The New and Improved DarkFury PC... WOOT!

[DarkFury]

Well, I've finally taken the plunge and built a new PC to run side by side with my trusty Windows XP box (I don't want to risk losing anything on my old box... therefore I decided to build a new box to finally get my feet wet with Windows 7.)

Here are the specs of the new build:

Case: CoolerMaster ATCS 840
CPU: Intel I7 930 Quad Core
Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro-E
Video Card: XFX Radeon 5850 Black Edition
Memory: 6 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 DDR3 Memory
Hard Drive: Western Digital 150 GB Velociraptor
Optical Drive: Samsung 223L Burner
Sound Card: Creative Labs Soundblaster Fatal1ty X-Fi Titanium
Cooling: Corsair H50 self enclosed water cooler kit
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Edition


I also installed an IOBit Dual DVI switcher so that I could share my monitor, keyboard, mouse and gamepad between both systems.


First impressions... this is a very nice build so far. The case is so roomy I probably need to charge the components rent to live in there. Boot up times are unbelievable so far (as it currently boots in under a minute.)

I haven't fully loaded all of the drivers yet... so we'll see how that effects it, however I'm pretty impressed so far with how much the technology has advanced since my last build about 2+ years ago.

[Nija]

You sir need more hard drive space. About 850GB should be about right

[Chgoman]

Nice setup. I build my new rig a few months ago. I had a few issues with getting 64 bit drivers for some of my components, but eventually it all worked out. If you can't find 64bit Windows 7 Drivers for anything, look for the 64bit Vista drivers as they should work as well.

[cruelpupet]

Nice! Any desire to go to RAID1 if you upgrade the HD?

[DarkFury]

You sir need more hard drive space. About 850GB should be about right

Yes, that will be coming later.

I'll probably add a 2 TB Western Digital Green drive for storage... but for now, I'm just trying to get it up and running, therefore the 150GB Velociraptor does just fine. I even set up a 100GB main partition and a 30GB storage partition just to temporarily hold any "backup data" that I may want to keep separate from the main O/S area.

Pretty much all of my real "storage" is still on the drives in my XP box which is still running side by side with this box.

[DarkFury]

Nice! Any desire to go to RAID1 if you upgrade the HD?

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of RAID.

Many of these drives scream as is... and I just don't like the additional risks involved for the given speed gains.

[cruelpupet]

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of RAID.

Many of these drives scream as is... and I just don't like the additional risks involved for the given speed gains.

RAID1 is mirroring, and while it should increase your read speed a bit, I was asking about it more as a firs layer to data protection.

(first layer, because it doesnt stop you from accidentally deleting files)

[nate el bueno]

The one thing I've loved about Windows 7 is that everything works without drivers (from my experiences). Obviously I still install graphics drivers and the works, but it's nice to not have to worry about it right away. Nice card, by the way. I thought you were an nVidia guy. I personally won't buy a new card until nVidia releases their next series, because that will cause a price war, and as the consumer, I win

[cruelpupet]

The one thing I've loved about Windows 7 is that everything works without drivers (from my experiences). Obviously I still install graphics drivers and the works, but it's nice to not have to worry about it right away. Nice card, by the way. I thought you were an nVidia guy. I personally won't buy a new card until nVidia releases their next series, because that will cause a price war, and as the consumer, I win

I havnt followed hardware in a while, but I thought ATI was a generation ahead of Nvidia at this point.

[DarkFury]

RAID1 is mirroring, and while it should increase your read speed a bit, I was asking about it more as a firs layer to data protection.

(first layer, because it doesnt stop you from accidentally deleting files)

I currently use Acronis 2010 for that purpose.

I usually schedule weekly incremental backups of all my data to a safe drive.

[DarkFury]

The one thing I've loved about Windows 7 is that everything works without drivers (from my experiences). Obviously I still install graphics drivers and the works, but it's nice to not have to worry about it right away. Nice card, by the way. I thought you were an nVidia guy. I personally won't buy a new card until nVidia releases their next series, because that will cause a price war, and as the consumer, I win

I am an "Nvidia guy"... however I have a special case here.

My previous XFX GeForce GTX 260 had so many problems with overheating during games. I finally asked XFX to replace it. Currently the GeForce chips are in low supply so they offered me a special upgrade price to move up to the Radeon 5850. Since that card has better performance than the GTX 260, I took them up on their offer.

Nvidia is gonna have to get their act together with these overheating issues. Those cards suck so much power and the drivers really aren't ramping up the fans to cool them off fast enough.

[a-10tankkiller]

If you wouldn't mind could you post prices, or your total? I have been debating starting a build and slowly transitioning my Win XP over to Win 7.
Thanks

Ahh, It's great to be able to post again!

[nate el bueno]

ATI is a generation ahead, but because of that, their prices are stable. When nVidia finally releases their stuff, the prices will drop. For now though, they're fairly stable due to the lack of competition.

[DarkFury]

If you wouldn't mind could you post prices, or your total? I have been debating starting a build and slowly transitioning my Win XP over to Win 7.
Thanks

Ahh, It's great to be able to post again!

Case: CoolerMaster ATCS 840
MSRP $200
I paid: $180

CPU: Intel I7 930 Quad Core
MSRP $299.00
Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro-E
MSRP $189.00
I paid: $349 after rebate from Fry's in combo deal.


Video Card: XFX Radeon 5850 Black Edition
MSRP $350.00
I paid $100 + trade in of my XFX GeForce GTX 260 video card.

Memory: 6 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 DDR3 Memory
MSRP $200
I paid $169 from Frys on sale.

Hard Drive: Western Digital 150 GB Velociraptor
MSRP around $200
I paid around $150 on sale at Amazon

Optical Drive: Samsung 223L Burner
around $30 which is what I paid

Sound Card: Creative Labs Soundblaster Fatal1ty X-Fi Titanium - MSRP $150
I paid $99 after rebate from Fry's

Cooling: Corsair H50 self enclosed water cooler kit
MSRP $79.99
(This unit sporadically goes on sale... so I paid full price.)

I also bought several additial case fans about about $15 each

Rough total system build cost: around $1200 (without monitor/keyboard/mouse since I share those with a previous system)

[LPMiller]

sigh, must be nice to have a Fry's. I have one Microcenter.

I used to have Compusa, Computer City, and Circuit city all within biking distances from my house. Feh.

[DarkFury]

BTW.. here are some pics of the build. Later I might tidy up some of the leftover wires with sleeves, however, since my case doesn't have a window panel, it probably doesn't really matter since none of my cables are blocking any of the airflow into the case.

CoolerMaster really outdid themselves on this case.



CoolerMaster ATCS 840 case (with my AeroCool 1000 Fan Controller)


The Innards


Corsair H50 Self Enclosed Water Cooler.

[DarkFury]

sigh, must be nice to have a Fry's. I have one Microcenter.

I used to have Compusa, Computer City, and Circuit city all within biking distances from my house. Feh.

Yeah, I wish we also had a Microcenter... they have some really good B&M deals.

CompUSA and Circuit City have shut down around here and I don't dare buy computer parts from Beast Buy.

[LPMiller]

no kidding, BB overcharges for most things. What little they carry.

Microcenter tends to match or even sometimes beat Newegg on processor prices, tis true. Same on mainboards and power supplies. They never seem to have the latest and greatest video cards though.

[a-10tankkiller]

Thanks for the prices and pictures. I'm stuck with online only here. We only have Best Buy and the closest one of those just closed up shop. I have to say with my last build I was able to pick up everything at a discount and/or rebate from Newegg, but I wish I could go in a store on occassion to look at various things in person.

[DarkFury]

NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, and Amazon are my friends online.

Pretty much I stick to those mostly. Every now and then, I'll buy something from some other online stores... but to do so, they'd better have a BOMB price to make me take the chance.

[nate el bueno]

Cases that require power supplies to be mounted on bottom scare me sometimes. It seems like every time I drop a screw it's waiting to fall into that gaping 120mm fan grille on the power supply. DF, Fry's carries an interesting case fan whose make I cannot remember right now. I will check on that. However, they have the craziest CFM/noise ratio I have ever seen- something like 18db with 75CFM. They're legit too; I used some on my last build and I think I might have gotten one for Markel. I'll check on that brand name next time I'm in the area. Probably today since it's right next to Xsport

[DarkFury]

There is no chance to drop a screw into the intake of the PC Power and Cooling Power supply.. They only use 80mm fans in their units and it has a grille.

Besides... if you were to mount the P/S on the bottom, the 120 mm intake fan would point down. The bottom of the case is perforated and elevated so that it can draw cool air in from the bottom then exhaust it out the back of the case.

You'd be ok putting your P/S down there.

[Devhux]

Nice build DarkFury - I agree that the case looks really nice.

[Prngr44]

I'll have to check the pics out from home.

Interesting comments about MicroCenter though. We just got one in the St. Louis area and I've never stepped foot into store. Guess I should check them out?

[nate el bueno]

Maybe I just put my PS upside down I imagined it having better airflow that way, I suppose. Hope you didn't jump the gun on your card too quickly- nVidia's new cards come out March 26th supposedly. Guru3d had a few articles. Here's a picture they had.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/inno3d-te...480-box-shots/

That's a crapload of GDDR5 memory...

[Devhux]

I doubt the GTX 470/480 are going to perform noticeably better than the Radeon 5850/5870 honestly - at least not enough to justify their (rumored) higher price. Fermi cards are also going to use substantially more power than the Radeons.

[LPMiller]

and run hotter, which isn't a good thing, considering the track record.

[ShawnLee]

Nice build. Tempting. My only comment would have been the hard drive space, but since you're just setting up a system to run fast and not storing stuff, I guess 150 gigs is sufficient.

[DarkFury]

Maybe I just put my PS upside down I imagined it having better airflow that way, I suppose. Hope you didn't jump the gun on your card too quickly- nVidia's new cards come out March 26th supposedly. Guru3d had a few articles. Here's a picture they had.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/inno3d-te...480-box-shots/

That's a crapload of GDDR5 memory...

Here's the thing...

My video card is an "upgrade" from my previous GTX 260 from XFX.

I had returned mine for service since it had been overheating. Only problem is, they are out of GTX 260 cards right now, so they offered me an even exchange for a Radeon 4890 or a paid $100 upgrade to the 5850. I took the paid upgrade as the performance difference over the GTX 260 justified the spending of the extra money (that and the fact that currently, a Radeon 5850 costs about $320... and after the new GeForce cards drop, I can probably get another one for Crossfire configuration for around $200 or less maybe...)

More or less, it was a "business decision". So far... I'm happy with it.