My first build...

[coffeehound]

is in the planning stages... Any ideas or leads to any good deals appreciated.

Here is what I have on my build list so far...

Motherboard - Asus P6T $252.03 - Newegg

CPU - Intel Core i7 920 $289.99 - Amazon

Memory - 3 x 2 GB triple channel Corsair DDR3 1333MHz (6 GB) $154.00 - Amazon

HDD - 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500AAKS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s (set in a raid 0 array) $105.98 - Newegg

Video Card - XFX GX285NZDFF GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 $354.99 - Newegg

DVD/CD Burner - LITE-ON Black OEM $22.99 - Newegg

Power Supply - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W $129.99 - Newegg

Case - Cooler Master HAF 932 Black Full Tower $149.99 - Newegg

Operating system yet to be determined.... So far hardware costs come to $1429.96 including tax and shipping.

Not to bad compared a pre-built or boutique computer of this caliber...

And so the hunt continues....

[Nakor]

Go Linux man. >.> Go Ubuntu if you haven't used Linux yet. Even most games work in wine. And it's free, so it can't hurt to try.

[coffeehound]

I have been curious about Ubuntu though I haven't used Linux. Compatibility issues are my main concern
though I think I may eventually give it a go. Probably set up a dual boot if I do. Get a better idea that way
as opposed to running it from removable media??

[Nakor]

Yeah, I've been running one off a flash drive for a while, and it's definitely not the wisest way to go about it. It was more of an experiment than anything.

http://www.ubuntu.com

If you decide to dual-boot, you are a bit better off installing Windows first like normal, and then installing Ubuntu after. It makes the process easier that way, because Ubuntu's setup will automatically resize the Windows partition for you and make the necessary adjustments to the MBR (replacing the Windows boot system with Grub, and automatically setting up a menu from which you can choose between Ubuntu and Windows on boot).

Still, the majority of compatibility issues now are either resolved, or have known workarounds; even Steam can be made to work on Ubuntu via Wine. (Wine is a free Windows emulator that allows you to run Windows programs directly from Linux.) There's a bit of a re-learning process involved, of course. The only thing you might want to check compatibility for is your printer, if you have one. Since I see you've gone with an NVidia graphics card, no problems there, they have better drivers for Linux than ATI has (on your first boot it will automatically walk you through downloading & activating the driver, it's really straight forward).

If you play many graphics-intensive games, they will tend to run on Windows a little better than on Linux performance-wise (except for games that can run natively in Linux without a windows emulator, such as NeverWinter Nights, or Puzzle Pirates for example—any game programmed purely in Java as well, for that matter). For any other Windows software, you really shouldn't notice a difference. Most types of software also have an equivalent actually built for Linux as well.

[coffeehound]

Much obliged for the info. I think I may try it on this Dell when I move it to more or less a back-up role...

My particular model HP Deskjet doesn't seem to be listed as supported by Linux at first look, but that doesn't
really bother me as I will continue to use Windows anyway.

Also...
I think I may need to find a good socket LGA1336 heatsink. Seems Intels stock cooler may not really be all that cool.

[KenseidenXL]

You should've gotten bigger HDDs. Tiger Direct has 1.5TBs on sale.

[Nakor]

Oh yeah, just noticed... since you're using 6GB of RAM, make sure you get a 64-bit operating system. If you go Windows, you'll have to go with Vista 64-bit (because XP x64 is garbage). With Linux, it isn't even worth having that much RAM, it'll run fine with half that.

Any 32-bit OS will only see 3.25GB RAM.

[wavemeister]

Oh yeah, just noticed... since you're using 6GB of RAM, make sure you get a 64-bit operating system. If you go Windows, you'll have to go with Vista 64-bit (because XP x64 is garbage). With Linux, it isn't even worth having that much RAM, it'll run fine with half that.

Any 32-bit OS will only see 3.25GB RAM.

AFAIK, Vista 64 can handle "only" 4 GB RAM, so 2 Gigs of RAM are wasted anyway.

If money is a matter, go for an "ordinary" Dual Core (like the Core 2 Duo E7300 or E8400). The Quad Cores are offering only a slightly higher performance in comparision to the top-end DCs, but are way more expensive.

HD capacity has become cheap as water indeed, even the TB harddrives are now being available for reasonable prices. It seems like the 640 GB drives are falling out of production, so you might can make a bargain here.

If available, take a look at the Palit Radeon HD 4850 512 MB PCI-E. Comes with PCI Express 2.0 x16 - 512 MB GDDR3 - Digital Visual Interface (DVI) (HDCP) - HDTV Out and some features more for less than half the price of the XFX GX285NZDFF. According to a Geman computer mag, the performance is excellent compared to the price.

Nice case. Ya going to take it out on the strip Saturday night?
What I want to say is that a month later, you will hardly notice the coolness of the case anymore, but you are still kinda sad about wasting that much money on a case even if the technical specs are good. Just for comparision, I have checked this case by Thermaltake. Brand name, looks cool, should be sufficient as long as you don't go wild with another video card and liqid cooling and some more pimping. And is current available at Newegg (hope that's not the name of the owner ) for $49.99.

I know that it's nice if you can spend extra money on extra power, but my device is to keep the balance between what's needed and what's wanted. Saves serious money.

[Shawn]

Oh yeah, just noticed... since you're using 6GB of RAM, make sure you get a 64-bit operating system. If you go Windows, you'll have to go with Vista 64-bit (because XP x64 is garbage). With Linux, it isn't even worth having that much RAM, it'll run fine with half that.

Any 32-bit OS will only see 3.25GB RAM.

AFAIK, Vista 64 can handle "only" 4 GB RAM, so 2 Gigs of RAM are wasted anyway.

If money is a matter, go for an "ordinary" Dual Core (like the Core 2 Duo E7300 or E8400). The Quad Cores are offering only a slightly higher performance in comparision to the top-end DCs, but are way more expensive.

HD capacity has become cheap as water indeed, even the TB harddrives are now being available for reasonable prices. It seems like the 640 GB drives are falling out of production, so you might can make a bargain here.

If available, take a look at the Palit Radeon HD 4850 512 MB PCI-E. Comes with PCI Express 2.0 x16 - 512 MB GDDR3 - Digital Visual Interface (DVI) (HDCP) - HDTV Out and some features more for less than half the price of the XFX GX285NZDFF. According to a Geman computer mag, the performance is excellent compared to the price.

Nice case. Ya going to take it out on the strip Saturday night?
What I want to say is that a month later, you will hardly notice the coolness of the case anymore, but you are still kinda sad about wasting that much money on a case even if the technical specs are good. Just for comparision, I have checked this case by Thermaltake. Brand name, looks cool, should be sufficient as long as you don't go wild with another video card and liqid cooling and some more pimping. And is current available at Newegg (hope that's not the name of the owner ) for $49.99.

I know that it's nice if you can spend extra money on extra power, but my device is to keep the balance between what's needed and what's wanted. Saves serious money.

I'll have to disagree on the Core 2 Quads only being slightly better then the high end Core 2 Duos.I just replaced my E6600 with a Quad 9550 and noticed a huge difference in performance.
Also if you are going to get a Nvidia based Video card,go with EVGA. I have owned several different brands in the past but EVGA has always been the one that has lasted the longest.Usually a problem with the fan.I clean my case weekly so I know dirt or dust were not a problem.
I'll see if I can dig up some links on the C2Q and C2D benchmark results.

[Shawn]

Also would like to mention there are now 32MB Cache Western Digital drives out for a few more dollars you could get 2 500 GB ones.Every little thing will help make your computer run a bit faster.
I can't argue the ram you chose,I use corsair myself and Asus boards.
Will also mention the case you chose looks nice but the way the harddrives sit in sideways,you have to think what it is doing to the wires when attached to the drives.They are being smashed against the side of the case.Could break something,I have had that experience once.
I use the Antec 900 but have been considering on an Antec 1200.

[Nakor]

AFAIK, Vista 64 can handle "only" 4 GB RAM, so 2 Gigs of RAM are wasted anyway.

Incorrect, Vista 32-bit can identify up to 4GB of RAM (it's XP that handles 3.25GB come to think of it), Vista 64-bit can handle up to 128GB of RAM.

Here's the technobabble behind it:

32-bit operating systems use a 32-digit binary string to identify each byte of RAM. So the first byte is 00000000000000000000000000000000, then 00000000000000000000000000000001, then 00000000000000000000000000000010, etc. To save space, these are written as 8-digit hex values (a 0x is written at the start of the number which identifies it as hex, and is not actually part of the number). These values are of course 0x00000000 through 0xFFFFFFFF. If you convert that to decimal, that's 4294967296 bytes. Divide by 1024 and you get 4194304kB. Divide again by 1024 and you get 4096MB. Divide once more by 1024 to get 4GB.

64-bit operating systems use a 64-digit binary string, usually shortened to a 16-digit hex string for saving space. These run from 0x0000000000000000 to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Theoretically, that can handle up to 1.844674407370955e+19 bytes of RAM. Yes, that's a 20-digit number. Insanely huge. Because supporting such an insane amount of RAM at this point would be pointless (nobody has several million terrabytes of RAM yet), MS fixed only two specific memory address spans that would be used. If memory serves (which it often doesn't), those exact paths are: 0x0000000000000000 to 0x0000000FFFFFFFFF and 0xFFFFFFF000000000 to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. With only the last 9 digits changing, that's 64GB in each span, and two spans (one starting with 0000000 and one with FFFFFFF) for a total of 128GB of address space.

[wavemeister]

AFAIK, Vista 64 can handle "only" 4 GB RAM, so 2 Gigs of RAM are wasted anyway.

Incorrect, Vista 32-bit can identify up to 4GB of RAM (it's XP that handles 3.25GB come to think of it), Vista 64-bit can handle up to 128GB of RAM.

Here's the technobabble behind it:

32-bit operating systems use a 32-digit binary string to identify each byte of RAM. So the first byte is 00000000000000000000000000000000, then 00000000000000000000000000000001, then 00000000000000000000000000000010, etc. To save space, these are written as 8-digit hex values (a 0x is written at the start of the number which identifies it as hex, and is not actually part of the number). These values are of course 0x00000000 through 0xFFFFFFFF. If you convert that to decimal, that's 4294967296 bytes. Divide by 1024 and you get 4194304kB. Divide again by 1024 and you get 4096MB. Divide once more by 1024 to get 4GB.

64-bit operating systems use a 64-digit binary string, usually shortened to a 16-digit hex string for saving space. These run from 0x0000000000000000 to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Theoretically, that can handle up to 1.844674407370955e+19 bytes of RAM. Yes, that's a 20-digit number. Insanely huge. Because supporting such an insane amount of RAM at this point would be pointless (nobody has several million terrabytes of RAM yet), MS fixed only two specific memory address spans that would be used. If memory serves (which it often doesn't), those exact paths are: 0x0000000000000000 to 0x0000000FFFFFFFFF and 0xFFFFFFF000000000 to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. With only the last 9 digits changing, that's 64GB in each span, and two spans (one starting with 0000000 and one with FFFFFFF) for a total of 128GB of address space.

See, that's why I said AFAIK. Anyway, with the current standards in technology, more than 4 GB of RAM is burnt money anyway - because a) the progs must be capable of handling the amount of RAM and b) if they run properly under Vista 64, that is.

I'll have to disagree on the Core 2 Quads only being slightly better then the high end Core 2 Duos.I just replaced my E6600 with a Quad 9550 and noticed a huge difference in performance.

Well, you will even notice a certain amount of performance increase if you replace the E6600 with the E7300 or E8400. My point was if it is really necessary to buy a CPU for a great amount of money when a supposedly weaker one does almost the same tricks - and according to several benchmarks, the rather small difference in performance isn't justifying the huge difference in price. At least not for me...I know that a Jaguar is surely more fun to drive than a Ford Focus, but both are basically modes of transportation. The rest depends on ego and wallet matters.

[coffeehound]

You should've gotten bigger HDDs. Tiger Direct has 1.5TBs on sale.

Thanks, I haven't checked out Tiger Direct.

Honestly, I can't imagine ever needing that much storage. 500 GB is probably way more than I'll ever use....

Oh yeah, just noticed... since you're using 6GB of RAM, make sure you get a 64-bit operating system. If you go Windows, you'll have to go with Vista 64-bit (because XP x64 is garbage). With Linux, it isn't even worth having that much RAM, it'll run fine with half that.

Yeah, right now I think 64 bit Vista will be what I go with, or wait for Windows7 around the end of the year...

Memory limits of 64 bit versions of Vista according to Microsoft listed below.

From Microsoft

Version Limit in 64-bit Windows

Windows Vista Ultimate 128 GB

Windows Vista Enterprise 128 GB

Windows Vista Business 128 GB

Windows Vista Home Premium 16 GB

Windows Vista Home Basic 8 GB

If money is a matter, go for an "ordinary" Dual Core (like the Core 2 Duo E7300 or E8400). The Quad Cores are offering only a slightly higher performance in comparision to the top-end DCs, but are way more expensive.

I am thinking of getting at least four or five years out of this computer before even thinking of another major upgrade, so it
makes perfect sense to me to go with the latest and greatest where I can afford to.

If available, take a look at the Palit Radeon HD 4850 512 MB PCI-E. Comes with PCI Express 2.0 x16 - 512 MB GDDR3 - Digital Visual Interface (DVI) (HDCP) - HDTV Out and some features more for less than half the price of the XFX GX285NZDFF. According to a Geman computer mag, the performance is excellent compared to the price.

Nah, that card doesn't touch the GTX 285 according to what I have read. Besides, I have to admit to having a bit of an aversion
to ATI cards. Too many badly written drivers in the past...

Nice case. Ya going to take it out on the strip Saturday night?
What I want to say is that a month later, you will hardly notice the coolness of the case anymore, but you are still kinda sad about wasting that much money on a case even if the technical specs are good. Just for comparision, I have checked this case by Thermaltake. Brand name, looks cool, should be sufficient as long as you don't go wild with another video card and liqid cooling and some more pimping. And is current available at Newegg (hope that's not the name of the owner ) for $49.99.

Oh, I am very used to a full tower and am convinced it is the way to go with this build. I love all that room inside the case. Some
mid towers won't even hold the GTX without sacrificing a HDD drive bay. I like the idea of having at least a couple of inches clearance and then there would be the matter of a large heatsink if I decide on one. No worries about space at all. I like that! Cooling is supposed to be great in this box and cable management a breeze. Great for a first time builder like myself...As far
as how the box looks, its ok. there are a couple of Silverstone cases I would rather have, but they are juuust a bit too much
for my budget.

[coffeehound]

Also would like to mention there are now 32MB Cache Western Digital drives out for a few more dollars you could get 2 500 GB ones.Every little thing will help make your computer run a bit faster.
I can't argue the ram you chose,I use corsair myself and Asus boards.
Will also mention the case you chose looks nice but the way the harddrives sit in sideways,you have to think what it is doing to the wires when attached to the drives.They are being smashed against the side of the case.Could break something,I have had that experience once.
I use the Antec 900 but have been considering on an Antec 1200.

Thanks, Shawn! I'll have to look for the WD's with 32MB cache. The Sata cables are not an issue in that case according to some
guys over at Anantech that have the HAF. I went down to Fry's and had a look at the display box. Antec 1200 is a great box too...

[coffeehound]

I have an update to my build list -

Motherboard - Asus P6T $256.98 - Motherboardpro.com

CPU - Intel Core i7 920 $287.90 - Amazon

Memory - 3 x 2 GB triple channel Corsair TR3X6G1333C9 XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz $144.00 - Amazon

HDD - 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500AAKS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA $113.66 - Newegg

Video Card - EVGA GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 HDCP $354.99 - Amazon

Dvd/CD Burner - LITE-ON Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW
16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM SATA 22X DVD - OEM $23.58 - Newegg

Power Supply - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W $116.61 - Provantage.com

Case - Cooler Master HAF 932 Black Full Tower $150.61 - shopblt.com

Operating System - Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM $108.41 - Newegg



__________________
$1556.60

I have gone with the EVGA Vidcard. My experience with EVGA has also been good and the price is competitive.

Still waffling about the HDD'S. I may go with larger drives that have 32mb cache. I definitely will stay with Western Digital....

Shawn really got me to thinking about the sideways HDD cage in the HAF, so I went to a larger Fry's franchise today and pulled
a demo model off the shelf to the floor and really gave it a good look-see. I REALLY like this case! Gonna get it...