Motherboard, CPU, And RAM
Motherboard: Gigaybte P55-UD4P
The ability to support two high-performance graphics cards at adequate bandwidth, plus a top-overclocking Nehalem-based processor, was the primary concern we had for our motherboard selection. Because so much money had been spent on graphics, we also wanted a bargain price. Recently awarded for its excellent value, Gigabyte’s P55-UD4P fit the build perfectly.
Read Customer Reviews of Gigabyte's GA-P55-UD4P
At $170, the P55-UD4P is one of the least-expensive motherboards to support both high-amperage CPU overclocks and automatic pathway switching for two PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards. While the extra PCIe pathways of an X58-based solution might have proven slightly better from a performance standpoint, the higher price of entry would have killed our budget.
CPU: Intel Core i7-860
Lacking any stock-speed performance benefits compared to its Bloomfield-based predecessors, our experience has shown that Lynnfield-based processors are still slightly better for overclocking and usually run a little cooler. Overclocking at a reduced cost is key to our final value analysis, so the only remaining question was “which one?”
Read Customer Reviews of Intel's Core i7-860
At around half the price of Intel’s 2.93 GHz Core i7-870, the i7-860 provides most of the clock speed and, hopefully, most of the overclocking capability of its high-priced sibling. For an extra $80 compared to the 2.66 GHz i5-750, the i7-860 benefits from a higher 2.80 GHz base clock, a higher five-bin maximum Intel Turbo Boost multiplier increase, and an increase to eight virtual cores via Hyper-Threading that can help keep the execution pipeline full. Comparing price to potential performance makes the Core i7-860 appear to be the best-value product to fit within our $2,500 budget.
DRAM: Two Crucial CT2KIT25664BA1339 4GB Memory Kits
The most highly awarded memory we’ve ever used, Crucial’s DDR3-1333 CAS 9 consistently impresses us with a low price and superb overclocking capabilities even after testing several kits, usually purchased from Newegg.
Read Customer Reviews of Crucial's CT2KIT25664BA1339 Kit
Most builders would expect us to use so-called “high-end” memory in a $2,500 machine, but our budget would have limited us to 4.0GB of the expensive stuff. Crucial’s low-cost kits get us close to the high rated speeds of high-priced parts while leaving enough room to expand our configuration to an impressive 8.0GB.
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Hello ionut19! You probably just did the same thing as me and, like me, got redirected to the .uk site where the comments section is currently empty?
Something strikes me as a little weird on that system. Don't know what it is. Dunno, for a budget of $2,500 I would've thought you could've gotten a bit more.
GPB equivalent from Overclockers UK: £1,709.85
Matching budget I did a X58 version for £1,703.87:
i7 920
Asus P6T SE
6GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz CAS8
2x Sapphire 5870
2x SpinPoint F3 1TB
Cogage True Spirit
Corsair HX850
LG BH08LS20 BD-RE
Antec 902
which is pretty much the same system to be honest. £75 exchanged the SpinPoint RAID for 1 SpinPoint F3 and a Samsung PB22-J 64GB SSD. Dropping the Blu-Ray burner to the equivalent LG Blu-Ray ROM would bring the system back under budget.
Maybe it's because just because I personally favour X58 over P55.
Something strikes me as a little weird on that system. Don't know what it is. Dunno, for a budget of $2,500 I would've thought you could've gotten a bit more.GPB equivalent from Overclockers UK: £1,709.85Matching budget I did a X58 version for £1,703.87:i7 920Asus P6T SE6GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz CAS82x Sapphire 58702x SpinPoint F3 1TBCogage True SpiritCorsair HX850LG BH08LS20 BD-REAntec 902which is pretty much the same system to be honest. £75 exchanged the SpinPoint RAID for 1 SpinPoint F3 and a Samsung PB22-J 64GB SSD. Dropping the Blu-Ray burner to the equivalent LG Blu-Ray ROM would bring the system back under budget.Maybe it's because just because I personally favour X58 over P55.
So did the builder, but the P55 was used anyway in hopes of a better overclock on the newer CPU. That didn't work out. But anyway...the RAM was good RAM, for a good price, and it ran at over 1600 CAS 8 anyway. Now if that same cost-savings eye would have been put into a few other places, perhaps X58 and a big enough liquid cooler to chase that big overclock could have been purchased.
big enough liquid cooler to chase that big overclock could have been purchased.
That Cogage will easily cool the i7 920 up to 4GHz on its own, past that you'd need a good chip to exceed 4.2GHz anyway. And a better motherboard too perhaps.
That Cogage will easily cool the i7 920 up to 4GHz on its own, past that you'd need a good chip to exceed 4.2GHz anyway. And a better motherboard too perhaps.
Well, the i7-860 in the review would go to around 4.4 GHz on a huge air cooler with super-fast fans, but those weren't included in the purchase and were only used in diagnosing the O/C problems. You can get a 920 to 4.20 on a 2x120mm radiator.
So I read the "uncompromising compromise" conclusion page ( http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/buil [...] 8-16.html# ) and it seems like a lot of the build changes.
Using the original build as a basis, and the improvements that were suggested on the compromises page, what should I fit? If I bumped my budget up to $2750, would that help?
Any advice would be appreciated!
This should be called the "more money than sense" system.
This should be called the "more money than sense" system.
Hardly. This is about standard for a high-end gaming system.
More money than sense would have 3 5870s, Core i7 975 OC'ed to 4.2GHz, 12GB Corsair Dominator GT 2000MHz, 3 Intel 64GB Extreme SSDs in RAID 0 for system and water cool the lot.