Needs Motherboard / CPU / RAM combo suggestions

[Nitrousbird]

My birthday is coming up, and my wife wants a list. It’s time to upgrade the PC. Current rig:

- Asus A8NSLI Deluxe mother board, with very nice copper chipset fan to replace garbage Asus fan

- 4 1GB sticks PC3200 Ram

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Processor (dual core @ 2.4 GHz)

- Two XFX 7600GT XXX Edition video cards

- Ultra Full-Tower Case

- Hyper 590 watt modular power supply (conservatively rated)

- 1 SATA DVD Burner, 1 IDE DVD Burner

- 1 SATA Blu-ray burner

- Four 160GB SATA hard drives in a RAID-0, ran as my primary drive

- One 500 GB SATA hard drive

- One 1TB SATA hard drive

 

That’s the main stuff – have a built-in card reader, push fan and a pull fan for case cooling, and a couple other random things.

 

I want a Core i7 setup. I want the 920 chip or something similar in price/performance.

 

Motherboard is where I need more guidance. Though I have my cards setup so they can run SLI, I don’t use that feature. I am not a PC gamer, but I run four monitors, so I need both cards.

 

I do a LOT of video compression / transcoding, which is very CPU intensive – this is where my current system is lacking. Doing high quality compression of 40 GB files down to 7 – 25 GB (depending on what I’m doing), takes a very long time (30 hours plus). I need to shorten that time span a lot.

 

Motherboard needs to have at least 4 SATA ports w/ a built-in RAID controller, and at least 4 regular SATA ports. Must have dual PCI Express slots so I can run both video cards. Also needs an IDE port, or at least 5 Sata ports, as I’m willing to dump my IDE burner for a SATA burner if I have the ports for it. I’m not willing to give up my RAID or any of my hard drives.

 

Also need 4+ GB of Ram, depending on price.

 

Anyone have any suggestions? Power supply and everything else should be fine for my needs. Price is also a concern, as I don’t want a $350 motherboard.

[unfunnyryan]

Slightly off topic..Have you looked into using Nvidia CUDA based programs for your video compression? Check out Badaboom. It'll use your video cards to compress/encode files, which is stupid fast compared to using a CPU.

[Mr. Jones]

Core I7 920 D0 Stepping & Any decent 1366 Board, IE: Asus P6T = Perfect.

[Nitrousbird]

Slightly off topic..Have you looked into using Nvidia CUDA based programs for your video compression? Check out Badaboom. It'll use your video cards to compress/encode files, which is stupid fast compared to using a CPU.

From everything I can find, there isn't much out there for compression of H264 and VC-1 files, which is what I am dealing with. At least not from the good amount of research I have done. If you know of anything - by all means, please!

 

Shawn - thanks for the recomendation; I'll need to look up some prices. Any ram you suggest (price vs. performance).

[1fast5gp]

Go to microcenter. They have the lowest price on processors. As for MOBO, ask them to price match neweggs price on MOBOS.

 

Corei7 920 $200 at microcenter. Core i7 930 $230 at microcenter. If you don't plan on overclocking, then go with Core i7 930.

 

I like the MSI X58 Pro-E, it will support all your needs from SLI to raid. (7 Sata, 1 PATA, Raid 0/1/5/10, SLI. It is only 189.99 at new egg with free shipping. Microcenter will match that price.

 

As for memory, I'd go for OCZ or Corsair. Which ever is cheaper. Since you are doing alot of video transcoding I wouldn't go anything less than 6GB of DDR3. There is nothing that AMD puts out that can compete with the Core i7 processors.

[unfunnyryan]

Go to microcenter. They have the lowest price on processors. As for MOBO, ask them to price match neweggs price on MOBOS.

 

Corei7 920 $200 at microcenter. Core i7 930 $230 at microcenter. If you don't plan on overclocking, then go with Core i7 930.

 

I like the MSI X58 Pro-E, it will support all your needs from SLI to raid. (7 Sata, 1 PATA, Raid 0/1/5/10, SLI. It is only 189.99 at new egg with free shipping. Microcenter will match that price.

 

 

As for memory, I'd go for OCZ or Corsair. Which ever is cheaper. Since you are doing alot of video transcoding I wouldn't go anything less than 6GB of DDR3. There is nothing that AMD puts out that can compete with the Core i7 processors.

 

 

+1, microcenter will save you nearly $100 on a i7 920.

[Nitrousbird]

I already knew Microcenter for the processor...they are a good $80 less than everyone else.

 

From what I read, the main difference between the 920 and 930 was 1x higher on the multiplier for the 930. I guess the 920 will be phased out in place of the 930.

 

Motherboard is really my difficult decision. I will eventually overclock it - probably do a water cooling setup in a year or so. So I want a motherboard that is decently capable. Looks like 8+ SATA ports is about out of the question, so I'll have to buy an expansion card...no biggie.

 

The P6T looks like it is everything I will need, and I've been happy with my current Asus motherboards. But if I can get an under $200 motherboard that I can also be happy with, that's even better. I'll check out that MSI board.

 

I was planning 6+ GB RAM. May just start with 4GB and upgrade later. Is there a real-world performance difference (not just some minor bench test differences) between the 1066 memory up to the 2000? There sure is a price difference!

[unfunnyryan]

Most new chipsets support sata port multipliers, if you really need a ton of storage I would just get a sata multiplier backplane

[Mr. Jones]

You won't want 4gb, you want 6gb.

i7 = Tri channel memory controller, = 3 Dimms. Get a cheap G-Skil 6gb kit from newegg and you'll be fine.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223

 

If you check newegg, they'll also likely an open box p6t for sub $200.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359R

 

8X Sata As well.

[Nitrousbird]

I saw some of the motherboards could run as dual channel, though I guess there is probably a performance hit. Regardless, 3 DIMMS is fine.

 

But will I see a real-world performance hit running running 1333 vs 2000?

[Rally Pat]

You won't want 4gb, you want 6gb.

i7 = Tri channel memory controller, = 3 Dimms. Get a cheap G-Skil 6gb kit from newegg and you'll be fine.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223

 

If you check newegg, they'll also likely an open box p6t for sub $200.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359R

 

8X Sata As well.

 

174 for an open box one, fuck I am thinking about getting one..lol

[87GT]

+100 on asus boards

[Mr. Jones]

I saw some of the motherboards could run as dual channel, though I guess there is probably a performance hit. Regardless, 3 DIMMS is fine.

 

But will I see a real-world performance hit running running 1333 vs 2000?

 

No, not really, besides, most any ram will run ddr 1500-1600 out of the box @ 1.65 ect.

[Nate1647545505]

Spend the extra bones on two 10K+ (SATA) or 15K+ SCSI drives & controllers, you'll saturate most integrated bus chipsets quite quick - giving up most of the RAID benefits. Dare I even bring up Solid State...

[Mr. Jones]

Spend the extra bones on two 10K+ (SATA) or 15K+ SCSI drives & controllers, you'll saturate most integrated bus chipsets quite quick - giving up most of the RAID benefits. Dare I even bring up Solid State...

 

You dare not...

 

 

This is my next venture:

 

http://slickdeals.net/?sdtid=1126295&u2=http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/359025-perc-5-i-raid-card-tips.html

 

A steal......which makes obtaining the drives easy.

[Nitrousbird]

Spend the extra bones on two 10K+ (SATA) or 15K+ SCSI drives & controllers, you'll saturate most integrated bus chipsets quite quick - giving up most of the RAID benefits. Dare I even bring up Solid State...

I can tell you my 4 7200RPM Samsung drives in a RAID0 perform noticably quicker than my 1 Seagate 7200RPM drive, all on my Asus board. Noticable on both boot up, and very noticable on some hard drive intensive stuff I do (as in trimming hours off of a task).

[Mr. Jones]

I can tell you my 4 7200RPM Samsung drives in a RAID0 perform noticably quicker than my 1 Seagate 7200RPM drive, all on my Asus board. Noticable on both boot up, and very noticable on some hard drive intensive stuff I do (as in trimming hours off of a task).

 

Nate's point being about how easily any of the onboard raid solutions start turning into a bottleneck. IE: 4 drives will add nearly nothing over 3 with most modern drives.

 

Hell, you could throw in a decent hardware sata/sas controller and gain a TON of throughput.

[JaSSon]

Here's an article on DDR3 speed and latency.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-870-1156,2482.html

 

Low latency 1333 or 1600 is the way to go. There's a minimal price difference between the 2 speeds.

 

And as far as the i7's go, the LGA 1156 chips are dual channel and the LGA 1366 chips are tri channel. The 930 you mentioned is a 1366 chip so you'll want to get a 6 GB ram kit.

[1fast5gp]

That Asus P6T does not support SLI, Only crossfire. The asus P6t that supports SLI is around 280 dollars. ASUS and MSI boards are both very nice. For the price, i would go with the MSI. It is okay for overclocking, but nothing great. If you want a nice board to over clock with I would go with a EVGA X58, i would take that over a Asus p6t anyday.

 

Best socket 1336 board on the market right now is the EVGA E760 Classified... but can't justify the price though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188048

 

Microcenter also has OCZ ddr3 1600 on sale for 140 AR. Not a bad price.

http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0301254

 

As for DDR3 1600 vs DDR3 2000, you can always over clock your ddr3 1600. Then you have to start messing with CAS timing and dealing with blue screens lol. I don't think it is worth the extra money for DDR2000.

Edited March 11, 2010 by 1fastSTI

[bicranium]

I'm 2/2 on buying bad EVGA boards. 1st one had a common problem where 2/4 RAM slots would randomly die and 2nd one came with bent pins in the CPU socket and no matter what you tell any manufacturer they will not cover bent pins and always blame it on the customer. Never buying an EVGA board ever again. Their video cards are fine though. Sticking with ASUS or Gigabyte the rest of the way for mobos.

 

Just bought this last week to take the bent pin EVGA board's place...

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614

[Mr. Jones]

That Asus P6T does not support SLI, Only crossfire. The asus P6t that supports SLI is around 280 dollars. ASUS and MSI boards are both very nice. For the price, i would go with the MSI. It is okay for overclocking, but nothing great. If you want a nice board to over clock with I would go with a EVGA X58, i would take that over a Asus p6t anyday.

 

Best socket 1336 board on the market right now is the EVGA E760 Classified... but can't justify the price though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188048

 

Microcenter also has OCZ ddr3 1600 on sale for 140 AR. Not a bad price.

http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0301254

 

As for DDR3 1600 vs DDR3 2000, you can always over clock your ddr3 1600. Then you have to start messing with CAS timing and dealing with blue screens lol. I don't think it is worth the extra money for DDR2000.

 

 

There is no reason the p6t won't do sli/xfire. That limitation is all but gone from most boards nowadays after a bios flash/update. Some manufacturers just began pasting "SLI & CROSSFIRE" on a sticker.

 

 

 

From Asus:

 

P6T

New Era for Ultimate Performance! Intel® Core™ i7 Platform

Intel LGA1366 Platform

Intel® X58/ ICH10R chipset

ASUS TurboV

3-Way SLI & Quad-GPU CrossFireX Support!

ASUS Drive Xpert

ASUS EPU

ASUS 8+2 Phase Power Design

100% Japan-made Solid Capacitor

[Nate1647545505]

I can tell you my 4 7200RPM Samsung drives in a RAID0 perform noticably quicker than my 1 Seagate 7200RPM drive, all on my Asus board. Noticable on both boot up, and very noticable on some hard drive intensive stuff I do (as in trimming hours off of a task).

 

I defintely agree some RAID is better then no RAID, but along side Jone's post, I like to focus on the disk substructure as a whole. Everything from drive to controller, and as minute as stripe size.

[unfunnyryan]

you said you didn't need it for gaming but just multi monitors so why do you need sli? I have a crossfire only board that will let me throw in 2 nvidia @ards at once and use a monitor on either, just no sli in games.

[1fast5gp]

There is no reason the p6t won't do sli/xfire. That limitation is all but gone from most boards nowadays after a bios flash/update. Some manufacturers just began pasting "SLI & CROSSFIRE" on a sticker.

 

 

 

From Asus:

 

P6T

New Era for Ultimate Performance! Intel® Core™ i7 Platform

Intel LGA1366 Platform

Intel® X58/ ICH10R chipset

ASUS TurboV

3-Way SLI & Quad-GPU CrossFireX Support!

ASUS Drive Xpert

ASUS EPU

ASUS 8+2 Phase Power Design

100% Japan-made Solid Capacitor

 

I guess you can again, they stopped putting SLI on the box since many people are running into problems with SLI with the P6Ts. Maybe they fixed the problem.

[Nitrousbird]

you said you didn't need it for gaming but just multi monitors so why do you need sli? I have a crossfire only board that will let me throw in 2 nvidia @ards at once and use a monitor on either, just no sli in games.

I never said I needed SLI. I PC is setup so I can put it into SLI, but I never do:

 

Though I have my cards setup so they can run SLI, I don’t use that feature. I am not a PC gamer, but I run four monitors, so I need both cards.