I'm starting a thread about my planned beastly PC, and given that I haven't actually constructed a PC from parts since I was a teenager, the tech questions section seemed to be an ideal home for it. I'm bound to f*** something up along the way. :/ I'll update this over time as I make progress with my build construction. I won't be able to purchase the most expensive components of this thing until later this year/ early next year, but I going to start buying some of the less expensive components now. The tiny case I've been using has been bugging me more and more, and I think that I am ready to upgrade. I may buy the case this week. So, here are the pieces I've decided to use: Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Blue http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119213&cm_re=haf-_-11-119-213-_-Product **purchased** Motherboard: MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574 **purchased** CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070&cm_re=2600K-_-19-115-070-_-Product **purchased** Added Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus cooler for CPU, as the stock cooler was reported to be awful. GPU: XFX HD-699A-ENF9 Radeon HD 6990 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150529&Tpk=xfx%206990 RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-231-455&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2 **purchased** PSU: CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX1200 (CMPSU-1200AX) 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139014 **purchased** HDD/SDD: **UNDECIDED** *I have a 1TB Hitachi HDD I can use while I'm figuring out what I want to do regarding the HDD situation. My placeholder GPU will be the XFX 6950 until next year. I got a decent deal on it with 2 games. I bought the case, motherboard, CPU, PSU, and 8GB of DDR3 1866 RAM, which was was on sale shipped for about $85. This type of RAM may lead to some headaches for me, as you evidently have to change some settings for it to work properly. I'm not sure what I'm going to do regarding hard drives given that SSDs are becoming available in more respectable sizes at much better prices. I've been trying to avoid buying them for as long as possible. Summary of Current Components: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge XFX 6950 1GB G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 MSi P67A-GD65 Motherboard Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200 Cooler Master HAF 932 Blue Hitachi 1TB HDD
An Asrock motherboard? Ewwwww Asus Sabertooth P67 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131702&Tpk=asus%20sabertooth%20p67 MSI P67A-GD65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574 Gigabyte P67 UD4 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128478 Don't buy a Cooler Master case. They're overpriced and shitty. Antec Nine Hundred http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021 Are you still thinking about getting a 6990? AMD recommends a 1200W PSU. Corsair AX1200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139014 or for more sane video cards, the Seasonic X750 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=seasonic%20x750
What's wrong with the ASRock mobo? It is rated very highly on newegg. I've seen positive reviews of it. That Antec case is a mid-tower. I don't think I could fit a 6990 into it.
I haven't seen one in years but they used to be the very 'basic' range of motherboards usually with features missing. Probably last saw one 6-7 years ago and it wasn't up to much at all. They could have come on leaps and bounds since then but the poor quality of their old boards would put me off personally.
It doesn't normally make sense to buy the parts over time since everything depreciates in value. The memory might be the only exceptions since memory prices fluctuate so much and they are very low right now. You can buy the PSU early too but wait for a good deal. I like all your parts. Wouldn't change anything.
Asrock is a trash brand. Their boards are mostly ghetto, bargain basement stuff, and I wouldn't trust them to properly support their boards. For motherboards, stick to the big three, Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte. At least if something goes wrong, you're dealing with a real company.
A few years ago they made a couple of high end boards that benched faster than anything else. Not sure where they stand now but I'm sure they are fine.
I will probably buy the case, motherboard, and CPU this year. I already bought the RAM for a very nice price. These parts I can use NOW assuming my PSU is adequate. I can just put the 6950 I bought into it and have a very respectable rig. It's the 6990 and PSU that I'm most likely to put off for now. I would guess those two parts are going to cost me >$900.
There's nothing mega about Asrock. They're a dumpster brand like ECS. I've had enough bad motherboard experiences with fly by night brands to know to tell you to avoid anything not made by Asus, MSI, or Gigabyte like the plague. Intel is decent too, and they have excellent support, but their boards tend to be expensive and very basic in terms of features.
I've read through comments suggesting the same about the brand, but this particular board seems to be an exception to the rule. I'll do some more research before I buy the board. If I can get away with my 650W PSU for the XFX 6950 and i7-2600K for now, I'll put off upgrading the PSU until I get the 6990.
Never think that way. I could tell you a horror story about a $200 nforce 2 board I bought from Chaintech, which according to HardOCP was supposed to have been the exception for what was an otherwise fly by night brand. A BIOS update from their website killed my board a few months later and they refused to replace the board under warranty. Their tech support consisted of one dude who spoke Chingrish. Stay away from the trash brands. Just because they make one board that benches well doesn't mean they can support their stuff worth a crap. A classic n00b mistake when building a computer is cheaping out on the motherboard, and then wondering why their PC isn't stable. Your motherboard should be one of the most expensive things in your computer, not the least expensive.
@cmdrmonkey I'll go ahead and switch to the MSi you suggested, then. It is about the same price with the rebate. Is MSi's support pretty solid? I don't know that I've ever purchased one of their products. I know they have a good rep in general, and I frequently seen people raving about their Afterburner overclocking program.
I haven't used MSI in a while. I had a short stint with a higher end MSI board though. It was one of their nforce boards.. Neo2 Platinum I think? It was for my Athlon 64. CMOS was faulty. Apparently it was at its end of life. Newegg took it back, refunded my money and that was the end of that.. I guess that story just tells you that Newegg is good on returns and exchanges. Anyhow, that board I got was rated really high, except of course, this was back in like 2006 or something. Anyhow, a midtower is fine. But if you want to go full tower, just realize full towers are freakin huge. http://i.imgur.com/0eFDR.jpg That's my Antec Twelve hundred with an ATI Radeon 4870 1GB. I even fit that video card in a mini atx case. Mid towers are fine. Also remember that placement of the connectors on mobo's are a factor too. I had a mobo that had the sata connectors in front of the pci express slot. That was a horrible design. Basically the head of the video card would interfere with the sata cable connections if you used specific sata slots.
My advise is to just read the case manual (if you bought a good one that is) and follow it, using whatever screws it says on whatever parts. My Coolermaster HAF came with a very detailed schematic that really helped since I felt a little behind the times myself. Here is a nice coolermaster case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119196 for 69.99 if you buy it today, otherwise it's 79.99 and might not be worth it :x I'm a sucker for sales lol... I also suggest you buy this pc tools set http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899261003&cm_re=pc_tool_kit-_-99-261-003-_-Product Best of all you get that multi-cubical case thingy you can put all the extra screws you get in plus you get a friggen loooooong screw driver. I can think of a multiple number of things to do with that. specially since my tower HSF is so top heavy and must be screwed in to amd mobos. Keep in mind, certain HSF's will need their own backplate installed on the mobo BEFORE you put it in the case. If worse comes to worse (or if your making one of those stupid SFF- Small Formfactor- comps) you should probably just find a local shop to assemble it for you. You'll probably just do the maintenance so either way... but just sayin, local shops are the next best thing to sweat shops when your desperate! They work for cheap.
Asus customer support is pretty terrible. On many occasions you don't get any answer at all, you ever registered on their forums? It's a ghost town! But I will say this. I recently had a problem with my Asus router and when I called them I got a quick and knowledgeful answer right away. It seemed like a common question (though not in any faq I'd seen...) based on my DSL service and Access Points and what not. Not only did they put the blame on someone else (*.* like everybody else did) but the tech also told me what my isp had to do to get the router to work. In at least 3 other cases though I got no help with my Asus video/ sound cards and mobos. My suggestion to this is just to get a popular enthusiast board where other users can help you with it. Or ask a local shop what they use and use that. You'll always have a decent techie on hand, and if he can't help you than call in and you MIGHT get an answer that way. I doubt any mobo company has an unblemished tech support record like Dell.
I bought an nforce 2 board and an 8800 GTS from MSI. I couldn't tell you about their support because I never had trouble with either product. The MSI board replaced the Chaintech and worked fine for a year or so until I upgraded from an Athlon XP to a Pentium 4 Northwood. The 8800 GTS worked great for four years until I sold it to get a GTX 460.
you probly bought the same board that I did the one that came with that cool little screwdriver xD lol it was like the only board I could find that worked with my Athlon Mobile.
I know that they are huge. I've always been stuck with tiny cases, and I'm eager to try out one of the gigantic cases. Given that I'm considering buying a 12" dual GPU card next year, now seems to be a great time to try one out.
I bought my RAM today because it was on sale. I now have 8 GB of high speed DDR3 RAM and nothing to plug it into. I think I have most of those tools, but that is a nice price for a tool kit like that. I'll consider picking it up.
How much are you looking to spend? Probably the two best gigantic cases out right now are the Corsair 800D and the Lian Li Armorsuit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139001&Tpk=corsair%20800d http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112159 Those are both worthy of a Mega Rig.