those psu recommendations are ridiculous to say the least. You don't need a 1000w unit to power two 6850's unless you overclock and overvolt everything to ridiculous levels.

Well it was the mobo manufacturer's documentation and calculator that gave me the 950-1000W range. Nothing I found at a PSU manufacturer returned anything that high, most of the products Corsair recommended were in the 750-850W range and that was with me "rounding" up a little bit on components just in case. You'd think they'd be the people trying to upsell you on the part.

Weird, unless it's a "cover our butts" thing on behalf of Asus.

It is. Recommend someone something insufficient and they'll complain. Overstate it and have them end up with power to spare and customer is a happy camper.

A happy camper who's a few bucks lighter, but happy nonetheless.


Size of the Radeons is an issue, heard that before. Definitely a point to stay aware of. MSI does good mboards and I've seen them present several highly-praised cards (at least in reviews) as well, usually because of a high factory overclock or some custom cooler design (iirc).

If heat and noise are a concern, get one with a custom cooler. Forgive me for plugging my 460, but just look at it:

http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/p.../3530/3282.jpg

Never hear the thing and it tops out at 65C unless I'm running some ridiculous stress-test.

(point being that those designs are really effective)

Well, after looking around I think I am going to stick with the 5770 for now. I'm very happy with the one I've already got and can pick up another at a great price if I want to Crossfire it. Plus I know it will fit in the case with plenty of clearance. :yeah:

Looks like I can also pick up either a Sony or Pioneer BR drive for around $100 OEM most places as well. PSU concerns are pretty well solved at this point, those items and the kb/mouse may be all I have to worry about getting ordered and shipped over the next couple of weeks.

If I can get going on the major internal stuff to see how space works out, I'll know more about extras like optional fans and whatnot - I may still have time to order them online but they can be picked up locally fairly cheap so that's not a big deal.

So... maybe I need to start putting things together, or at least getting them in the case now as I start to aquire them.

I suppose the first job will be sticking the CPU on the mobo and getting both of them in there, in whatever order that has to be done. And that's the only stuff I've never tinkered with before so it should be interesting.

I will say one thing, it will be nice to stick RAM sticks on a mobo without 300 other things in the way for once. At least the cost in # of Band-aids used should be somewhat less than I'm used to. :haha:

Some useful tools...
 

RAM can be installed without hurting the fingers:

http://www.kauflux.de/server/fs2/slo...75897_1138.jpg

CPU does not want to slip into his socket?

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pub...R1BWqS3EAgUjQw

WARNING: Make sure to switch off the main power first:O:

On Topic: Good luck with the new rig. Make sure we get a lot of pictures!

:rotfl2:

I don't have anything but my crappy cell phone camera. :wah:


EDIT: Updated first post with current status of project.

Hmm, looks like the Sony drive I was looking at as a retail model is available OEM, except it has a completely different model # so none of my searches ever picked it up. Aaaaand it's about $30 cheaper.

Edit, make that $40 cheaper at Newegg, which didn't even show up on my first search. :yeah:

Stay away from Sony or am I too late?

Don't know about Sony, but Sony Optiarc is just fine.

Sony had its day but its days are now over. Just avoid anything Sony in general. Their products imo may have serious quality control issue.

Likewise avoid Nokia as well. It had its days and it has grown too big and too complacent and too reckless to assure consistent quality and consistent quality customer service for their products.

Of course this is personal opinion from personal observation.

You did not choose a PSU so far. May I suggest reading here?

http://www.be-quiet.net/be-quiet.net...websiteLang=en

I am using be quiet! for a couple of years now and they do exactly what they advert by their name: running quietly.

A lot of them offer a case fan speed reduction depending on the temperate, which is a great feature.

Be quiet! offers case fans and CPU cooler as well. Needless to say what they do...

Regarding optical drives: I am using LG all the time without any trouble. For example, I am still using a 10 years old CD burner which supports 1x speed to burn music CD with the best results. I digitised about 2000 records with it so far!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_3?rh=n%3A172282%2Ck%3Alg+blu-ray+player%2Cn%3A!493964%2Cn%3A541966&bbn=493964&k eywords=lg+blu-ray+player&ie=UTF8&qid=1312795475&rnid=493964

One thing, that I think is quite important to building your own rig, that I've not seen listed yet - OS? :hmmm:

Win7 64-bit. Bought the full OS outright when I switched from XP.

I've already ordered the Sony Optiarc OEM drive. It got 5 out of 5 stars in reviews at Amazon and either Tiger Direct or Newegg. At one of the latter it was only getting four out of five. I read through all the reviews there and it seemed clear that the bad reviews responsible for bringing down the average were written by people who don't know what "OEM" means. :O:

I'll shut up then and just crawl back into my corner :D

Looks nice, but not currently available in the US according to the site.