily run on a 750W PSU!![/citation]
Sorry banthrasis, but the 850W power supply was picked for its ability to support the CPU and the graphics cards at full overclock levels. It wasn't known until after the system was built that the CPU cooler wouldn't support a full CPU overclock.
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]GPU- Diamond 5970 $669.99http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814103088There are also ones for sale outside of newegg, but in the spirit of the build rules, just put on auto notify and you'll bag one w/in a week.[/citation]
No appologies here, the HD 5970 didn't exist when the system was ordered. It would be a great money-saver for a future build however!
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]RAM- 2x 4gb G Skill Ripjaw DDR3-1600 7-7-7-24 $249.98http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231279Tighter timings, better performance, faster speed and better OCing.[/citation]And far more expensive. Read a few of Tom's Hardware's memory timing articles and find out that it isn't worth it to pay "anything" to go beyond 1600 CAS 8, which the cheap modules did fine.
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]Optical Drive- LG Black $169.99http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136176Storage- Intel X25-M G2 160gb $539.002[/citation] That is a great drive, but Tom's would have picked two 80GB X25-M's for similar money and got even better performance, had the rest of the system not limitted the drive budget to $600 max (including SSD's and mass storage)
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]Samsung Spinpoint F3 1tb $169.98 Can totally fit a $160 gb G2 into the budget. With 2 Samsung Spinpoint F3's which are about = Velociraptors in performance.Total of 2.16 TB of storage. With a SSD.[/citation]
Yes, those are decent drives for the money. If Tom's would have had the budget for both SSD's and HDD's, it would have probably put in two 80GB SSD's (RAID 0) and two 1TB HDD's (RAID 1) for a total of 1.16TB
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]HSF- CM Hyper 212 Plus $28.83http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103065Cheaper, easier to mount and better performance than the V8. Common guys![/citation]...and totally not available when the system was ordered. What you're presenting isn't a list of what they should have used (not available then), but what they should use now. And those are some great suggestions for anyone who wants to place an order today.