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Building a new PC. How is it?
Motherboard: Asus P6TSE LGA1366/ Intel X58/ DDR3/ CrossFireX/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core i7 Processor i7-920 2.66GHz 8MB LGA1366 CPU
Video Card: Visiontek Radeon HD5850 1 GB PCI Express Card 900297
Power Supply: Diablotek RPM series RPM900 900W ATX Power Supply - ATX, 900-Watt, 135mm Fan
Memory: Patriot Extreme Performance Gaming Series 6GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220398
Case: AZZA Solano 1000 CSAZ-1000 Full Tower Case
The total's about $1,175.
Thats what I have so far. I'm not a computer nerd so I don't know much, but how's the build? Will it be a good gaming PC? Strong enough to play FFXIV(My main reason).
Comments
This is a very good system. I would make sure you have some good fans (2-3 120mm, that is what I have.) I would also RECOMMEND a higher power supply. 1000+ for sure....
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...
I was planning to build custom towers for FF14. I build towers all the time. Personally, I dont like Intel... go with AMD.Asus Motherbaord is usually good. Video card seems good too. You really only need about 500W power supply. Ram is good.
Kain_Dale
new intel ssd drive
make sure all the component you buy are direct cache access compatible.so you it might be worth it to go with an all intel component since the mobo the network card and the processor need to be direct cache access compatible to be avail!
i sure wish i had the money for intel ,maybe next time!yes dca is the only reason intel is recommendable
no dca=go and buy amd system instead way cheapper
lmao over 1k? no need 500 is more than enough.
Kain_Dale
A 500watt good quality PSU is superior to a 900watt poor quality PSU. The easiest way to weed out quality PSUs is to look for ones 80+ Gold or Silver certified.
Wtf is VisionTek?
If you're spending that kind of cash, at least get decent brands. Patriot RAM sucks too. I use off brands alot, but I don't use them on Mobo, GFX, or RAM. They are too critical to the system to get crappy quality.
You also don't need a 900w PSU.
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VisionTek has been making cards for years now. Actually, I've had plenty, very reliable. Just read some reviews, but just to throw in my 2c, you should be fine.
I was looking at reviews for Diamond, Sapphire, Asus, and VisonTek video cards and I've read some really good reviews on VisionTek while Sapphire has gotten some bad ones. So I thought I'll give VisionTek a try. And for my PowerSupply; 900 is too much? I could go lower and try to save a bit I guess. Whats the 80 plus certified mean? More reliable?
80 Plus means it's "Green". Energy efficient BS.
I started looking around at VisionTek reviews, and I wasn't impressed at all. Every site was about half and half.
extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp use that to see how big of a PSU you need.
I don't know everything about your PC, but I got 492w with some pretty liberal selections.
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80 plus refers to the PSUs effeciency. 80 plus silver means 85% of the power going into your system is used while 15% is lost, 80 plus gold means its over 90%. I mentioned it because its an easy way to weed out all the poor manufacturers like Diaboltek. Look at the reviews, 20 reviews made in 3 days by people with 2 letter user names.
Thats true, I saw those reviews as well. What type of PSU do you recommend? Or Brand?
I recommend OCZ, Corsair, and Thermaltake.
OP, I just bought a rig with almost exactly the same specs. It runs ME2 and other newer games awesome on full settings. No MMO should challenge it unless you have a very crowded area to load.
So how's my memory? Should I change brand? Whats a better brand?
900pw is pleanty.
you may want to wait until the next Nvidia series relaseses, it will drop the price of your card... or there could be a different card you want to buy 8)
edit*
patriot is great memory! and affordable. stick with it.
die.
basicly,ask clerc to open box or check online and take the one with the biggest fan (radius)
because often the put the fan too smal a half inch radius fan is very bad for a graphic card hell
as a rule of tum if graphic card fan is smaller then the processor fan ,change of graphic card for bigger fan on graphic card!
A good 750W system can handle almost everything as long as you only have a single state of the art GFX card. 500W is too small whatever people here say and 900+ is a waste of money. If you plan to have 2 or more large GFX cards like 5970 or 295 GTX) you will need more but that is only for people with loads of cash.
The brand actually matters, I recommend a 750W Corsair PSU, you could probably do with a 650W but a little extra power doesn't hurt (as long as you have corsair, cheaper PSUs tends to waste the electricity, a Corsair will earn you money rather fast).
Here is a very helpful chart over GFX card, if you can, get one 5970 instead, it is the state of the art card just now.
900w is crazy over kill.
Take a look at this instead:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Since you've picked a crossfire compatible motherboard, I can only assume later you're looking for headroom to upgrade. The 5850 is a very powerful card, it will play everything out to date on the highest of settings. The crossfire requirements for the 5850 (and 5870) is 600 watts. Later you can always add another card as you see fit and your two 5850's will be running fine on a 650w PSU.
Hell, I'm on a 350w PSU, running a Q6600, 500gb HD, ATI HD 4850 for two years. The power requirements for the 4850 is 450w, so they give plenty of headroom of their requirements though its not something to be completely dismissed.
As for the ram, I'm a G Skill fan myself. They make a solid product.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Wow, I'm loving all the replies! Thanks guys!
For the updates:
-I'm switching my video card "VisionTek" to "Sapphire" HD 5850 just cause.... there's not much info on VisionTek unless someone have had one before and wants to help convince me to save 20 bucks.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B002R5AB8W/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A1KG6QISTB45M0&v=glance
-Switching that diablotek psu to a corsair 650W 80 plus certified for $99.99. More pricey compared to that diablotek psu, but I was convinced that corsair is a good brand.
and unnecessary for the 900W psu.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000X24ISU/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
Well, I honestly haven't heard anything bad about VisionTek though I don't know much about them either. Any card from any manufacturer can come DOA, however what is important is the manufacturer warranty and their customer support. MSI, ASUS, Sapphire, HIS, and XFX are all good to my knowledge, it's all a matter of who you ask really. I'd say stick to one of the more well known brands, and check how long their warranty lasts, atleast this way you can have some security with your investment.
That's a nice PSU, it'll do the job for sure
It's pricey but you'll be happy in the long run when you don't have to worry about it burning out on you as much or having a cruddy warranty if it does burn out 
Best of luck
Few suggestions!
1. Wait until Feb 28th when the i7 930 releases. It has slightly higher clocks and a 22x multi. It is replacing the i7 920 and will be the exact same price. So more performance for the same price for a small wait. They are available in small supply in places like Fry's but 28th is the date listed on an intel timeline.
2. Wait a month for the Nvidia GTX 470 & 480. Even if those cards are out of your price range they will cause ATI to drop prices. FFXIV won't be out so I don't think waiting should be an issue. Expect the 470 to run $400+ but should be faster than a 5870.
3. If you do decide to go ATI then get an Asus card. I do believe they cover voltage overclocks if you use their utility. There is really no reason to not overclock a gfx card since they make it so easy.
4. Corsair power supply is a good switch for you!
5. Better memory! If I remember correctly the actual speed of the memory has a lot more impact than the timing. So the memory you picked is 1333 9-9-9-24. After Speed its cas latency, lower is better. So a CL of 7 is much better than a CL of 9.
I'd get:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145258
Same timing but faster speed(1600) and $17($10 and $7 shipping) cheaper. Corsair is also a better company IMO, never had an issue with them or their rebates. Again make sure it works with the motherboard you pick out! That is so very important!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365
Is also an option and faster than the corsair but it seems that memory is picky about its motherboards.
6. Do you need a full tower? You can save a few bucks going mid-tower like: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Variables:
Overclocking & Crossfire/SLI- Do you plan to overclock your processor or use crossfire/sli? If you don't the i7 860 might be the better route. It actually outperforms the i7 920 because it has a more aggressive turbo mode. It also uses less power and the Motherboards/memory are cheaper. The only downsides to the platform is dual channel memory, which has no major impact(1 fps) , and that its crossfire/SLI bandwidth is halved(8x/8x) between the cards. The bandwidth thing isn't a huge loss though since most games only use 8x or a little over and using a single card there is no loss at all.
If you are CPU overlocking get a decent heatsink and fan. Scythe mugen 2, Cocage True Spirit, or Dark Knight are all fairly cheap($30-40) and perform great.
USB 3.0 or Sata3? Its a bit more future proof. If you are looking for those then I would go X58 i7 920/930 route. The Increased bandwidth those options need come from the PCIE and can rob it from the GFX card. Remember that the 1156 has that limited bandwidth so if you use it it will limit your gfx card and if you're using SLI/Crossfire on an 1156 with Sata 3 you will see a loss in frame rates. The X58 has more bandwidth so going dual SLI/Crossfire will be fine with Sata 3. However if you go Tri/quad SLI/Crossfire you will see the same Frame rate drop as the 1156.
I know there is a gigabyte X58 board with it for like $209 with free shipping and a $20 combo deal with the i7 920 on newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.324969
I thank you for giving me some great suggestions!
After reading your post....
Its a bit too late to wait on my CPU and Motherboard cause I've already bought them.
As for memory, don't it have to match my motherboard which is DDR3 1333? Cause the one you've selected were DDR3 1600? I'm clueless about this and about computers, but its good to know a bit.
And I do believe I'll be overclocking on my cpu so I'll be getting some fan for it as well later on when I do get it.
As for the full tower and your mid tower, they're about the same price, but I guess I just want more space lol.
Asus actually have a utility for calculating power supply requirements on their website here:
support.asus.com/PowerSupplyCalculator/PowerSupplyCalculator_right.aspx
I built a very similar PC just last week... same motherboard, processor, 6 Gigs OCZ DD3 RAM, ATI 5870 graphics card. I put it in an Antec 902 case which has 3 x 120mm fans and a huge 200mm one on top of the case. The ASUS calculator stipulated a minimum PSU rating of 600 watts so I used an OCZ Modstream Pro 700 watt one. I have ithe PC overclocked to 3.6 Ghz and it runs rock solid while running stress test software for hours.
If you plan on overclocking, which this combo makes very easy, you'll need to budget for an improved CPU cooler. I'm using a large, aircooled one with a 120mm fan and at 3.6Ghz, the processor cores are running at 40 - 50 degrees C in normal use. I was able to get to 4Ghz no problem but the temperature went up to over 70 degrees C with this setup so I would have needed to go to water cooling to stick with that. I'm more interested in reliable every day use than max performance so I'm happy with what I've got.
edit: You'll need the 1600 memory if you plan on overclocking as you'll be upping the DRAM frequency.
See this guide here. It's based on an ASUS P6 motherboard so makes everything easy to understand:
www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html
Wow, thats fricken BadA$$.
So is overclocking bad or good? How does that work? And how far can I overclock my PC?
I've just been editing my post while you were making this one, so look back up for extra information ................
btw, I'm new to overclocking myself but that article made it easy. Just don't be too ambitious if you basically want a reliable gaming machine, 3.6Ghz seemed a good compromise for me.