No budget multimedia/gaming rig build.

[Viceroy]

This build's ultimate purpose is to be used for mainly for gaming and multimedia downloading/burning/ripping/playback. I have stated that this build has no budget restrictions. This is true, however that is not to say that I am willing to spend excess amounts of money for hugely diminished returns on bleeding-edge merchandise. I am satisfied with the product that is currently at a great value but is not underpowered. For instance, my GPU of choice is the Radeon 5850. It is less powerful than the 5870, but also much less expensive. It is also slightly more expensive than a 4890, or 2x4870 CF'd, but also a much more solid and versatile performer. The perfect balance of power-pricing for me is the Radeon 5850.

---Potential purchases---

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
$97 taxed/shipped
Low latency and low voltage make up for its low speed, which can be easily overclocked. I will consider purchasing a second set if 4gb seems insufficient.

GPU - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5850
$265 taxed/shipped

ODD - HP Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM SATA 24X Multiformat DVD Writer
$35 taxed/shipped
This one does everything but Blu-ray. If you can find me a better one or a cheaper one, chime in.

$397 total

---Recently completed purchases---

***New*** Case - XCLIO Windtunnel Fully Black Finish 1.0 mm SECC Chassis ATX Full Tower Computer Case
$98 taxed/shipped

PSU - ENERMAX ERV1050EWT Revolution85+ 1050W SLI/CrossFire Active PFC Modular 85 Plus Silver Certified Power Supply
$150 taxed/shipped

HDD - Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 32 MB Cache
$75 taxed/shipped

CPU - Intel Core i7 Processor i7-860 2.80GHz 8MB LGA1156 + Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 Socket 1156/ Intel P55/ DDR3/ CrossFireX/ A&GbE
$335 taxed/shipped

VDU - Dell UltraSharp U2410 24 inch 1920x1200 6ms 1000:1 HDMI/DVI/VGA/DisplayPort Widescreen LCD Monitor
$524 taxed/shipped
Really phat screen with badass features and picture. Demands high-power GPU so I can take advantage of its awesomeness.

Audio A - Altec Lansing BXR1121
$20.00 taxed/shipped
If you haven't heard these before then you are missing out. For the quality of sound I can't believe they only retail for about 25 dollars.

Moose - Razer Salmosa
$27.00 taxed/shipped

$1229 total

***New*** ---Optional purchases---

***New*** Mouse - My current mouse, the Razer Salmosa, is somewhat unsatisfactory to me. I bought it on the prerequisite that it would be ideal for fingertip gripping, when in fact the dynamics of the mouse seem more befitting a claw grip or even a palm, and this is just not what I wanted at all. If held with fingertips, the Salmosa buttons are too difficult to depress (due to being nearer to the butt end), the chassis shows marks very easily, and the mouse itself is just much too long to be effectively maneuvered like a fingertip mouse should be.

If you have any suggestions for mice that you think I would like, please let me know.

***New*** Keys - Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard
$50 taxed/shipped
Keyboard needs to have backlighting, or whatever it is called where a light comes on beneath the keys so they can be seen easier in a dark room. The keys must have space between them and must have noticeable depression (so no laptop keys). It absolutely must NOT have all the noobish bling like a dumb little LCD screen or 50 programmable buttons I'll never use. If you have any suggestions for boards you think I would like, or if you think the G11 is perfect for me, let me know.

***New*** HDD - I already have a 1tb drive listed in my completed purchases, but I am considering several options that would involve different/additional HDDs.

One would be purchasing a 10k RPM drive, particularly the Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. Newegg is running a combo deal right now where they are throwing in a power supply along with the VR, and giving you 2 bucks just to take it off their hands. I have no use for that PSU on my machine, so I figure I could sell it on Ebay for about $70, thus bringing the practical price of a 300 GB WD VR down to $150. Another option would be to take identical drives and run them in RAID, but this would practically necessitate that I sell my current drive and buy faster ones (I am going for speed here, after all). Yet another option would be the one included in the following quote:

Another option is to buy a 32MB cache 1.0 or 1.5 TB drive ( $90 to $140 typically , Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 series in particular here ) and "short-stroke it" to only 300 ( or 700 ) GB, using the fastest part of the platters only ( restrict cylinders to only allow access to outer cylinders/tracks of the platters, so that the drive is forced to only r/w to the fastest parts of the platters ( the middle to outside of the platters, larger circumference of platter = higher data throughput there ), making inner portion of the platters inaccessible. Once you do this, the performance is on par with VelociRaptor ( even slightly better in certain benchmarks ) for about half the price of the VelociRaptor.

All of the options look tempting and viable to me. I thank you for any insight you can offer me in this matter.

********

That's it for the potential purchases for now. Please give me any opinions you have-no change is too small. I've spent a lot of time on this build because I want it to be as perfect as it can be, so please spare no detail. I am all-ears.

Thanks a bunch

~Viceroy Trepanation

[Skippman]

I'd definatly up the PSU. Since you didn't list any of the modular Corsair units I'd get the CMPSU-850TX 850W. $40 more for 200 more watts. That being said the 640 watt unit from Corsair has had no problems running my twin 4870's even though it's not officially "Crossfire Certified" and I had to get custom cables from Corsair to do it.

Other than that, looks good. I'm not a huge Gigabyte fan but that's mostly due to cosmetic reasons rather than performance ones and I see you having no problems with that.

Since you're going to be using this for multimedia have you considered any kind of a RAID array to keep your media safe from hard drive failure. With larger drives becoming more common I fear to many people are relying on them as a single storage device only to be heart broken later when/if that drive should fail.

[Nobahar]

Snatch up this PSU that was posted on legit deals: http://forums.legitreviews.com/about23170.html

[Viceroy]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I just gave the OP an update. I'll be back to respond tomorrow evening.

[Skippman]

Not bad. A quick look at those GPU's show that they do appear to be a refrence design so if you wanted to get more agressive with cooling (water) later on you could.

[Viceroy]

Snatch up this PSU that was posted on legit deals

Done.

[DL126]

3 or more drives in RAID 0 will increase performance.
2 isn't much better than 1.

[WeAreAcidic]

Not too bad, considering the price. Like Skippman said, though, watercooling is a good idea.

[Viceroy]

Do I REALLY need to worry about cooling with this system? As long as it doesn't OVERHEAT shouldn't it be fine?

[Skippman]

Do I REALLY need to worry about cooling with this system? As long as it doesn't OVERHEAT shouldn't it be fine?

You should worry about cooling on ANY system you build. Heat is the enemy of computing. It's like cancer, once your machine starts to heat up inside it can only get warmer. A hot GPU if not properlly ventelated leads to a hotter processor and PSU. It's just the nature of the beast.

The i5/i7 series of processors run hot. Cooling them is a must. This can be done with air cooling at a marginal price. The big thing you're going to want to watch is cable routing. The cleaner you can make the inside of the case the better the air flow you're going to get and thus the better the cooling you're going to get. Do not overlook case fan selection. Look at CFM, Cubic Feet per Min. The higher the CFM, the more air the fan pushes. Only you can weigh how much noise you're willing to tolerate.

Most die hard enthusasts will tend towards companies like Yate Loon who market super high CFM fans. The one linked is rated for a windtunnel emulating 88 CFM. A few of those bad boys and you might have to strap the case down lest it take flight. The downside is noise, at 40DB they're pretty audable. You can tame that using a fan contoller to slow down speeds or pursue some of their lower speed fans push a still respectable 47 CFM @ 28DB.

[Viceroy]

But at some point the amount that you cool stuff becomes overkill. Why make it cooler than it needs to be able to run smoothly? Cooling your parts isn't going to make them go faster.

[Viceroy]

OP updated.

[DaddyRabbit]

This all looks good (although I agree to up the PSU a bit).

From the optionals list I would pick:

1. The i7 860, it's not a lot more and HT might help out.

2. The 5870 (I've seen them at the Egg for $379). This is probably more subjective but you may want to look at Eyefinity in the future and the extra horsepower would be helpful.

3. As for the Spinpoints, they're good drives but I'm partial to the Caviar Blacks and RE series from WD, more expensive though and, once again, subjective.

4. I can't argue with the ODD other than that I have issues with Sony (personal choice). Cases and keyboards/mice are so user subjective that, if you already picked it out, I'd say go for it.

5. If budget truly isn't an issue, and you want it perfect, pick up 2 more of those Dell UltraSharps, go Eyefinity and post some vids so we can all drool

[Major_A]

I've been running nothing but Samsung Spinpoints in my last 3 builds and I can't say enough about them. They are quieter than any other drive I've owned and run the cooler than any other drive I've ever owned.

Another thing to consider, all Blu-Ray drives are DVD burners. Since you want a multimedia PC you might as well pick one up for under $70.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106326

[Skippman]

I've been running nothing but Samsung Spinpoints in my last 3 builds and I can't say enough about them. They are quieter than any other drive I've owned and run the cooler than any other drive I've ever owned.

Another thing to consider, all Blu-Ray drives are DVD burners. Since you want a multimedia PC you might as well pick one up for under $70.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106326

Hows speed performance when compared to the WD Black drives?

[Major_A]

Don't know, give me some tests to run and I'll run my RAID 0 array and a single TB drive.

[Viceroy]

I just finished giving the OP a revision. The possibility of an i5 CPU was scrapped, and due to popular user demand, I have allowed a return of the possibility of an i7 920/x58/tri-channel core system build possibility, albeit against my better judgement. Please see the points marked ***New*** for greater detail.

Thank you all very much for your help.

[DaddyRabbit]

If you look at the math and shop a bit more you could probably get 8GB of RAM in the 860 rig for about the same price as the 920 build.

While I have a 920 rig, were I building again I would go the P55/860 path. The reasons for my decision would match yours as well methinks:

1) Don't X-Fire or SLI, single card here. Plus it's still not clear as to the gains with x8 + x8 versus x16 + x16 yet, if I did go multi GPU I don't think I'd notice the difference.

2) No need for Gulftown.

3) Not big on Asrock boards, I think you're getting a better board with the 860 build.

Along with the other reasons (e.g. power consumption, turbo boost imrovements) I agree that the 860 build is a better choice, or would be for me

[Viceroy]

I have been considering replacing my current motherboard selection with the EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR LGA1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard. It is $184 taxed/shipped, which is only 20 dollars more than my current mobo. This one looks to be of higher quality and more feature-rich, though my perspective on motherboards is somewhat limited and I ask for your insight.

Also, I found an Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2C1 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk for $220 taxed/shipped, and at that price I am highly considering implementing it into my overall build. What are your thoughts?

[Viceroy]

I just purchased my CPU and motherboard, changed my ODD of choice, and updated the OP accordingly. I decided to commit to the i7 860 and subsequent compatible motherboard/RAM, so the rest of this build should fall into place pretty easily.

Final purchases are planned to be made in the next few days if possible.