# Core I7 Here I come!!!!!!! 920 based rig specs



## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

Let me get this straight. I wanted to build a rig that would maximize the performance potential of a triple crossfire Radeon 4850s with 512 megs of RAM. So I thought these components would be a sensible choice that would leave nothing back as far as performance potential in a happy median between raw CPU power and GPU power and not need a nuclear power center to stay stable. I'm salvaging some parts from an AMD Spider based rig to complete the project.

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit OEM 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-DS4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128366

What more could you want? Up to 24 gigs of crazy DDR3 RAM and 6 friggin memory slots!!! Well one more PCI express slot maybe for quad crossfire but that is not worth the extra $100that cost with the X58 boards and if you switch to SLI you won't need that 4th slot.

Processor: Core I7 920 2.66ghz An absolute great performer!!!! Better than even the fastest Core 2 Quad!!!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488

A great article on performance of I7 with multi GPUs.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/

The gap between I7 and anything else is substantial.

System Memory: 12 gigs of Crucial DDR3 1066 Triple Channel Memory. You can never have two much as far as I'm concerned.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148246

Video Cards: 3 Visionek Radeon 4850s in triple crossfire I bought a while back

Monitor: HP LP3065 30" IPS Monitor 2560 * 1600 resolution
Yes I will have to limit FSAA due to a 512 meg frame buffer limitation but at 4 million pixels FSAA above 4X is really overkill and even off looks just fine.

Sound Card: Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer

Hard Drives: 2 Western Digital 500 Gig Sata 2 drives in Raid 0.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136178

Case: Antec 300: Why go with anything else? Well, the 900 has the front fans already installed so maybe you might want that one.

Power Supply: XCLIO 1000 watt power supply with 2 35 amp 12v rails

I don't have the system together yet. I will get the parts to complete the build early next week. I've been an AMD supporter and builder for so long and the performance with I7 was just too much to resist. And with rumors of a Deneb delay it seemed like the right thing to do. What do you guys think?


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## KBD (Nov 29, 2008)

that PSU sucks, get a Corsair 1000W, PC P&C 1000 or 1200, Silverstone DA 1000 or 1200, Ultra X3 1000 or Enermax Galaxy 1000w Xfire.


also, get a bigger case, if you like Antec, i recomend the 1200


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*It works.*



KBD said:


> that PSU sucks, get a Corsair 1000W, PC P&C 1000 or 1200, Silverstone DA 1000 or 1200, Ultra X3 1000



I can't replace it at this time. It has 70 amps on the 12v rails and has been running a quad crossfire 3870 setup with a 125 watt CPU for quite a while 100% stable. (That is over 500 watts on the 12v rail LOL) Sure others might be better but it does work and for the current config it is satisfactory. Thanks for the quick response. I will consider your advice if a problem arises.

I love the Antec 300. I never have temp issues. Airflow is great. I can't see a need for another.


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## KBD (Nov 29, 2008)

Robert-The-Rambler said:


> I can't replace it at this time. It has 70 amps on the 12v rails and has been running a quad crossfire 3870 setup with a 125 watt CPU for quite a while 100% stable. (That is over 500 watts on the 12v rail LOL) Sure others might be better but it does work and for the current config it is satisfactory. Thanks for the quick response. I will consider your advice if a problem arises.
> 
> I love the Antec 300. I never have temp issues. Airflow is great. I can't see a need for another.



i didnt realize you had the PSU already if it worked for you then it should be ok, but i just dont trust that brand


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## Squirrely (Nov 29, 2008)

KBD said:


> but i just dont trust that brand



Im with KBD here. I wouldn't trust that PSU either. Yeah it has the ratings, but not sure how clean and trustworthy that power is. I really only trust PSU's which are rebagged Seasonics, such as Corsairs, some Antecs, PC Power and Cooling, and of course Seasonics.


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## LittleLizard (Nov 29, 2008)

do not go with 3 way crossfire, drivers are not so pulished to have a significant gain, instead go with 2 4870 and a nvidia cheap card for pysics


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## PaulieG (Nov 29, 2008)

LittleLizard said:


> do not go with 3 way crossfire, drivers are not so pulished to have a significant gain, instead go with 2 4870 and a nvidia cheap card for pysics



Agreed. Better performance and less power draw.


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## Pinchy (Nov 29, 2008)

LittleLizard said:


> do not go with 3 way crossfire, drivers are not so pulished to have a significant gain, instead go with 2 4870 and a nvidia cheap card for pysics



He already has the graphics cards 


Nice rig


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## LittleLizard (Nov 29, 2008)

Pinchy said:


> He already has the graphics cards
> 
> 
> Nice rig



he can sell one and buy another thing , lets say better psu


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## WarEagleAU (Nov 29, 2008)

Haha, nice suggestion Littlelizard. I love this build and not to sound to gaay but I love that color of the Gigabyte board. Let us know how well it clocks, it looks like it has tons of options and connections.

Xclio isnt a well known brand, but if it works for you, that is good. However, with it possibly not being one of the better ones out there, it may give issues when trying to go for higher clocks.

@Squirrely, I wasn't aware that PC P&C were rebadged Seasonics, thought they made their own.

Awesome build and me being a loyal AMD supporter cannot fault you for going this way.


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## niko084 (Nov 29, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> @Squirrely, I wasn't aware that PC P&C were rebadged Seasonics, thought they made their own..



At least some of them are made by seasonic, but that doesn't mean a whole lot..
Either way they are epic psu's.

As for the build, if you want a stripe get some 10k's, 7200's just are not worth it unless you only "need" write/read speeds because in normal use you wont gain a whole lot, and you will pickup a nasty little overhead, plus an added latency.

Seasonic is a big oem, I'm sure if you made a design and sent it to them and wanted 25,000 of them they would make them for you, so it being assembled by seasonic means nothing.


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*Thanks guys I do have 2 4870s as well*



Pinchy said:


> He already has the graphics cards
> 
> 
> Nice rig



Well 1 4870 with another matching one on the way. It was supposed to be for another build for my bedroom in a Phenom 9600 spider rig. I figure they would scream at 1920 * 1080 with 8X FSAA.

I was debating wether to run the I7 with either the two 4870s or the 3 4850s. In theory the max performance of the 3 4850s should be a bit faster than 2 4870s in crossfire. (After all you have 3 gigaflops compared to 2.4 processing power and 2400 shaders verse 1600 and 120 verse 80 texture units) (The 4870s also have 512 megs of RAM thank Newegg open box for $200 4870s) The advantage the 4870s have is with memory bandwidth and clockspeed but I don't think it is enough to win the performance crown. I guess the only way to know is to try it out. I'm almost positive that with max scalabilty like COD4 or Devil May Cry 4 the 3 4850s should beat the 2 4870s. Anyhow it should be real close. The peak power usage for both setups will be about 320 -330 watts for the graphics so it strictly comes down to performance and reliabilty. I've been using both quad crossfire and triple crossfire 4850s for quite some time and the performance is stellar where the CPU is not messing up the performance. I swear there is something funky going on with FEAR with Phenom processors. The performance is so jerky fast than hiccup that it drives you nuts!


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> Haha, nice suggestion Littlelizard. I love this build and not to sound to gaay but I love that color of the Gigabyte board. Let us know how well it clocks, it looks like it has tons of options and connections.
> 
> Xclio isnt a well known brand, but if it works for you, that is good. However, with it possibly not being one of the better ones out there, it may give issues when trying to go for higher clocks.
> 
> ...



So hopefully my power supply will be just finel. It can't be any worse than an Apevia Warlock 1100 watt that went dead after a few days. <>__<>

When you see that the performance so much greater the choice is so easy. I will still use my AMD rigs but for the best experience in my gaming theater it will be the I7 platorm for quite some time.


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*I will consider 10000s later*



niko084 said:


> At least some of them are made by seasonic, but that doesn't mean a whole lot..
> Either way they are epic psu's.
> 
> As for the build, if you want a stripe get some 10k's, 7200's just are not worth it unless you only "need" write/read speeds because in normal use you wont gain a whole lot, and you will pickup a nasty little overhead, plus an added latency.
> ...



Maybe a secondary RAID just for the games could be in order then again when you  have 12 gigs of System RAM how much hard drive performance is really going to be necessary?


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## 3870x2 (Nov 29, 2008)

the only time I ever hear the term "gigs" (gĭg, _geeg_) are by those who dont know much about computers, but maybe we are just in different demographics.  Speaking of which, is 12 "geegs" really necessary?  Looks like a solid build.


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## KBD (Nov 29, 2008)

3870x2 said:


> the only time I ever hear the term "gigs" (gĭg, _geeg_) are by those who dont know much about computers




i use the term "gigs" a lot


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*I'm from New York*



3870x2 said:


> the only time I ever hear the term "gigs" (gĭg, _geeg_) are by those who dont know much about computers, but maybe we are just in different demographics.  Speaking of which, is 12 "geegs" really necessary?  Looks like a solid build.



I don't know if that much memory is really necessary but I'm going to find out.


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## LittleLizard (Nov 29, 2008)

Robert-The-Rambler said:


> I don't know if that much memory is really necessary but I'm going to find out.



the point in your rig is that 12 gigabytes of ram is pointless. for gaming, 4 gb is more than enough, i cannot think in any apps that uses the full 12gb of ram (except benchmarks to show how awesome you are )


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*Well some people like flames on their cars*



LittleLizard said:


> the point in your rig is that 12 gigabytes of ram is pointless. for gaming, 4 gb is more than enough, i cannot think in any apps that uses the full 12gb of ram (except benchmarks to show how awesome you are )



I'm not one of them but has anybody tried that much RAM for games? Well soon we shall see how it works anyhow.


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## LittleLizard (Nov 29, 2008)

Robert-The-Rambler said:


> I'm not one of them but has anybody tried that much RAM for games? Well soon we shall see how it works anyhow.



i dont think it would make a huge difference while playing, but when loading scences


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## WarEagleAU (Nov 29, 2008)

12 "GIGS" (not Geeegs) should be enough for 20 years of upgrades 

I think it would help with gaming and doing 50 things at once and still not be fully utilized.


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*I had the 12 in mind for.....*



LittleLizard said:


> i dont think it would make a huge difference while playing, but when loading scences



When scenes load in Oblivion and Fallout 3 and in MMOs or RTS where a whole lot of action is occuring on the screen. Hell, if it just stabilizes the difference between min and max framerate I'll be happy.


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 29, 2008)

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/19

Geez there is a huge diff between 3 way sli on a c2 rig and i7 rig.


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Nov 29, 2008)

*Isn't that amazing?*



DrunkenMafia said:


> http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/19
> 
> Geez there is a huge diff between 3 way sli on a c2 rig and i7 rig.



The funny thing is that the 920 is not all that far from the 965 for $300. For less than 1/3 the price of you get more than 2/3 of the performance.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nehalem-920-940-965-xe-processor-review.html

You'll see just how close it is.


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## niko084 (Nov 29, 2008)

KBD said:


> i use the term "gigs" a lot



Same here...... Been saying gigs for like erm ... Since the first over 1gb drives were made.


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## Binge (Nov 29, 2008)

Ahhh my first 1GB drive... A Maxtor 1GB for $200.  I felt so powerful!


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## surfsk8snow.jah (Nov 29, 2008)

That setup looks insanely excellent my friend. i7 is absolutely incredible, I just found out about it and am very intrigued.

So, should we all start saying "Teras" to keep consistent?


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