Ordered my new PC. Any problems with it?

I ordered my first gaming PC a few days ago. A lot of you guys helped influence my decision on what parts to get and whatnot. So seeing as how you all know a lot more about what makes a good gaming PC than I do I would welcome some feedback on some of my decisions. (Keep in mind I had to have the system built for me because I have multiple health problems that include uncontolable tremors. I tried installing some RAM for my parents about five years ago and I couldn't even place it in the socket.:lol

CARE2: CoolerMaster Thermal Fusion 400 Extreme Performance CPU - Thermal Compound Optimized for Thermal Dissipation

CAS: * Azza Solano 1000 Full-Tower Advance Cooling Case w/ Dual 230mm Fan + Extra 3 Fans

CASUPGRADE: 12in Cold Cathode Neon Light (Blue Color)

CD: Sony 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)

CPU: [Special] Intel® Core™ i7-950 3.06 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366

CS_FAN: Maximum 120MM Color Case Cooling Fans for your selected case (Blue Color)

FA_HDD: Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooling System (1 x System)

FAN: CyberPower Xtreme Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit 240MM w/ Dual Fan(CPU & GPU Liquid Cool Capable, Extreme Overclcking Performance + Extreme Slient at 18dBA)

GEAR1: Razer Goliathus Fragged Alpha Mouse Pad - Speed

HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)

KEYBOARD: Razer Lycosa Black USB Gaming Keyboard

LANSURGE: GigaByte Lightning Guardian Angel LAN Surge Protector

MEMORY: 12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Corsair Dominator)

MONITOR: * 24" Widescreen 1920x1080 Sceptre E246W-1080P (23.6" Viewable)(Black Color) LED Backlight, Built-in Speaker, DVI, HDMI Input

MOTHERBOARD: * (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durable™3 Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Dolby Audio, eSATA, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2 x SATA-III RAID, IEEE1394a, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI

MOUSE: Razer Deathadder 3500 DPI High Precision 3.5G Infrared Gaming Mouse

MULTIVIEW: Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor

OS: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional (64-bit Edition)

OVERCLOCK: Extreme OC (Extreme Overclock 20% or more)

POWERSUPPLY: * 950 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-950TX 80 Plus Power Supply - Quad
SLI Ready

SOFT1: Free Microsoft® Office® 2010 STARTER EDITION (Reduced-Functionality versions of Word and Excel that include advertising)

SOFT2: McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011

SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

TEMP: NZXT Sentry-2 Fan Touch Screen Fan Control & Temperature Display

USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports

VIDEO: AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by AMD)

VIDEO2: AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by AMD)



In hindsight 12GB of RAM and a 950W PSU were obviously not wise choices. The HDD didn't list a brand name, but all their other HDD's were Western Digital so I am hoping it will be too.

So what do you guys think? Will I be able to play The latest and greatest with the best AA, 16xAF, Ultra settings and all that with 45-60 fps or is that just wishfull thinking.

P.S. I am sorry if this was an obnoxious post, I just really wanted some feedback on my purchase by informed game-oriented computer users.

Nice PC. As expected it's overkill.

FAN: CyberPower Xtreme Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit 240MM w/ Dual Fan(CPU & GPU Liquid Cool Capable, Extreme Overclcking Performance + Extreme Slient at 18dBA)

Click to expand...

What's going on here? Liquid cooling?

How noisy is your PC?

OVERCLOCK: Extreme OC (Extreme Overclock 20% or more)

Click to expand...

Did they do this or can you do it?

Gorath said:

Nice PC. As expected it's overkill.



What's going on here? Liquid cooling?

How noisy is your PC?

Did they do this or can you do it?

Click to expand...

Yes it's liquid cooling. It should be fairly quiet, some of the reviews I read for the case suggested that it was very quiet plus it is lined with foam padding to absorb sound.

as far as overclocking goes, they did that. I didn't feel comfortable doing it myself and the cost was only an extra $9 so it didnt really bother me.

A PC is as loud as its loudest fan. Everything liquid cooled should be very silent.

I wouldn't have bought Crossfire, though. I prefer 1 faster card for the same price.

When the PC is running, everything configured, Windows updated with the automated security updates, etc. install XP Antispy. It offers a couple of advanced configuration options and stops all the data collecting and phoning home Windows does in default config.

Here, and for all serious modifications: Set a system restore point before installation. It allows to revert quickly, at the cost of losing all changes since then. "All" means ALL.

Thanks for the info. I'll make sure to check it out

It's looks like an overkill to me.Do you really need 12gigs of ram?!
It's a shame such a powerful rig will be bottlenecked by a slow HD.

Yeah I know, I really Messed up including that much ram. I am really kicking myself in the pants for that.

As far as the HDD goes: I called their support line regarding this issue and they advised me to go with this one instead of the Velociraptor.

I'd have picked an SSD over any fast traditional hard drive.You may have not noticed any difference with games installed on the raptor but day to day OS stuff would be massively faster.

I seriously considered that, but as you can see I opted out of it. When the price comes down in a few years I will definatly consider doing so.

I wouldnt call it any kinda serious bottlenecking going on, nothing that youre going to notice. If you want to sit there comparing benchmarks as an enthusiast, sure you may see some difference. However someone like you, who is simply ordering a high performance rig that you want your games to play well on - youre set. How much faster than 1/1000 the blink of an eye do you need? Seriously, youre fine.

That system is going to chew up and spit out anything that you throw at it. I'd bet that the hd they gave you is the WD black, which is a great drive.

The ram is a bit much, but hey youre prepared for the next wave of tech lol

Here's a link to my config I built this year, it's not as big as that and it does everything at full options - http://jasonsadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2010/03/raven-has-landed.html

note that i replaced the nvidia card w/ the radeon

xSamhainx said:

I wouldnt call it any kinda serious bottlenecking going on, nothing that youre going to notice. If you want to sit there comparing benchmarks as an enthusiast, sure you may see some difference.

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The difference between a high-end HDD and a mid-range SSD is so significant even an amateur can notice, without the use of benchmarks.
I'd even go as far as saying that an SSD would have made more difference than an overclocked i7-950 replacing the original Core i7-920 @ 2.67 GHz.

Don't get me wrong WD Black isn't slow or anything but when jakebaker13 picks an SSD he will notice the difference instantly.

whatever you say, dude

I can confirm from first hand experience that upgrading from regular WD hard disks (I used to have 2x 160GB in RAID 0 a while back and then a -at the time- really fast 640GB disk etc.) to an Intel X-25M G2 160GB Postville SSD a few months ago has made a pretty big difference for me and was easily the most significant upgrade to my PC in the last couple of years or so.

It's not like "wow, look, my save game just loaded in 22 seconds instead of 26" but it's more like the overall... I think the appropriate word would be responsiveness of the system. All of the little hard drive thrashing breaks that slow down your work or gaming for a (split-)second here and a (split-)second there are entirely, completely and 100% gone. I guess it's a case of you really only notice it when it's gone or something like that.
It's also nice when you boot up your system and you get exactly zero hour glass action when Windows first loads the desktop. It's just -bling- there. It doesn't even really "load". It just pops up and you're ready to go.
Finally, it's nice to have absolutely no hissing or rattling noises from a disk that's spinning at 7.2K or 10K RPM when working or gaming on your boot and/or gaming partition. SSDs don't make a sound. Nada. Zilch.

Honestly, it's just awesome.... well, except for the major hit in the wallet maybe . However, I for one would not even consider an SSD-less system for my main desktop anymore. I've been spoiled and rotten by how awesome it is. Seriously. Word.

But if anyone is planning to upgrade to an SSD at the moment, I'd recommend to wait a few more weeks or months. Intel and Micron are about to release their 25nm parts in Q4 and other manufacturers are prepping new product/controller releases as well so the SSD market is likely to see some major motion in the not too distant future.

yeah, it's funny how prices drop just AFTER I buy something. I was checking them out the other day, and for a relatively small 130'ish gb SSD (small of course by todays standards) it was $250. SSD still being in it's infancy at this point, I can see it soon becoming the standard and going cheap. Like LCD flat screen monitors replacing ye olde CRT