It's time to upgrade the desktop... Am I up to date?
 

My desktop computer needs a reason for me to hook my 24" monitor back up to it. Sometime of the beginning of last year I bought an HD4870 for $150 at Best Buy. A couple days later I noticed the price went back up to $200. Lucky, I guess. I also picked up a power supply for my future goals.

Anyways, I put the 4870 in there, then remembered it's got a 2.2ghz SINGLE CORE processor. I priced out an upgrade that should hold me over for quite some time back in 2009. I never bought it back then because I just recieved my NP8690 (i7 Laptop FTW!). Now I'm looking for more power from the desktop so the GF can join in on SC2 Beta.

I picked these items out in late 2009, are they still a good buy? Are there any new innovative specifications (USB 3.0) that I should spring for now?


ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157163

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

Patriot Viper 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model PVT36G1333LLK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220367


I've already got:
Coolermaster Cosmos Case
1KW power supply
Radeon HD4870

I'm looking to get a TripleHead2Go for some triple monitor iRacing action.

Seems like a good setup. I'd personally look into getting a more powerful cooling setup, especially if you will be overclocking. The I7's produce a fair amount of heat, and the stock cooling fan that came with my rig wasn't sufficient. I personally bought a CoolerMaster HAF 932, and simply love it. The 3 210mm fans plus the smaller ones I added keep my rig cool.

That's definitely something I didn't consider. I won't be overclocking due to the abundance of processing power available. Might be something to look at in the future.
I don't have anything else generating heat besides a single HDD and DVD drive. I'll be buying this stuff tomorrow most likely.

That should hold you over for a bit. Sounds like my setup (only I have a 5850 :D).

Therefore I am jealous.

Six Core processors are out? Hell, I never got the memo. Oh wait, I just saw the price tag.

I'm getting this motherboard instead. I like Asus, and USB 3.0.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131641

Personal bias: I'm a huge fan of Intel motherboards. Not saying that all other boards are crap, just that I've had really good luck with 'em lately. In particular, the drivers for 'em just tend to, well, work.

My most recent was the DP55WB with a quad-core i5-750 sitting on it.

Did I say HD4870? I meant HD4890, for $150 at Best Buy early last year. That is win, considering the following:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150438
I think they messed up their price tag. Too bad I couldn't realize the full potential of this card until now.

Joe, there's something to be said about the simplicity and basically guaranteed compatibility of having your motherboard and processor manufactured by the same company. Sure the mobo basic, but that means it'll work without hassle.

UPS dropped off the stuff yesterday at 9:00 PM. Last time they shipped something to me, it got delayed for 3 days because they tried to drop off the package at 3PM. I hate that company. If it were USPS, I'd be able to pick it up from the Post Office 5 minutes away if they miss me signing for it. But no, UPS has to deliver from Stafford, 45 minutes away.

This has to be the most color-coordinated build I've ever done. That was completely unintentional. I feel bad putting it in the Coolermaster to be hidden from view.

It's also the quietest computer in the house of 6 (3 gaming rigs). It was so quiet that I wasn't sure it was working when I first powered it up.

No more optical drives for me now. This mobo doesn't have PATA ports. That's another excuse to go buy a Blu-Ray drive. I'm also interested in grabbing 2 WD 640GB Black edition hard drives to run in raid 0 config. They will be the fastest data storage I've ever had.

Setup was a breeze, simple plug and play affair, and it booted without any problems the first time.

I hadn't used the computer in a long time, so I forgot the Windows XP account password. After running a liveboot USB drive with Ophcrack and Windows recovery console, I found that my ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted. Screw that, I'm installing Windows 7.

A few pics will follow later today.

I have the HD4830. I was running an e4500 cpu (2.2GHZ Core Duo) ran okay. Just fitted an e8500 (3.3Ghz Core Duo) yesterday and gamez are so much moar better.

I'm looking forward to destroying ARMA 2 with my incredible processing power.

Attachment 197496
The goods.

Old Mobo. 2.2ghz single core of FAIL. I was wrong on PSU specs, this is only a 550w. WTF golden PSU.
Attachment 197497

My favorite color:
Attachment 197498

No PATA ports = Time for a Blu-Ray burner.
Attachment 197499

Lol, a power button/indicator onboard.
Attachment 197500

I'm installing Windows 7 from a USB stick as I type.

You have three CD / DVD drives? Dude, get help. :D

I bought 2gb of ddr2 667Mhz ram today. :( I feel like im stuck in 2007.

anyone have DDR ECC ram want to get rid of, sorry for the thread jack.

i have two stick of 512MB PC2-3200U in my hand... does that help?

noe, but thans anyways

Now that I have a super-fast beast of a processor and a nice video card, it has become very apparent that my 200gig harddrive from 2006 is no longer cutting it speed-wise.

I ordered 2 of these spinning disk storage mediums last night. I plan on running them in a RAID 0 configuration for maximum speed (screw data integrity).
I can keep a running backup up to 200 gigs on the older drive anyways.

Western Digital Caviar Black Series, 640GB with 64MB cache
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-544-_-Product


I just discovered multi-qoute. Awesome.

I now have zero DVD drives. Do I still need help?:ugh2:


I think staying just a year behind the cutting edge of technology is pretty cost effective.

You know there is a spellchecker built into the reply editor, right?

No SSD? Come on it's 2010!

That 4890 for $150 was a killer deal, I have a single 4870 that I put into my build that I paid the same price for a few months ago. This is what I have in my build.
Core i7 920
Gigabyte GA-X58a-UD3R
6gb OCZ 1600 triple channel
64gb OCZ Agility SSD
4TB of WD Greens for Storage
Ati 4870 1GB
Corsair Obsidian 800D (Best Case I've ever owned, 4 front removalable HDD slots, it's freaking massive though)

I'm not using the mobo to its full capacity (supports USB 3.0, Sata 3) because I'm running OSX as my OS and those features aren't supported in Snow Leopard.

Those WD black's are pretty cheap nowadays, I need to stick a 1-2TB one in my system to store my photos on while editing.

Next up is cooling. The stock cooler is a bit loud for my tastes. I wanted to do some water cooling but I'm still a little wary about the long term reliability of the system. But the case can accept a triple fan rad inside of it.

Yes, you have PM.