I am going to build a new computer since my old mobo died on me.  I was thinking about either getting either a 1156 mobo pairing it with a i5/i7 processor or a 1366 mobo with a i7 processor.  I can salvage parts from my old pc such as the video cards, dvd drive and hard drive.  Which choice would you go with?

it depends on what you wanna do with it. are you playing any fps games or just b.s ing on ar15.com? i game alot and have a amd quad with crossfired gpus. the I7 is kinda overkill unless you got alot of cash to toss at a system. kinda depends on budget. remember the board for I7 is alot and you have more expensive ram too since it's triple channel. I5 are a good bang for buck cpu, boards are cheaper and ram will be less too, dual channel. and even a lower end I5 will hang with the top o the line amd cpu like i have. intel builds a kick ass cpu.

I will do some gaming, photo/video editing and b.s.ing on ar15.com

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067

this is prolly the best bang for the buck you can get. plus the boards are around $100 bucks vs. $200 for 1366 board and dual channel ddr3 ram is pretty affordable right now. shop around on newegg and check the reviews. some good stuff there. i've spent a couple grand on that damn site. could built two ar's for what i blew there.ain't hobbies fun!?

If you are going to do alot of photo/video editing especially video encoding, I would look at the new AMD 6 core cpu's.  Those extra cores will really shorten your encode times.


Vulcan94

I have a question does the Zalman CNPS9500A LED cpu cooler block access to some of the ram slots?

Intel is faster now, but some AM3 boards will let you upgrade to AM4 chips down the road.  Regarding encode speed, my Core2 Quad 2.66ghz chip is bottlenecked by my DVD drive's transfer rate.  Only uses ~80% CPU during encode.

You should rip your DVDs to your HD.  That's what I do.  Takes the DVD drives transfer rate out of the equation during encodes.  


Vulcan94

Unless you're planning to overclock, or there is a known problem with your particular motherboard, you need not waste money on an aftermarket CPU cooler.  Really.  I put one on a PC I built in 2003, but it really wasn't necessary.  On the last 3 PCs I built, I used the CPU cooler included with the CPU (two AMD and one Intel) and it has worked just fine.  Add-on CPU coolers are largely a waste of dough.

You didn't say how old your existing build is, but you may find that you are not able to re-use all your old components.  For example, all the motherboards you mentioned for Core i5 and i7 CPUs require DDR3 RAM as far as I know. (but don't take my word for it - double check that stuff.)  Video card should be good to go, as long as it's some kind of PCI Express.

Good news is, DDR3 RAM is no more expensive than DDR2, and can be cheaper than DDR2.

Replacing the motherboard is sort of a pain in the ass, what with all the various connections.  But, not exactly rocket surgery.

THIS times eleventy zillion.  I can't stand having to chase down plastic discs, so I rip absolutely everything to my 1 TB HDD.  Haven't filled it yet.

DVD images in .iso (or other) format are far more convenient than any physical medium, faster to access, and you can get rid of the unskippable advertisements and other crap that some DVD publishers want to shove down your throat.

Have you tried Handbrake yet?  You could use it to convert your DVDs (movie only) to .mp4 or .mkv.  I've done that to quite a few of mine.  Using the H./X.264 codex you could shrink them down to 600-700 mb and still have excellent video quality.  That would save you a ton of space on your HD.


Vulcan94

I do rip to my HDD... bottleneck is the 16X DVD read speed.

I got the majority of the parts for the build.  I need to purchase RAM, a case with good airflow, a hard drive and a good power supply.

Processor: Intel i7 - 930
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 9900 LED cooler
Motherboard: MSI Big Bang Xpower
Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray reader/burner
Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital 320GB from my old PC
Video Card: EVGA GTX 465

I could salvage my old Corsair HX620A PSU from my old PC but I am not sure if it would handle SLI from the new GTX series cards.

Anyone have experience with the Cooler Master Storm Sniper case?



Thank you in advance.

I used an NZXT Tempest for my primary computer and it's a pretty nice mid tower.  Plenty of cooling with 6 fans and tons of room.  The newerish EVO can be had for around 100 bucks.


NZXT Tempest

Maximum PC gave it an 8.  Review

I just bought a Cooler Master HAF 922 from Newegg.  Maximum PC, also, gave it an 8.  Review




Vulcan94