A Land Far Away

Looking at a new desktop. Here are the spec's. Any of you computer guru's have any advice?

Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo
Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
ASUS LGA 2011 Intel X79 Chipset Motherboard
16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 MHz SDRAM
120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (For OS)
2 X Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB
Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive in mirrored
array (For Data Storage)
BLU-RAY ROM/ DVDRW/CDRW Optical Drive
Microsoft SIDEWINDER Gaming Keyboard & Mouse
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI
Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Video Card
750 Watt PSU
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit
APC 1500 VA 865 Watts Back-UPS XS

Apart from having a personal preference of Logitech mice and keyboard, I would say to see if your budget can stretch a little on the CPU. If I recall correctly, Intel just this week announced the availability of their new CPU range that supersede the Sandybridge line of chips. Early word is less heat, less power and more performance, so see if you can't squeeze one of those in.

Swift wrote:Apart from having a personal preference of Logitech mice and keyboard, I would say to see if your budget can stretch a little on the CPU. If I recall correctly, Intel just this week announced the availability of their new CPU range that supersede the Sandybridge line of chips. Early word is less heat, less power and more performance, so see if you can't squeeze one of those in.

One question here, from past experience I learned that it is not always best to buy the "newest" thing out because you don't know if the bugs are worked out of it. Chances of that here?

It's always a risk but generally that holds true for first generations of properly new product lines. The new Intel CPUs are the 3rd generation Core processors, so there is a reasonable expectation that they would be stable And without the issues usually associated with first generation tech.

You might want to wait a little before buying Ivy bridge processors re. this:
http://www.overclockers.com/ivy-bridge-temperatures

Even if you don't overclock this doesn't look good on the long term.

I've been told to get a high end i5 over any i7 when it comes to Sandy Bridge. You'd just never use the i7 to its potential, and you'd save some money with a 5.

Also... 64 is totally the way to go, but be wary of difficulty in finding drivers.

I wouldn't worry about finding drivers for 64-bit nowadays. Any piece of hardware made in the past 7 years or so should have 64-bit drivers.

Looks like a solid build. Personally, if it is mainly a gaming computer, I would downscale the CPU to an i5 version and spend the savings in a GeForce GTX 680. I've always had a better experience with nVidia GPU's & drivers over Ati's, but thats a personal choice as much as anything.

The Cuda stuff really makes it worthwhile for me since it offloads the CPU a lot in video conversion (down scaling 1080p mkv to 540p mp4's).

However, if you do a lot of work on it, like rendering, video editing etc, I might just stay with the i7. Also, the 680 might be a bit overkill unless you have a 24" screen or larger.

Either way, I reckon you will be super happy with your über rig.

Edit: I also agree with Hialmars comments in regards to ivy bridge; it might be worth waiting for the next generation of CPU's to come out.

Joos wrote:However, if you do a lot of work on it, like rendering, video editing etc, I might just stay with the i7. Also, the 680 might be a bit overkill unless you have a 24" screen or larger.

Never overkill on a graphics card. It might initially be overkill, but assuming you don't change your monitor in the future, getting a better card simply means it will last a longer time before games appear that require you to switch off some graphical features.

My policy when building a gaming PC is to get the absolute best video card you possibly can. They are big cost items, so the less you have to upgrade them, the better.

Ksiel wrote:Looking at a new desktop. Here are the spec's. Any of you computer guru's have any advice?

Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo
Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
ASUS LGA 2011 Intel X79 Chipset Motherboard
16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 MHz SDRAM
120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (For OS)
2 X Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB
Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive in mirrored
array (For Data Storage)
BLU-RAY ROM/ DVDRW/CDRW Optical Drive
Microsoft SIDEWINDER Gaming Keyboard & Mouse
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI
Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Video Card
750 Watt PSU
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit
APC 1500 VA 865 Watts Back-UPS XS

Ivy Bridge is actually hotter than Sandy Bridge watt-for-watt though does carry some power-savings.

Unless you are doing some seriously compute-heavy work, you don't need an i7. i5-2500k with a 1155 socket mobo would be fine for...what are you going to use this thing for, anyway?

Swift wrote:

Joos wrote:bla bla bla...

Never overkill on a graphics card. It might initially be overkill, but assuming you don't change your monitor in the future, getting a better card simply means it will last a longer time before games appear that require you to switch off some graphical features.

My policy when building a gaming PC is to get the absolute best video card you possibly can. They are big cost items, so the less you have to upgrade them, the better.

Good point, and I concede to your impeccable logic. GTX 680 it is!

joooooooooooooooooooooooooooooos

What do I hear about juice?

Calm down Veilan, he didn't say 'jews'.