Core i7 build, need suggestions

[memory]

From what I've see and read the 920 has more overclocking potential than the 930. The 930 is the 920's replacement and from what I've seen the 930 has reduced overclocking abilities which makes the higher priced i7's like the 950 and 960 more appealing to the enthusist.

This memory is faster than the Corsair you have chosen and it's the same price.
Newegg.com - OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G1600LV6GK

The paste on the stock heatsink will be better than Arctic Silver 5. Get some of this instead.
Newegg.com - Tuniq TX-2 Cooling Thermal Compound

That memory is actually a litlle cheaper without the rebate and comes with a free 16gb usb flash drive.

I have some Tuniq tx-1 paste. Is that stuff better than AS5? I thought AS5 was pretty good stuff.

Slaymate, I have read in a few different places that the turbo mode on the 860 is better than the 920.

 

[memory]

I have made a few changes.

CASE: Newegg.com - Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

MOBO: Newegg.com - ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Anybody think I should change? I would like to have one that has e-sata since I do have an external hard drive but it is not a must.

CPU: Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

RAM: Newegg.com - OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G1600LV6GK
Any better suggestions on RAM?

GPU: Newegg.com - XFX HD-587X-ZNDC Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) XXX Edition 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity
Would it be worth it to have the 2gb version? I will be willing spend the extra money if it is worth it.

HDD: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
It would be nice to have SSD but they are too expensive for me.

I am still undecided if I want to buy a aftermarket cooler or not.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

For the motherboard I would go with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, it's $209, LGA1366, and it does have eSATA (it has 2 eSATA/USB combo ports, there are a total of 4 SATA controllers one being the eSATA). It has 10 internal SATA ports as well, 2 being SATA 6gb/s. It too has 2 USB3.0 ports. I've been playing with the voltage tweaking abilities and managed to under-volt my i7 930 to cut heat production since I'm using the stock cooler. As for the OCZ Gold RAM, it isn't detected right and defaults to 1066 instead of 1600, but a little BIOS tweaking and setting the RAM voltage and it runs great on my system at 1600MHz and 1.50 V (which is less than the rated 1.65V, but the auto RAM detection wanted to run it at 1.77V which is too high).

I have the 5870 1GB though mine is Diamond branded, but it's most likely the exact same thing in a different color scheme. I'm using the ATi provided Catalyst drivers (not the ones from the CD that came with the card) and it performs very well. I can play pretty much all games (even Crysis) at full speed, full settings, at 1680x1050. Crysis I can set to 2x AA, everything else I've tried at full AA. It does a good job with Folding@Home GPU as well, and I can easily play Team Fortress 2 while folding and not suffer from bad frame rates. I have the i7 930 but the 920 is pretty much the same thing with the multiplier one step lower. Mine gets a bit hot with the stock cooler (running Folding@Home SMP on all 4 cores it reached 70-71, 75-76 C after I tweaked the RAM speed) so I played around with the core voltage until it stayed under 70C without problems, I've been running about 1.1V and it is at 65C at full load now.

Edit:
Gigabyte motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423

It looks better than the ASUS you found, it has more USB ports, an additional mini-Firewire port, 2 eSATA, 2 more internal SATA, an extra PCIe x1, and an extra PCIe x16 at the expense of one PCI slot. I also think it has a nicer northbridge/power system heatsink. I also like Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 design (solid capacitors, quality transistors, thicker copper PCB for longer life).

 

[Slaymate]

Slaymate, I have read in a few different places that the turbo mode on the 860 is better than the 920.

cq842000 read the same stuff and he bought the 860 also. Ask him what he has now and then ask him which cpu is better. The problem with reading most reviews about things like cpu and video cards is people are getting them for free and they want to continue to do so. I read reviews with that in mind and then I pay attention to the actual results posted by people that are paying for their hardware. The 920 and the 930 are both superior to the 860.

Arctic Silver 5 is old news. The Tuniq TX-1 is better than AS5 but not as good as TX-2. Arctic Silver does have a new paste out and they got the new formula from a company that use to be one of my favorites. I haven't tried this new stuff yet but I will.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100016

 

[Sean W.]

920 > 930 > 860... plain as day.

 

[memory]

Well I am definitely going with the 920.

I think I may go ahead and buy an aftermarket cooler. I was looking at this one: Newegg.com - Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler
Do you think that will fit in my case with no issues? I read some of the reviews and they say it is huge. Do you think the weight of it will be too muchfor the mobo? 1240 grams is around 3 pounds which I imagine is pretty heavy for a cooler.

Any better suggestions?

 

[Fat.Clown]

Well I am definitely going with the 920.

I think I may go ahead and buy an aftermarket cooler. I was looking at this one: Newegg.com - Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler
Do you think that will fit in my case with no issues? I read some of the reviews and they say it is huge. Do you think the weight of it will be too muchfor the mobo? 1240 grams is around 3 pounds which I imagine is pretty heavy for a cooler.

Any better suggestions?

the NH-D14 is no doubt one of the best air coolers, also one of the biggest.

just to give you an idea of it's sheer size ( mobo is ATX size)

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Yeah it's big
It'll fit in a 1200 just fine though. The fans that come with it don't stick out so far, and are only in the middle slot and left hand side (no fan pulling on the right side)

 

[Sean W.]

dude holy crap are you serious!? that thing is massive!

 

[Fat.Clown]

dude holy crap are you serious!? that thing is massive!

that's what she said.

Slaymate, I have read in a few different places that the turbo mode on the 860 is better than the 920.

only when program isn't optimized for multi core I guess.
some how I think a lot of people don't know what exactly turbo mode does?
turbo mode disables core to run less cores at higher speeds. if the program is optimized for multi core, it will actually hinder performance.

3.46 GHz is faster than 2.93 GHz

but since you plan on overclocking, you will probably have all 4 cores at 3.6 GHz or higher, more is good
also triple channel memory bandwidth is higher on LGA 1366 platform so that might be useful somehow....