First build!! tell me what u think??

[Barramundi]

hi there

Wanting your advise!! will this setup be okay and would there be any compatibility issues??

This will be my first build!!

1 x Antec Quattro 850 -- 850W TruePower Quattro, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, Modular Cables, 80mm cooling fan, 4 x PCI-E, 8 x SATA, 9 x IDE*** $299.92

1 x LGE GH22NP20 IDE 22X +-R / 12X DVD-RAM / 10X DVD +-R DL, IDE - BULK PACK - BLACK (VISTA READY) $38.91

1 x CORE i7 920/2.66GHz/4.8GT QPI/8MB CACHE/LGA1366 $364.83

1 x Thermalright TRUE COPPER CPU Heatsink for Intel Socket 775, Intel Core i7 Processor (optional), AMD Socket AM2 & AM2+ Processor $116.87

1 x Antec Nine Hundred Two - The Ultimate Black Gaming Case, Envolved! Improved Airflow and Dominating Style, No PSU $181.95

1 x EXGTE, LGA1366, X58, 6DDR3, FSB1600(OC)RAID, 2GBLAN, 3xPCIE2.0, ATX $420.89

1 x 3.5 CAVIAR BLACK, 500GB, 7200RPM, 32MB, SATA II, 5YRS $84.79

1 x Corsair TR3X6G1600C7 6GB (3x 2GB XMS3) PC-12800 (1600MHz) DDR3 For X58 MB/i7 Core, 3x240-pin DIMMs, Triple Kit, 7-7-7-20 1.65V $295.39

1 x WD1500HLFS 150GB 16M 10, 000RPM SATA2 Backplane-Ready VelociRaptor $192.89

I havent yet picked a card but im looking at 9800gt or gtx

Cheers

Bara

[Remko]

Welcome!

Core i7 930 was just released, which you may want to consider for about $20 more. It runs at 2.8GHz. Haven't seen any overclock stats yet. Contrary to expectation of some, it is still based on 45nm technology, not 32nm as some were hoping for.

Re video card, make sure you get a 1GB version.

Can't comment on the rest, others will I'm sure.

Good luck!

[Blitzer]

I havent yet picked a card but im looking at 9800gt or gtx

I've not looked into your choices to any great depth but an initial read through sounds pretty good to me.

With regards to graphics the GTX 285 seems to be the favoured card ATM and TBH I think you may not be doing the rest of the system justice with a 9800gt, isn't that by today's standards an older card?

Are you planning to over-clock the processor? - again a favoured thing to be doing with the i920, you expect to be heading towards the 3.8-4.0 Ghz range with decent cooling.

I have the Antec 1200 case (full tower), the 900 Two (Midi Tower) looks to be a cut-down version of that, so IMO a good choice. The 1200 may be worth considering for the extra room inside but I would not have thought essential. The 1200 is a nice case with lots of room so I think you'd be happy with either TBH. 

[NaveenB]

As far as the setup being okay, I would say yes absolutely

If you are looking for suggestions(only if so, o/w disregard the following)

1) I would get one big HD 2.0 tb with a 64 mb cache and ditch that WD 150GB, that Velociraptor is kind of small and if you follow the "never go past 50%" rule you can hit 75 gb with FSX pretty quick.  The game may load more quickly with that HD but the increase in performance in-game is negligible(that's my experience anyway).

2) get a card with 1gb VRAM or more, I have started using the bufferpools = 0 tweak and it's quite simply amazing.

I just built a system like this one, with a 1tb HD for OS/FSX and a 920 o/c to 4.15 ghz and a GTX 285 with 2gb and it absolutely cruises...I love it!

[Barramundi]

Thanks guys on the comments

I have looked further into the video card and blitzer your abso right about the gtx285!!

and on that guys what do you recommend (the ftw version from evga (thats a 1 gig)) is that any good???

NaveenB- As I have never built a system before so i was difenetly looking for suggestions before I make the big move and buy my parts- because im not your tech type of guy when it comes to computers! no disrespect to you (NaveenB) but what do others think about of that idea?? ditching the veloc for a bigger HD cause his right I will fill my hdd pretty quick (although i know i can get the 300gb version) !!

anyways thanks guys for time

[Barramundi]

One thing i forgot to mention about why i was leaning towards the 9800 series is because it had an HDMI option!!!

thought that would be good to have as i might end up using a lcd tv

[Blitzer]

and on that guys what do you recommend (the ftw version from evga (thats a 1 gig)) is that any good???

NaveenB- As I have never built a system before so i was difenetly looking for suggestions before I make the big move and buy my parts- because im not your tech type of guy when it comes to computers! no disrespect to you (NaveenB) but what do others think about of that idea?? ditching the veloc for a bigger HD cause his right I will fill my hdd pretty quick (although i know i can get the 300gb version) !!

With regards to particular products I normally tend to look at websites that sell the products you are interested in that have customer reviews of those products. Quite a useful way to find out if there are any particular issues with that product or if everyone who got it is raving about it. When I do this I normally try to seek out the poorer reviews and judge by that if I think that particualr person is being unreasonable or if they have picked up on something that other people have missed. I tend to use ebuyer.com quite a lot in this way.

On the issue of hard drives I would definitely go for more than one physical HD. Having one HD is IMO almost asking for trouble, if it fails you lose everything in one go. I currently have three 1Tb HD in my FSX PC, complete over-kill on space but it allows me plenty of room and flexibility. These drives are arrange pretty much in the following way...

• Drive 1 - Three partitions. C: OS only (Win7 Ultimate 64bit). D: Program Installation (excludes FSX, but does include things like REX). E: My Documents.
• Drive 2 - F: Dedicated to FSX and related add-ons like aircraft and scenery. G: Backup partition
• Drive 3 - H: The idea was to have this as a dedicated drive also for backup purposed, but it does have a number of files from my previous HD - no problem though I have plenty of room for backups.

Essentially, half my HD space is used for actual installation of software and documents and the other half is for backup of that data.

HD considerations...

• 7,200 speed drives - The market is flooded with lots of different capacity drive, they are cheap when it come to purely to the amount of space you get for your money but offer the lowest performance. Perfomance can be increased by using a pair (or more) drives in a RAID configuration (never done this myself). £0.07/GB, 8.9ms Average Seek time - Based on a 1Tb HD.
• The Velociraptor drive (10,000) - offers improved performance over traditional HDs but a substancial increase in price per Gb. £0.87/GB, 4.2ms Average seek time - Based on a 150Gb drive.
• SSD - Much faster than a tradition HD and with no moving parts should be more reliable long term. Average seek time not specified for these products, basically because there's no "seeking" going on as such, speed are referenced in read/write speeds. The only real downside of SSD ATM is the high cost as a storage medium. £2.31/GB - Based on a 160GB drive.

My HD Thoughts

FSX in it's nature is a problem when it comes to disk space and performance. Quite simply for the best experience in FSX you need a fast HD, but also a reasonable amount of storage space if you want to expand upon the basic game with additional aircraft and scenery.

SSD drives will eventually replace traditional HDs, ATM though I see them as being a little too expensive despite the increase in performance unless you have deep pockets and are willing to pay the current premium. It is of my opinion that for FSX and scenery like FTX you ideally want a dedicated drive/partition of a 160Gb minimum, this is allowing for FSX, Acceleration, additional aircraft, FTX Australia, other scenery you may have and importantly enough room for future products.

For reference my current FSX partition is 76Gb and has FTX Oz + all airports, Ozx 3.0, about 20 add-on aircraft, UTX Canada/Usa/Europe and GEX.

If your pockets are deep enough and you are willing to allow the budget for it I would say a pair of SSD drives and a pair of larger traditional HDs would offer a good balance between perfomance and storage/backup space.

This is based on FSX as being the only software that really requires high speed disk access and is a balance between cost and storage - well as best it can be given current SSD prices. TBH, I still think this solution is too expensive so think I would be inclined to stick with lower cost traditional drives and consider SSD replacements in the future when prices are more appealing.

• Drive 1 SSD - C: Os only (no software), fairly small capacity 64 Gb?
• Drive 2 Trad HD - 500+GB, partioned in two, D: Programs, E: Documents
• Drive 3 SSD - F: Dedicated to FSX, scenery and add-on aicraft, no smaller than 160Gb.
• Drive 4 Trad HD - 1Tb G: dedicated backup drive.

[Maurice_King]

    * Drive 1 SSD - C: OS - Temp Dir and Page file only (no software), fairly small capacity 64 Gb? 40 Would be sufficient if you have to user profile and Docs elsewhere - You will NEED to edit the "Environment Variables" for this  -  and edit the registry  (to make "E:\" you default Program Files Dir for instance)

    * Drive 2 Trad HD - 500 Gb, partitioned in two or even three, D:\Documents and Settings & User Profile - ( Requires editing the registry - but makes you system infinitely more recoverable WITHOUT RELOADING everything),  E:\Program Files - ( Requires editing the registry - but makes you system infinitely more recoverable WITHOUT RELOADING everything),  H:\ Flight Management & Planning Programs, "J:\Common Files" ( Requires editing the registry - but makes you system infinitely more recoverable WITHOUT RELOADING everything)

NOTE: You do not necessarily NEED to create separate partitions above but it makes for efficient segregation of various programing.

Removing the Common Files from your OS Program Files Dir WILL save you much angst in the event of an OS failure because you will not need to reload all your installed software to replace these files should "C:\" Fail

This is why I MOVE Bothe the User, Common and My Documents COMPLETELY OFF the "C:\" where they reside by default and eventually clutter things up badly.

* Drive 3 SSD - F: Dedicated to FSX, Scenery and Add-on Aircraft, no smaller than 160Gb.

Backup and Archive

    * Drive 4 Trad HD - 1Tb G: dedicated backup drive. 

    * Drive 5 An external of the same size so it can be stored in a separate location if you are real paranoid.

[Ian Routley]

Lots to consider:

The Gfx card is a must, and the special edition EVGA and XFX cards are fine ... there does seem to be a slight benefit to superclocking.  The Fermi chipsets are just around the corner ... which may have price performance impact.  So waiting just a little while might be worth it.  Otherwise, I have a 9800GTX gathering dust in a box 

DVI-B to HDMI is a simple cable conversion, so this is not a factor.  If you might play Blu-Ray then HDCP compliance is necessary - but almost all Nvidia chips have this (check the card spec though)

HDD -- SSDs are great, but small (this is improving).  Velociraptor 300G is a better choice than 150 if you are going for a 10k drive - but remember that you will not get better Frames/sec or performance.  It will improve loading times ... and texture lag / blurries with large photoreal areas - but that is about it.  For me that is actually important - but obviously not for everyone.

A small C: drive is fine, depending on how you use your computer ... the Desktop (for example) is on your C: drive ... so if you habitually leave large files there, it can get annoying to have to shuffle things about.

I'm not familiar with your proposed motherboard .... so can't comment, but best advice is to look at others common experience - particularly with Motherboard - specific RAM module combinations.

If you get an i7-920 - then the D0 step version is better (apparently) - I think they had the work experience kid on when they made my i7-940 (has one fairly hot core).

It will no doubt be a good learning experience.

[Maurice_King]

A small C: drive is fine, depending on how you use your computer ... the Desktop (for example) is on your C: drive ... so if you habitually leave large files there, it can get annoying to have to shuffle things about.

The smaller "C:\" the better up to a point because THIS is the Drive Partition that is the one with the system keys and should have the highest priority for backup. (Minimum of Weekly) and this means if you have a failure you can be back in action in as little as 20 mins with GHOST or Akronis for instance ( This is why I move ALL the volatile data like My Documents and User Profile out of the OS area so I don't have to reload anything )

Now IMHO Unpacking files and Downloading to the Desktop or desktop folders is one of the worst things that could be done, potentially catastrophic in fact if there is a nasty that manages to hitch a ride piggyback. Why because the Desktop Folder is right in the guts of your User Profile and has symbolic links to your OS.  Yes I know many Web sites and other things say for convenience DL to the desktop (Presumably so you can find things) but if you manage your Downloads to a Quarantined Dir ( this is done by AV Software integration) your files are scanned both in and out and you should also unpack to that Dir too.

OK OK I know there will be some if not many here that will say I am paranoid but my system and it's management strategy works. I have not formatted or reinstalled since I built the original PC in 1998 but has migrated through both hardware and software upgrades.

As a result my OS is but 15 Gb so I can if the need be restore my GHOST partition very quickly rather than have to have MASSIVE Backup drive , the only thing you really NEED to backup is your OS, your User Profile, your My Docs and your Common Files.

 

[Dwho]

I did some number crunching using http://staticice.com.au

$205 Antec Quattro 850W (Umart Online QLD, VIC)

I would recommend you pick a SATA ODD rather than the ancient IDE

$49 ASUS DRW-2014S1T (TopComm Technology, QLD)

$329 i7 920 (MCG Technology, WA)

 

    [$349 i7 930 2.8Ghz 45nm (IT Estate, NSW)

$116 Thermalright TRUE COPPER (MegaBuy Technology Superstore, QLD)

$164 Antec Nine Hundred Two [NO-PSU] (AnyPC, NSW)

$403 Asus P6X58D Premium [uSB 3, SATA 3] (Megaware Computers, NSW)

$69 Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB (GoComp, QLD)

$239 Corsair TR3X6G1600C7 (AnyPC, NSW)

$169 Western Digital WD1500HLFS (IT Estate, NSW)

TOTAL = $1743

TOTAL [i7 930] = $1763

[Barramundi]

okay Guys thank you all for the feedback there!! def did not expect the detailed replies at all!

I kinda get the picture now-I really like the idea of having the os on a drive of its own(so with fsx and then a 3rd drive for all other stuff)

Will be doing more research on how I can do that but for now I will be ordering my products soon! Yay!!

will keep you updated!

cheers