New Gaming and Video Editing Machine

Hey Everyone,
I am having a hard time deciding which processor I should go with, the Intel i7 860 or the AMD 965 Black Edition processor.
Here is the list of parts already purchased and waiting for the board and processor.

*Antec P182 Case with 2 Extra 120MM Cooling Fans
*NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller
*OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
*ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
*Artic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
*Seagate 750GB Barracuda HDD and WD 1 TB Black HDD
*CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMD4GX3M2A1600C8
*BFG Tech GTS250 1GB DDR3 (Already thinking about buying another one of this for SLI)

What do you guys think.

Thanks for looking at my list.

 

Well I guess its to late to point out some things I would suggest changing, but as for cpu, easy the 860. I personally use the MSI P55-GD65 in my rig with an i7 860.

 

What would you suggest changing for computer components. All of the products (Except for the Corsair Dominator Memory and the Zalman CPU Fan) where heavily discounted, that is the reason I chose these specific products.

 

Discounted isnt always a good thing.

Corsair PSU rather then OCZ. Oh and get a 500 watt. 700w is major over kill.

Might change the fans depending on which ones you got. Some fans claim big air flow, and do so with huge amounts of noise. Some do so with almost no noise.

Now Im to lazy to look up the zalman cooler, but if its the one, or similar to the one im thinking of, it wss worthless in my experience.

The GTS250 is very weak. However depending on your needs it might be sufficient. None the less I would have gone for an ATI card with similar performance. It would have likley saved you money.

 

I have decided to take back the BGF Tech GTS250 video card and purchase an Intel i7 860 processor and Biostar TP55 combo for $229.00 after rebate. Then going to sell the motherboard and replace it with an MSI P55-GD80.

I purchased the OCZ PSU, because it was $49.99 and I wanted to run SLI or CrossFireX.

I will change the cooling fans to Scythe later after I have built the PC.

Any other advise would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

 

This is the Zalman Cooling Fan I purchased.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=zalman_cpu_cooler-_-35-118-046-_-Product

 

Sounds like a waste of time to me, buying, selling, buying.

I just looked at the PSU. Good luck with it. Its not even 80 PLUS certified. This means that under load, the PSU will remain 80% efficient at the least. Your OCZ does not have this cert. PSU is the last thing you want to cheap out on. CPU,Memory,gpu,etc all offer quality pieces for cheap, assuming you dont need much power in those departments. A cheap quality PSU will starve your parts and cause frequent crashes among other problems. A 400 watt corsair can probably out put more power then your OCZ thats 700 watts. Thats the difference between a quality pus and cheap psu. Guess what the 400 watt is only $5 more. Now it wouldnt be enough for your set up, but for $40 more you could have had a 550w corsair that would have been ample. I have a 520 watt corsair that powers the set up mentioned in my sig. Dont be fooled by "wattage." It means nothing if its not quality.

As for fans, if your going with an i7, id say it would be a very good upgrade.

Oh and one more thing that slipped my attention. You had mentioned running SLI. The 860 isnt a good cpu for SLI or Crossfire, yet. There are plans for the p55 chipsets to support 16x16, but Im not sure there on the market yet. The main reason is the P55 mobos only run the second card at x8 speed rather then x16. If that seems to be a problem, then Id suggest the i7 920, but that will require a different mobo. Personally I see no need for crossfire or SLI. With the money spent on a second card, you could have just as easily gotten one card that would perform on the same level, with some exceptions of course, but you have to get into the very top shelf cards. Plus, by the time most people get around to getting there second card, the models already going out of date.

The 860 is awesome though. I had a Q6600 before and the 860 smokes it in every conceivable way. Should you go for a 920 instead, you will still see alot of that performance but the 860 generally beats out the 920 in all but memory bandwidth benchmarks seeing as most people run the 920 on 6 GB of RAM vs 4 GB on the 860.

 

Thanks for taking the time to give me more information. I will go with the OCZ until I need more power since I purchased it a while back. I will look into getting a Corsair PSU later for replacement.

I am looking into the MSI board for my mainboard, either MSI P55-GD80 or the MSI P55-GD65. I have also selected the SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 5770 1GB for my video card. I wanted to purchase two of them so I can run 3 monitors for gaming.

You are saying the P55 chipset will not support CrossfireX in full 16x16 path, but only 16x8 data path. But will it support the 3 monitors for gaming?

 

Well just be warned on the psu end. Your asking for trouble. Id sell it while its new in box and get as much money out of it for a replacement. Even if its not a corsair, atleast get something 80 Plus certified at the very least.

As for Crossfire, from what I have read, there are plans for x16/x16 mobos on the p55 chipset, they just arent for sell yet. Will it support 3 monitors, I would imagine so, but unless the x16/x16 mobos are out yet for the p55 chipset, Id say it would be a waste of money to go with an 860. Id go with a 920 instead. The 920 will open up both lanes to x16/x16 unleashing the full power of those cards.

 

16x16 boards for P55 aren't physically possible without adding a PCI express bandwidth multiplier. Nobody produces these yet apart from nvidia and Lucid, and the Lucid chips aren't yet available. It may be some time before a proper 16+16 board for P55 arrives.
Two HD5770s won't be bottlenecked in the least by 8+8, you could run those with 4+4 and have almost no issues. A P55 is fine.
Agreed on the OCZ PSU, replace it sooner rather than later, or you could regret it. Fortunately your system doesn't use very much power, so a 450W PSU would work fine as long as it has two PCI express power connectors. (The cheapest PSU from Corsair that does in the US is the 550VX).

 

Unless Im mistaken and it was 8x8x, I saw an article on dailytech awhile back mentioning an ASUS mobo in the works to support 16x16x. Ill see if i cant dig it up.

 

Can't be done without an extra bandwidth multiplier of some kind because the PCI express controller for P55 boards is in the CPU.

 

I realize that, but like you said, it is possible, and I realize that would bring prices up, but thats to be expected anyways.

OT: Welcome back Sam. Hope you had a good christmas and happy new year.

 

True. I'm just eagerly awaiting a reliable manufacturer to produce such a chip
New years' was pretty good thanks, yourself? Was spent without my PCs for the most part though, so relatively dull.

 

So with an i7 860 Processor matched up with a P55 chipset motherboard along with 2 Sapphire Radeon 5770 Video Adapters how many monitors can I connect and game with and work correctly (Eyefinity)?

 

I am not entirely sure. What I will say is that in order to use Eyefinity with crossfire you must use the 'hotfix' driver as no official driver currently supports running eyefinity in a crossfire setup.
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICatalyst912Hotfix.aspx

 

Didnt MSI just come out with the Hydra chips? I thought I read the Big Bang Boards were on the market now.

New Years was alright, had a little company over and enjoyed my usual drink.

 

Yeah, the Hydra chips came out today, but the boards may take a while to be available, and the Hydra technology itself is very poor. I'm not sure the inevitable high price will be worth it...

 

Well its not really a technology that holds my interest, maybe because im just no a hardcore gamer, but I thought you were very excited about hydra? Im sure if it can hand on long enough, it will improve over time.

 

I was, until I saw how disappointing the real world performance was. Theoretically, Lucid Hydra stood to work for more games than SLI/Crossfire, and offer almost perpetually linear performance scaling with extra GPUs. As it stands, the games performance is limited, and worse still there isn't a single game where it can even compete with Crossfire or SLI, let alone beat it. They have a very long way to go yet. There's also the fact that the technology does not currently support dual-GPU cards being mixed either, so you are limited to a maximum of 3 GPUs. Given the performance of the technology, A quad crossfire setup would absolutely obliterate it.