Neshi

I'm a little early, asking questions about a build I am gonna do in January. But I'd like time to really get this right, and I want the best bang for the buck that I spend. I am a student after all.
I will use this build primarily for study purposes, that means Autodesk Revit Architecture, for my architectural study and some occasional gaming. Although I like the games that I play, to look good.

The problem is, this build will be bought in New Zealand, and their selection isn't the best. I'd like to buy as much as possible (like the whole case) at one store.
So I've been looking at a cheap, reliable, NZ hardware store and the only good one I could find is computerlounge.co.nz
So if you really want to help me, it might be a good idea to see what is sold there..
For example, DDR3 memory brands: only Corsair, Kingston, Super Talent and Team Group.

I don't know if I should go with AMD or with Intel for this build, but I'm sure you guys can advise me on this part.
I made this list already, please leave some feedback. Everything is changeable, and I can take criticism!

COMBO DEAL: MB(9948): Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4 Intel P55 DDR3 PCI-E, CPU(9848): Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield 2.80GHz 8MB , RAM(10640): Supertalent P55 Dual Channel Kit 2000 8-8-8-24 $1,025.29
$1,025.29
Gigabyte ATI HD5870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E $729.00
$729.00
Silverstone Raven RV02-W ATX Tower Case $299.00
$299.00
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 High-Performance CPU Cooler 1366/775 $149.00
$149.00
Corsair X32 SSD 32GB 2.5in Indilinx MLC (Solid State Disk), SATA II $279.00
$279.00
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200.12 32MB SATA II $139.00
$139.00
Corsair HX750 750W Modular Power Supply $305.00
$305.00
ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 Channel PCI Express 2.0 $159.00
$159.00
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 $95.00
$95.00
Logitech MX400 Performance Laser Mouse $69.00
$69.00
Logitech Z-2300 THX Speakers System with Subwoofer $225.00
$225.00
LG GH-22LS50 22X LightScribe Black SATA DVD Writer $75.00
$75.00

Benq G2400WD 24" monitor
(not included in price)
Includes savings of $220.40

TOTAL inc GST $3548.30

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Zardon

are you comfortable with overclocking or are you going to be running stock?

Neshi

yes, I'm quite sure I will be overclocking.

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

kris23

looks good to me! all good parts and brands

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IvanV

Since it belongs to the same BenQ G series as mine (G2220HDA), check out the monitor before you buy it. Considering the price, I'm really happy with my monitor, but there's no denying that it's got really poor vertical viewing angles and the level of black is always slightly too high for a completely dark room. I see that the model you chose is significantly more expensive and that it's got a faster and therefore different panel so it probably doesn't suffer from the same weaknesses, but since you'll be investing a lot more money I thought I'd bring this to your attention just in case.

Other than that, it looks lovely, have fun.

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If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

Zardon

i will pretty much agree its a wicked, well rounded system. Also in my favourite chassis and has my favourite cooler on it. thumbs up from me.

If you can stretch a tiny bit further I would look at adding a cheap SSD as a boot drive and using that 1TB for all your storage needs. Check out the news post on the 40GB Kingston http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news/191...-v-series.html. Between now and when you build the system however, there will probably be more SSD options, but I strongly recommend you contemplate one as a boot drive regardless (whatever SSD is the best value at the time).

Neshi

one of the major uncertain things about the build is the motherboard. I am never sure which brand to take, what version is good etc.
I will probably take an Nvidea card for the use of physX so a second pci-e slot is needed... Although this Gigabyte board I chose looks quite good regarding features and is quite complete, would there be a better choice? Or is this really a good platform to build the system on?

Question about the ram.. I have no experience with it, and I don't see anyone sell it in the Netherlands.. Is that brand reliable? Or would it be a better bet to go with one of the larger names: Corsair or Kingston. Although the prices for those are higher, and these Super Talent have one of the tighter timings on these modules.

And what about the audio. Right now I got the audigy 2 ZD + logitech Z2300. As far as I know, these produce a great sound quality.. although sometimes a little heavy on the bass.
I'd like to maintain the same quality (better is always better) but not spend too much money on it.
The soundcard + speakers I chose come in around 350 NZ$, so that is quite acceptable.. reviews on the net look good, but has anyone here have experience with them?

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

kris23

supertalent actually is pretty decent RAM.... based in California and its somewhat small so they're mainly a US only company with some stuff going out.....

good warranty and prices usually.....

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Neshi

thanks for clarifying that kris!

I'ver got another question.. Would I be better off with an AMD system or is this Intel build my best option? This is regarding bang for buck

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

kris23

bang for buck..... you're pretty much set but i would get an i5 750... but thats just me..

you can also shave off some money by getting a Phenom II 955 or 965... going to DDR2... and getting a 790X or 790GX based board...

personally i wouldnt do it.... the versatility of having both crossfire and SLI is just awesome!

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simonw

If you can get a Samsung F3 HDD in NZ, I would go with that. The F1's were already highly regarded and the F3 is even better.

Neshi

But how does AMD vs Intel with rendering stuff and designing 3D? Has one of the two a clear advantage?

I've looked at the 750. Isn't the lower amount of cache and the lack of hyperthreading not a drawback, as I will be designing and rendering stuff?

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Zardon

If you want to do designing and more intensive 3d work you picked right the first time Neshi, as much as I really like the 955 and 965BE, the core i7's really have the upper hand in this sector.

moshpit

I will second this suggestion. Having an SSD boot drive make the whole build FEEL faster all together. The thing is this, using a spindle hard drive in a new build for the OS means that if your previous system had a similar speed hard drive in it, the whole system doesn't feel much faster then the previous system, even if the CPU, GPU and memory all changed radically. Yeah, your benchmarks and games will run faster for sure, but the actually FEELING of speed increase when moving around the desktop or just even starting up Windows will feel pokey in comparison to an SSD based OS drive.

Having JUST gone through this whole same upgrade process, I have to heartily recommend following Zardon's advise above. He's right.

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Ci7 2600K @5Ghz/8Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer/Asus Sabertooth P67/EVGA GTX580 Black Ops/2x Patriot Torqx 128G(OS)/1Tb WD Black
Ci7 920/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2(OS)/2x 2Tb WD Green
Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper II/EVGA P55 SLI/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2 (wife's rig)

Bolletje

SuperTalent has decent RAM and SSD's. I think they are a well-known brand in the USA.


I don't know shops located in New Zealand. You can give any so we can compare prices.

Neshi

in the first post I mentioned Computer Store in Auckland - Computer Lounge
It has everything I want in my build, so I could order everything in 1 go (which has my preference), but it might be a little pricey.

I just put my whole list in their system exluding monitor and exchanging the M-Audio sound with the Logitech Z2300 (i love that thing) and the total was 2850 NZ$ already..
that's €1450 or $2100

PriceSpy - Compare prices for PC parts from New Zealand's online retailers is a good site to compare prices from all different shops.


Anyway, added a cheap SSD drive to the build, included a dvd/cd-burner, a mouse and a keyboard.

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

JaccoW

And I will third it. An SSD will make the pc feel a whole lot faster.
Some small examples are quicker bootup, no longer having to do second click when going to my favourites in IE8, pretty much instant boot up of some programs that need to load a lot of stuff, and being the first online in a cold, dark, online multiplayer session.

comp_ali

Nice build , Why floppy drive though ? No one uses them now

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asedsa

Hi Neshi,

My advice is;
- Definitley stay with Intel Core i7 860(I have read so many reviews, benchmarks and Intel always won in gaming, rendering etc. against AMD)
- RAM (be careful with corsair, their some latest series of RAM (cant remember which one but some GT-DDR3) had big problems that Corsair pulled back whole product line from market, but very soon Corsair fixed whole production system. I still prefer Kingston even they had some problematical DDR 2 RAM modules last few years. All I know from my experience that Gigabyte motherboards dont like too much Kingston RAM modules especially when you trying to get max CPU overclock-crashing,bsod,etc. But I still love Gigabyte and Kingston and their productional tradition and quality, even Corsair may be considered as a better supplier)
-last note(do you really need Floppy Drive )

That is all from me,
good luck.

Dybdal

Its looks like a very good build. But what about graphics card? Are you gonna use your 4850 from your current build? or are you gonna need a new 1 of them too?

And good you desided on the ssd. they are great in a good computer. :P

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Im a Danish hardwareheaven addict.

Best stable overclock done:

Neshi

graphic card is added.. thought it was in there already..
thanks for the heads up!

floppy is always nice to have.. that is my experience anyway.
updating bios etc.

I guess I could use a flashdrive for that as well..
hmm.. on second thought.

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

moshpit

Gigabyte boards have the easiest bios flash routine ever. You just put the bios file itself on the the USB flash drive, no flash utilities needed. The bios has the utility built in. You press a hot key during POST and it enters the bios flash utility where you should have access to any flash drives hooked up.

No floppy needed.

__________________
Ci7 2600K @5Ghz/8Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer/Asus Sabertooth P67/EVGA GTX580 Black Ops/2x Patriot Torqx 128G(OS)/1Tb WD Black
Ci7 920/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2(OS)/2x 2Tb WD Green
Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper II/EVGA P55 SLI/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2 (wife's rig)

Zardon

Yeah, gigabyte have a decent system. Intels is even better though, you download the file to the desktop, run it and it reboots and automatically flashes. my skulltrail system had that and it was brilliant. Not so easy on the Nehalem EP system mind you, but ill not get into that here !

moshpit

Yup. All Intel desktop boards are like that. Easy as punch to update. Easy bios updates are the norm now for the most part. Dell's are the same way, just download and run the file, it reports the current bios version and asks if you want to update to new one. Click yes, and it reboots, flashes, and comes back to windows all happy.

__________________
Ci7 2600K @5Ghz/8Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer/Asus Sabertooth P67/EVGA GTX580 Black Ops/2x Patriot Torqx 128G(OS)/1Tb WD Black
Ci7 920/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2(OS)/2x 2Tb WD Green
Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper II/EVGA P55 SLI/Radeon HD5870/750Gb Seagate ES.2 (wife's rig)

JaccoW

However, if you do want a floppy drive (I know I still occasionally use it) you can also look at something like this. A cardreader/floppydrive combo.

A Desire to Game

I would steer clear of this burner. Definitely go SATA and Lightscribe but do not get this LG. The burner itself has software built into the firmware called "Bluebirds" that causes all sorts of problems. I do not own this drive but I have read a lot about it. I was about to buy it for a new build and went with a Lite-On instead.

From several Newegg reviewers:
"When no media is loaded in this drive, the firmware 'simulates' loaded media called 'Bluebirds'. Software that detects whether or not a CD is present will always see media in the drive, even if the drive is empty. The 'Bluebirds' simulated media contains Microsoft Windows executable files that are automatically run by autorun.inf, if you use this drive on your Windows system, you may wind up with software installed. LG supplies a program to fix the drive, but this program is Windows-only, that is, the program runs only on systems that the firmware tries to infect. If your time is worth anything, it is cheaper to toss the drive."

You can update the firmware and it should get rid of Bluebirds. I figured I would save you the hassle and try to warn you first.

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Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, and triple channel memory)

isaak

That graphics card seems a bit expensive...i know you're gonna be in nz (right?) but in australia its ~$500 on umart. you may be able to get some better prices on some things there

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The first step... shall be to lose the way. - Galway Kinnell

Neshi

thanks for the heads-up Desire! appreciate it.
I'll take another look once I am in New Zealand.. the prices might've dropped by then.

I have another question.

I'd like to buy a laptop to take with me to university, to take notes and the like. Type my essays on and whatnot.

So I am in the market for a notebook as well, but I have no idea what to look for.
- How large should the screen be to work with?
- How powerful would it have to be?

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Neshi

bumping the thread, as I edited my last post..

This is my 'new' question..

I'd like to buy a laptop to take with me to university, to take notes and the like. Type my essays on and whatnot. I will have my desktop computer for the heavy stuff.

So I am in the market looking, but I have no idea what to look for.
- How large should the screen be to work with?
- How powerful would it have to be?

Should I just walk in a computer store and look/ask around?

__________________
If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

[hobo]eclipse

maybe check out a nice smaller net book for your traveling, unless u think you'd need more power? you can have the beast at home for the fun fun, and enjoy great portability/battery life with the right net book.