Anyone know much about the new Intel i7s?

[MDV]

Whats this crack about write endurance?

Whats gonna happen first:

SSD packs in on me from overwriting
HD packs in on me from conventional breaking

?

[MDV]

Or, with conventional drives, more PSU and 2 4870s (what the hell?)

Intel® Core™i7 Processor i7-920 (4 X 2.66GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
 
Free Item
 FREE Far Cry 2 DVD Game (RRP: £49.99) with any Intel® Core™ 2 Quad/Core™ i7 CPU!
 
Memory (RAM)
 6GB CORSAIR XMS3 1600MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (3x2GB)
 
Motherboard
 ASUS® P6T DELUXE: DDR3, SATAII, 2 x PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 1 x PCI-e x1
 
Operating System
 Genuine Windows Vista™ Ultimate 64-bit Edition + SP1, CD (£119)
 
USB Options
 8 x USB 2.0 PORTS (6 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
 
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
 160GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
2nd Hard Disk
 160GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
3rd Hard Disk
 500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
4th Hard Disk
 500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
 RAID 0 (STRIPE) (£9)
 
1st CD/DVD Drive
 20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM
 
2nd CD/DVD Drive
 20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM
 
Graphics Card
 512MB RADEON HD 4870 PCI Express + DVI
 
2nd Graphics Card
 512MB RADEON HD 4870 PCI Express + DVI
 
Sound Card
 ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
 
Modem
 NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
 
Network Facilities
 2 x ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS
 
Floppy Disk Drive
 1.44MB - 3.5 INCH FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
 
Memory Card Reader
 NONE
 
Case
 Stylish Silver/Black Sigma case + 2 front USB
 
Power Supply & Case Cooling
 800W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£99)
 
Processor Cooling
 ASUS TRITON 81 PURE COPPER BASE ULTRA COOLER
 
Firewire & Video Editing
 1 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD
 
£1401.70 ex VAT.


£1647 inc VAT and Delivery.

This is my favrourite :) (I dont trust the SSDs, and they and raptors are way expensive, and I'm not convined they're that much better).

Edit: I must admit that it quite pleases me that this will outperform a mate of mines qx9750, 4Gb ram, 2x rad 3850 alienware (at £3500, recently bought) in every regard :D

[Roobubba]

Just worth thinking about sound card, especially if you'll be using this rig for recording. The SSDs are, at this stage, expendable because they still don't have the price/performance ratio when compared with normal disks in RAID0, but I'm not sure what else would give to let in a decent sound card...

Good you mentioned about the building, because I was going to suggest that, otherwise. I always build my own machines - but that's because I enjoy it! Also, it gives you complete control over everything, especially cases and other peripherals. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to this sort of thing ;)

Roo

[ailean]

I've no experience of Mesh, but a couple of years ago they were getting very good reviews, but a couple of years is a long time!

Here is an article on SSD write endurance that I found, seesm that a good SSD will outlast a standard HDD. I'm strongly considering an SSD option when i have to replace our SQL server at work. Standard HDD for storage, SSD for SQL and OS. OUr databases are quite small, so i coudl get the OS, SQL and the databases on a 36GB disk (raid of course). If I were speding your kind of budget I'd seriously think about putting my OS on a SSD, and room for my heaviest apps.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

Both of the systems you've listed should kickass though :) I'm envious.

[ailean]

Oh point taken on price / performance, it doesn't stack up, but like anything once you start pushing the edge, it gets expensive. (I belive they said on Top Gear the other week it cost about £10M to get a F1 car to go a second a lap faster)

[MDV]

Your envious - I'm fricken insane! I've never spent close to that on a PC before. I'm clearly losing it, especially seeing as what I have now is pretty quick, just not very reliable. Plus £1700 is cutting it a bit close, unless I can sell my current rig.

Roo - my soundcard, if you can call it that, which you cant, really, is an RME Fireface 800. I think I'm pretty set :D (I never entertained for an instant using the on board sound for recording, or even listening too - its for films, youtube, that sort of thing, if anything at all)

Cheers for the article, ailean

[Roobubba]

In which case, it looks like you're sorted ;)

FWIW you wouldn't *need* to put two SSDs in RAID. That would be SICK, though!!!

Roo

[MDV]

Oh point taken on price / performance, it doesn't stack up, but like anything once you start pushing the edge, it gets expensive. (I belive they said on Top Gear the other week it cost about £10M to get a F1 car to go a second a lap faster)

Yeah, exactly. I normally try to get stuff thats a couple of steps behind cutting edge. But it seems that instead of this I'd gone totally nuts. *shrugs* what can you do?

[MDV]

In which case, it looks like you're sorted ;)

FWIW you wouldn't *need* to put two SSDs in RAID. That would be SICK, though!!!

Roo

It would be way expensive too!

I dont know how that would work with the i7s is the main thing. It seems that it could open the throttle on it, on paper, but it might be barely noticable in practice.

[Roobubba]

If you're going to RAID some disks together, you'll be just fine with normal 7200rpm drives (although do have a think about getting a couple of raptors instead - price it up and see what it looks like. 10k disks do make a difference!!)

Roo

[MDV]

Price with 160Gb 7200s: (less one card and downgraded PSU)

1418

With 150Gb raptors:

1618

With 64Gb SSDs

1682

Now, that seems rather a lot to me for hard drives.

[Roobubba]

I'd go for 74 gig Raptors, personally - easily enough for the main apps and OS - other less used apps can go on the storage disks ;)

But you're right, it's quite a lot of money!

Roo

[MDV]

They arent in the options :( Maybe if I call them, or look elsewhere.

[noodleplugerine]

Well, on the systems I'm building, I'll be choosing a solid state disk if I possibly can. Apologies for not having gone through this in more detail (my last post was a rushed send job as the bus pulled up outside my house!)!

With that said, a pair of 7200k rpm dsks in RAID0 are likely to be fast enough. Of course, a pair of Raptors would be nicer ;)

I tend to go for one or two large storage disks, and a couple of smaller disks in RAID0 if I'm feeling like I need the speed for the OS. That helps to keep costs down, although naturally the read and write operations to your storage disks become rate-limiting.
 
Re: ATX - that's where BTX comes in, no? Or maybe a Lian Li V343B :D

If you're going for 7200krpm, then go for a Samsung spinpoint, in alot of benchmarks they've been seen to go faster than WD Raptors, but personally, I'd allways go SCSI if you can afford it.

But yes, HD Speeds are definitely the biggest bottleneck in high spec PCs today, most other new tech is hugely overkill compared to the ancient hard drives most people use.

[Roobubba]

+1 for the spinpoints, they're seriously good drives.

But you're right about SCSI if it's at all an option, it will beat a traditional 7200k rpm SATA disk hands down.

Roo