About the cheapest I can come up with for i7 rig.

[SuxoR]

Post removed :]

 

[holmes]

if you plan on doing sli, then think twice. you have an ATI board and a Nvidia GPU. so you might either want to get a sli ready mobo or an ATI GPU.

 

[aspire]

if you plan on doing sli, then think twice. you have an ATI board and a Nvidia GPU. so you might either want to get a sli ready mobo or an ATI GPU.

You have no idea what your talking about.

He has picked out a Gigabyte board based on the Intel X58 Chipset (Not ATi) which can support both SLi and Crossfire.

However his particular board is on the low end and does not support either.

Ati does not make motherboards and never has. They are owned by AMD who makes and sells Processors, which utilize a completely different socket than Intel.

 

[Brodom]

So... i think imma go with this GPU...

Newegg.com - XFX HD-487A-ZDDC Radeon HD 4870 XXX 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

its a lil OCed... so let me know if i am making a huge mistake or something.

also... I changed to this MoBo...

Newegg.com - MSI X58 Pro LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
MSI Page
MSI Computer Corp. - Product

supports xfire... but wuts up with the easy OC switch? any opinion about that? and at the top of the page for RAM it says 1333+... then at the bottom it says 800, 1066, 1333... so i'm assuming that it won't support anything higher than 1333... no?
DrMOS seems pretty cool...

 

[Evolv]

Yea, looks like it only supports 1333 speeds.

 

[Brodom]

Yea, looks like it only supports 1333 speeds.

hmmm which ram do you think is the best out of these? I'm pretty sure youguys will say GSkill, but haha. all still ask...

Newegg.com - OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Newegg.com - Patriot 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

i really like that MoBo, but the downfall is the RAM speed... anyone know anything about that OCing switch?

 

[Evolv]

The G Skill seems to be the best.

 

[Brodom]

i really like that MoBo, but the downfall is the RAM speed... anyone know anything about that OCing switch?

Bump!!!
... Does anyone know about the OC switch... does that work... or is it effective? Or would I be better off manually OCing my CPU?

 

[zmatt]

ok, just for fun i tried to see what I could do. I wanted to use quality components that wont fail on you, but any expandability in the way of better video cards and overclocking would require a new psu, cooling and likely case. But anyways here is what I got. For the cheapest Core i7 build that wont die on you for no reason..........

Case:
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Elite RC-330-KKR1 Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply - Computer Cases
yeah, I know.....

Mobo:
Newegg.com - MSI X58 Pro LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
ugly as ****, but it works

CPU:
Newegg.com - Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
no brainer there

Memory:
Newegg.com - Crucial 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
WARNING! don't try to oc this stuff.

PSU:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RP550 550W ATX V1.3/ EPS12V Power Supply - Power Supplies
Of all the cheap psu's out there I have a slightly higher opinion of rosewill. And by higher I mean it won't fry your pc or blowup under rated loads.

HD:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
older model, smaller size, but it works and I have had a good track record with WD

VGA:
Newegg.com - POWERCOLOR AX4850 512MD3-DH Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
The cheapest 4850 around, and its non-reference!

DVD drive:
Newegg.com - LG Black 22X (CAV) DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X (CAV) DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners
burners are a dime-a-dozen but I have heard and experienced good things with LG's.

subtotal comes to: $857

 

[stalin90]

if your trying to stay very cheap just use a cardboard box as a case

if your case happens to break somehow who gives a **** just get a new one out of the trash