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Just bought it today. I wish I had the time and know hows to build my own, but work sucks up most of my time (US Marine Corps aviation mech-average work week is 60-80 hours in 5 days). So here's the specs.

Case:Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition

Motherboard:[SLI] Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 -- AMD 990FX w/ 4x PCI-E 2.0 x16

Processors:AMD FX-8150 CPU (8x 3.60GHz/8MB L2 Cache)

Cooling:Liquid with dual high performance fans

Graphics Cards:2xAMD Radeon HD 6950 - 2GB

Memory:16 GB DDR3-1600

Power Supply:1000 Watt - Extreme Gaming Series

Hard Drives rimary-120 GB ADATA S510 SSD Read:550 Write:510
Data-500 GB HARD DRIVE 16Mb cache 7200 RPM

Optical Drive:[12X Blu-Ray] LG BLU-RAY Reader, DVD?R/?RW Burner Combo Drive

Sound Card:Creative Labs

I should be getting it in a few weeks. It's a hefty price tag compared to what I've paid for in the past, but I'm sure it's going to be worth it. I'll post videos of game play when I get it.

Th3Exiled wrote:Creative sound card? Just keep in mind that running on ultra high sound settings will cause a BSOD in PR.

PS. That's an expensive PC, how much did that cost?

Bulldozer certainly wouldn't be my first choice for a gaming computer; it's single threading capabilities is supposedly beaten by phenom IIs (and most games use less than 4 cores).

As for crossfire, the cards scale well in the 6000 series. PR on the other hand won't take advantage of that second GPU, which isn't really a problem because a single 6950 is more than enough. Also I experienced problems with the "black and white" shader when running crossfire myself with those cards; the entire screen would go black and you couldn't see anything.

Exiled.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi more precisely.

It was $2,400 including the shipping. I've used an iBUYPOWER laptop for the past 3 years since it outdid everything else I had (except for the ASUS I had stolen last night-I'm in Portugal right now). I primarily play ArmA 2 and DCS Blackshark. This rig'll have me set up until I get out of college (I get out of the Marines in 2 1/2 months and hopefully will start school this fall). I've seemed to wean myself off of PR:BF2. Until I can get home (I've got about 2 weeks left on a deployment) I've been playing ArmA 2 with the ACE mod. But I'll be switching to PR upon return since I know how the game play is with all the PR players.

I agree with everything Exiled said.
While the 8 core CPU might not be great for ARMA2, it will be great for ARMA3 which comes out in a few short months.

Enjoy!

WHen you get your PC, before you do anything else, check the firmware of your SSD< it has some known issues, but the issues were supposedly resolved in November, IDK if iBUYPOWER will have updated the firmware or not..

For those with SandForce 2200-based ADATA SSDs:

ADATA™ Technology today announced the release of the latest firmware update for the company’s solid state drives equipped with SandForce 2200 series controllers. The new firmware version is 3.3.2, and it resolves certain BSOD issues identified by ADATA and SandForce.

Purchasers of the S510 and S511 solid state drives should go to: http://www.adata.com.tw/index.php?actio ... 3&piid=130 and run the ADATA_FieldUpdater.exe file as Administrator. This upgrade installer is supported on Windows 7/Vista/XP, Fedora Core 12 64-bit, and Fedora Core 14 32-bit only. It is not supported in Mac OS. ADATA highly recommend customers who have experienced the BSOD issue update their firmware to 3.3.2.

P.S. Go to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona! A h.s. buddy had equivalent MOS in Navy, went to Embry-Riddle and now gets paid to travel around the world as a private pilot/mechanic for a business jet corporation... heck of a lifestyle. Daytona's not a bad place for Uni years either.

P.P.S. bring back as much cheap Portuguese wine as you can!

I wouldn't have went with two 6950


but that rig looks pretty pricey

and 1000Watts PSU??

that seems like a big overkill

you will be using less then 750 Watts

around 730 W

[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd wrote:I agree with everything Exiled said.
While the 8 core CPU might not be great for ARMA2, it will be great for ARMA3 which comes out in a few short months.

Enjoy!

WHen you get your PC, before you do anything else, check the firmware of your SSD< it has some known issues, but the issues were supposedly resolved in November, IDK if iBUYPOWER will have updated the firmware or not..





P.S. Go to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona! A h.s. buddy had equivalent MOS in Navy, went to Embry-Riddle and now gets paid to travel around the world as a private pilot/mechanic for a business jet corporation... heck of a lifestyle. Daytona's not a bad place for Uni years either.

P.P.S. bring back as much cheap Portuguese wine as you can!

I do plan on it. I had an SSD installed on my ASUS laptop (the one stolen last night, damn the soul who took it) and I had problems getting it to work. I ended up putting it in the data port for storage until I got home to have someone help me with it. But no hopes on doing that now.

Well, I'm planning on going to the University of Oklahoma for engineering. I've worked on aircraft and have no desire of being the guy that's the ******* that made the shitty design (as I quote oh so much while doing maintenance on the MV-22 Osprey).

And I wish we could bring back liquor. We're Americans, so we have to have special lockers to store alcohol or weapons that are purchased. There was talks of a liquor locker, but that fell through. My last deployment I was on the same ship as I am now and our last stop was Turkey. They had a weapons locker for people to purchase shotguns. Wish that I had, but glad I didn't. The earliest I heard of anyone getting theirs was 4 months after we got back. Damn ATF and Customs.

[R-COM]rushn wrote:I wouldn't have went with two 6950


but that rig looks pretty pricey

and 1000Watts PSU??

that seems like a big overkill

When I was selecting everything for it, 900w the was recomended. So I figure with 1000w, that'll give me some room for upgrades over the years.

well they tend to recommend a lot of stuff doesnt mean its right tho

they probably recommended 900 W so that you can upgrade later

but you should be ably to run the whole thing with 750 W

you are using around 720 W max looks like

Tbh getting a higher rated PSU is better, especially seeing as they are most efficient at around 60%. Having a 1000W PSU doesn't mean it will use that much power, it only uses as much as it needs, but it means his rig will be more efficient than if he went with a 750W PSU, as it'd be around 80-90% load. Still does look a tad expensive . Spent the same in the UK(known for more expensive parts) and got 2 570GTX's and an i7-2600k, both of which outperform the equivelent here. Although I didn't get an SSD, so possibly thats where the extra costs going

I also strongly suggest avoiding creative... Unless you need the inputs/outputs. But their software is obsolete with new games, and there's barely any difference in old games, compared to the latest motherboard-onboard devices. Creative just gives you hours of hastle, to get the simplest things working, because of their awful drivers(source: had an x-fi titanium Fatality card... Binned )

What baffles me is why people post these threads after they've already purchased the hardware...

Wouldn't it have made infinitely more sense to make almost an identical post just a few days before ordering so you can get any feedback about it before you've parted with your money, rather than come on after you've already spent your money and open oneself up to potential buyer's remorse?

All in all though, it looks like a reasonably solid build, however a price-equivalent intel setup probably would've outperformed it in the vast majority of situations.

So...big update. Due to address issues, iBUYPOWER doesn't recognize the address that I provided to them. And I just got back from my 10 1/2 month deployment 17 hours ago, so now I'm probably going to have the time to build my own PC since I'm getting out of the Marine Corps (US type) in 2 months. So I feel I owe it to myself to take the time to build my own and have more respect and the feeling of knowing that I did it myself. So any suggestions are open. I'm still set on getting an 8 core AMD and 2 6950 graphics cards. I'm just worried about the little things, like cooling and PSU since I've never built a computer by myself. Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Good on ya. Count it as a blessing, you'll save a pretty penny on this one. If you're fixing Marine Corps air assets building a PC is monkey work.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php ... 39&card2=#
here is some info on the hd 6950 cards, including important bits of info suchs as
1. max tdp (Thermal design power) = 200W times 2, = 400W Max for just your video cards.
Thermal design power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Note that compenent manufacturers and psu manufacturers use various testing and marketing tricks to make it difficult to compare products, so keep that in mind.
2. the list of the 40+ retail designs of the hd 6950

depending on how many other peripherals you need a 650w to 750w power supply to be safe.
here is a PSU requirement calculator:
eXtreme Power Supply Calculator
Note this is also just a guide....
note, PSU capacitors degrade over time lowering the PSU efficiency, that's why you buy more than you need today, for longevity, don't be penny wise and pound foolish. Definitely Get 80+ gold efficiency, ... optionally get modular cabling.

Cooling has gotten easier to talk about, go buy a corsair H100 liquid cooling kit. It's a closed kit, takes about 4 screws and 5 minutes extra work compared to adding a air cooling fan.
Make sure you buy a case that can fit the liquid cooling radiator comfortably, it's the only thing that takes pre planning.
simply google corsair h100 + your case make and model and find some reviews/pics/youtube vids of people who have done it already. Don't reinvent the wheel.

Get interior case air circulation, your 2 hd 6950s will produce lots of heat when stressed during gaming sessions. A couple of high quality case fans is all you need, cost about $15 a piece max.

That's about it.

Another option is to go to some PC enthusiast forums, find someone with a AMD 8 core system, and just copy his design

PS: IN before the Buy one 7970 instead of two 6950 comments.

building computers is very easy

dont worry about cooling the stock heatsink will take care of that

and as long as the computer has some sort of holes in it \

only worry about cooling if you are going to overclock stuff

[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd wrote:Good on ya. Count it as a blessing, you'll save a pretty penny on this one. If you're fixing Marine Corps air assets building a PC is monkey work.

Yes, yes everything seems to be so. I just got my truck and my cousin tells me it won't start. The first thing I did was put the key in, turn it, then look at her and put on the Carl Sanders voice (Slingblade) and say "It ain't got no gas it in." Gotta look at the simple things first.

[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd wrote:don't be penny wise and pound foolish

I've got a $2,000 budget I've given myself, so I'm not too worried on being stingy on it (for tower, screen, and all other equipment)

So far, this is the list of things I have in my cart on Newegg.

COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced Blue Edition RC-932-KKN3-GP ATX Full Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0, Black Interior

2x XFX HD-695X-CNDC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

ASUS Black Blu-ray Drive SATA Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX

KINGWIN LZP-1000 1000W ATX 12V v2.2, EPS 12V v2.91, and SSI EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified

CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

ASUS Xonar D1 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

NZXT Sentry-2 5.25" Touch Screen fan controller

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135247SABRENT CRW-UINB 68-in-1 USB 2.0 Internal Card Reader w/ USB 2.0 Port supports SDHC/VISTA

I'm having trouble finding a motherboard that would be able to support this. Also, I want to install an SSD, preferably 120GB and have the HDD as a data. But...I'm not finding any on Newegg that are 3.5". Any suggestions would be awesome. Earlier on everyone was saying to stay away from Creative sound cards, so what are some good ones that are reasonable.

This is basically the stuff I have general knowledge of needing. After this, I have no clue on what I need to build a desktop.

Parts list is fine.

I'm busy prepping for Superbowl, (Go Giants!), but I'll post some youtube videos I have bookmarked, they give you a full 1 or 2 hour walkthrough of the process.

[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd wrote:Parts list is fine.

I'm busy prepping for Superbowl, (Go Giants!), but I'll post some youtube videos I have bookmarked, they give you a full 1 or 2 hour walkthrough of the process.

Thanks man. And I don't care for the Super Bowl. The last I heard of the Super Bowl was from the Captain of the ship I was on saying "It's a shame we won't be home for Christmas, BUT WE'LL BE BACK FOR THE SUPER BOWL!" Idiot.

But here is the motherboard I'm looking at getting. Any compatibility issues?

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

I also dumped the Thermaltake case in favor of a Cooler Master. A lot of people stated issues with mounting more recent GPUs and the mounting tabs broke for them a lot.

I asked earlier about sound cards and I was searching and found this one. It has a lot of great reviews. Any opinions?

ASUS Xonar D1 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

I wouldnt spend that much on a case

that case is designed for some serious cooling and exotic builds

also for the video cards I would suggest going with one of these instead

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics / Video Cards, Radeon HD 7000 series, 2048 Stream Processing Units

why is your harddrive only 500GB ? I would really go for 1TB 1TB is aout the same
maybe a little bit more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817121089
and are you interested in suing solid state?
you can put your operating system on SSD to speed up the booting process
SSD drives are fairly expensive though

your PSU is a bit overkill

I would sugest 950W you are using around 850W

but if you want to keep 1000W I would go for this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817121089

also why do you need so much RAM do you do encoding? or video editing?
and are you planing on overclocking I see you have liquid cooling

My ideal about hi-end computer is Intel Core i7 CPU.
AMD is a cheap idea for those,who want good computer,but also don't have money for it.(Like me with my AMD Phenom X4 925).You should think about it.top 8-core processor = middle i5 series.My one - something like a bit better that i3.
I also like AMD videocards,have HD6950 2 GB,very nice videocard.Also better idea - buy 6990,that make crossfire,because they got some problems,that stand-alone card.7970 - maybe it still not have good drivers,but 6990 better how.
PSU is too rich,800-850w will be enough for cool'n'qulet work.

800W wont be enough with that set up 850W at least