another help a newbie with a build, please be nice to the noob

[myosin]

My 3.5 year old gaming rig died a hard miserable death. I had just upgraded the video card and switched to 64 bit Win 7 about 6 months ago. So already have an excellent Video card and Win 7 64 bit.

The video card I have is XFX HD-585A-ZNBC Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB Black Edition 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card.

I am going to keep my hard drives and optical drives. I was hoping to get a year or two out of the older rig by updating. BUT, since it died gives me a reason to do a little upgrading sooner. I am going to do the build in less than two weeks. Next year I’ll probably throw in another Radeon 5850 just because I’ve never had two video cards. And Next year I am going to get a 3 monitor set up.

I am using new egg for parts. This is what I am thinking about getting.

CASE:

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Item #: N82E16811139001

CPU COOLER:

CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler

Item #: N82E16835181010

POWER SUPPLY:

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Item#:N82E16817139007

CPU:

Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Model BX80601930

Item #: N82E16819115225

RAM:

Kingston HyperX 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K6/12GX

Item #: N82E16820104168

RAM FAN:

Kingston HyperX KHX-FAN Fans

Item #: N82E16835116021

MEDIA READER:

Koutech IO-RCM621 All-in-one USB 2.0 3.5" USB 2.0 Front Panel Multi-format Card Reader with USB 2.0 Port

Item #: N82E16820162024

CASE FAN CONTROLLER:

Sunbeam RHK-EX-BA Rheobus-Extreme Fan Controller Panel

Item #: N82E16811995016

I have no idea on the MB.

So some questions to you guys are:

1. What MB would you recommend for my build?

I went with the Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Model BX80601930 over Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80605I7860 because of this new egg review comment. “Many people don't realize that for people interested in gaming (crossfire X and SLI) there is no option other than Bloomfield processors and above. Lynnwoods only let you use 16 PCIe lanes, so any more than one GPU bottlenecks. REAL i7's don’t have this, as their separate northbridge supports 32 lanes.”

Next year I want to put in another Radeon HD 5850 and actually see a difference, So….

2.Is the Bloomfield the choice for dual video cards?

3. The 1366 socket is the newest intel cpu socket so I should be able to upgrade CPU in 2 years and still have a good choice of cpus right?

4. On RAM, just buy a big name brand? Is 12 gigs of 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 to much? I’ll be using rig for gaming and video editing. The ram I selected does not have heat sink fins on top. Should I get Ram that has those heat sink fins?

5. I plan on getting three 120mm fans for the top of the case. Any recommendations for fans? Just make sure they are rubber mounted to reduce vibration?

6.Do case fan controllers like the one I selected actually work?

7. Will my power supply handle two video cards?

 

[tinytomlogan]

new cpu socket coming next year so upgrades will be limited.

 

[AMDFTW]

unless it pans out like the 775 as you still had a quite few CPU's to choose from even after i7, 1366 is intels new socket ATM

 

[myosin]

ditching the H50 CPU cooler.

Going to get Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018

Go big or go home.

Will be able to do a little OC with this one.

Also, going to do 8 or 6 gigs ram, not the 12 I was thinking about.

 

[AMDFTW]

6Gb of fast DDR3 will be fine dude in triple channel

 

[alienware]

ditching the H50 CPU cooler.

Going to get Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018

Go big or go home.

From my experiences a H50 (Corsair) will beat any air cooler with two fans (sandwich the radiator) running to EXHAUST. Their instructions will tell you to bring air in but that just ruined the air flow of my system. Running dual fans (£5 arctics) I managed to get my Phenom cooler than any air cooler can and by a considerable margin, too. IIRC It was about 11c cooler.

Noctuas are not that good. They are quite quiet and their build quality is second to none, but stacked up against other coolers they don't perform very well.

 

[tinytomlogan]

unless it pans out like the 775 as you still had a quite few CPU's to choose from even after i7, 1366 is intels new socket ATM

Intel are replacing 1366 dude. So his comment about upgrades will be limited with CPU's available now.

 

[alienware]

Intel are replacing 1366 dude. So his comment about upgrades will be limited with CPU's available now.

Intel do love a socket change eh? Crikey, I remember in 2008 trying to catch up with all the new ones since 478.

 

[tinytomlogan]

From my experiences a H50 (Corsair) will beat any air cooler with two fans (sandwich the radiator) running to EXHAUST. Their instructions will tell you to bring air in but that just ruined the air flow of my system. Running dual fans (£5 arctics) I managed to get my Phenom cooler than any air cooler can and by a considerable margin, too. IIRC It was about 11c cooler.

Noctuas are not that good. They are quite quiet and their build quality is second to none, but stacked up against other coolers they don't perform very well.

Thats complete tosh fella. Even Corsair themselves know they cant touch Noctua. The h50 isnt THAT good.

Noctuas are the best coolers on the planet ATM and Ive tested them all personally.

 

[alienware]

Thats complete tosh fella. Even Corsair themselves know they cant touch Noctua. The h50 isnt THAT good.

Noctuas are the best coolers on the planet ATM and Ive tested them all personally.

That's very odd because both myself and my friend with an I7 weren't very impressed. Infact I'm still not impressed. They are very very nicely made and they do look nice but they aren't the best for cooling. Just my opinion of course but I speak from actual figures on my actual computer.

 

[tinytomlogan]

The NH-D14 is the best performing air cooler on the planet mate, if you didnt get good results then you couldnt have fitted it properly. Its good enough for me to use one in my own rig, my 980x is sat beside me now @ 4.4 ghz and it doesnt go above 70c. With the H50 it would be way over 80c....

I would never tell anyone to buy a H50.

 

[alienware]

I know how to fit a cooler mate. Here you go, my system as we speak. No voltage tweaks just a multiplier. Look at my idle temps. Hardly the best on the planet and this is running dual fans. And my friend who has the 120mm version had the same sort of results.

 

[tinytomlogan]

If you are running AMD it will be lower. Intel is completely different fella.

Id still never tell anyone to buy a H50. If it works for you cool, but my testing says theres plenty of other better options.

 

[Rastalovich]

Yeah, still a bit more perfecting to do on them.

They do a job, but for the cash they aint worth it currently imo.

 

[alienware]

If you are running AMD it will be lower. Intel is completely different fella.

Id still never tell anyone to buy a H50. If it works for you cool, but my testing says theres plenty of other better options.

Yeah fair enough

I know that AMD are different with coolers which is why Custom PC rates them seperately. A good idea IMO.

As I say though the Corsair did bring it down to 35 on idle, which is a large difference. I wouldn't lose sleep over either though because they both keep it within acceptable limits which is fine.

I'm not saying the Corsair is perfect either. Infact I had to remove it from my main rig as it slowed airflow out of the back when I ran Crossfire cards. Taking it out dropped the temp on the Radeons by 8c and ambient case temps nose dived too.

I do love the build quality of the Noctua though, it's bloody lovely. Reminds me of Saab (the real Saab before they went GM rubbish )

 

[AMDFTW]

AMD run cooler than intels,also speedfan can give inacurate results try HW monitor for temps

 

[alienware]

48c on all four cores idle.

 

[Atomic3288]

You should check out the EVGA X58 FTW3. All the perks of X58 and USB 3.0 and SATA 6gbps

 

[alienware]

I will never go near EVGA again as long as I live sadly. Burned. Not once but twice.

First I got a 680i. Had it a while (about six months) only to find it was a RevA and did not support 45nm quads. This was rather annoying because I wanted to upgrade badly so ended up ripping it out and buying a Phenom 2.

It wasn't a great overclocker either, had a whacking great brick wall over 390mhz base.

And then there is my mate. My poor poor mate. Brought a 790i SLI FTW. $450. NEVER STABLE. Not ever. Tried three different kinds of ram ETC ETC. In the end *I* went to EVGAs forum. They said "flash the bios". Downloaded the new bios, went to run... "The serial numbers for your board do not match".

After a week's worth of head scratching EVGA finally confessed that his board was a Rev1. Rev1 was a bad design and binned. Can't update the bios, it will never work. What's wrong with that? I mean, every one makes mistakes right? Well not when he was on the phone to EVGA and they just ran him in circles making him change bios settings and pissing around. They never confessed that the board was no good and in the end the warranty expired.

Now if it was one case, or two cases? fine. But for it to happen to two people that know eachother then that's a high %. Too high for me. Asus and Gigabyte FTW. EVGAs bioses are terrible too. Too quirky and too much messing around.

 

[AMDFTW]

48c idle at stock volts and stock clocks is high very high IMO

i idle at 42c with 19c ambiant but ime overclocked (see sig)