CPU/GPU pairings - i7 or 15 ? Team Green or Team Red ?

[WalkinTarget]

I have a co-worker whose son wants to build a rig for the holidays. He sent me his list to critique - an i7-950 build with a high end Asus P6T Deluxe board. The total was around $1800 (!!!) so I went over it and found some issues.

First, he is putting a GTX260 card in this thing, and I think that is not enough GPU to keep the CPU happy. So I suggested an i5 build with an Asus or Gigabyte 1156 board paired up with an ATI 5850 card. That leans the other way in favoring the GPU over the CPU, but by the time you overclock that i5, it is now able to run much more efficiently than the i7 build.

Any thoughts or suggestions ?? I also had to ditch his power supply, as it was a Raidmax unit that came with the case. Yea, its 500 watts, but no, it won't do the job reliably with an overclocked i5/i7 and a GTX260 card.

[Duke{CLR}]

Well when I was pricing my latest build the cost between my i5 and i7 build was about two hundred dollars. I save on the CPU and memory my MB would have been the same so I went with the i7. I also went with a lesser GPU then I wanted due to the high cost of the top end ones and the fact that DX11 will become more mainstream down the road reducing the cost of these now. I chose the GTX 275 to get me through until I can come up with the $$ for a better solution. I also can run Crysis at 2048 x 1152 with everything on high with about 30 FPS.

I didn't look too close at ATI due the fact that I like to use EVGA so i can go to one place for all my MB and GPU support but I think they have a better price/performance deal then Nvidia has.

Have fun.

[WalkinTarget]

Duke, no fun to be had when all these sexay PC parts aren't even for me

I looked at the price of the CPU and about choked ... $550 !!! I dunno where this kid is getting the money, but I always offer to critique a build before someone splurges big change on it. In this case, I felt the build was weak only with the PSU, otherwise it was OK (not what I'd build, but nevertheless a solid gamer rig).

[Duke{CLR}]

He should get a 920 OC it then spend the surplus on a better video card.

[Apache Warrior]

He should get a 920 OC it then spend the surplus on a better video card.

+1
Apache

[Zantheus]

Yea no need for the 950....Also the 920 is easier and safer to OC. He could achieve 4Ghz @ 1.25v with a proper cooler and RAM

[juneau]

I don't think i'd even bother with i5 or i7 at all. No offense to the people here that bought into them sockets but they're over priced and offer nothing 99.9% of the time.

If he has to have one of the sockets go i5 and ATI. You may have trouble finding a 5850 though.

[WalkinTarget]

OK, here's the latest. Took Duke's advice and priced out an i7 920 CPU with a 5850 card (OOS, should be in stock - but only briefly I bet - in a week at the Egg).
He trimmed $250 off of the cost by dropping to the 920 chip, but we spent more for the video card (Diamond brand) and ditched the Raidmax PSU in place of a PCP&C 750 (same PSU as what I'm running).

Final tally was $1500 after a few rebates. I'll try and send him over to the forums to check us out .. no idea what games he plays, but I bet I could get him into TF2 pretty easily.

He has never overclocked anything, so I am trying to recommend an aftermarket cooler for him so that his overclock is much easier to achieve.

[Duke{CLR}]

I would get this HSF which is what I wish i would have gotten because my Thermaltake spinQ stinks.

Great cooling at a great price. Heck I may even get one...
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 Long life sleeve CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

I lucked out on my PSU with a $70.00 rebate and free shipping and I was going to link to it but the rebate is over now and it's out of stock.

As a side not I only paid $13.00 in shipping wiht my entire build due to the free shipping deals out there it's a great was to save a bit .

[WalkinTarget]

I'm actually using one of those CM Hyper units, the TX model, on an AMD rig. It was $22-20 MIR=$2 total.

I recommended an Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro 7+ for $28 for this build. The only drawback is the height of the Raidmax case causes a tall tower heatsink to bang into the underside of the PSU when you pop the motherboard mount tray back into the case.

[Apache Warrior]

Corsair H50.
Apache

[juneau]

What will this person be using said rig for WT?

[WalkinTarget]

What will this person be using said rig for WT?

In order of preference:

1) Hardcore Gaming
2) Normal Gaming
3) Casual Gaming

[Apache Warrior]

You do know that Hardcore Gamers can only have cutting edge (expensive) Rigs.
Apache

[Duke{CLR}]

In order of preference:

1) Hardcore Gaming
2) Normal Gaming
3) Casual Gaming

LOL I love it.