Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

My home PC which is outdated by a few years just died. It was an water cooled AMD system and I decided its time for a more current system.

Currently looking at a system consisting of these basics:

Intel Core i7 920 Processor
Cooler Master V8 cooling fan
Asus P6T motherboard
12G Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM
Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB HD
Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1GB

Any thoughts, changes, additions from the geek crowd?


Thanks in advance :)

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

IDK but this thread might help.

Linky

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Why 12GB of RAM?

Are you running 64 bit?

And imo, get a 320GB - 500GB system drive, then a 1TB - 1.5TB Slave drive for files.

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

The Hyperthreading is going to blow you away. I'm wonding why you went with the Asus vs Intel motherboard. How big is the power supply?


MCS

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Plan on running 64 bit. 850W P/S

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

I'm not a geek but those specs make me drool a bit :dr

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

I just got a Dell Studio 15 laptop with the i7, 4GB, 500 GB....

MAN, this flies despite Vista 64 bit... Windows 7 upgrade is on the way!!!

The only downside is that I can not dual-boot XP... no Dell drivers for XP... I've tried slipstreaming the new SATA drivers in XP SP3 but still blue-screen on install...

I would agree with getting a getting a smaller system disk and another drive for files...

And something to backup too... This laptop is a replacement for my older Dell that was stolen 5 weeks ago... I lost about 10 days worth of files because of the lack of a backup after upgrading to Windows 7.

I did a test this morning... I processed a 2 GB MPG file that I recorded with SageTV to get rid of the commercials... My loaner single core laptop did it in 331 seconds... This one did it in 46 seconds!!!!

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

ASUS vs Intel board? Because the Intel boards SUCK! I have ASUS in all of my desktop computers :banger

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Got to agree with this as well. That way even if you just backed up you system files it would not be too much.

Different topic but I have been using clonezilla to clone my system lately (I use it on all the school computers) maybe something to think about... get you system just perfect with all you programs and apps them make an image of it on an external drive... as back up.

As for the system looks nice, wish I had 12GB af RAM

And yah Asus all the way!!

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Gigabyte's new UD boards are the bomb and in my opinion you get a better bang for the buck than with with the Asus ... I'd look at their X58 boards too.

That Seagate has a lot of horror stories associated with it .. I'd avoid that one like the plague.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148337

I don't buy ATI cards anymore because of driver problems & frickin bloatware, so I'd swap that one for Nvidia of the same price range.

I'd also recommend a 500-640 GB boot drive and a 1 TB for files - I'd get WD black drives, they've been good to me.

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Concur about the Gigabyte MB's and ATI sucking...

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Absolutely great advice ... my 260 card just yesterday was no longer recognized by my boot drive. Uninstall, reinstall, reseat, no dice.

I swapped to my clone which was made once I had everything perfect.

Move over a few files and I'm up and running. I'll just clone back the current drive rather than try and troubleshoot the driver conflict.

I clone then unplug but have it still in the case. A couple of minutes and I'm back and running yet the drive isn't building up hours like a raid would. And the software error that messed my computer wouldn't have been helped by raid at all.

All hail clones.

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Thanks guys for the advice. Went with a Seagate Barracuda ES 500GB as a boot drive and a 1.5TB back up/Aux drive.

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Another +1 for ASUS. been loving them for years and years. Rock solid boards.

Re: Any Intel i7 hardware geeks?
 

Sick. :tu
I'm on the edge of a new platform, but I'm gonna ride out this rig till it dies.
It's only three or four years old, and I bet I can get a few more out of it.
I just built an amd/asus sli rig that I don't use. I just don't game on the puter anymore.
This machine is fine for email and internet and the 1.6tb of crap I don't need that's stored on it.
I do need a usb hdd to put all my pics on so I can stick it in the firesafe. That's a really good idea that'll never happen. :bh