Project: Rebuild

skidude

skidude

Active Member
Alright people here is the deal. Today I sold my desktop computer to my friend, so currently I am down to just my laptop. However, there is now an excuse for me to build a completely new desktop from scratch. What makes it pretty damn exciting and worth the title of a "project" is that I haven't build a new computer from the ground up for myself in probably 2 1/2 years. So, as is custom for me, I am going big, and I'm going to try and spec out a rig which will last a while.

This brings me to my first point, my budget. I can squeeze no more than probably $1750 for this project. This includes everything in the tower itself, no external peripherals (no monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers) as well as no soundcard since I salvaged my X-Fi from my old desktop before I sold it. As many of you know, I am a pretty heavy gamer and I'm going to be playing Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, etc. and I want to play them well at about 1280x1024.

Along with the horsepower to back it up, I want my computer to look good. Nothing overly flashy or stupid, but I want it to look sleek (if you know what I mean) with all matching colors, only one color of LED, and just an overall badass look which will make this PC up there with the best of the best in terms of looks. I plan on painstakingly hiding cables to the best of my ability, maximizing airflow without making too much noise (no watercooling, please).

I'm pretty much throwing this out to all of you here at CF to critique my base build which I've put together over the past few days, make suggestions and (please!) put points to back up why one component is better/worse than the other. I want to do things 100% right this time and make this a PC which I will love for a while. Anyway, here is what I've got so far:

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041

Motherboard
EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024

GPU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130365

RAM
4GB Corsair DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184

PSU
Thermaltake W0131RU 850W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153043

Case
Antec 900
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

Hard Drive
500GB Western Digital 7200RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

DVD-RW Drive
Samsung 22x DVD-RW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151171

Cooling
Zalman Fan Controller
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999174

OCZ Memory Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835202003

Tuniq Tower 120 Heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154002


GRAND TOTAL W/OUT SHIPPING: $1,668.87

I consider this to be phase 1 of the project, the planning phase :D

All of this will probably being going down around/before Christmas, but I want to plan and possibly purchase parts now.
 
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Drop one of the HDs and apply that difference to a better processor. Storage is cheap and it is always getting cheaper. You can add more storage later on and get a better processor now.
 
Good point, didn't think of that. Parts list edited accordingly. I went with the Core 2 Quad Q9400 instead of the Q6600. Anyone else have comments on parts on the list or the fact that I chose a Q9400?
 
http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...th=206&zenid=9bc81c14b64c4d0f6b62c4e04385a664 cable sleeving, its a pain to do, but its worth it, if you want individual wires, thats like 1/8" dont really know what the other sizes are for, i think 1/4" might be big enough for the whole 24 pin line, there are guides floating around on the internet on how to do it, 50 feet of 1/8 inch should be enough for the whole power supply in individual cables, as for processor i would say either q9450 or 9550, and look into the thermalright true, with a pair of 120mm yate loons in push/pull
 
When do you plan on building it? Every tech company releases items for xmas which drives down prices and lets new products in. Just FYI.
 
I plan on actually purchasing the parts sometime in early December. And I was going to go with the 9450 but it's out of stock at the moment, it probably will be back in stock when I order. I have a Q9550 in my laptop and it flies, so that's an option as well.
 
well the q9450 is being phased out, thats the reason the q9550 had the price drop and the q9400 came into play, and look on google for charts compairing the thermalright true 120 to the tuniq tower
 
The graphics cards are there because of their price/performance ratio. I may be wrong but I read that two 9800 GX2's outperform two GTX 280's in many cases... and two GX2's cost about the price of one GTX 280.

And yeah I think the Q9550 is where I'm gonna land with the CPU. I'll look into that heatsink as well.
 
it depends they can both easily outpreform each other, the gtx 280 would win in games that dont support sli, the gx2 might suffer a little bit, but im not sure, but at that resolution, i would imagine you could get killer frames with some games maxed out, and the cards are cheap enough, you could probably hock them off on ebay, then get some gtx's if you had the desire
 
That is why I went with a 260, the 280 was just too much money, and the 260 was a good deal. Even when games do support SLI you don't always get the performance increase you paid for.

The Nvidia GPUs are pretty damn powerful, too bad developers can't utilize them right. Then again, when you have to code a game for the masses you can't cater to just one hardware configuration. You sacrifice quality for quantity I suppose in those cases.

My philosophy is, always get the best video card you can for the money, not go down a model or two so you can SLI. That is just what I think though, and I know people will love to scream how wrong I am, but when I look at benchmark scores and then play the same game side by side I don't notice a difference.

At my old job we built gaming rigs and we had some SLI and some non SLI and when playing them you couldn't really tell any difference. Benchmarking it made a difference.
 
My philosophy is, always get the best video card you can for the money, not go down a model or two so you can SLI.
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So would you say it wise for me to choose a single GTX 280? Or a single 9800 GX2? Or hell, maybe even a 4870 X2?
 
skidude said:
So would you say it wise for me to choose a single GTX 280? Or a single 9800 GX2? Or hell, maybe even a 4870 X2?
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I am no longer an ATI fan due to their drivers. Not saying they are bad cards but their drivers have always ticked me off. I would go with a 280 or a 260 and then say 6 months from now if you are still not happy with a single card, purchase another one. I bet you end up paying about the same amount as dual 9800GX2s when the price drops hit.

I don't follow technology as close as i used to, so you would probably have to go seek out current benchmarks to get the most up to date results.
 
DirtyD86 said:
i would replace the 9800GX2's with one 4870x2, and the HSF you have selected with a zalman 9700
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Not sure I agree with you on the HSF, because it looks like that fan is built in. Meaning if it fails you gotta replace the whole thing. I buy HSF that typically use a standard fan that isn't integrated, so if the fan dies I just have to replace a 6 dollar fan on it and call it a day.

It looks built in to me, but it is hard to tell from the pics on newegg.
 
skidude said:
It's $15 cheaper if I replace the two 9800 GX2's with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130366

It sounds like a really good idea, any second opinions?
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With that model, you're paying eVGA an additional $95 to overclock your card. Get this GTX 280 and OC it yourself using eVGA Precision. It literally takes less than 5 minutes to install the program and start overclocking. I'm running the XFX model @ 700/1250/1507, which is stable and higher clocks than the FTW edition.

We all know the 4870X2 is the fastest card on the market, so if it's worth it to you to have the best, go for it. Do not make the 9800GX2 part of your purchasing decision, and definitely don't buy two. It's an old, clunky, power hogging POS and not even worth it at it's current price point. Remember, nVidia will soon discontinue that model (I'm shocked they haven't already), and when they do that, they'll stop releasing updated Quad SLi drivers.

I'd get the GTX 280.
 
We all know the 4870X2 is the fastest card on the market, so if it's worth it to you to have the best, go for it. Do not make the 9800GX2 part of your purchasing decision, and definitely don't buy two. It's an old, clunky, power hogging POS and not even worth it at it's current price point. Remember, nVidia will soon discontinue that model (I'm shocked they haven't already), and when they do that, they'll stop releasing updated Quad SLi drivers.

I'd get the GTX 280.
Click to expand...

Really? Wow I didn't know the 9800 GX2 was close to being discontinued, that will affect my decision for sure. I think I want to stick with either the GTX 280 for the 4870 X2, right now I'm leaning toward the GTX 280 based on the multiple reviews I've read.
 
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