# New Build, i7 1366, x25-m 160... Opions please



## walkngdude (Oct 18, 2004)

Hi all,
"hotdog down the hallway to you'all." pcper.com

Finally, I get to build a system again. As you can see from my sig it's about time.

I've been planning this for some time and feel I've got it worked out except for the GPU configuration. So before I start clicking the checkout button I'd like to ask you all for feedback and suggestions.

I want a smokin' fast system to handle mainly advanced photo editing, lots of them as fast as possible, so I can have part of my life back. Some video encoding, torrent client, other stuff and monitoring of a webcam, often a few at the same time.

New Build:
asus p6x58d premium $295
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614

Intel - i7 930, 1366 $289
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225&cm_re=i7_930-_-19-115-225-_-Product

Intel X25-M 160GB SSD $425
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167024

Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB (3x2GB) DDR33 1600 (pc3 12800) model 998805, 6-8-6-24 $240
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121

PSU - Crosair CMPSU 950 $169
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139013

GPU - I'm confused here. I have a samsung 2300sw monitor and I got two Acer 20"ers from my very good wife for Christmas. So whats the best ati solution to power these mostly for adobe but I also would like to blast the new games possibly through all three monitors. Read my cross post here:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/f24/new-build-3-monitors-seeking-best-ati-card-option-485111.html

And maybe if things at work start to pick up I might try three 30 inch monitors.

Also I really want a i7 980x 6 core but that adds $700 and that's just totally batshit insane, isn't it?


Thanks,
be good to each other,
Don't be a door knob


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

SSD's are way overpriced and offer no real advantage other than a somewhat faster boot time. A WD Black series 32 pr 64MB Cache Hdd would be a much better solution.
The 5770 ATI GPU's are very popular.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What budget do you have for the video card?
The HD5850 or 5870 will fit with the rest of the build.


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## hhnq04 (Mar 19, 2008)

$700 is about as insane as $425 for 160GB of HDD space these days if you ask me.

If you really want an SSD, just get one that's like 64GB (around $150 or so). You're only going to really benefit in boot time, and your OS won't take nearly that amount of space.

Put the money you save from that towards a 5870, you'll want that kind of power to shred games on 3 monitors.


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## walkngdude (Oct 18, 2004)

Thanks for the input guys.

Funny, I listen to PC Perspective and Maxim PC's podcasts and they're always telling people that the best upgrade is a SSD. I guess they could be getting kickbacks from Intel for selling their junk but the pitch sounds mighty appealing.

I use Corel Paint Shop and Adobe Photoshop a lot and it takes these suites a good 3 or 4 minutes to load from the programs menu. If a SSD will get these programs to instant open it's worth a lot to me. 

Some of the photo filters can take 10 minutes. I think this is a RAM, CPU and scratch memory issue. It's a balancing act I haven't looked at yet but speed outweighs cash here also.

And for the size of my OS drive, on my last build the Raptors in raid 0 proved too unstable for me so I put the OS on one 74G drive. Even after moving My Documents, most of the programs, scratch file and what ever I could dig up to another drive keeping that drive reasonably free was a constant battle for me. 

I experiment with a lot of software so I think I build up a lot of junk in my system that's hard to track down without just re-installing the whole system.

I do enjoy games and want to keep that totally open also.

I think it'll be about $2065 for the motherboard, I7-930, x25-m160, RAM, 1 - Radeon 5870, Windows Ultimate Full and a 750w PCU.

I have a case and a Corsair h50 water block/cooler thingy the wife bought me.

I want to be under $3000 but I might want a 3 LCD stand also. So if a single 5870 will run three monitors strong with the little adapter thing that's cool. But in two years when the new must have game comes out will I be kicking myself because I can't even play the Demo?

I payed $3G for my last rig and it was strong for 5 years. I baught the wife a ASUS M70vseries laptop a year ago for I think $1500 and today it has issues.

WhatdoIgottado move to Lenix OS to get a stable platform? Then there's no software options...

Whatever, thanks for the input guys and let me know what you think.

Mark


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Your current P4 is the reason PS and Paint Shop take so long to load CS3/4 loves to run on Quad core CPU's it's processing power and ram that will reduce the load times.

For Cad/PS machines I've found the WD 640gig Black drives to work well, like Raptor drives SSD's are faster by Milliseconds their real strength is in durability for laptops and portable devices where shock damage is an issue.

I don't see Linux as the answer either it has some interesting features but when you start to get into any thing above normal use it seems you need to learn how to be a programmer to be able to do it.

Windows 7 has been the stablest thing I've see in a long time from either side.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

walkngdude said:


> Thanks for the input guys.
> 
> Funny, I listen to PC Perspective and Maxim PC's podcasts and they're always telling people that the best upgrade is a SSD. I guess they could be getting kickbacks from Intel for selling their junk but the pitch sounds mighty appealing.


Any type of media uses advertising for income. They're not junk, just priced high until sales increase.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

I just did a quick test, by no means definitive, or indicative of program loading times across all programs. Aside from the fast windows loading time, I wanted to try something that's fairly slow loading from windows. Both OS's are win7 32bit. So, I racked up Links2003. With a WD Black 640GB., links loaded to the main menu in 17 seconds. Rebooted into the same OS on a different drive. The Intel X25-M got to the same main menu in 8 seconds. The difference in progs like photoshop, I dunno, don't have it, but, I'd say there will be a difference, and it will be very noticable. Not just a difference in benchmarks, like so many other upgrades.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

So for $350(cost over WD drive) you save 9 seconds?


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

$39 per second saved.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Numbers are so much fun to skew eh.


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## McNinja (Jun 22, 2008)

I'm sure this would be a better option. Its about as fast as the 10,000 RPM drives

Western Digital RE4 WD1503FYYS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive 
$250

Or this?

Western Digital RE3 WD5002ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive 
$90

or even this?


Western Digital RE3 WD7502ABYS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive 
$130


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

They're a decent drive a little noisier then the black drives and they are faster with a decent reliability record.


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## PRSF (Jul 11, 2008)

WD Caviar Black is the smart choice

I have a WD Caviar Blue as my back up drive, works great, but I would really only want a Black as my boot up drive, anything else would be secondary, and not to hold my only copy of important data, one copy on my black, the other on blue/green

I currently have 2 x 1 TB drives, they are getting pretty full, once I need to get something else I'm going to get a 2 TB WD Caviar Green and put my Caviar Blue internally.

I second not getting an SSD right now, I'm waiting until they get a little more stable and for the prices to drop dramatically, I want atleast a 128 GB as my boot drive, and they are just retardly expensive right now, and for the small gain, just not worth the price right now. I would also like to wait till more SATA III SSDs come out, even though there isn't a huge gain over SATA II SSDs at this time


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## McNinja (Jun 22, 2008)

I have the Caviar black 500gb 16mb cache as my main drive. Its very nice and speedy for my taste. I got it on sale too at my local PC shop fro $66 too. It does does it job well and you can notice a couple seconds shaved off in the process.


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