Building Sick Machine... Help make it live!!

[patonb]

Do you really need 3T right now?

You might want a superfAST OS drive and maybe the 1.5T

Drives have dropped insanly in price aND tripled in size lately.

 

[tastegw]

ok,

all you need to do now is make sure these are the parts you really want.

shop around some to see if you can save money on the same parts elsewhere.
look for combo deals.

also,

re-examine everything before you click "buy"

some people would say this:

*biostar motherboard x58 would be a good choice.
*another case (preferance really, get one with good airflow and one that you like the looks of, if you like the looks of the antec 1200, get it)
*different ram: (but the ones you picked out are really nice)
*different psu: yours will cut it, but if you want upgrades in the future, you will need more power perhaps
*1.5 TB HDD 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache - $130 x 2 = $260
how mucy stuff you plan on saving lol, ive used less than 100 gigs in the last year.

Do you really need 3T right now?

You might want a superfAST OS drive and maybe the 1.5T

Drives have dropped insanly in price aND tripled in size lately.

beat me to it
*and last but not least "LG GGW-H20L 6X BLU-RAY DISC REWRITER - $210
LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY/HD-DVD Reader - $107 "
i dont know anything about blue ray yet, but do you need 2 of them? i mean the top one, it cant read? but only rewrite?

*also, dont forget to nab some case fans, 120mm', get some high cfm ones if you can stand the niose, or some mid cfm low noise ones.
*be sure you have some twisty ties or something for wire management
*have fun

good luck.

 

[Altumax]

Thanks a bunch guys... I'm still waiting on the cooling which I assume I will get when Aspire gets to this thread I will probably just go with one HDD and I'll use the money to upgrade the PSU a bit. Finally, I will just plan on getting the Blu-Ray Reader, not the writer/rewriter/reader because it could be quite a long time before BD-R's are actually economical to use for burning. Most likely I'll be looking at about $2300 after I find some extra case fans and the cooling system will probably bounce me right back up to around $2500. If there is any other feedback it would still be very much appreciated. Thanks so much guys!!

 

[tastegw]

i think we forgot the aftermarket cpu heatsink/fan.

there are not a whole lot to choose from for the i7, but there are bracket kits they sell to make some compatible with it.

try to find a riffle style cooler if you can, with a 120mm fan on it.

and if it does not come with thermal paste,
get either
mx-2 or tx-2 thermal paste.

this will help keep your cpu nice and cool compaired to stock cooling.

edit, here are a few to choose from, there are more tho

edit, here are a few to choose from, there are more tho

 

[Altumax]

Bump, Aspire... I'm waiting for you to tell me what to do for the cooling system :-D

 

[Press_Corpse]

To be honest dude, just stick with a regular heatsink and fan for your cpu. Your not that educated on overclocking so water cooling won't be needed. Take tastegw's advice and look at the rifle coolers and get a bracket kit with it and some thermal paste and you should be fine. As long as you do your best keeping wires away from fans and their airflow, you should be nice and cool temperature-wise. Save watercooling for later when you are more comfortable with components and not trying it out on a $2k+ machine.

another suggestion- Get a WD caviar black 640gb 32mb cache hard drive for your OS and maybe another for your music/documents/pictures. I don't see why you would need more than that for now. If I was you, I would be focusing on getting the basic stuff down and worrying about the extravagant components later when you grab more cash. CPU, MB, GFX, RAM, PSU, HD, CPU cooler. The rest you can snatch up later...also search for better prices at multiple websites

 

[Altumax]

All right... Thanks for the input... I might just get a couple of those nice hard drives if the price is right. And I understand what you are saying about the liquid cooling system too.

You mentioned searching multiple sites for good prices. These are the sites I currently use, please feel free to add to the list any suggestions you might have.

Froogle.com
Newegg.com
Buy.com
Shopzilla.com
Pricewatch.com
Ioffer.com
Ebay.com

Thanks for all the input guys, and please keep the suggestions coming!

 

[Altumax]

tastegw and Press Corpse, what do you guys think about this for the CPU cooling unit? And do you think I will need heatsinks for my GFX? Thanks!

Newegg.com - Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Socket 1366 Ready - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

 

[Evolv]

This would be a better cooler:
Newegg.com - XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks
Need this bracket:
Newegg.com - XIGMATEK ACK-I7361 CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

You'll need some thermal paste too:
Newegg.com - Tuniq TX-2 Cooling Thermal Compound - Thermal Compound / Grease

 

[Oreo]

to be 100% honest,

im using vista 64 bit, and i cannot tell the difference when im running 2 gigs or 4 gigs.

they both run my system the same.

so even with 6 gb's thats way plenty.

if you want the good stuff, grab the 1800 or even possibly the 2000+ if you can find some. (these would need to be overclocked to reach these speeds, so keep that in mind)

as for video cards and psu,

the video cards you get should determine what psu you get, not the otherway around.

the newest cards out right now are the ati 4800 series and nvidia's gtx 200 series.

nvidia has the lead in performance right now, so if you want the best you can get,
gtx 295 is the best single card out right now.
get 2 of these and your set for one amazing machine.
or just get one and still have amazing performance.

another suggestion is to just get 1x gtx 260 core 216 55nm card, and wait till july or so for the gtx 300 cards to come out, then upgrade. the gtx 300 leaks that i have seen, are the introduction of gddr5 to nvidia's cards.
altho this isnt official, the gtx 300 will still be much better than even the gtx 200 line.

as far as case goes, antec 1200 is good bang for the buck. its a nice full tower case.

as far as psu goes, dont go cheap here, get a high quality brand, (refer to the sticky in this section) 750w+ for 1 or 2x260's/1 or 2x285's/1x 295
if you go with 2 x 295's, grab something larger.
just remember, price alone doesnt always means it better.
look for amp's on the 12v rail's, the more the better.
for one gtx card, you will want 40+ amps, for 2, you want more of course.
70+ to be on the safe side when sli'ing 2 gtx series cards.

I am a heavy multi tasker and i can tell you i have on more than one instance wish i had more than 4gb of ram, i really do use all my ram up. 6Gb would be very nice.

@Altumax
A not so important point, but i couldn't help but notice you chose a really rubbish gaming mouse get a Logitech G5, Razer DeathAdder or Razer Lachesis - these are the top 3 gaming mice out and you won't go wrong with them.