Help with building a tower

[Freedom Kira]

I'd recommend you wait on the SSD as well. From what I've heard, they're supposed to drop in price to less than $1/GB next year. Most likely depends on a lot of things though.

I was introduced to the Mushkin brand about a year ago. Most of their stuff is pretty decent and usually a bit cheaper than other brands. Watch reviews though - when a certain Mushkin product sucks, it really shows.

[kitamesume]

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 * $49.99 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB SATA 6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136794

i see this at 70$ but DANG @ 70$ its still sweet imho, two of these would make up like 1TB formatted space for like 140$.

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EDIT[/b]: forgot to mention the 18 dB max. noise on this model.  That's the kind'a quiet I'm talkin' about![/size] ]

you could always replace the fan with a quieter one, maybe bigger to fill up the loss in air flow.

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- GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5

I just passed on it for $184 delivered, and now it's back up to $198 ... but it's a bit too much for budget.  It was going for $145 about 10 or 12 weeks back, so I'm hoping that deal will come around again & I'll jump on it then.  I'm not married to this board, but I definitely want one with very similar configuration, and the price ceiling is $150 with hopes for something closer to ~$130-ish.

i think the board is abit overkill, do you really need that many pci-e slots? theres the UD3s that are around 160$ and below.
considering if you`d be putting two 2-slotted GPUs you`ll be blocking 2 pci-e slots so those are considered like, useless? even with a single 2-slotted card you`d still be blocking one.
[160$]GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX
[150$]GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X

what i think is that, going more than 2xGPU is pure enthusiast. dual high-end cards(HD6950 or GTX560 Ti and up) are pretty much everything you`ll need, even with a res of 2560x1440.

[datora]

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As far as the SSDs go, I've considered $1 per GB to be the "buy" point on a SATA II for the past half year.  Now I'm adjusting it slightly to the "buy" point for SATA III, and it should be <$1 per GB formatted.  So example, a SATA III 64 GB drive formats @ ~59 GB, therefore it should cost $59 or less delivered and inclusive of all taxes.  I think that point will happen by September, barring a complete meltdown of the U.S./world economy.

Ideally, I'd like to grab an 80 or a 90 GB SSD at that price point, and I estimate my chances are close to 100% by October, or perhaps in the runup to Christmas.  I've already seen a 90 GB drive go for $90 in the last month, and there just was that Shell Shocker for a WD SSD for $200 for a 256 GB SATA II, so ....

* $49.99 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB SATA 6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136794

i see this at 70$ but DANG @ 70$ its still sweet imho, two of these would make up like 1TB formatted space for like 140$.

Actually, they format to 698 GB each, so 2x 750 GB drives are ~1.35 TB formatted, plus a few extra GB.  I'm kicking myself a bit.  When the deal showed up, I should have immediately grabbed two of these and scrubbed the SSD.  But, I haz a SSD lust and was not thinking as clearly as I should have.  Could have either done a RAID 0 for speed or used them as image/mirrors for each other for complete system redundancy.  Oh well ...

EDIT[/b]: forgot to mention the 18 dB max. noise on this model.  That's the kind'a quiet I'm talkin' about![/size] ]

you could always replace the fan with a quieter one, maybe bigger to fill up the loss in air flow.

Indeed, I am considering exactly that for the BALDER SD1283.  I will order that sometime this week and go for the rebate, so it should come in at $24 (eventually).  Once I play with it and see its performance & hear it under some overclock settings, I may very well spend $9 or $12 for a 140 mm ultra-silent fan and figure out how to mount it.

I've been bolting over-sized fans onto my cooling blocks for close to 20 years now, and I usually solder on a handful of copper wire &/or mesh in the process to increase the heatsink mass and surface area for radiating heat.  First time I did that was on a Pentium 120 MHz that I overclocked to 150 MHz, and it ran 10°C cooler when I was done ... great little Dell motherboard hardware hack to pull that off.   

- GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5

i think the board is abit overkill, do you really need that many pci-e slots? theres the UD3s that are around 160$ and below.

Yah.  I am looking at those also.  The UD5 interested me because after adding one large GPU card in, I have copious expansion capacity left over.  It has 2 PCIe 16x slots plus another @ 8x ... which would run anything conceivable (such as a video capture card and/or a top end sound card).  This, even after I probably upgrade to dual GPUs in ~2 years.

I'd like the board to serve for four to five years as my primary system, then retire it as a secondary system for a few years after that.  Nearly every computer I've owned has served a full ten years, and most of them about 12 before I finally junked them.

Anyway, if I do drop down to the UD3 (or equivalent), I'd also expect to drop my buy price down in to the ~$110-120 range; no way I'll fork out $140 plus for one of those.  I'm fairly name-brand agnostic, so I'm watching MSI and ASUS and a couple others also.  Fortunately, I can afford to wait it out for a few weeks and jump when a seriously good price comes up.

Even though I rely on newegg, I have continued to watch other sites and google items up regularly.  It's just that, so far, newegg has been THE best price for 95%+ of everything.  They'll keep getting my business so long as they keep doing that.   

[kitamesume]

hardly see any sound card use even a 4x slot, and video capture cards shouldn't use more than 8x slot. so the 16, 8, 4 configuration of the 150$ should fit the bucket.

[datora]

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Well, I was speaking in general examples.  This one:

 - GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3

is actually on my "to-watch" list.  However, it's $168 right now (including delivery) ... about $30 over budget.  If/When it drops under $140, if nothing else comparable has hit that price by then, I'll very likely go with it.

I don't like losing the 1x PCIe slot to a video card, but that's standard design these days, so I just have to eat it.  The other 1x slot, if you check the feedback, also has issues in that some cards can't fit against the heat sinks ... a brainfart in design.  So, two expansion slots are removed from availability.

That leaves another 16x slot ... which can use either a vid capture card or another GPU.  If a GPU is put in there, then the PCI slot is lost.  Again, standard design issue these days ... but the UD5 board has slightly more flexibility.

Perhaps the 4x slots would be good enough for vid capture, perhaps not.  I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, but I am also looking to future use and upgrades that I can foresee within 18-24 months (if Things Go Well).

Actually, I'm pretty unhappy with current mobo design ... the standard double-wide video cards these days have really crippled expansion capability, making people choose between having high-end video OR Something Else.  Sucks to be paying for a board where 2 or 3 slots are blocked or useless.

I am pretty confused as to why the primary 16x GPU slot isn't in slot position #7 where it would take up the empty #8 slot in a case.  That would leave all of the other 6 slot positions open, with (at most) one of them being blocked by a 2nd GPU.

True elite systems designed for three or four cards are a different design issue; people are getting those knowing from the beginning that nothing else will fit ... but for these more general systems, there is a lot of non-innovative and practical thinking going on.

[Freedom Kira]

As far as the SSDs go, I've considered $1 per GB to be the "buy" point on a SATA II for the past half year.  Now I'm adjusting it slightly to the "buy" point for SATA III, and it should be <$1 per GB formatted.  So example, a SATA III 64 GB drive formats @ ~59 GB, therefore it should cost $59 or less delivered and inclusive of all taxes.  I think that point will happen by September, barring a complete meltdown of the U.S./world economy.

Ideally, I'd like to grab an 80 or a 90 GB SSD at that price point, and I estimate my chances are close to 100% by October, or perhaps in the runup to Christmas.  I've already seen a 90 GB drive go for $90 in the last month, and there just was that Shell Shocker for a WD SSD for $200 for a 256 GB SATA II, so ....

Before that Shell Shocker, I've never seen $1/GB SSDs. My 240GB cost $410 on sale, and I got a set of four 40GBs for $100 each. $1/GB would be pretty damn good pricing right now and to date I haven't seen any. They're all over $1/GB, usually over $1.50/GB.

Actually, I'm pretty unhappy with current mobo design ... the standard double-wide video cards these days have really crippled expansion capability, making people choose between having high-end video OR Something Else.  Sucks to be paying for a board where 2 or 3 slots are blocked or useless.

Er, try extended ATX mobos?

[kitamesume]

problem is E-ATX hardly exists on newly released boards(amd 990 chipset), you`ll have to wait for a few months for a new design.

[Freedom Kira]

It always takes a while for any kind of board to come out for the latest stuff. I was shopping for micro ATX boards for Intel LGA 1155 as soon as the revision completed (March, IIRC), and hardly anything was out. Now, there are tons of boards to choose from.

[datora]

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Yah ... I hadn't seen any E-ATX boards.  Did run across one with 8 expansion slots, but I think it was normal ATX, and it was something like $280 so I kept moving along.

Dropped in for a moment to report:

 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s

just went on special for $130.  They were ~$190 a couple months ago, and have been bouncing from $140-$150 on special, but this is the lowest I've seen these yet.


Also, test the waters on this video card:

 - EVGA 01G-P3-1373-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

It would come in $145 after a rebate, if it can be trusted.  The raw specs & numbers look pretty solid to me ... but video cards aren't something I'm totally up on.  Between the feedback and my modest needs, it sure looks like something I should consider seriously.  A bit over my budget, which was supposed to cap at $120 ... but I've saved a bit elsewhere and if I get the mobo price down, this could be reachable.

And this one, to go even more lower budget:

 - ZOTAC ZT-40503-10L GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5

$75 after rebate, but seems quite a step down going from 256-bit to 128-bit.  How much of a step down is it from a fermi 460 to a fermi 450 GPU ..?

The EVGA card would seem to promise a three year life expectancy, at least, given that I probably will not run any game higher than Shogun 2, if even that.

[kitamesume]

GTS450 < GTX 460 by 20%-40%, depends on the models.

HD6670 < GTS450 by 15-30%, pretty much depends on the games.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4278/amds-radeon-hd-6670-radeon-hd-6570/6 (the graphs has the GTX460, GTS450 and HD6670 in it)


the GA-990FXA-UD3's heatsink wont block the PCI-e 1x, but the PCI-e 16x slots would block those in red circles when using 2slotted cards.

Edit: a hard drive on a local shop near my place just went on sale, the sale will last for a week.
[40$]500gb Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721050CLA362) sata hdd
[45$](Newegg) 500gb Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721050CLA362) sata hdd

i`m planning to buy two of these so i could finally make some room on my external hdd, the good part about the shop i`m going to buy on is that if the sum of the pricing is above 75$ worth i`d get a 10% discount.
is it reliable? i mean, newegg... too many dead after # days and DOA...

[datora]

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Thanks for the quick numbers on the GPUs.  Looks like I really want the 460 if I can swing it somehow.  Pretty much what I expected.

(click to show/hide)

the GA-990FXA-UD3's heatsink wont block the PCI-e 1x, but the PCI-e 16x slots would block those in red circles when using 2slotted cards.

There is another PCIe 1x slot to the left of the first GPU/16x slot.  I've seen several comments that indicate some PCIe cards won't seat due to the location of the heatsinks on the mobo.  It's kind of a random thing.  You won't know until after you buy and try to fit a specific card into that slot.  So, if your GPU is blocking the circled slot and you want to place, say, a sound card into the other one & it doesn't seat ...

Edit: a hard drive on a local shop near my place just went on sale, the sale will last for a week.
[40$]500gb Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721050CLA362) sata hdd
[45$](Newegg) 500gb Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721050CLA362) sata hdd

i`m planning to buy two of these so i could finally make some room on my external hdd, the good part about the shop i`m going to buy on is that if the sum of the pricing is above 75$ worth i`d get a 10% discount.
is it reliable? i mean, newegg... too many dead after # days and DOA...

Yah.  That's why I'm avoiding the Hitachi drives right now.  Every time I've seen them go on a special I reflexively want to buy one, but then I start reading reviews and they just seem to have a higher failure rate than Samsung & Western Digital right now.  Been like that for nearly two years.  I could care less what warranty is on them if I lose unique and critical data.  That's just a soul-crushing experience.  Last month I lost over 5,000 photos I took while in Latvia ... gone forever, and some of them were spectacular.   :'(


[ EDIT: @kitamesume -- Yeah, you're right about the UD5 board (not the UD3) having heat sink issues.  Been reading too many descriptions and am starting to get them confused now.  ]

[kitamesume]

about the mobo, i meant the far left pci-e 1x isnt really that blocked, you could see the heatsink being designed quite nicely, part of the heatsink is lowered enough, pretty much as high as the slot.

i think the reviews you were talking about that the mobo heatsink is blocking a pci-e 1x was at the UD5.

[datora]

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So, new newegg E-Blast out this morning, 72-hour deals for the weekend.

I am looking into the following:

 - ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X  - $145 delivered

 - ZOTAC ZT-50701-10M GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 - $170 delivered, $150 after rebate

These prices are on the upper limits of my budget, even going over slightly.  However, I shaved enough off elsewhere that I can still come in under $800 total, assuming all rebates come through.  It means no sound card and no SSD ... at least for some time.  But, given the (potential) power of the rest of the system, those could be acceptable compromises.


I'm open to any comments or advice on these two items.  If they don't get Sold Out (which is fairly rare), then I have until Sunday afternoon to decide on buying or passing on either of these.

The ZOTAC looks really impressive for raw power.  In fact, quite over-powered for my needs ... but, IF I can rely on it, it should serve for at least three years, if not five or more.  Any anecdotes about ZOTAC reliability &/or customer service ..?

The ASUS mobo has a near-optimum compromise for expansion slots ... I'll lose one 1x PCIe slot to the video card.  Since I don't intend to add a second, I should have the remainder for my other needs.  If I put anything in the second 16x slot, then both will drop to 8x, 8x.  Not happy, but the system would still remain quite robust for a non-gamer such as myself.

I had been hoping the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX mobo might go on a special for ~$140-150 ... but that's probably hoping for too much.  Haven't seen it for anything less than ~$165 anywhere, plus shipping.  It just seems too new to go on significant special for a while yet.

[Freedom Kira]

Too new? I thought you were around to see that 256GB WD SSD for $200.

[datora]

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Too new? I thought you were around to see that 256GB WD SSD for $200.

Ahh ... you taunt me with a Great Desire that I cannot have!  :'(  $200 is off-the-charts out of budget.  I also don't realistically expect a deal like that to happen again this year.

With luck, there might be something like a 64 GB SSD go for ~$60, or possibly an 80 or 90 GB for ~$1/GB.  For example, if a SATA III 90 GB went for under $95 in the next couple weeks, I'd probably grab it.  However, anything $100 or over is out of budget ... there just isn't $110 even if a 128 GB SATA III showed up tonight.  Even spending the $95 right now is quite a luxury, $60 for a 64 GB would be vastly less painful; I'm borrowing money as it is to make this build ... there are other Real Life expenses plus a broken rig that I've got to fix up.

If I drop $300 for mobo + video card, the SSD is off the build until probably Christmas or after ... that's why my last post.  It's a pretty serious decision right now.  The mobo has all the features I really want for the backbone of this build, so I may very well get it, even though my cap had been $140 with a desire to be much closer to $120.  Given the robustness of the board, it's rep & overclock stability, future expandability, etc. ... it's about worth it.

The video card is more difficult to justify since it really exceeds my needs ... for now.  The justification would be that, if it lives for 4-5 years, it will be lower cost over the lifetime of the rig by not having to replace it or get a second.

The base philosophy is that I'd have a pretty mad powerful rig for next ~2 years, then it would start showing its age a bit, but could still be upgraded with whatever 6- or 8- core CPU is available then & be extended out to five-ish or so.  Then retirement as a solid linux box for another 3-ish.


Anyway.  The SSD is only on the table if I reserve enough money in the budget and a Really Good Deal comes along.  If my mobo + GPU exceeds ~$280 (and that means, I will be waiting for my rebate(s) before buying the SSD), then it is a decision on my part to live without that bit of sweetness.  But, frankly, the 750 GB WD running at SATA III is a whole lotta plenty of performance given the rest of the system.  An SSD can wait until next January or next June, if need be.

[kitamesume]

lol, bah, currently my budget is dry for anything awesome, maybe for a 10$ stuff... meh. anyway, i bought me a thermaltake shockspin headset for 40$, usually they're at 55-70$ here, sweet deal is just too good.

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The video card is more difficult to justify since it really exceeds my needs ... for now.  The justification would be that, if it lives for 4-5 years, it will be lower cost over the lifetime of the rig by not having to replace it or get a second.

The base philosophy is that I'd have a pretty mad powerful rig for next ~2 years, then it would start showing its age a bit, but could still be upgraded with whatever 6- or 8- core CPU is available then & be extended out to five-ish or so.  Then retirement as a solid linux box for another 3-ish.

i`m readjusting the minimum card to get, the HD6570 could overclock easily to HD6670 speeds, nvidia cards on that price segment just sucks(GT540 or GT240? no thanks) and the middle card would be a GTS450 or HD6790 or GTX550 Ti next up is GTX460 or HD6850 or GTX560 Ti... anything higher and you`ll be popping your budget.

[Freedom Kira]

Ahh ... you taunt me with a Great Desire that I cannot have!  :'(  $200 is off-the-charts out of budget.  I also don't realistically expect a deal like that to happen again this year.

My point was that it doesn't matter how new something is. I often see new stuff show up in Shell Shockers. Perhaps not for as insane a deal, but it does happen.

The thing with Shell Shockers, though, is that you rarely get the specific deal you're aiming for. Broaden your aim a little.

[raandomer]

Actually, I'm pretty unhappy with current mobo design ... the standard double-wide video cards these days have really crippled expansion capability, making people choose between having high-end video OR Something Else.  Sucks to be paying for a board where 2 or 3 slots are blocked or useless.

how much power do you need from your gpu? There are plenty of low powered single slot solutions available on the market.

Whats your overall budget like and what type of usage are we talking about here? Also how flexible are you on amd/intel platforms?

ever thought about an i3/i5 and using h67 board with ondie graphics?

[kitamesume]

Actually, I'm pretty unhappy with current mobo design ... the standard double-wide video cards these days have really crippled expansion capability, making people choose between having high-end video OR Something Else.  Sucks to be paying for a board where 2 or 3 slots are blocked or useless.

how much power do you need from your gpu? There are plenty of low powered single slot solutions available on the market.

Whats your overall budget like and what type of usage are we talking about here? Also how flexible are you on amd/intel platforms?

ever thought about an i3/i5 and using h67 board with ondie graphics?

disgusting, rather buy the AMD Fusion Llano for better ondie -,-
[140$] AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz 4MB L2 Cache Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU
[120$] AMD A6-3650 Llano 2.6GHz 4MB L2 Cache Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU

[235$]PowerColor AX6850 1GBD5-I2DH Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 = single slotted GPU
[140$]PowerColor AX6770 1GBD5-IDHG Radeon HD 6770 Single Slot (Dirt3 Edition) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 = single slotted GPU (note: the HD6750 and HD6770 are rebrand while as the HD6790 is a cutdown barts chip)
[138$]SPARKLE SXS4501024D5SNS GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 = single slotted GPU

[datora]

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how much power do you need from your gpu? There are plenty of low powered single slot solutions available on the market.

Whats your overall budget like and what type of usage are we talking about here? Also how flexible are you on amd/intel platforms?

ever thought about an i3/i5 and using h67 board with ondie graphics?

Dude, thanks for the inputs and all .... BUT, I've answered those questions in quite some detail in this topic, especially starting on page 5 and forward.  You might at least look at the listing of hardware I have already purchased ... I'm down to the last two items, possibly three w/ a maybe on the SSD option.

The remaining budget is ~$300 (already higher than my original max of ~$250) for mobo + GPU, and if I can get under that by a "decent" amount, I might then go as high as ~$350 total to include an SSD.  Ideally I'd want to find all three for under ~$320.

No, I am not at all interested in any of the onboard GPUs I've seen ... just look at the specs on the last few vid cards that have been under discussion.  If you know of an onboard solution that can compare, I'll be happy to look at it.  But, it also has to take under consideration the robustness and expansion capability of the mobos that have also been under discussion.