Project: Resurrection

[Eightball]

So as some of you may know (and as some of you don't judging by how many of you KEEP INVITING ME TO PLAY) my computer is somewhat borked right now. I'm fairly sure it's a motherboard issue, and I'm going to have to start "fresh". But instead of keeping with the same parts I had before, I'm planning to do shit right this time--with Caff and a couple of other friends helping in the physical construction of the build. What I ask of BRB now is to evaluate the parts I'm putting together and the parts I'm salvaging from my current rig (may it rest in peace).

Parts I am buying new will be in bold. Parts I already own and will be recycling will be in italics (with a link included for reference).

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Black. I am insistent on having a red-lit computer this time around. I learned through two computers that blue lights are harsh and hard to sleep around. My color selection has more or less left me with only Cooler Master and a few Thermaltake cases. This is the best one, I feel. The black model differs from the regular model in that it has a larger side window, painted black interior, but no side intake fan. If you have other suggestions, may I request that you suggest cases that have bottom mounted power supplies, and definitely with some cable management system.

PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W Modular PSU. I'm also going with Cooler Master for the PSU. Going for overkill per several people's suggestions. I just hope it lights up red. Also I know it's kind of pricey, but the only cheaper ones are of dubious brand names. I'll let the reviews speak for this PSU.

Processor: Intel Core i7-920 2.67Ghz. Although the 950s are getting reasonably priced these days, I think my 920 can still carry its weight if I overclock it.

CPU/Heatsink: Cooler Master V8. Still have it, still works fine. It's red. It will fit. My only concern is that I dont' still have all the Motherboard mounting brackets. Hopefully going from a LGA 1366 to another LGA 1366 will require the same parts and I can just take them.

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Formula. Done with EVGA for motherboards. Had problems with Gigabyte too, so it's time I give ASUS a try. This is honestly the best looking motherboard I've ever seen, and although there aren't many video reviews of it I can locate, the Newegg reviews are swell.

Memory: Corsair Dominator 3x2GB DDR3 1600 SDRAM. Still works okay, looks fine. Tempted to buy another 3 DIMMs but I don't think it'll be necessary. Won't it also increase my boot time?

Video: 2x EVGA GTX 460 1GB. I'm pretty sure my motherboard was the source of most of my SLI woes. I want to see these things' full potential.

Storage: Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 64GB MLC SSD and Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7200rpm 32MB HDD. I think it's about time I try an SSD. It'll act as my boot drive with a few essential applications on it (read: Everything that's not Steam). It's currently out of stock but I think it's worth the wait to get a 64GB drive for $10 more than a 40GB drive.

I'm also salvaging a single optical drive from my old case. Don't see the point in even installing two if I play 90% of my games through Steam. So what do you guys think? Does it look good? I will probably order once the SSD comes into stock if you guys agree with this.

[Versus]

looks goo-HEY EIGHTBALL WANNA PLAY TF2

[KarthXLR]

You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

[CaffeinePowered]

You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

They are not Asus, and therefore, inferior

[KarthXLR]

[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180120#msg180120 date=1287894366]
You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

They are not Asus, and therefore, inferior
[/quote]
They're cheaper, and therefore....uh, well, cheaper.

[CaffeinePowered]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=5089.msg180125#msg180125 date=1287894897]
[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180120#msg180120 date=1287894366]
You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

They are not Asus, and therefore, inferior
[/quote]
They're cheaper, and therefore....uh, well, cheaper.
[/quote]

Never skimp more than you need to on the motherboard, its the core of the computer, Asus has a 3 year warranty and generally a fairly wide range of prices

[Badgerman of DOOM]

[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180128#msg180128 date=1287895138]
[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=5089.msg180125#msg180125 date=1287894897]
[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180120#msg180120 date=1287894366]
You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

They are not Asus, and therefore, inferior
[/quote]
They're cheaper, and therefore....uh, well, cheaper.
[/quote]

Never skimp more than you need to on the motherboard, its the core of the computer, Asus has a 3 year warranty and generally a fairly wide range of prices
[/quote]

And if memory serves the mobo Eightball is getting is among the best on the market.

[HeK]

[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180128#msg180128 date=1287895138]
[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=5089.msg180125#msg180125 date=1287894897]
[quote author=Karth link=topic=5089.msg180120#msg180120 date=1287894366]
You could look at some of MSI's motherboards. They make nice ones from what I've seen.

They are not Asus, and therefore, inferior
[/quote]
They're cheaper, and therefore....uh, well, cheaper.
[/quote]

Never skimp more than you need to on the motherboard, its the core of the computer, Asus has a 3 year warranty and generally a fairly wide range of prices
[/quote]

Gigabyte has been kicking serious ass lately. They weigh far more then their comparable Asus counterparts and offer well written, complete manuals like Asus used to.
I feel Asus has gone down hill a bit since their height 5-7 years ago.

[Kirby]

I've owned 3 MSi motherboards in the past, all Intel builds, and I've got nothing but great things to say about them.

Every one of my PC's stays on pretty much 24/7/365, and they're not often just sitting idle, they get worked. MSi has passed my trial by fire more than once.

This gaming rig PC has currently a Gigabyte Motherboard in it, and it replaced a Gigabyte mobo. They're both very good boards, they're heavy. Which means there is simply MORE there. More copper tracing, less electrical resistance means more efficient performing. They both use solid-state capacitors (Not cheapass Chinese electrolytic ones) which means there's a significantly smaller chance that the mobo will fail after a few years, 'specially with being on for years on end.


I'm all for brand loyalties, (cough Caff Asus) but there does come a point when one must reevaluate those loyalties and test out other brands. I was an Intel fanboi for the past decade, but right now I'm having a kickass time with my 6 core AMD. (Although turning from Intel to AMD may have had something to do with the fact AMD bought ATi, and I'm not going to touch nVidia with a 20' pole.)

[CaffeinePowered]

I'm all for brand loyalties, (cough Caff Asus) but there does come a point when one must reevaluate those loyalties and test out other brands.

When you've gotten ~$1000 in free stuff from them  :-*

[Eightball]

So far I have no brand loyalties, just brand distastes. Anyways, I think I'm actually going for this case instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811119196

It's got dust filters, a handle, and trays for 2.5inch drives. Downside is that it's got a little less cooling. It's smaller, which isn't really bad since it's lighter and cheaper (it has cable management and I'm buying a modular PSU anyways. Thoughts?

[Didzo]

You also lose the sheer size and awesomeness of the rugged HAF 932.

[Versus]

You also lose the sheer size and awesomeness of the rugged HAF 932.

[WaR1761]

For the case definitely get dust filters or make your own, got em on my Antec 1200 and its great!

Mobo definitely go for ASUS everything is great about em. I remember unpacking it and feeling like I could hit it against the wall and it would still be in one piece. They are beastly.

For SSD, I got one of these. Still going strong boots windows like a mofo and opens applications instantly

PSU's I have a Corsiar 1000HX Everything feels solid and well built, modular, and comes with cable bags to store spare unused cables. No lights on/in it.

[Fail Medic]

I <3 my HAF932.  It rolls nice, I've yet to see unacceptable temps under considerable load... I just wish the PCI locking mechanism felt a bit more secure.  It don't sit flush on the graphics card.

[Vandamguy]

regarding your SSD drive choice:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wind...05-17.html

I did a lot of research when before purchasing one for my dad's computer. The main point that was put across was that its 4K random read/write was much more important than its overall read/write speeds.  The only time you would ever get your max read/write is if you're copying large files (like HD movies or something) whereas you plan on using it as a OS boot drive, page file writes and random data access is what will be happening. So link to chart above you can see where things fall in line. The one War suggested is V-nice, the Western Digital... not so much. I ended up purchasing a 40gig OCZ Vertex 2, looking around at the other chart results it turned out to be a well rounded drive, no exceeding in anything, but also never at the bottom of benches.
If you're wondering why there's two results for Fresh and Used, it has to do with the way SSD's manage their free space.. instead of deleting an old block and writing info into that, it will instead write to unused sectors first. resulting in faster write performance because it didn't need to do a delete opertation before the write operation. The used graph shows how much doing the delete operation before the write operation slows down the drive. It mostly comes down to which controller they have used in the SSD but can make a signifigant difference. FYI, after I had Vista installed, patched and settled in, it occupied 20gigs of the 40. :/ i would recomend 60-100

Regarding motherboard, I would only like to ask what features your choice has that you're looking for specifically. I'm sensing that you're overspending in the hopes of getting reliability.

[Eightball]

regarding your SSD drive choice:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wind...05-17.html

I did a lot of research when before purchasing one for my dad's computer. The main point that was put across was that its 4K random read/write was much more important than its overall read/write speeds.  The only time you would ever get your max read/write is if you're copying large files (like HD movies or something) whereas you plan on using it as a OS boot drive, page file writes and random data access is what will be happening. So link to chart above you can see where things fall in line. The one War suggested is V-nice, the Western Digital... not so much. I ended up purchasing a 40gig OCZ Vertex 2, looking around at the other chart results it turned out to be a well rounded drive, no exceeding in anything, but also never at the bottom of benches.
If you're wondering why there's two results for Fresh and Used, it has to do with the way SSD's manage their free space.. instead of deleting an old block and writing info into that, it will instead write to unused sectors first. resulting in faster write performance because it didn't need to do a delete opertation before the write operation. The used graph shows how much doing the delete operation before the write operation slows down the drive. It mostly comes down to which controller they have used in the SSD but can make a signifigant difference. FYI, after I had Vista installed, patched and settled in, it occupied 20gigs of the 40. :/ i would recomend 60-100

Regarding motherboard, I would only like to ask what features your choice has that you're looking for specifically. I'm sensing that you're overspending in the hopes of getting reliability.

+999 for data and helping me avoid a bad purchase. Unfortunately the 80GB Intel SSD that War linked is out of stock until Christmas. I'm looking into your link and some other reviews to decide; Crucial and OCZ seem pretty good in this department. And I bet I could survive on the Intel 40GB, Win7 is about 16GB, and I could probably keep my core essential applications & documents below another 16GB (Office, Browser, some utility apps)

As for the motherboard, you may be right. I'm coming from a $270 motherboard that just failed, so reliability/longevity is definitely the biggest concern for me. I selected the Rampage not only for aesthetics but also for the great reputation it has. Will I be making use of all of the fancy features, like switchable BIOS etc? I kind of doubt it, but I don't want to cut corners either. Also, as a "reward" for performing well on my midterms, my parents offered to pay for the replacement of any broken component in my computer, the motherboard being the only one that's actually broken (this is as opposed to me paying for it by, say, not eating or going out). So I'm not as worried about the price as I would be otherwise, but if you have a recommendation against this mobo then I'm more than apt to save them the money.

[WaR1761]

Oh yeah, for my SSD I had to get this to fit it in a normal HDD slot. The new one comes with a plate to mount it on but mine didn't at the time I ordered it since it was an older version.

[Eightball]

Mmm, I think I'll be okay because the Scout has a mounting tray for 1.8" and 2.5" drives. Did some research and I think I'm going for this Corsair SSD now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820233108

It's reviews are pretty stellar, the cost is even better than the WD, and the storage capacity is a bit more. I also talked to Caff & Versus; pretty sure I'm going for the 1000W PSU as well. So at least that's been decided. I'm pretty sure I want the Scout, so unless there's something bad about this SSD then I just need to confirm that the mobo I selected is the right one for me.

[Kirby]

Skimping on PSU is baaaad juju.


I've got two for that very reason.