New hardware configuration codename « wise gamer, admiral »

sunnypriest — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:00:42 +0000

It is always difficult to build a new PC configuration from scratch. It takes hours long of searching various quality/performance/price informations across the web and even talking to assemblers about their own experience. The match budget-quality-performance is tricky to master. Temptation arrives all the time, trying to drive you from your goal to get yourself a more and more powerfull machine. The run to power never ends unfortunately

Enough of blabla, here is what I went for (you are warned we are going into the technical layer):

CPU: Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.8 GHz
Thermaltake Spin Q cpu cooler
RAM: 4 Go of DDR3 G.Skill cas 8-8-8-24 (a 2x2Go set for Dual Channel)
Motherboard: MSI P55-CD53 with Overclocking Genie, no SLI (you will see it is not needed and it saves money). Update: I don’t recommend this mainboard anymore, see below
Graphic Card: Zotac GTX 295
LED Samsung SyncMaster (expensive but excellent image quality comparing to LCD)
Antec three hundred case
Corsair Hx650 power source (put only the cables you need, no extra fuss)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi PCI (cheaper than PCI-e and no quality diference for the user)
Hard Drive Western Digital Velociraptor 300 Go (fastest drive you can find on the non professional market, programs load quicker, it really helps a lot in getting your computer faster). Good for being a system disk.
1 To Western Digital Caviar Black mass storage disk

What do I prefer in this configuration? I would say the most surprising thing is that I am going MSI for the motherboard when a huge majority of people only stick to Asus. The 1 button push overclocking with perfect adjustment between memory bus speed, cpu ratio and Vcore voltage is a big hit as for me; it made me save many hours trying to find the right values so that the system is perfectly stable. HardCore overclockers will find the Over Clocking Genie a nice to have trick, offering you the idea of the right cpu ratio/mem bus/Vcore. If you need more than 3.5 GHz (base was 2.8) you can do it by yourself and will win time, beacause the Genie can point out the are in which to search.

P.S. : eventually, my system is not stable during cpu stress testing, it means the overclocking is not OK. This is a big drawback considering the MSI motherboard. As soon as the tests become cpu intensive i get blue screens or hangs. So, I would not recommend the MSI P55-CD53 for overclocking. Besides, a Tom’s Hardware test involving hardcore overclocking grilled the power components of the p55-CD53!

As a conclusion, here are some pictures of the used material:

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New hardware configuration codename « wise gamer, admiral »