Putting together an i7 950 machine: is this a good setup?

[DanOln]

Hey up,

First post here... in the new year I'm building a new machine, planning it around an i7 950. I could do with it for finishing the PhD modelling, so I don't really want to wait to see how Sandy Bridge pans out, and anyway the 950s are so cheap now, it's not much more than a phenon II system would be.

Anyhoo, was just wondering: does this look like a decent set-up? Am I doing anything daft / should I think of anything else? A general question, I know, but here's hoping someone'll take pity on me...

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Intel Core i7 950 Bloomfield 45nm, 3.06 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache, 23x Ratio, 130W, Retail

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3, Intel X58, S1366, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1066/1333/2200, SATA 3Gb/s RAID, ATX

RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.65V

CASE: Antec VSK-2000, Black, Mid Tower Case, w/o PSU

HD: 160 GB Western Digital WD1600AAJS Caviar Blue, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 8MB Cache, 9 ms

PSU: 450W Corsair CMPSU-450VXUK VX, 80 PLUS, 85%% Eff', 120mm Fan, ATX, PS/2

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Tried pasting a link but I'm not allowed yet...

I'll be sticking an ATI 4670 graphics card I already own in there, a nice little energy efficient card, so I'm hoping that PSU will cover it nicely.

Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated!

Cheers,

Dan

[nibbler]

I would get a 500GB drive, they're so cheap at the moment. I'd invest in a HX520 or such, just fir ease of building and for slightly more peace of mind power wise I case you decide you need a GTX480. what kind of cooling were you thinking of? A titan fenrir would be cheap and very powerful cooling wise.

[c.ruel]

cpu and motherboard are very good choices (maybe wait for sandy bridge?).

Case is ok I guess, I don't see why it wouldn't be adequate (idk much about that case )

socket 1366 mobos use triple channel memory so you want your memory in multiples of 3 not 2.

This might be a good deal.

The psu you picked isn't a bad one but it is a bit long in the tooth and you could probably pick up something better for a similar price.

Without knowing what you want to do it is impossible to know whether your current graphics card and therefore the psu you choose are sensible. If you plan to game definately get a new card. GTX 460 768mb is widely regarded as the best budget card at the moment and can be had for as little as £115.

In which case a 500w psu might be an idea just to be safe, having said that 450w would be fine I would have thought.

[kalniel]

The most obvious thing is your selection of 2x2gb ram - unless this is significantly cheaper than a 3x2gb kit I'd go with the triple channel - modelling might well make use of the extra bandwidth, but even if you don't, motherboards are going to expect three sticks of ram with x58 and that means you have less compatibility problems. They can run in dual channel though if you want.

The X58-USB3 is really the low end - have a look at the X58A-UDR3 for a more premium board without much in the way of a price increase (they were the same price when I was building my rig). There aren't that many extra features (see hexus review here: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26177) but the UD3R is slightly more flexible with peripheral options, and in my case I wanted lots of PCI-E bandwidth/slots for future SSD use.

[DanOln]

Thanks for the quick replies! Cooling-wise, I was going to try the stock i7 heatsink to start with... no idea what they're like. Bad idea?

Thanks for the tip on triple channel RAM, I didn't know that! Just exactly the sort of thing I needed to know. The gigabit motherboard has six slots, 3 blue, 3 white: I presume if I get three, they're meant to all go into one colour only...?

On the hard drive: I'll end up getting two drives at some point, since I'll want to use the machine for music-making as well - but after the PhD is finished.

I take your point about Sandy Bridge but, as I say, I need to get a machine for the Java modelling work soon (must hand in thesis end of September) and AFAIK the higher-end Sandy Bridge chips aren't out until much later in 2011 - and I'll be finished then. At the minute I'm pootling along with an old P4 I got from work... it's struggling!

Thanks again.

[Gunbuster]

I built an i7 920 system earlier this year.

I used this ram: http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/110909...y/Product.html Its pretty good, not sure that mhz matters as much as latency.
I have this PSU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/600w-...-12v-135mm-fan Very nice PSU, wait for a scan today only this and the 500w were getting £7-10 off when I bought mine. Nice and quiet PSU, just reaches the ATX and 8pin cpu sockets bottom mounted in my Fractal Design Define R2.
I have a http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gelid...0-am2-am2plus- on the i7 its nice and quiet, but fitting that fan on the heatsink was a pain.

Ask me anything you want I will help in any way I can.

[kalniel]

Thanks for the quick replies! Cooling-wise, I was going to try the stock i7 heatsink to start with... no idea what they're like. Bad idea?

With that CPU it's fine. Unless you are overclocking and still want turbo modes then stock cooler is okay, if a little noisy.

Thanks for the tip on triple channel RAM, I didn't know that! Just exactly the sort of thing I needed to know. The gigabit motherboard has six slots, 3 blue, 3 white: I presume if I get three, they're meant to all go into one colour only...?

More than that - they have to go in a specific colour if you only have three. But the motherboard manual is good and clear about what you need to do. It'll be slots numbered 1,3 and 5, which are actually the ones positioned in the 2nd, 4th and 6th slots counting from the CPU.

[DanOln]

Wow, this forum is fantastic - thanks so much. I'll consider that motherboard.

A question on RAM: motherboards quoting speeds of 2200mhz - is that overclocked RAM? Also, Gunbuster: "not sure that mhz matters as much as latency..." Is that so? I'll have to have a look into that...

[Phage]

Hexus is probably the most helpful forum I've found. It's why I've stayed...

[Gunbuster]

Wow, this forum is fantastic - thanks so much. I'll consider that motherboard.

A question on RAM: motherboards quoting speeds of 2200mhz - is that overclocked RAM? Also, Gunbuster: "not sure that mhz matters as much as latency..." Is that so? I'll have to have a look into that...

Reading up again, I think I would like to take back that statement. I think at the time I was concerned with having a stable expandable system so I went for slightly less sexy ram as I wanted the option for 12GB later. You could save a bit with a 3GB kit, but I am not sure that's going to be a very balanced system with an i7 950 in there.

Sorry to confuse, I am not as knowledgeable as the chaps here.

[kalniel]

Wow, this forum is fantastic - thanks so much. I'll consider that motherboard.

A question on RAM: motherboards quoting speeds of 2200mhz - is that overclocked RAM? Also, Gunbuster: "not sure that mhz matters as much as latency..." Is that so? I'll have to have a look into that...

Well, the RAM wouldn't be overclocked if it came out the factory designed for running at 2200mhz, however you might need to overclock the processor to get memory running at this speed.

But I wouldn't bother - triple channel has so much bandwidth that speed or latency don't make very much difference at all. I would get 1333 CL8 or 1600 CL9 - if it's cheaper to get higher speed then cool (can be sometimes), but don't pay more for higher speeds.

[DanOln]

kalniel: "triple channel has so much bandwidth that speed or latency don't make very much difference at all." Really? Another very useful thing to know, thanks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hey up,

First post here... in the new year I'm building a new machine, planning it around an i7 950. I could do with it for finishing the PhD modelling, so I don't really want to wait to see how Sandy Bridge pans out, and anyway the 950s are so cheap now, it's not much more than a phenon II system would be.

You do realise that the socket 1366 motherboards are massively more expensive than the socket AM3 ones.

A Phenom II X6 costs between £142 to £178:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-...AM3%29-X6-Core

The 95W version of the Phenom II X6 1055T is very energy efficient for the performance it offers.

There are quite a few decent AM3 motherboards under £100 too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-sata-raid-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-sata-raid-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-sata-raid-atx

All the motherboards have SATA 3.0 and the two 870 motherboards have USB3 3.0 too.

Basically,you are looking at around £220 to £270 for a Phenom II X6 processor and a motherboard.

A Core i7 930 and the cheapest X58 motherboard on Scan is around £335:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...io-130w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...3gb-s-raid-atx

I take your point about Sandy Bridge but, as I say, I need to get a machine for the Java modelling work soon (must hand in thesis end of September) and AFAIK the higher-end Sandy Bridge chips aren't out until much later in 2011 - and I'll be finished then. At the minute I'm pootling along with an old P4 I got from work... it's struggling!

For Java it seems that the Phenom II X6 1090T is faster than a Core i7 930:

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/am...-1090t-p3.html

Even the Phenom II X6 1055T does quite well:

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/p...d-1090t-be/16/

[DanOln]

CAT-THE-FIFTH: I did a comparison with a Phenom II x4 BE - quite a bit cheaper, but then the i7s beat them for scientific computing by quite a way. The Phenoms do great at games, less great at the sort of stuff I'll be doing. The phenom II system I basketed up came to about £455. The i7 950 is looking at being about £120 - 170 more.

(That's without an operating system, which I'm finding myself unreasonably annoyed about having to actually pay for!)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Check the Java benchmarks I added in my last post. The Phenom II X6 1090T is just behind a Core i7 960 in SPECjvm2008.

Also,the processors I am talking about are the Phenom II X6 processors which have six cores.

If you have MSDNAA access you can get Windows 7 for free. If you are running Linux I would check the following website and their forums:

http://www.phoronix.com/

This web page is also useful:

http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/

I am not debating that the Core i7 950 is a nifty processor but I am trying to save you some cash here. Unless you are very organised I assume you will need to fund yourself for a few months when you are writing up.

[DanOln]

Yeah, sorry, I was just looking at that. It's pretty close. There's some performance difference between the i7 930 and 950, but whether that's worth the extra cost...

Thanks a lot for finding that comparison. I'll have to do a little more basket-putting-together-of...