1600$ Rig Help Please

[carson1931]

Wow, thanks a lot guys, that helps a lot. I wasn't planning on making my purchase for another 3 weeks, but those combo deals might drive me to buy a couple parts early!! How long do those combos usually last?

I do have a concern about that OCZ gold ram however. Many of the reviews rate it poorly for having poor performance with certain BIOS, and not getting up to 1600. Will I need to do a special set-up to get it too work? Or will it be plug and play?

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I have both the X58A-UD3R and the OCZ Gold 1600 RAM. I recommend both. The X58A-UD3R is a feature-packed board at a very reasonable price. It has quality components and more expansion room (more USB, SATA, PCIe, FireWire, IDE, and FDD options) than the popular ASUS P6X58D that costs $100 more. It also is a good overclocking board, the BIOS settings are easy to change and it recovers from crashes pretty well. It also has Dual BIOS so if one BIOS flash goes wrong it has a backup to prevent bricking.

As for the OCZ Gold RAM, it defaults to 1066MHz (which is simply a lower RAM multiplier). This is absolutely not an issue. OCZ says they made it that way for compatibility with boards that don't support 1600 well, but it is guaranteed to work at 1600MHz if you set the multiplier up yourself. This is dead simple on the X58A-UD3R, just go into the BIOS, go to the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker screen, find the RAM multiplier, and use PgUp/PgDn to adjust it until the frequency changes from 1066 to 1600 (I think the default is 8x multiplier, you want 12X since the base clock is 133, 133x12 = 1596 which is within specifications for 1600MHz DDR3, the clock varies a bit anyways so it never is exact).

With my setup, I have base clock at 215MHz and my RAM multiplier at 8x for 1720MHz. The OCZ RAM handles this just fine at 1.64V. The motherboard says that this is slightly high voltage but the OCZ RAM is rated for 1.65V so it is safe to run at 1.64, though at stock 1600MHz it will probably work at 1.55 or so.

 

[carson1931]

Oh wow! Thanks for the info calc! You have a very similar build to the one I'm building. Everything good with your build or do you wish you had done something differently? Can you offer me any more advice for getting my hardware setup when the time comes?
Thanks,
-Carson

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I think my build went pretty well, the only thing was I added a Corsair H50 water cooling system to the CPU so I could overclock it. That was easy enough to install and got me over 4GHz so I think it's a pretty good build. I like the motherboard a lot, the RAM is pretty good though for higher overclocks you may want DDR3 2000, but it's a lot more expensive. The CPU is nice but a 920 would do exactly the same since I lowered my multiplier to get a stable overclock.

 

[farinha]

If I were you I would drop the Blu-ray burner, and get a reader only, and drop the modular psu, and get a non-modular, and with the money saved get a HD 5870.

 

[carson1931]

Okay, so I really appreciate your suggestions! I've modified my build some more based on your recommendations, and here is where I am at now!

Processor: 200$
Micro Center - Intel Core i7-930 Processor Boxed 582759

Case and PSU: 185$
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!

Graphics, RAM, and Motherboard: 700$
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!

Blue Ray Drive: 70$
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Combo Drive - Bulk Model SH-B083L/BSBP LightScribe Support - Blu-Ray Drives

Same HDD: 75$

Same Keyboard: 80$

Whatever Asus, LG, or samsung monitor happens to be on sale that I like: ~200$

Total ~1510$

So after upgrading the graphics card, and giving myself more room for a better monitor, I am still coming in well under budget, not even taking the mail in rebates into consideration! Awesome! Thanks all for your help so far! Should I buy those combos now while they are up? Or can I expect them to stay/ be replaced by something similar?

I was also wondering if anybody had experience with micro-center. I know they make the i7 processor super cheap so that people will buy other stuff from them once in the store... but thats not my plan. Will they allow me to buy the processor by itself?

-Carson

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

You could always consider 2 monitors with the 5870, I got a 3 monitor setup for around $450. If you're buying a monitor now you may consider buying another one or two in the future. The 5870 supports Eyefinity which allows up to 3 monitors on the standard card, 6 monitors on an Eyefinity edition card. You'll probably need a DisplayPort to VGA adapter though to do 3 monitors.

If you're getting just one monitor, I'd recommend something bigger than 1920x1200 as the HD5870 would be wasted on anything smaller (unless you're running multiple monitors, my 1920x1080 x3 setup can lag in Crysis at full settings but most everything else works well).

 

[carson1931]

Thanks calc. Can you recommend a monitor for me? I think a multiple monitor setup sounds awesome, and I would definitely consider buying a second one if the price was right. What brands/models do you like?

Can you also show me an example of the adapter you mentioned? How do I know if i need it?

I was also wondering if anybody had experience with micro-center. I know they make the i7 processor super cheap so that people will buy other stuff from them once in the store... but thats not my plan. Will they allow me to buy the processor by itself?

How long do combo deals last?

-Carson

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I'd go with something relatively cheap (under $150 if possible) for the reason that you're going to either want 1 or 3. 2 is good for adding desktop area, and if that's your main idea go for it, but for gaming on multiple monitors 2 is practically unusable as the center of the screen is right between the monitors, hard to shoot enemies that are either hidden or cut in half. For gaming 3 is good as your center monitor is about the same as normal and the side monitors increase your view.

The monitors I got are Dell ST2210 21.5" LCD's, they were $140 each on sale and are 1920x1080. For being cheap TN panels they have pretty good color and refresh rates and support DVI, HDMI, and VGA. The problem is that the HD5870 needs one monitor on DisplayPort to use 3 monitors, so you'll need an active DP adapter. A DP to VGA adapter is $20, a DP to DVI (active) is over $100 for a slightly better picture. I got the VGA and it works well at the expense of a tiny color difference on the VGA screen. All DP to VGA adapters are active, but most DP to DVI/HDMI are passive and will not work, you specifically need an active adapter.

 

[carson1931]

Would this monitor work?
Newegg.com - ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 20000:1) Built in Speakers

I'm going to have to start with one, because of my money constraint, but can you please give me a link to both kinds of adapters? Id like to see exactly what I would need.

Thanks again for your help so far.

-Carson