[citation][nom]bogcotton[/nom]I don't know too much about system building, but I would have gone with:VTX ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card VTX ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £519.98Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM £203.99Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £149.99Samsung PB22-J 64GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (MMCRE64G5MXP-0VB) Samsung PB22-J 64GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (MMCRE64G5MXP-0VB) £144.99OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (OCZ3G1600LV6GK) OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (OCZ3G1600LV6GK) £118.98LG CH08LS10 8x Blu-Ray Reader/16x DVD±RW - Black (OEM) LG CH08LS10 8x Blu-Ray Reader/16x DVD±RW - Black (OEM) £79.99OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £64.992 X Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SI) 2X £55.98Akasa Freedom Xone Case - Black Akasa Freedom Xone Case - Black £45.99Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B CPU Cooler (Socket 775/1156/1366) £45.99Total : £1,498.93 ($2399)Gives about $100 to play around with the case choice, fans, better memory etc.[/citation]Some of those are nice parts, but the extra controllers of the P55A version of the motherboard would have been disabled anyway when two graphics cards are installed.[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]Since THG solicited it, these are my suggestions for the build next time:- Bump the limit to $2800-3000 if it's going to be a "complete" or "high-end" build, but not a "dream machine" config. For the extra few hundred in price, you can get that 1xSSD in the system, better cooler, better case, etc.- Consider an SSD besides Intel. Intel was the premier mainstream SSD in the beginning, but per GB price for performance has dropped drastically with modified designs of other brand SSDs with newer, more robust controllers. Crucial and Corsair have slightly higher (25-33%) priced models with 60% more space, faster write speeds, and competitive read speeds.As for the HDD selection, I wouldn't pay the 50% price premium for those drives. I would have gotten 4x 1TB WD CBs and RAID 1+0'ed them for $200 less and had the same space.I understood about the 5970s not being out yet and 2x5870s costing way too much. But again, was the slight performance advantage of the 5870 worth the 33% price increase from the 5850s? Judgement call by the contributors.I also agree the BD-R was a bit much for a high-end/not dream machine config. A BD-ROM/DVD-R would have been good enough and saved about $100.There has been a lot pointed out here, both by readers and the THG staff. I learn a lot from reading things, and use ideas and suggestions in building my own boxes. I think the biggest lesson learned here is: the $2500 price is just a bit restrictive to getting that "just right" config that isn't the dream machine build.Thanks for a good article.[/citation]$2800 would have had a lot more flexibility in the storage area for certain. $3000 would have let the build use SSD's and a liquid-cooled Core i7-920 with a case designed to support the radiator internally. Good calls jcknouse[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]Besides if you want a 5970 that badly, they're in stock here:http://a-power.com/product-14264-0-2though you're gonna need to get it shipped from Canada to the states.[/citation]The purchase might have been put on hold until after the 5970 release if the team thought these would have been available.[citation][nom]zelannii[/nom]Toms, on the request for what we'd like to see next time, lets focus a bit more on use cases to find dollar levels, not picking dollar levels arbitrarily. I'd say a base $500-600 machine for simple media and basic gaming (WoW at default settings class, the "all i can afford" machine); a $900-1100 performance game/home media center class (the "I like games, but I'm not rich" box); a $1900-2100 enthusiast system; and a $3000-3500 power gamer system. For each class, not only build out one core system within those ranges, but offer suggestions that would bring up/duwn the performance a few steps withing a reasonable range of the pricing. Also, a key feature that should be focussed on for all but the $3K+ system, upgrade options after 12-18 months to keep it "current" or improve it's class standing. Build the best machine you can for the customer in question, not the price point, and stay within a range not a hard line price. Show examples of "if you could squeese another $100-200 in your budget, add this..." and "if you can't quite reach this price point, saccrifice this to save $200, you can allways upgrade it in 12 months to get that and more back." Build the honest best system of the day, without so strict of a number you're staying under which innevitable leads to saccrifices.[/citation]Those are good price points too. You're also right about finding adequate excuses to go over-budget when the difference between, say, a $2500 build and a $2600 build would be huge. That is what real builders do isn't it? Thanks.[citation][nom]plbyrd[/nom]There is no such thing as a user who only games with a machine. In this digital age everyone and their brother is using cameras, iPods, phones, and other equipment that have a high demand on storage performance and capacity.I think you guys should be allowed to go over budget, but you get penalized for it. Then it would force you to make some hard decisions about exactly what components are justifiable to go over budget. Real users have to make these decisions all the time.[/citation]Brilliant![citation][nom]ionut19[/nom]How can it run circles around this build when the some components are similar except the ram, case and HDD, motherboard witch is a little better because it can run pci express at 16x and8x when the one they selected has 8x and 8x in sli/crossfire...Read before you post!![/citation]Yes, please read before you post: The P55A-UD4P, like all other P55 motherboards, has only 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes. It can only do 16x or 8x/8x, not 16x/8x:
[nom]Ron]http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-performance,2490.html[citation][nom]Ron Scubadiver[/nom]You guys could have saved yourself a ton of trouble by using 180x20 and letting the memory run slower, or buying ram that could run @ 1800. That would have allowed much lower voltages to be used, as in your article on overclocking the I5-750. I have used those settings around here with great results. A ducted case like a P182 would solve the problem of the power supply overheating and a larger cooler for the CPU would have been a better choice. Frankly, considering the kind of experience and resources you guys have, I am surprised you had so many problems. Thank god I don't game and have no need for the twin jet engines those 5870's must sound like.[/citation]The system was originally overclocked at 182x20. 203x18 was tried later to improve memory performance, and it was found the CPU ran approximately the same temperature. A higher BCLK can be problematic, but wasn't this time.[citation][nom]Gigahertz20[/nom]Hardly anybody will ever go over 2TB let alone use 4TB of storage like this build has. Most people will benefit from a fast SSD then having a *** load of storage. Probably 1 in 4,000 people use 1TB or more of space on their internal hard drives.[/citation]It was recommended for RAID 1, where 2+2=2TB, because nobody in this price class should have to worry about a single drive failure. The article later stated that 1TB (still in RAID 1 with two 1TB drives) would have been enough to satisfy most of today's needs, and that these particular drives were chosen (but shouldn't have been) based on previous recommendations concerning their speed.
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