ready to build a new comp, need some suggestions plz

[Sean W.]

you can still get a i7 920 on amazon...

 

[Muffin Man]

As for the CPU, go with the i7 930 or the 920 if you can still find it, they're the cheapest i7's but can easily hit the same speeds or higher with a bit of overclocking. Literally the ONLY difference between the 920, 930, 940, 950, and 965 is the multiplier (which sets the stock frequency). All of these chips can be overclocked to 4GHz with a good cooler in most cases. Save the extra money from the CPU upgrade, get a 930 or 920, and spend the extra cash for a good CPU cooler/heatsink. This will let you overclock and you can get much better performance.

i agree with you. just so you know though the 950's price has been cut in half, now it's only like $10 more i think, than a 920 or 930.

 

[Sean W.]

i think id still take a 920 over a 950... there isnt really any proof that they are binned any higher and the 920 is proven its self to be an awesome overclocker...

 

[j115511]

yea the reason i went with the 950 was the fact that it was cut in half i was originally going to go with the 930 but seeing as how the 950 is only 10$ more i thought what the heck

 

[Sean W.]

id take a 950 over a 930 but a 920 over both

 

[patonb]

Why? its the same chip, just clocked higher?

Means you start higher... whoopie.

 

[j115511]

so just go with a 920? also ive been reading good things about the rampage iii motherboard

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

The Rampage 3 is a MICRO ATX board meaning for the same price as the ASUS P6X58D-E (I'm pretty sure that's the model) you lose several extra slots. Just because it has a cool name really doesn't give it any bonus points, a full ATX board is better suited for a full ATX case and the additional slots will allow you to run an SLI or CrossFireX multi-GPU configuration in the future while it will be more limited on a MicroATX board with fewer slots.

Here are the two boards I'd recommend. The first is the P6X58D from Asus, I recommend it because many people here use it and it has a good set of features. Note that most any X58 board will overclock an i7 9xx series to 4GHz easily. The rest of your searching should be based on number of USB/SATA/PCIe/PCI/eSATA/etc. ports available, multi-GPU options, and component/board quality.

Newegg.com - ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
The P6X58D-E is $219 and has an additional PCI and PCIe X1 port compared to the Rampage III. The X1 slot allows for things like WiFi, I/O (serial/parallel) ports, TV tuner, or other expansion cards, same with the PCI slot. It also has a third PCIe x16 slot which could probably be used for tri-GPU or as a second PCIe addition slot.

Now for my board of choice. I recommend the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R because my personal experience with this board has been awesome. Other people have said that Gigabyte's quality can be flaky sometimes but if you get a good unit then you'll be happy with it. It has more USB and SATA than the P6X58D-E and also 2 eSATA on the rear panel. It also has 2 PCIe X1's as opposed to just one.

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
With more PCIe X16's than the other boards it is good for lots of expansion, even ignoring the second slots that get covered up you can have 3 GPU's in the right case like the P6X58D-E but has two PCIe X1's above the first X16. It has 8 USB2.0 on the rear panel plus 6 (on the new revision, 4 on the revision I have) USB2.0 inside. Two of the rear USB2.0 ports double as eSATA ports for external drives, it has 2 FireWire ports on the rear as well (one mini, one normal connector) plus one internal FireWire. It has a total of 10 internal SATA ports (6 on the chipset controller, 2 on the SATA3 controller, and 2 on the Gigabyte SATA/IDE controller). The Gigabyte chip also provides one IDE channel and a floppy drive connector if you still need these devices. Right now the board is on sale for $199, normally $209. Using this board I got my i7 930 to 4.1GHz with a Corsair H50 mini-water cooler.

 

[j115511]

you make some good points calc, thank you. youre right if the rampage 3 is pretty much the same board as far as performance goes i might as well just go with one of them, i was never really comfortable with the fact that its a micro atx in the first place ill definatly look into getting one of the ones you suggested. also would a water cooler be best or should i got with a normal heatsink? and if so which one should i get ive never dealt with them before.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

In general I'd go with either a big air cooler or a custom water loop. In my case I went with a self contained water cooler because I move my PC a lot (between home and school) and didn't want to worry about stress from a large, heavy air cooler on the motherboard. Some air coolers do cool a bit better than the small water units but in general the small water units work about the same as an air cooler. For super high performance cooling you'll want a full custom water cooling setup which can get quite expensive and you'll have to make sure it doesn't leak because you connect everything yourself.

I will say that the stock heatsink that comes with the i7 isn't all that great. It will run the CPU fairly hot at stock speeds/voltages and when overclocking you really can't push the voltage so you're limited to the speeds your chip can handle at the stock voltage. Usually you can hit 3-3.2GHz on the stock cooler but it will run at the high end of the safe temperature range.