Howdy, I am new to the forum.  It's been nearly 5 years, so I am building my new PC !  I've got just about everything but the video card:  (Upgrading from my venerable Athlon XP 3200+/Asus A7N8X Deluxe Mobo)

 
So Far -

Asus Maximus Formula mobo

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600

Zalman 9700NT Cooler 

2 GB Mushin 1066 DDR2

WD Raptor 10k/150 GB for OS and applications

WD Caviar SE16 500 GB SATA drive for storage

Antec P182 Case

Ultra X3 1000W Modular PSU

Asus 20X Lightscribe DRW-2014L1T DVD/CD RW drive

Windows Vista Ultimate 64  

I plan on picking up an ATI HD 3870 x2 when it is available (this week?!?)  Anybody know when they go on sale???

In a couple of months going to upgrade my 17" LCD with a Sammy 226BW  At some point after that I'll go to 4GB of Ram.  Just need to find a buyer for the other kidney.  lol.

 Opinions/comments/advice welcome!

Beaker44 

heh your current rig sounds a lot like mine

only deficiency i'm imediately noting is the 2gb of ram.  might wanna go for 4 (or just plan on upgrading shortly down the line) as vista chews up a bit more ram then xp and heck with a 64bit OS it'll actually recognize all of it.

Looks like a great rig! You will be happy especially if you add the 4gb of ram.

I am proud of you my padawan.. your rig looks perfect. 

Hey thanks everyone.  I agree, 4 gigs of Ram would be ideal.  Depending on when the 3870x2 are really available I may get a single 3870 GPU and another 2 gigs of Ram.  It is hard looking at all of the other stuff knowing all I need is a video card to assemble it!  Plus, I am still trying to rationalize the 3870 x2 .  Yea, everyone needs one of those...  If they are really out this week, I am going to try and get one.

 I will try and post some pics once I have it put together. 
 

EDIT: to make sure you aren't overspending on a PSU, do some calculations here.. .

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I would definitely agree, but I got a great deal on the PSU in a local shop ($150), this is what triggered my current upgrade mania.  The PSU is only thing I didn't buy from NewEgg. 

 BTW, that is a great tool you pointed out for checking power usage , It is very cool- it came up with just under 500W for my rig.  I would suggest everyone check it out!  You were right on the money with your estimate.

 Thanks for the info, I appreciate it!

BTW, my Mobo and CPU got here today.  The Maximus Formula is just a beautiful motherboard to look at, It is almost a shame I don't have a window in my case.  Now just waiting to buy a video card.
 

2point:

EDIT: to make sure you aren't overspending on a PSU, do some calculations here.. .

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 Thanks for that! I have always wanted something like this.

Looks like a pretty good rig you have going, I'd get the video card before more ram.  Yea 4 gig would be nice but a GPu puts it up and running.   

I'm curious how the 3870x2 would handle the bandwidth of the pci-e 2.0 interface...considering it has two gpu's of data to run through the system. I would recommend just going with a p35 based board, considering that no one will be able to upgrade their cpu at the end of the year without getting a new motherboard (Nehalem). But not sure regarding the pci-e 1.1 bandwidth issue and the 3870x2.

Overall though, rigs looks good.  If you want take the 4 gb of rma route. Better IMO, check out the deals section, there are a couple of memory posts with g.skill memory at a great price, one by me for dds2-800, and another by someone else with dd2-1000 modules. Great memory for the price.

Besides that, no complains, solid choices ^_^. 

 A P35 based board would be the best soltion IMHO as well as stated by Kamrooz above, there's no real reason to go out and buy a $250-$300 board right now unless you plan on keeping the system for the next few years, and the P35's perform and OC just as well as, if not better than the X38-X48 boards. 

I really don't think that you bneed to worry about getting PCI-e 2 right now even with the HD3870x2 as it's not really any faster than the top 8800-9800 cards and even they don't use up the full bandwidth of the old PCI-e 1.1 interface. 

its been proven crossfire/sli is roughly 10% faster on x38 over p35 boards. Motherboard is a critical component that is not to be skimped on. A good motherboard will offer you a much long life in your pc than buying the "to just get by product". X38 will be compatible with a wide range of intel core 2 processors. So in the future you will be able to upgrade without having to fear of not being compatible. I just dont see the point in wasting 100 + dollars on last gen board When it could go toward the purchase of newer technology.

 But he's not going Crossfire or SLI................. He's wanting to run a single HD3870...........No need for anything over the top and when the new CPU's come out this fall, if he wants to upgrade, the current board is usless.

I've gotten great results, OC's and 3D Marks using what you would call "last gen parts, and they still support every chip that those $300 dollar parts will and last every bit as long.

No need to spend all the extra cash on a MoBo that has a ton of features that you'll never need, that is unless you're made out of money or a spoiled brat. A $100 - $150 MoBo works just fine, they're stable, they OC great if you're smart enough to know what you're buying, and they last and last. 

Just a little example of what a cheapo sub $100 board will get out of a chip.

He said he was planing on getting the 3870x2 which is crossfire.  Either way I will agree to disagree with you. Sure a p35 will work but why not add that to the cost of a newer technology and get pci-e 2.0 among having the best intel chips also. Just my preference and no I am not made of money either. But I also dont build systems thinking I am gona upgrade in 5 months. I build systems to last at least 2 years.

 Thanks for the input.  I actually ended up getting two Sapphire 3870 cards and they are running extremely well in crossfire mode.  I couldn't tell when the X2 boards would be available, and I got a good price on the two 3870's, and I didn't want to wait any longer.  I think that the mobo is really a matter of personal preference.  I wanted to be able to upgrade later to new CPU's so I got the X38 board.  Some will not care about upgrading, or the additional performance/flexibility of a top end board.  All OK with me, to each their own - there is no right or wrong here, mostly just what your preferences are and what you can afford.  This is the most expensive mobo I have ever bought, but my last rig lasted me 5 years with CPU upgrades.  I did end up with 4 gb of ram and the PC is pretty sweet, hands down the fastest PC I have ever used.  OC'd at 3 ghz.  It could be faster, but I don't want to get crazy with big raid arrays.  My only planned change is to mirror the boot drive for redundancy.  I have some pictures, I will try and post tonight.

Beaker44 

beaker44:

I have some pictures, I will try and post tonight.

Anxious to see them... very nice setup!

Very nice man, grats on the new build.

 Two of the pics is prior to adding the second 3870 and Ram.  I had two crossfire bridges installed, but you only need one and I removed it.  WIth that big Zalman cooler, the temp barely goes up when Overclocking, but the case has excellent cooling.  And you can't hear anything other than the rear fan.  Nice case, but you need long main power cables, which the X3 PSU does, but they just fit.

 Sexiness beaker! Grats on the new rig! =D

FlyinBrian:

its been proven crossfire/sli is roughly 10% faster on x38 over p35 boards. Motherboard is a critical component that is not to be skimped on. A good motherboard will offer you a much long life in your pc than buying the "to just get by product". X38 will be compatible with a wide range of intel core 2 processors. So in the future you will be able to upgrade without having to fear of not being compatible. I just dont see the point in wasting 100 + dollars on last gen board When it could go toward the purchase of newer technology.

It would be indeed faster, but that 10% is mostly due to the dual 16x/16x interface compared to a 16x/4x or 8x/8x/ of p35. But there is one flaw though, a motherboard is a critical component, but there are many CHEAPER boards based on p35 that offer those so critical features. It's good invest into a solid board, but there is a limit, and sadly to say, p35/p45/x38/x48 have no upgrade life...ALL INTEL chipsets are dead at the end of this year thanks to nehalem, so it would make no sense to dump 200-350 or so into a board that you won't even be able to drop in a new faster cpu.  

Kamrooz:

 Sexiness beaker! Grats on the new rig! =D

 

FlyinBrian:

its been proven crossfire/sli is roughly 10% faster on x38 over p35 boards. Motherboard is a critical component that is not to be skimped on. A good motherboard will offer you a much long life in your pc than buying the "to just get by product". X38 will be compatible with a wide range of intel core 2 processors. So in the future you will be able to upgrade without having to fear of not being compatible. I just dont see the point in wasting 100 + dollars on last gen board When it could go toward the purchase of newer technology.

 

It would be indeed faster, but that 10% is mostly due to the dual 16x/16x interface compared to a 16x/4x or 8x/8x/ of p35. But there is one flaw though, a motherboard is a critical component, but there are many CHEAPER boards based on p35 that offer those so critical features. It's good invest into a solid board, but there is a limit, and sadly to say, p35/p45/x38/x48 have no upgrade life...ALL INTEL chipsets are dead at the end of this year thanks to nehalem, so it would make no sense to dump 200-350 or so into a board that you won't even be able to drop in a new faster cpu.  

Well, were talking 7-9 months away before Nehalem sees mainstream. And when that time period rolls around they will already be working on the next thing, and then the next. Unless you know something is coming out really soon within the time your ready to build there is no reason to wait. There will always be something better coming down the pipe. But thats is why I buy the best I can get for the money. If I am building a budget machine for Joe smoe and He needs a typical desktop machine then I sometimes will use a budget board. I try my best to handpick each component based on price/performance. The maximus formula is one of the best boards that offer DDR 2 support so you can buy more cheaper ram and still have all of the latest technology outside of the use of expensive DDR3.

With that said I think I have explained my position as best as I can. I dont expect everyone to agree with me of course.