Top End PC

[Ejac]

Basically I want to know if you were to build a PC right now. What components would you use?

I'm thinking of building a high end gaming PC, but I'm not going to spend over $1,500.00. I haven't looked at what's hot on the market right now. I'm sure someone who reads this forum can give me some suggestions. I'm thinking a Phenom II CPU, 790 Mobo, DDR3 at least 2gigs (even though I'll probably go with 4), and two 4870 ATI video cards.

I have 3 LCD monitors and I want to run them all off one PC. In order to do this I'm probably going to need to crossfire the video cards? I've never used dual video cards, so I'm not really sure how that part works.

Any suggestions on the CPU, RAM, Mobo, and Video card would be great! All the other stuff like DVD burner, Hard Drive, etc... I can take care of myself. Also, don't forget that the motherboard chipset needs to be one that matches the video card I decide on.

Any suggestions would be great!

[scrockstar]

Get this processor:
Newegg.com - Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

This bad boy to cool your CPU down:

Newegg.com - ZALMAN CNPS9900LED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

and this Mobo:

Newegg.com - EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

This way you can do 3-way SLI if you want. Also a good board for OCing

Just get a 800w power supply and whatever RAM / VC(s) / Case / Drives you want or can afford.

If you don't want to OC just get a good Duel Core processor

[Tename]

Intel i7 tops the high end CPU in my opinion... however, any new pc you build right now will perform horribly in FFXI...

[Blabj]

you'd probably get better performance in FFXI on a newer PC by running it through a VM than you would normally.

[Tename]

you'd probably get better performance in FFXI on a newer PC by running it through a VM than you would normally.

VM ??? Virtual Machine?? I am actually getting pretty bad performance out of my high end pc, and I am looking for ways to optimize

[levish]

T_T

And here I thought this was going to be something with a I7 EE 975, 24GB of DDR3, 4x Intel 25-E's in RAID0 with 3x 4870x2's
(and a partridge in a pear tree)

[solsirt]

Top End - $1500 ?!?!
alright got that out of the way... moving along.

what are you wanting to use this PC for, and what components do you already have? Let's just start there...

[Olo401]

Contrary to what folks here are saying, newer PCs actually run FFXI very well on full graphic settings. The major limiting factors for the game are the CPU and your internet connection.

However if you're going to build a PC and have a $1500 budget, you might as well build something that will either last a while or can run hardcore PC games like Crysis at high settings. If I were going to build a $1500 system now.. here's what I would do:

If it were just the PC, without monitor..
CPU - Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - $289 (Free Shipping)
Mobo - ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - $240 (Free Shipping)
Cooler - Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO CPU Cooler - $77
Memory - OCZ 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $97 - $20 MIR (Free Shipping)
GPU - SAPPHIRE 100251SR Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit (256-bit x 2) GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - $400 - $10 MIR (Free Shipping)
HD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $100 (Free Shipping)
Case - Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $110
DVD/CD - SAMSUNG Black 2MB Cache SATA 22X CD/DVD±R/RW Burner with LightScribe - $25 (Free Shipping)
PSU - PC Power & Cooling S75CF 750W EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified/CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - $110 - $15 MIR (Free Shipping)
= $1448 before shipping & MIRs

If it includes the monitor... switch these items:
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - $165 (Free Shipping)
Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - $135 - $20 MIR (Free Shipping)
Cooler - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - $29 (Free Shipping)
Memory - TWO KITS G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $53x2 (Free Shipping)
= $1188 before monitor, shipping and MIRs

*Note : You absolutely MUST run a 64-bit version of Windows for these builds. The video card has 2GB memory and that's gonna kill your system if you're running 32-bit. It's also why I put 8GB memory on the C2D build. If you don't have a copy, I can redo these to factor in the cost of the OS.

Monitors: There's a lot of good ones you can get, and there's a bunch of nice widescreen 24" displays in the $300-400 range. Some of the good brands I hear about are Acer, Hanns-G, Samsung, ASUS, LG, and Viewsonic. The specs to keep in mind are max resolution (for a WS 24" should be 1920x1200), interface (DVI and/or HDMI in most cases) and response time (2-5ms, lower # is better).

I've become a bit of a fanboy of Samsung though because they have a nice, classy look and graphically have very nice dark tones. They're slightly more pricey, but I think it's worth it. As for my recos, you can get this 24" for about $310, plus a $30 rebate. If you're interested in something that doubles as a 1080p HDTV, there's the T240HD at $390. It'll put you slightly over budget but for what you get it's almost worth it.

[solsirt]

I'd consider RAID and get smaller hard drives, but other then that... olo's pretty spot on.

[Olo401]

I was thinking of putting a RAID 0 setup in there, but decided to keep things "simple" heh..

[Blabj]

s'all about the RAID5, redundancy is the new thing guys.

[geno]

I more or less agree with Olo, but I'd get a better cooler for the no monitor build. For only like $11 more, you can get top performance cooler and probably push the e8400 over 4.2 easily (at least if its an E0 stepping - my C0 doesn't want to go higher than 4.0 even though temps are still pretty cool )

[Olo401]

I more or less agree with Olo, but I'd get a better cooler for the no monitor build. For only like $11 more, you can get top performance cooler and probably push the e8400 over 4.2 easily (at least if its an E0 stepping - my C0 doesn't want to go higher than 4.0 even though temps are still pretty cool )

More? It's like 30 bucks less heh.. I probably would've recced it on price alone but I didn't see a review on it until yesterday.

Actually the Noctua one gets pretty good reviews, probably because of the push-pull 12cm fan design. It seems there's a bunch of really decent air coolers coming out for the i7s, and none of em from the usual players like CM or Arctic Cooling..

[geno]

Yeah I actually meant replacing the Freezer 7 Pro in your monitor build, but it would definitely compete with or beat the Noctua one as well. I've seen people use zipties to turn S1283's into push/pull as well, but it isn't initially supported.