Building a new tower.

Yeah man it's huge. Its like the MB is hanging on a wall in a garage!

Well I changed my mind on the PSU, today I bought the Kingwin Mach 1 1220 watt Modular unit. Too many 5 star reviews to ignore. Plus I do plan on maxing this rig out with everything I put in it (eventually) so it should be more then fine.

Also I am now leaning towards the Seagate Cheetah 15k 300gb x2 in Raid 0 instead of the Raptors. These are like the sleepers of Enterprise grade storage. AWESOME units, same price as raptors and 10k more Raid 0 RPM!!!!

Plus MANY Raptor vs Cheetah benchmark's are amazing.

Id rather be writing to one 30k instead of one 20k.

So here is the recalculated total as of today.

NEED: Video card: Asus Tri Fan 4870 X2.

BOUGHT $800.00: Chip - Intel i7 965 Extreme.
BOUGHT $219.00: Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package.
BOUGHT $319.50: Board - Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition.
BOUGHT $265.00: Memory - 2gb (3 chips) Corsair Dominator PC 12800.
BOUGHT $116.50: Blu Ray DVD ROM - Lite On IHES206-08 Blu-ray Reader with DVD Writer Combo.
BOUGHT $114.00: Tv Card, Happauge WinTV HR 2250.
BOUGHT $136.95: Storage, SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB SATA II 7200 RPM HD.
BOUGHT $251.85: PSU, Kingwin 1220 watt Mach 1.

Grand total $2222.80 Less drives and video card. Ill be just under my saved and projected budget of 3k! I am happy as hell!
 
n8bachelor said:
That case looks amazing!! I really like the painted interior, I might have to gut my case just to paint it. You are going to have a killer setup for sure.

A couple comments to offer:
I assume you just threw it in there for pictures but I'll make the comments anyway :)
I believe your RAM is in the wrong slots.... typically match the color DIMM's to utilize the triple channel ram (check the user manual to verify).
It is typically easier to install the CPU and cooler with the motherboard out of the case.
You got a great deal on that 965!! Best thing about it is the unlocked multiplier. If you want to overclock, simply change the multiplier keep the voltage and other settings and you can have 4.0ghz easily.
Click to expand...

Yes I checked the manual and I relocated them to the orange slots. Good looking out, thanks.
 
Update, just got a killer deal on 2 WD 300gb Raptors, heres where Im at:

NEED: Video card: ATI 4870 X2 or GTX 295.
BOUGHT $800.00: Chip - Intel i7 965 Extreme.
BOUGHT $219.00: Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package.
BOUGHT $319.50: Board - Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition.
BOUGHT $265.00: Memory - 2gb (3 chips) Corsair Dominator PC 12800.
BOUGHT $116.50: Blu Ray DVD ROM - Lite On IHES206-08 Blu-ray Disc Reader with DVD Writer Combo.
BOUGHT $114.00: Tv Card, Happauge WinTV HR 2250.
BOUGHT $136.95: SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5 TB SATA II 7200 RPM 32MB Buffer Hard Drive.
BOUGHT $330.55 x2 WD Velociraptor WD3000GLFS OEM 300gb main hard drives.
BOUGHT $251.85: Kingwin 1220 watt Mach 1.

Total so far $2553.35!! Ill be Way under my 3k budget goal even after the 4870 x2.
 
Finally DONE!! Here is the FINAL rundown!!

BOUGHT $429.39: Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2
BOUGHT $800.00: Chip - Intel i7 965 Extreme.
BOUGHT $219.00: Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package.
BOUGHT $319.50: Board - Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition.
BOUGHT $240.00: Memory - 2gb (3 chips) Corsair Dominator PC 12800.
BOUGHT $116.50: Blu Ray DVD ROM - Lite On IHES206-08 Blu-ray Disc Reader with DVD Writer Combo.
BOUGHT $114.00: Tv Card, Happauge WinTV HR 2250.
BOUGHT $136.95: SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5 TB SATA II 7200 RPM 32MB Buffer Hard Drive.
BOUGHT $330.55 x2 WD Velociraptor 300gb hard drives.
BOUGHT $251.85: Kingwin 1220 watt Mach 1.

GRAND TOTAL $2955.74 Made my goal to be under 3k and have a beast.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sweet. Show me a case pic when you get it all in there and running. I love your case! It's a bute.

Any money left for OS? or do you already have that taken care of? I highly recommend Windows 7 when it is commercially available. Simply put, it kicks ass.
 
Are you Beta Testing the W7? I heard even in beta its awesome!! When will it be out? What if I start with Windows XP 64bit, can I overwrite to W7? How will all that work because I will be more or likely ready to fore this up in the next 2 weeks or sooner and I will need an OS.
 
You have a couple options.
The beta W7 is available now for free from M$. It will automatically stop working on August 1st. No tampering of BIOS time will enable it to work longer (so I have been told). The beta is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors... again it's free. It is possible that the retail version of Win7 will be available when the beta stops working, but not certain.
If you have in your possession a licensed copy of XP 64-bit you have more options.... If you dont have it yet I would hold off buying it.
I have my hard disk partitioned into 3 drives and have a dual boot setup with Win xp and Win 7 (the third partition I use for data).... both 32-bit since my system will not support x64. You would not need to partition since you are running the raptors for the OS and the Seagate for data (presumably).

EDIT: You may run into problems installing Win7 on a raid0 configuration.

This is very easy to do. Here is one of many how to writeups.
If I were you, building a new system I would stick with Win7... even though it is still a beta. Most of the vista drivers work for the beta as well. It is very stable even though it is still in beta. I was pleasantly supprised as this is my first dealing with a beta OS.
These guys:
http://www.sevenforums.com/
http://windows7forums.com/
have a wealth of information on the beta. Do a little digging and see what you think. The beta has all of vista's eye candy + some but is much less of a resource hog.

I'm not certain of how the upgrades (from xp into Win7) go. I did the clean install not the upgrade. I'm not even sure you would be able to "upgrade" from xp to Win7... It may keep your settings/files, it may not. Best to start out fresh anyway.

Nate
 
Lapped the heatsink, check it out.

case-19.jpg


case-18.jpg
 
Heres the build so far, waiting on the raptors. Still undecided on the OS. Hate to install the W7 but it will be gone in August. I do not want to get all my stuff installed and updated then have to start over again. What OS for now until W7 comes out?

case-20.jpg


case-21.jpg


case-22.jpg


case-23.jpg


case-24.jpg


case-25.jpg


case-26.jpg


case-27.jpg
 
KD00LS said:
You are outrageous. What exactly is lapping the heatsink?
Click to expand...

It is the process of sanding down the bottom of the heatsink to as perfectly flat as can be. ALL of these high dollar amazingly engineered heat sinks all have round bottoms where sometimes as much as 20% or more contact is missing. Do you know what that can do for heat disappation? You would think the way these look and the prices they get that this would ALREADY be done? Makes no sense.

Look at this video of my exact heat sink the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme.

YouTube - Why you should bother lapping your Heatsink?

It only took an hour and is perfectly flat now, 0 light got through any angle using a straight edge.
 
Well it's good to see you've done your research lol, but I regret to inform you that you're out of your mind! Let's say you ordered this computer from a company, what would it have ran you?
 
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