And so it begins

We may earn a small commission from affiliate links and paid advertisements. Terms

xj0hnx

I wanna be sedated
VIP
So I decided to build a new system as mine is starting to get dated and DDR PC3200 RAM is more than twice as much as faster, newer DDR2 PC2-6400, sooooo...

Motherboard came in today...

BFG Nvidia 680i LT SLI



Going into an Antec Nine Hundred case...



CPU's going to be either the Q6600 or an E6850, still going back and forth, RAM 4x 1 GB sticks G.Skill., 2x BFG 8800GTs.

Haven't decided on hard drives yet, but thinking about a couple of these, but if anyone has any suggestions throw em out there.

Anyone have a spare 650w+ SLI PSU they can part with? :p

Not going to overclock it unless I can find a decently priced watercooling set up, but I don't think I want to deal with fitting two VGA waterblocks and the lines in there.

Is anyone here running Vista 64 bit? I would like to use it, but want some input on driver/software compatibility issues. If it runs good without problems then I can dual boot XP and Vista 64, if not then I'll just run Vista 32 on both HDs in raid 0.
 
Last edited:
i think the q6600 is a waste.

i bought it.

i've yet to spike it over 30%. lol

That's kind of why I am going back and forth between the two, but at the moment not a lot of programs or games utilize the full potentiel of a quad core, but in the near future more and more will as it becomes the norm. Also what are you doing with it?
 
How about some SSD drives? :D Seems like a gaming rig, so Id probably get two cheaper drives to run in RAID 0 or WD Raptors if you can afford it, and use the 500gb for storage.

As for PSU, the Corsair 620 are among the best for a good price if you dont mind doing some bargain hunting.

Lastly, for the cpu, Id get the Q vs E. Why? Because you can turn the speed up on the Q, but you cant add more cores to the E. And, I say within the next year or probably less, lots of apps will run all cores.
 
How about some SSD drives? :D

You buyin'? $3500 for a hard drive is just a wee bit much lol

?Seems like a gaming rig, so Id probably get two cheaper drives to run in RAID 0 or WD Raptors if you can afford it, and use the 500gb for storage.

I actually thought about going with a Raptor for the OS, and programs with a 500GB for storage. I don't have the HDs yet, so some things may change, kind of why I am posting, more input and ideas makes better...stuff.

As for PSU, the Corsair 620 are among the best for a good price if you dont mind doing some bargain hunting.

Yea, I looked at this Corsairs, and this Antec. I'd really like a modular PSU, but it's not that big a deal, just enough power, and SLI ready.

Lastly, for the cpu, Id get the Q vs E. Why? Because you can turn the speed up on the Q, but you cant add more cores to the E. And, I say within the next year or probably less, lots of apps will run all cores.

That's what is leaning me more towards the Q :)
 
Last edited:
If you're going to get 1 raptor, id rather get two cheap drives and run it in RAID 0. If you look at benchmarks done at diy-street.com, two hitachis in RAID 0 matched 1 raptor plus cheaper and more storage.

I have the exact psu, the antec 650 trio. so far its been pretty good to me. only gripe is no sleeved cables. ugly and less flow as opposed to sleeved and modular ones. both units are made by seasonic, but the corsair is a lot better in terms of performance and quality. jonnyguru has both dissected at his site. since you running a really high performance system, id rather get the corsair. ive seen it go for like 100ish, but its worth it considering you have $500+ gpus and a $270 cpu.
 
If you're going to get 1 raptor, id rather get two cheap drives and run it in RAID 0. If you look at benchmarks done at diy-street.com, two hitachis in RAID 0 matched 1 raptor plus cheaper and more storage.

But were they using a RAID card, or an on-board controller? I don't think with the 2 GPUs, and my sound card that I'll have a slot for a RAID card. Ideally I'd like to run 2x150GBs in RAID 0, and have a single 300 for backup in a RAID 0+1, but you have to have two drives for the +1 :(. I'll probably wind up just using two 150 in RAID 0, and just continue using externals for backups, and storage. Hell you can get two WD 160GB, 16MB cache 3.0gb/s for around $90. 320GB is plenty of room for an OS and a TON of programs and games, if I am storing on externals.

Here's a question for ya, if I am running the 2x 160s on RAID 0, I could still dual boot with an IDE drive right? I want to use Vista, but my wife like s XP, so I'd like to keep in there some where without having to partition MY drives :p. (I've never used a RAID before...weird huh?)


I have the exact psu, the antec 650 trio. so far its been pretty good to me. only gripe is no sleeved cables. ugly and less flow as opposed to sleeved and modular ones. both units are made by seasonic, but the corsair is a lot better in terms of performance and quality. jonnyguru has both dissected at his site. since you running a really high performance system, id rather get the corsair. ive seen it go for like 100ish, but its worth it considering you have $500+ gpus and a $270 cpu.

If I could find the Corsair for $100 I'd be on it like white on rice.
 
Last edited:
ah f**k me sideways. ive been trying to find the benches at diy-street, but no luck.

anyway, youre getting a soundcard? vista doesnt like the xi-fi, but i think a recent driver was just released.

and in terms of dual booting. i dont see why not as long as your board has the option to select which channel to boot from. i have a 500 gb sata and 250 gb ide hooked up. through the bios, i opted to have the sata boot first.
 
ah f**k me sideways. ive been trying to find the benches at diy-street, but no luck.

anyway, youre getting a soundcard? vista doesnt like the xi-fi, but i think a recent driver was just released.

Yea, there was a fix for Vista on the X-Fi cards, but I am just using a SB Audigy 2, or something, but if I remember correctly the new onboard sound on these new boards is plenty nice, so I may dump it.

and in terms of dual booting. i dont see why not as long as your board has the option to select which channel to boot from. i have a 500 gb sata and 250 gb ide hooked up. through the bios, i opted to have the sata boot first.

That's good because 320GB Seagate 16mb 3.0gbps drives are on sale at CompUSA, who is going out of business soon. The drives are just under $100 now, and going continually down till they run out. If I can score 2 for 60 or less and run them in RAID 0 for Vista, and boot XP off an IDE for my wife that would be ideal. I'm readin the NVRAID users guide now to get a better understanding of it all :)
 
Get the Q6600. I've definitely pegged it at well over 50% on all cores continuously, and that's not even doing stuff that's very stressful yet. ;) Good luck finding the 8800GTs. I'm still waiting on one for myself. I still love my Audigy2.
 
Get the Q6600. I've definitely pegged it at well over 50% on all cores continuously, and that's not even doing stuff that's very stressful yet. ;) Good luck finding the 8800GTs. I'm still waiting on one for myself. I still love my Audigy2.

I ordered one 8800GT from Best Buy, and it was out of stock so they back ordered it. I found one in Laredo, and had it sent to the store here in Corpus, so I got one. So a couple weeks went by, and I get an email from Best Buy that my card had shipped :huh:, oops, I had forgot to cancel the back order, and they shipped me another 8800GT :D I'm wondering if it is the OC2 though, or if they just found an older OC.

CompUSA here is going out of business, everything right now is 10-20% off, I'm waiting on it to hit 30-40 then I am going to get one there.
 
Last edited:
Nice. Do they have one there?

If you don't need both 8800GTs, I'll buy one off of you. I don't think mine's going to ship from Dell... ever.
 
Nice. Do they have one there?

If you don't need both 8800GTs, I'll buy one off of you. I don't think mine's going to ship from Dell... ever.

They are sold out online, I called about ten different stores to find mine. I was actually thinking about selling it instead of using it to fund the CPU, so let me think about, I'll get back to you when the new one comes in, it should be here Tuesday.
 
umm newegg? they have one in stock

one model i mean

why not just go with the GTS?
 
looks like all the GTs are PCI-e 2.0 right? whats the difference between x16 and 2.0? double bandwidth? how widespread are boards with pcie 2.0?
 
I don't think they are out yet, the newest boards I was looking at are all still x16, but the cards are fully compatible with x16, so when they do come out, you only have to update the mobo.

The difference is double the bandwidth, they're also moving up to PCI express 3.0 which doubles that...eventually.
 
Back
Top