My new PC build

[jsaliga]

I recently decided that it was time to replace my workstation with a new computer.  My everyday working computer is a Shuttle XPC SFF, with a Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, a Blu-Ray Burner, 8GB of memory, a EVGA GTX 260, and a 1TB Western Digitial hard disk.  It's been a nice computer for the two years or so that I have been using it.  I'm an IT professional so I tend to run a lot of apps at once and processor/memory is more important to me than gaming performance.  I used to be hardcore gamer but I don't have much time for it these days and haven't built a serious gaming rig in about 10 years.

My plan was to kill two birds with one stone.  I wanted a nice system for music playback, and planned to fit the new machine with a RME HDSPe AIO audio interface with the optional word clock.  I sold off my Transporter and Denon DVD 5910CI and planned to build this computer in the best HTPC case I could find.

Here is what I started out with:



Luxa2 HTPC Case
EVGA X58 Classified Motherboard
EVGA Superclocked GTX 570
Intel i7 Core 970 Six Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaw Series 24GB DDR3 1600 Memory
Liteon Blu-Ray Burner
Crucial 128GB 2.5" SATA III Solid State Disk
Western Digital 2.0TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Disk
Corsair AX850 RT 850 watt Modular Power Supply
RME HDSPe AIO Audio Interface with Word Clock

The Luxa2 case was very expensive and at $599 was much more than I ever expected to pay for a PC case without a power supply.  But it was just drop dead gorgeous and I decided that I had to have it.



It was very spacious inside and this rail on the top is where you mount your optical drive and hard disk.  There was no provision for mounting a 2.5" SSD so I bought an adapter that would allow me to fit the Crucial SSD to the space provided in the Luxa2 case.



By this time I just drooling at the thought of having this beautiful rig in my rack.  And unfortuately that is as close as I ever got.  Much to my shock and dismay....the motherboard would not fit in the case.  This was really a stupid mistake on my part.  I have built many computers, both for myself and for others.  Years ago I used to build HTPCs for friends of mine on AVS Forum.  But it has been a while since I hand picked all of the components from scratch like this.  I originally picked out an ASUS Rampage III mini ATX board that would fit the Luxa2 case.  But at the last minute I was concered by all of the negative feedback about it and decided to shop for a different board that was a little better received by the system building community.  I settled on the EVGA X58 Classified.  But I forgot to check the form factor, which is Extended ATX and is pretty much only going to fit into a full tower case.

So now I had a decision to make.  Do I send back the X58 motherboard and buy the ASUS I originally picked out, or do I send back the Luxa2 case and find another enclosure?  I really agonized over this for a full day.  And in the end the motherboard won out.  There were only two mini ATX motherboards available that would take a LGA 1366 processor and neither of them would support 24GB of DDR3 1600 memory.  So my choices were rather limited.  I decided that I was not going to start making compromises on performance because this rig was going to be my primary working PC.  So I got a RMA from New Egg and sent the Luxa2 case back.  The restocking fee was $92 plus another $30 to ship back UPS ground.

What did I replace that case with, you ask?





































Why an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, of course!







At first I was pretty pissed at myself but I got over it fairly quickly.  I just had to remind myself that what was most important in a computer to me was processing power and memory.  In that regard, this is easily the most powerful computer I have ever owned.  And since I ended up with a full tower case I have already decided on a few upgrades and have ordered a second GTX 570 for SLI and will put in a better CPU cooler, and add a second 2TB disk.  Here's a pic of the finished build.



All I really have had time for is to do a quick install of Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Edition.  I have not done anything else.  I am in the process of running migration backups of my current system and once that is done I will put the new machine in place.

My old computer, the Suttle XPC, will be reinstalled with Windows 7 -- it is running Windows Vista at the moment.  Afterwards it is going to go into my audio rack and will be used as a source to feed my Eastern Electric Mini Max DAC.  I plan to add a M2Tech Hiface to it.

--Jerome

[etcarroll]

I don"t know Jerome, but I'm not 'feeling' the replacement case.

Like the rest of the build. My old htpc that I was using as an MCE extender in my bedroom may be dying, and that's fine by me as it's built on a P4 3.0 chip. I've been getting the urge to build a new one but getting my audio system square has been getting any extra money.

Still, now that I'm working again I may copy this, though with your original case, so I'll have to wait for a few more mobo's to get in the pipeline.

[jsaliga]

I don"t know Jerome, but I'm not 'feeling' the replacement case.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Having said that, the Thermaltake Armor+ was the least shitty looking full tower case I could find that had a removable motherboard tray, cable management, and toolless design.  If I had to settle for something less than I originally planned I wanted it to be easy to work on.  And I compromised aesthetics because I was not willing to bend at all on performance.  

But I could have done without the big gaudy 23cm fan on the side panel.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a better selection of X58 based mini ATX form factor motherboards.  Most of these boards are marketed to hardcore gamers, and big towers with in-your-face looks seem to appeal to that crowd.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

I put the machine into operation today and I have to say that life is damn good with a solid state boot disk.  From POST to the Windows login prompt in about 10 seconds works for me. 

--Jerome

[bpape]

That's a purrrrdy motherboard setup.

Bryan

[tmazz]

I put the machine into operation today and I have to say that life is damn good with a solid state boot disk.  From POST to the Windows login prompt in about 10 seconds works for me.  

--Jerome

Wow! A 10 second boot sequence?  

Now that got my attention.  Nice machine.

[jsaliga]

I thought about going all out and putting a water cooling setup in it but visions of a $300 cooling system leaking coolant all over my $4,000 computer was enough to nix that.  So instead I bought one of the best thermal electric coolers I could find.  That should be here today and then I will start overclocking.  This CPU should be able to get to at least 4GHz and remain stable.

--Jerome

[richidoo]

With the peltier cooler and SSD will it be pure silent i7?
Bitchin!

[jsaliga]

Yeah, it will be pretty quiet.  The stock Intel CPU cooler on the six core processors is actually a decent one with 8 heat pipes, but the fan is fairly loud relative to everything else going on the case.  I could have just put a better fan on the stock cooler, but decided to go for something a little more massive instead.

I'll talk about audio as soon as I get most of my apps installed and data restored.  I have the RME card hooked up to the Eastern Electric Mini Max DAC.  I'm hoping to do some critical listening over the holiday weekend.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

The new goodies came in today.




The Coolermaster V10 is massive.  Here it is next to the largish stock Intel heatpipe cooler.




And here it is mounted on the motherboard.




Then I added the second GTX 570 for SLI...



I think that's it for now.  I'll overclock it tomrrow.

--Jerome

[mgalusha]

That heat sink is massive, wow.

I put an SSD into a new laptop at work for a user last week, love the 10 second boot time. I will be putting one in my main PC at home. 

[etcarroll]

Yikes, that's big. I've always used copper flowers in my builds and thought they were big, but there's no comparison to this monster.

[jsaliga]

Sure it's big, but anything less would not be fit for the M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. 

All kidding aside the Coolermaster V10 strikes me as a very effective cooler.  Replacing the stock Intel unit with this beast lowered the idle temps by 10 degrees Celcius and the fully loaded temps by as much as 20 degrees.  At stock speeds none of the cores exceeded 44 degrees on the Prime 95 large FFT torture test.  Naturally, I expect the temps to climb when I overclock but this monster of a cooler will keep the CPU well within safe limits.  The performance numbers for it that I have seen suggest temps in the neighborhood of 65 degrees with an i7 970 overclocked to 4GHz, and that is what I am aiming for.

--Jerome

[Bob in St. Louis]

Wow, that's impressive. 

I've been drooling over one of the 6 core, 4GB kits on TigerDirect, but you paid more in shipping then what I'm looking at grand total. 

Nice, very nice.

Bob

[jsaliga]

Thanks.  I have it overclocked to 4GHz and it is rock-solid stable so far.  This is the first machine I have owned with a SLI graphics setup.  I'm not a hardcore gamer but I still enjoy PC games when I can find the time for them and want the best graphics performance possible. 

I thought my last PC with a single GeForce GTX260 was pretty good.  I could crank up the graphics detail on most games and not have frame rate burps, but it did happen on a few.  Two GTX570s should cure that and if it doesn't I can always add a third since my motherboard supports triple SLI, though if I did that I would have to upgrade the power supply to a 1200 watt unit.  I'm happy with the system so far.

--Jerome