New Rig

[NIM]

I have the opportunity to sell my current machine:

MBO ASUS P5E, X38/ICH9R

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 BOX, (4×2.4GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB, Kentsfield)

Corsair 4GB, 2x2GB, 800 MHz DDR2, XMS2-6400 2x128Mx64non-ECC 240 DIMM, unbuffered, 5-5-5-15, 64Mx8 DRAMs,Two matched CM2X2048-6400C5DHX modules, TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX

nVidia XFX GF8800GT/512MB/Dual DVI/PciEx 600M

so I plan to buy myself something new. As I'm not much into hardware lately, I've got some recommendations on my new machine, so I'd like to hear a word from you guys.

So far, I got myself a new case and power supply.

Antec P183 Midi Tower Case

Corsair HX650W Modular PSU

Here's what I plan to buy..

Asus P7P55D MBO

Intel Core i5 750, 2,66 GHz, Quad Core

Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C9, 6GB, DDR3

NVidia XFX GTS250, 1GB

LiteOn IHAS124 DVDRW

What should I change from the list?

BTW. I currently have Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-212, should I replace it with LiteOn or even Plextor, which is more expensive, or just to stick with Pioneer?

Cheers.

Mr_Smartepants suggested ATI. For the price I can get HD 5770 instead of HD 5870, so I will take this into consideration.

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/graphiccards/HD%205000series/5770.aspx

[Mr_Smartepants]

You're going to see a major speed boost from that mobo/cpu combo! But be warned that Intel won't be releasing top-spec cpus for any socket-1156 mobos IIRC.

Also, I'd dump the nvidia card and go with ATI HD5870 which is much more powerful while requiring less power from your PSU (and runs cooler).

I'd go with a Samsung SH-S223L which offers Lightscribe support and only costs $29.

Personally, you can't go wrong with any of the parts listed on MaximumPC's Best of the Best list.

[NIM]

Should I buy another MBO considering, as you said, that Intel won't be releasing top-spec CPU's for 1156 socket MBO's. Should I go with socket 1366, although those are still to expensive.

So you're saying that this processor is much better than my current one Intel Quad Q6600.

As for the graphic card, I can only see that HD 5870 is 3x more expensive than Nvidia GTS 250.

Similar ATI card I can get for the money is HD 5750 or HD 5770.

As for DVD drive, I really don't need the Lightscribe support, but I will check that Samsung.

[LUZR4LIFE]

From what I see the 9800GTX and the GTS 250 are equal. The 9800 is a little cheaper. But the HD 4870 is better than the GTS 260 and the 5770 is equal with the GTS 260. The 4870 is a little faster than the 5770 but doesn't supprt DirectX 11

I like the Mobo and CPU.

I don't need to say anything about the RAM, it speaks for it's self.

LiteOn is doing pretty good right now.

Edited February 17, 2010 by LUZR4LIFE

[NIM]

Thx LZR.

I'm close to take ATI for the first time in my life

BTW, If I take ATI 5770, which one is better:

http://www.xfxforce....eries/5770.aspx

The 'open' type with larger fan or 'closed' one with the smaller fan. I currently have 'closed' type of XFX 8800GT and I think it is louder than my previous 'open' type card.

[LUZR4LIFE]

From what I can see they run around the same temps so I think it is preference, I like the closed one personally.

I like nVida myself, but ATI is moving up like AMD. But AMD only owns the dual core market right now.

[NIM]

From what I can see they run around the same temps so I think it is preference, I like the closed one personally.

I like nVida myself, but ATI is moving up like AMD. But AMD only owns the dual core market right now.

Yeah, closed one looks better, but that small fan can be louder than the big one. I'll have to find more info on this subject.

[Mr_Smartepants]

So you're saying that this processor is much better than my current one Intel Quad Q6600.

Oh HELL yeah!

I have a Q6600 too and from what I've read the i5/i7 offers a 50%-100% increase in speed.

If you have the opportunity, go for it. I plan on waiting because my wife doesn't want me to spend the money and I want to see where Intel firms it's roadmap.

[NIM]

Anyone know how much power ATI 5770 consumes?

[LUZR4LIFE]

18 watts at idle and 108 at full load.

[ccl0]

this should give a general idea of ' total system' usage http://www.anandtech...spx?i=3658&p=13

Edited February 18, 2010 by ccl0

[LUZR4LIFE]

this should give a general idea of ' total system' usage http://www.anandtech...spx?i=3658&p=13

I got the info from

I guess he is wrong.

[NIM]

So basically 4 watts less than GTS 250. I was expecting a lot more when you guys said that it will consume less power

I hope that my new Corsair HX 650W will be sufficient for the new system.

[Mr_Smartepants]

You should be fine. The boot is the time when the system consumes the most power because all the hard drives are trying to spin up at once and the processor is at 100%. Gaming is another high-power time because the CPU and GPU are typically running at 100%.

Your GPU will be consuming more power at load than your new CPU!

My Q6600 rig with 8800GTS is only running off a SeaSonic 500W PSU with no problems at all. I only build with SeaSonic PSU's now because of their superior build quality.

[ccl0]

I got the info from

I guess he is wrong.

lol i hate that guy. he's got an annoying way of talking about things

i think your numbers were correct. just for the card. but total system power usage (cpu + whatever other hardware is running in the case) is what i had linked. of course those numbers will fluctuate depending on system specifications, but it still gives a general idea. this was the rig they did the testing on http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658&p=4 so its pretty close i would figure. so in other words i think n1k's power supply will be plenty

So basically 4 watts less than GTS 250. I was expecting a lot more when you guys said that it will consume less power

I hope that my new Corsair HX 650W will be sufficient for the new system.

the load numbers are different. a t load it was showing roughly 44 watts less than the gts 250, which seems like a good amount to me

Edited February 19, 2010 by ccl0

[LUZR4LIFE]

You should be good on the power N1K. I have a 500W and I have 4 internal HDD's, a HD4770 and 5 fans.

[NIM]

I've found a small price difference between these two boards, but not sure if I can find some REAL diffrences.

Asus P7P55D and P7P55D Pro

I see that pro has one PCI-E slot less than no pro version.

Also, I see that Pro has a SLI support, besides Crossfire, which I don't plan to use anyway.

Any reason to buy PRO version?

Also, this MBO supports dual channel and apparently I will not use dual channel, so will this be OK? Sorry for this, but I'm a bit rusty on hardware these days.

As for processor, someone told me that i5 processor has some graphic related features or something similar, but I really wasn't paying attention, so please inform me about this.

I will take Samsung burner as Mr. Smartepants suggested, even though it hasn't got good grades from the buyers here in Croatia, but I will take it anyway as it is very cheap.

I've also found a Sapphire Ati RAdeon HD 5770 VAPOR-X graphic card which outperforms 'normal' version of HD 5770 by far.

http://www.overclock...verclock/10.htm

One more thing about the processor. Is this one maybe better or? CPU Desktop Core i5 660 3.333GHz (4MB,Clarkdale,73W,S1156,Cooling Fan) box. Similar price actually.

Although it also has two different versions.

One has HDTV+HDCP, the other doesn't. The rest seems the same. Any info on this?

[Mr_Smartepants]

Asus P7P55D and P7P55D Pro

Differences.

Pro:

2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16 or dual at x8/x8 mode)

2 x PCI

- vIMC: Adjustable IMC voltage at 0.00625V increment

1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output

1 x 2-port USB and eSATA module

Non-Pro:

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16)

3 x PCI

BD audio layer Content Protection

- vIMC: 97-step IMC voltage control

That's it.

So go Pro ONLY if you plan on going full x16 dual GPU (SLI or CrossFire) or you need to sacrifice one PCI slot to gain an extra PCIx slot. Otherwise, save your money.

[NIM]

Thanks mate, can you please check other questions?

Cheers.

[Jatin Beniwal]

Intel i5 processor have an inbuilt graphics chip set of 900Mhz core speed fair enough to play BR Disc.

[Mr_Smartepants]

Actually, it's only the newer Clarksdale-based chips (i3 & i5) that have the built-in graphics core. In order to use them effectively, you need a compatible H55/H57 motherboard with the proper graphics connectors to use the graphics core.

These are ideal for low-cost integrated solutions or HTPC systems, NOT for gaming. Nearly all H55 or H57 mobos are micro-atx.

[NIM]

Yes, processor core of 'my' i5 which I plan to buy is Lynnfield.

[NIM]

Seems I'll have to go with the P7P55D LE version as P7P55D isn't available here, at least for now.

That one is even cheaper, and I've seen it has less SATA ports, but nothing more. What actually 'LE' stands for??

'Less Expensive'

I've found a cheaper store and I can have P7P5D-E EVO board for only 17$ more than P7P5D.

Hopefully I will take that one. Should be better than P7P5D.

[Guest snakecracker]

I'm looking to build a new rig....

Kinda like yours N1K

Same MoBo (P7P55D) and CPU.

Also, I'm going for the HD 5850 which I was reading in a magazine (custompc.co.uk) that is very good at most stuff.

And I'm going for about the same amount of memory as you.

Plus I'm going to customize the PC Case (Coolermaster HAF 932)

I'm also adding a water cooling to the CPU, one of them all-In-one CPU liquid coolers.

I didn't know about the Icores having graphics in with it?

Edited February 23, 2010 by snakecracker

[NIM]

Here are several pics.

On one of the pics, you'll see my old components in Chieftec MID tower where everything fitted great, no problem with the graphic card/disk mess, as I had with Antec case.

On other pictures, you can see that this ATI card fits better than my old NVidia 8800GT in Antec case.

I can say, that I'm very satisfied with the speed, also, updating ASUS Bios is really simple. You can boot in EZflash by typing ALT+F2 and once the app loads, provide the bios file on the local/usb disk or flash drive and that's it. I was very surprised BIOS update can also be done within Windows, but I haven't tried that.

Haven't tried anything yet TBH, as I've just finished this setup.

Will let you know more later on.