I'm in the market to upgrade the major parts of my PC. I've got a case, peripherals and DV/HDD drives. I've made a rough draft based largely off of Newegg ratings and a few google searches:
ASUS P6T SE X58 LGA1366
Core-i7 920 2.66 Ghz
XFX 5870 1GB DDR5
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 3x2GB
Corsair 650W PSU
Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler
Grand total of $1294.94
Of course, any and all help is greatly appreciated, but the main questions I have are on the following:
Motherboard. I'm not doing any crazy overclocking, but I definitely want to squeeze out some more power for the cost. The P6T seems approved of in reviews and is basic enough to satisfy my needs; I won't be adding another videocard but I couldn't find a good looking board with fewer x16 slots.
The Proc. I've seen a handful of suggestions towards AMDs thrown around. I'm a bit weary towards this since it would mean ditching the 1366 socket, but realistically, I've never bought a new CPU without getting a new board, so I guess it would be fine. Is there an AMD proc that would OC well enough and not bottleneck the RAM/GPU? Consequently, this would require a mobo recommendation, so any input on that would be nice as well. I've looked at/drafted an i5 build, but I'm slightly put off on the selection of P55 mobos and that an i7 setup wasn't much more.
GPU edition. XFX has an OCd card with a different cooler for $20 more, and Sapphire has one for $70 more with what looks like an even better cooler. I've got the plain, cheapest XFX card on there because I anticipate that the soon-to-be-released aftermarket coolers will be better than any that are attached to the more expensive cards. . is this reasonable?
The cooler. Noctua keeps coming up as the best, but I wonder if it would be more appropriate to get a Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2, or any other cheaper cooler. My E8400 is currently at 3.7 Ghz on an F7P and is only limited by a hard limit on my current mobo, and temps are well within comfortable.
Again, thank you for any input. I'm trying to keep the price closer to $1200, but that may stretch to $1500 if the setup is very compelling.
ASUS P6T SE X58 LGA1366
Core-i7 920 2.66 Ghz
XFX 5870 1GB DDR5
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 3x2GB
Corsair 650W PSU
Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler
Grand total of $1294.94
Of course, any and all help is greatly appreciated, but the main questions I have are on the following:
Motherboard. I'm not doing any crazy overclocking, but I definitely want to squeeze out some more power for the cost. The P6T seems approved of in reviews and is basic enough to satisfy my needs; I won't be adding another videocard but I couldn't find a good looking board with fewer x16 slots.
The Proc. I've seen a handful of suggestions towards AMDs thrown around. I'm a bit weary towards this since it would mean ditching the 1366 socket, but realistically, I've never bought a new CPU without getting a new board, so I guess it would be fine. Is there an AMD proc that would OC well enough and not bottleneck the RAM/GPU? Consequently, this would require a mobo recommendation, so any input on that would be nice as well. I've looked at/drafted an i5 build, but I'm slightly put off on the selection of P55 mobos and that an i7 setup wasn't much more.
GPU edition. XFX has an OCd card with a different cooler for $20 more, and Sapphire has one for $70 more with what looks like an even better cooler. I've got the plain, cheapest XFX card on there because I anticipate that the soon-to-be-released aftermarket coolers will be better than any that are attached to the more expensive cards. . is this reasonable?
The cooler. Noctua keeps coming up as the best, but I wonder if it would be more appropriate to get a Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2, or any other cheaper cooler. My E8400 is currently at 3.7 Ghz on an F7P and is only limited by a hard limit on my current mobo, and temps are well within comfortable.
Again, thank you for any input. I'm trying to keep the price closer to $1200, but that may stretch to $1500 if the setup is very compelling.
Last edited by Defiance (2010-03-09 00:11:01)