So here's the story. At an early screening of the new Star Trek movie last night for Intel retailers, I had the blessing to win a hefty prize bundle that contained the following:

• Intel Core i7-940 Nehalem processor
• Intel Desktop Board DX58SO
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

Now, this alone is enough to make the average nerd change his pants: it's got a retail value of $1200, and if I were to take it on Ebay, I could probably get even more than that. So then, why make a thread if I'm only going to gloat about the luck that finally decided to smile on me? It's simple: I'm not sure what to build around it.

The i7-940 processor is the second-best Intel chip on the market right now, being only supplanted by the i7-965 from what my research suggests. The Motherboard is equally advanced, though I've already found that it'll need a BIOS upgrade--not too big of a deal. Add in Vista Ultimate (and I'm pretty sure an upgrade to Windows 7 when it's released), the 24" Gateway monitor I've already got, and it's looking to be a pretty freaking awesome machine. Here's where you come in.

I'm looking for suggestions of what I can build around this chip and board. My goal with it is to get into video editing and gaming, so I'm thinking 8GB of RAM, 2TB in RAID, video capture, and a BD-ROM drive (if not BD-R, though where I can buy BD-R media or why I'd need it, I don't know off-hand). So assuming a spending cap of about $1,500, what should I put into this machine?

Congrats on the win, that's quite the prize. My first question is, did it come with a video card?

Personally, 8 gig of ram seems overkill to me. Since it's already DDR3 Ram, which is still quite expensive, I really wouldn't worry about more ram until you hit your current cap. I recently upgraded my gaming machine to the Phenom II 940, with 4 gig of ram and a Nvidia 9800GT, and I have yet to see any performance cap in video editing or high end gaming at max graphics. In fact, I rarely go over 2 gig as is unless I'm doing video editing.

Raid depends what you want. I personally don't use it yet, I'm waiting for the 2TB drives to pass into their 2nd and third generations for reliability testing. At the moment I have two paltry 500 gig drives that I just keep mirrored.

A heavy note, do NOT use Raid 0. It stripes the drives, but if any one of them fail, everything is gone. Raid 5 is the overall winner for reliability and storage. When I get the chance I'm just gonna do a raid 1 on two 2TB drives, I.E. hardware mirror.

Unless you have money to spend, you seem pretty far ahead of the pack already. Focus on a video card (if it doesn't have one) and hard drive space, your Ram is probably fine. Granted I don't do a lot of video editing, but 8 gig seems overkill unless you are working on some pretty high res stuff.

Be careful about going for 8 GBs of RAM. I'm assuming that if you are going for 8, then you're gonna get 64-bit Ultimate, because Windows is funny about RAM. =P Vista can only use up to 3.3 GBs of RAM, while 64-bit can use 128 GBs. XD

You're a tech savvy guy, so I'm sure you already knew that, but just throwing it out there.

EDIT: Also, you may want to check out SelloutWoot for a monitor:

http://sellout.woot.com/

Doesn't look to bad.

Thanks, but I already have a Gateway 24" monitor:

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529...topnav_displays

On a sidenote, I still haven't received the bundle yet (motherboard's still on backorder), but I have been making lists of the components I'm wanting to buy with the help of a few friends:

You may notice that I'm only going for 6GB of RAM (as opposed to the maximum possible 8GB at this point), and there is a reason for this: the i7 940 chip has triple threading (I believe it's called), and so in my research, I learned that if I used 4 DIMMS as opposed to 3, it would actually slow the computer down. Not that this means I won't be able to upgrade eventually to the motherboard's full allotted 16GB, I've just gotta wait for the technology to be there to be able to get two 4GB DIMMS and one 8GB DIMM.

You know, I have a list of parts around here somewhere!
*searchs*

Bah, no luck. But anyway, I can build a high end Gaming / Graphics PC for around, 700ish. See, the thing people do not realize is you do not need the best, you need what you need. Well, My advice is to pick a budget and go to www.newegg.com and look about for what seems to fit right, just a nudge.

Ohh I see you only got those components, wow I thought you got an entire pc!

In my opinion, do not bother with aftermarket CPU coolers, not really worth the cost unless you overclock. And frankly, overclocking isn't really needed anymore.

Also, don't bother with the 10k RPM Raptors. The gains are minimal for the price, and your storage is limited. Wait another year or two and get a SSD at a larger size for the same price or less.

Overall expensive choices, you must have money to burn =P

I would like to point out that you made a good Power supply choice. Never, EVER cheap out on a power supply. Corsair has fairly expensive ones but their quality is bar none. REMEMBER: the power supply is the gatekeeper to the computer, if it flakes out, everything in your PC can be damaged, sometimes beyond repair. NEVER buy an off brand or no brand power supply, it's a huge gamble.

I agree with LoneAngelic, newegg is where I get all of my stuff and the prices are great. Beats every local store even when counting shipping, sometimes by hundreds. ALWAYS check the Newegg price before buying anywhere else.

Well I didn't know that the CPU was coming with its own heatsink: now I know to take that off the list.

And as for the hard drive, I want to have the raptor as my boot drive where I put the OS and programs. I'm planning on having two or three (or more eventually in the future) Samsung Spinpoint drives in RAID for the page file, saves, and other things of that ilk.

I really wouldn't bother with the raptor as a main hard drive. The speed gains are very minimal for the price. Solid state drives are really what would give a gain.

At work we have engineer machines with the 10k RPM drives in them, and I really don't notice that much of a difference. However, our new laptops have SSD drives in them, and holy shit those things FLY. When working with Outlook e-mail, I copied someones files (2 gig worth) in just two minutes, when that usually takes 15 plus minutes on a good machine.

Personally, I would wait a year for SSD drive prices to plummet and grab a good 120 gig one. But, really, most people have no need for that speed. Even in gaming the advantage is limited, although sometimes noticeable. Video viewing, and video editing, all modern drives are fine.

Like I said, its uses will be primarily for booting and program loading. A 33% increase in speed wouldn't be noticeable to most people (though I wish there were a 15k SATA HDD somewhere), when it comes to loading intensive programs and operating systems, every little bit helps. While I can understand what you're saying to wait for the price of SSDs to drop, I'm not sure if you get that I can't really wait. The 10k drive is going to be one of the first things I buy for the computer, because it's where I'm planning to put the OS and all of the programs and such (make boot times faster). Of course I suppose that with my terabyte drives in RAID 5, having a boot disk with really quick read-write times won't matter (as the normal read-write times of the drives are typically multiplied by the number of drives in the array minus one, so for me that'd be 3). Now SSDs in RAID would be something to watch out for...

If you're only running 2-3 operating systems, I'd recommend (instead of a Raptor or SCSI) buying a small (say, 30 GB) SSD. This guy I work with has a similar setup for his (Runs XP Pro, CentOS, Slackware 12.2, and Windows 7) all booting off the SSD. Runs his data storage off of four 750 GB SATAs in RAID 10. XP boots in 6.5 seconds, CentOS in 8, Slackware in 10, and Windows 7 in 7. It's pretty sweet, I'm not gonna lie.

Also, as for the Rosewill card... I've bought Rosewill before, and not to knock the brand, but sometimes, the products just don't cut the mustard. Mind you, I've bought Rosewill products that have worked just fine as well, but if you're going to go economy for the RAID card, I'd recommend upgrading to a HighPoint or Adaptec, especially if you intend to go with the Raptors and you RAID them into the system.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16816103061

Newegg doesn't have many reviews for this product, but we've got two running in both our servers here, one running RAID5 with 3 terrabyte drives and the other in RAID10 with 4 500's, both running Fedora 10. You probably need those external eSATA ports though, so, that one might not be for you. I did see, also, that the mobo supports software RAID... so hey, what's the worst that could happen, right? Thirty bucks for a RAID card, hell yeah, if it works.

Anyway, gratz on the tech score. You make us so proud. *tear*

Since this hasn't gotten a hit in over a month may I use this instead of making a new and compleately similar thread! SPACE SAVER! *woosh*

I really need a new graphics card, one that is capable of using Pixel Shadder 2.0
The only one I've found that seems the cheapest out there is over $60, hardware being cheaper my ass... anyway, anyone else know of a good cheap graphics card that is compatible with PS 2.0 <(lol, that's funny since I need it to run my PS2 emulator)

What kind of connection do you have on your motherboard for graphics cards, and what operating system? Most new cards support it no problem...

Depending on your system, you could look into either of these cards:

AGP - $55 - Radeon X1650 Pro - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102073

PCI Express (x16) - $65 - Radeon 4670 - [URL=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141081[/URL]

We'd need a few more details to assuredly prescribe a solution, but for about $60, those two cards will work just fine. And yes, they both support Pixel Shader 2.0. =]

They're not what you'd call high-end, but for instance, the 4670 will run Crysis on all Medium and 1440x900 at about 45 frames per second (bench). Not bad, certainly for the price. The Radeon card performs slower, maybe 20-22 FPS, but it's one of the best available AGP cards in that price range. AGP really blows. =/ If you've still got a computer with an AGP slot on it, though, I'd recommend coughing up $400 and buying a nice, solid, new desktop system. xD But that's just speculation.

Good luck. Try to post more details if you want some more help.

OS: Windows XP

Computer:
Gateway model MFATXSTL EL2 500
intell pentium 4
brand new harddrive if that's needed info XP
anything else... and... err.... how do I get that anything else ^_^;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811119160

HAF case by Cooler Master. It's what I've got, and it's the way to go whether you want to go air cooled or not. There are enough fans and room on this to not only fit all your components, but to keep them cool. Also has the spot to add in liquid cooling if you need it. There's also a cheaper mid-tower case that's equally as good.


I recommend a terawatt power supply. Not sure on the brand, but a terawatt will get you the power you need to run SLI (if the board supports it).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817189022

Something like this a Modular, as the comments state, is nice because you get a choice of your cables.

Finally...graphics...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814143204

I ALWAYS recommend BFG nvidia cards. I don't have much experience with ATI cards, but they score just a little higher on benchmarks (not much) over the nVidia cards because they're usually GDDR6 standard.

BFG makes great cards and they have a cool upgrade program on their website as well.



Beyond that? Possibly some accessories in the form of a Razer mouse and keyboard (might I suggest the Mamba for the mouse? It's wireless and it has the ability to link up to charge while you use it.


So yea, less than $1200


Sound cards...unless you wanna get too expensive, there really isn't much use to them. Integrated sound is usually fine. Just steer away from the Razer Megalodon for the headset. With my Vista Ultimate, there's a weird problem where it crackles, and the sound goes dead until you unplug/replug the usb cable, and restart your program.