Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[TeeKup]

All I have is a personal testimonial from some guy on Notebook Review that put one in his Alienware M15x with the same specs as mine. His boots 10 seconds faster give or take a few seconds. He also says it does load most commonly used programs a lot faster than the 7,200 rpm drives that the laptop ships with.

We're running different software configurations though, so it's not the best benchmark.

And this is the laptop version of the drive obviously, the desktop one probably performs even better.

Did he have to send it it 3 times for software errors and motherboard malfunctions? My friend Derek did with his M15X and they told him it was common problems with that model. I'm looking to build a PC soon myself or buy a high end laptop, so I'm a bit skeptical about alienware.

[Cortexian]

Nope his was fine, so is mine. Best laptop I've seen on that hardware level, build quality is amazing.



I'm also looking for feedback on a build I have planned for this summer if everything goes well... My current rig is about 6 years old now and upgraded to its maximum potential, it's time to start a new 'core-system' for the next 6 years! Now I'm looking to future-proof this system as much as I possibly can, when I say future-proof I basically mean buying the best and most powerful components I can at the time and going from there.

The system will primarily be used for triple-monitor gaming at 5760x1200, video editing, photoshop, overclocking (of course!), occasional folding if I get back into it, and general computer use (browsing the web, emails, etc).

Here's what I have slotted so far:
http://secure.newegg.ca/WishList/Pub...umber=13247985

And for those of you that are lazy:
Intel Core i7-990X 3.46GHz LGA 1366 Six-Core Desktop Processor
EVGA X58 4-WAY SLI Classified XL ATX Motherboard
G.SKILL PI+ Turbulence 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 Memory
2 x EVGA GTX 590 CLASSIFIED 3GB GPU's
Intel X25-M SSD
CORSAIR AX1200 1200W PSU
Corsair Obsidian 800D Case

I plan to do a custom water-cooling loop in the future, but will most likely start the build air-cooled to keep the initial starting cost a bit lower. That said, should I go with the Megahalems or a Corsair H70?

[Bodzilla]

1 of my Bro's 24 inch 16:10 screens just died.

is there ANY 16:10 screens left on the market, or are they all "designer graphics screens" shit now, with ells and whistles attached..

[InnerGoat]

Figure out what died! If it made a pop or hiss you may have lost a capacitor or two and its an easy fix~ Or give it to me

Freelancer get the cube case, everyone is building with that corsair thing already. Also enjoy your dead video cards. Hopefully nVidia does something about 590 before you buy them.

[hobojoe]

OMG 2 X GTX 590's??? Are you Bill Gates??

[Warsaw]

Freelancer, you best be using triple 2560x1600 monitors if you have two.

I would say that 6990s are better, but you do compute tasks and the 590 is much, much quieter, so I'll leave it.

[Cortexian]

I'm sure there will be new GPU's out when I can afford this rig, there might even be a new Intel processor I'd be interested in at the time. Probably going to build sometime in August if I can afford it then. And yeah Warsaw, I need the Nvidia GPU's for Adobe stuff + Badaboom, CUDA, etc... PhysX is fun as well. Not to mention the last 5 rigs I've built for other people using AMD/ATI GPU's have had driver related problems.

And Warsaw, I'm sure one would cut it, but as a hardware enthusiast it would be awesome to have two. Having the ability to dedicate one of the two cards cores to PhysX while gaming would be awesome.

[annihilation]

If you do want a dedicated Physx card I would get an older, less expensive card.
But, hey. It's up to you. Nice build btw.

[Bodzilla]

Figure out what died! If it made a pop or hiss you may have lost a capacitor or two and its an easy fix~ Or give it to me

Freelancer get the cube case, everyone is building with that corsair thing already. Also enjoy your dead video cards. Hopefully nVidia does something about 590 before you buy them.

He's doing electrical engineering so i told him to get some schematics and try to fix it himself.

so hopefully he can do that ^_^

[Warsaw]

I'm sure there will be new GPU's out when I can afford this rig, there might even be a new Intel processor I'd be interested in at the time. Probably going to build sometime in August if I can afford it then. And yeah Warsaw, I need the Nvidia GPU's for Adobe stuff + Badaboom, CUDA, etc... PhysX is fun as well. Not to mention the last 5 rigs I've built for other people using AMD/ATI GPU's have had driver related problems.

And Warsaw, I'm sure one would cut it, but as a hardware enthusiast it would be awesome to have two. Having the ability to dedicate one of the two cards cores to PhysX while gaming would be awesome.

Fingers crossed for Intel to release the Socket LGA2011 by then. What will you do if 2011 is not out yet but is right around the corner?

As for better cards: not likely. Maybe the Radeon HD7000 series (wow, full circle for me...have an old Radeon 7000) will be out in September or October, but the dual version would still be four months off at least. Nvidia will be behind that.