Hey all.
I've been looking at computer parts recently in an effort to replace my very old (but still mostly functional) desktop. Here's what I've come up with as a possibility, and I'm looking for feedback. I can get the setup below for about 2400 dollars, which is about what I'm looking to stick with (though there is a bit of wiggle room there if there's a good reason to spend a bit more).
Case: Thermaltake Spedo Full Tower
Extra case fan: 3 ball bearing fans
Power supply: 750 W Corsair CMPSU-750TX
CPU: Intel Core i7-920, 2.66Ghz, 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
Cooling Fan: Intel LGA1366 certified CPU fan & heatsink
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel X58 chipset, SLI/CrossfireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel CCR3/1600 SATA w/ eSATA, dual GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, 7.1 Audio
Memory: 12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory (Kingston)
VIDEO Card 1: ATI Radeon HD 5850 PCI-E 16X 1GB Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
VIDEO Card 2: ATI Radeon HD 5850 PCI-E 16X 1GB Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
Hard Drive: 128GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk
Optical Drive: LG 22X DVD +- R + CD+-R/RW Dual Layer
Sound: High Definition on-board 7.1 Audio
Speakers: 600W PMPO Subwoofer stereo speakers
Network: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
Keyboard: XtremeGear multimedia/internet USB keyboard
Mouse: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Button gaming mouse
Professional wiring with High performance Thermal Compound on CPU
Microsoft Windows 7 Home premium 64-bit
For the most part my gaming at the moment is World of Warcraft, but I'd like the opportunity and capacity to try some of the new PC games coming out.
WoW won't take advantage of the extra cores on the Core i7, but those cores will allow me to do other things at the same time without a loss of performance. Dual Radeon cards work in Crossfire, which WoW takes advantage of, and the memory is in 2 sets of 3 sticks to take advantage of triple channel.
At the moment I have an 80GB hard drive in my old PC, and it's not full, so I feel that the 128GB SSD will be more than sufficient for my storage needs. (I may pick up a larger, standard spinning hard drive down the road if I decide I need extra storage space for things I don't use on a regular basis.) I did end up going with the slightly cheaper Kingston SSD instead of an Intel, but I'm certainly not set on that if an Intel one is demonstrably better.
I'm not going to be doing much in the way of media editing, though I do intend to watch movies and play my music collection.
I'm not 100% sure about the case (may be overkill) or whether or not I"ll end up needing the extra fans.
I also went with 2 Radeon 5850 cards over the slightly less expensive 4890s and 5770s. The research I've done says that this is probably the way to go.
I haven't included a monitor in the above setup, since I may be sticking with my current desktop CRT (19", 1280x1024 if I recall correctly) if I can't find a good, cheap LCD at a better resolution. I'm certainly open to suggestions there too.
I'd like my build to be potentially upgradeable as well. My current desktop was an econo-box to begin with, so upgradeability and forward-compatibility are important to me.
If anyone has some insight or suggestions, that would be great.
Thanks.
I've been looking at computer parts recently in an effort to replace my very old (but still mostly functional) desktop. Here's what I've come up with as a possibility, and I'm looking for feedback. I can get the setup below for about 2400 dollars, which is about what I'm looking to stick with (though there is a bit of wiggle room there if there's a good reason to spend a bit more).
Case: Thermaltake Spedo Full Tower
Extra case fan: 3 ball bearing fans
Power supply: 750 W Corsair CMPSU-750TX
CPU: Intel Core i7-920, 2.66Ghz, 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366
Cooling Fan: Intel LGA1366 certified CPU fan & heatsink
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel X58 chipset, SLI/CrossfireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel CCR3/1600 SATA w/ eSATA, dual GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, 7.1 Audio
Memory: 12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory (Kingston)
VIDEO Card 1: ATI Radeon HD 5850 PCI-E 16X 1GB Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
VIDEO Card 2: ATI Radeon HD 5850 PCI-E 16X 1GB Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
Hard Drive: 128GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk
Optical Drive: LG 22X DVD +- R + CD+-R/RW Dual Layer
Sound: High Definition on-board 7.1 Audio
Speakers: 600W PMPO Subwoofer stereo speakers
Network: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
Keyboard: XtremeGear multimedia/internet USB keyboard
Mouse: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Button gaming mouse
Professional wiring with High performance Thermal Compound on CPU
Microsoft Windows 7 Home premium 64-bit
For the most part my gaming at the moment is World of Warcraft, but I'd like the opportunity and capacity to try some of the new PC games coming out.
WoW won't take advantage of the extra cores on the Core i7, but those cores will allow me to do other things at the same time without a loss of performance. Dual Radeon cards work in Crossfire, which WoW takes advantage of, and the memory is in 2 sets of 3 sticks to take advantage of triple channel.
At the moment I have an 80GB hard drive in my old PC, and it's not full, so I feel that the 128GB SSD will be more than sufficient for my storage needs. (I may pick up a larger, standard spinning hard drive down the road if I decide I need extra storage space for things I don't use on a regular basis.) I did end up going with the slightly cheaper Kingston SSD instead of an Intel, but I'm certainly not set on that if an Intel one is demonstrably better.
I'm not going to be doing much in the way of media editing, though I do intend to watch movies and play my music collection.
I'm not 100% sure about the case (may be overkill) or whether or not I"ll end up needing the extra fans.
I also went with 2 Radeon 5850 cards over the slightly less expensive 4890s and 5770s. The research I've done says that this is probably the way to go.
I haven't included a monitor in the above setup, since I may be sticking with my current desktop CRT (19", 1280x1024 if I recall correctly) if I can't find a good, cheap LCD at a better resolution. I'm certainly open to suggestions there too.
I'd like my build to be potentially upgradeable as well. My current desktop was an econo-box to begin with, so upgradeability and forward-compatibility are important to me.
If anyone has some insight or suggestions, that would be great.
Thanks.