New Computer

[Nightcrawler]

Well... it looks like I have a good deal of time now... Major fail for Intel...
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/01/31/intel-could-take-700m-hit-over-chip.html

What's even more interesting is Newegg took off their Sandy bridge processors. Why would they do that? I guess I'm glad I waited. It will take them awhile to live this one down.

Here's the actual specifics on the issue. It's actually not that bad. As an electrical engineer, I've done something similar myself in the past with some transistor degradation issues. I can understand how this could get by and not be caught, although I work for a small company of 20 people, far from Intel in the QA department. At least they said something. The company could easily let this go and probably only see 10-15% failure rate (I think an Intel engineer even quoted that). There are times I present a problem to the higher ups and they choose to let it go... It does happen.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug


I hope this will give related companies (motherboard manufacturers) etc. time to work out their own bugs with the platform (BIOS updates etc.).

Perhaps this will hurt demand and they will be cheaper when they go back on the market?

I was just starting to get exciting too being just about to start buying parts.

[I.S.T.]

Yeah, I was kind of expecting this to happen, though. Why? The socket issue from the 1156 motherboards. I guess it just made me paranoid.

[Nightcrawler]

So, I started buying stuff now. Things have changed a bit as new products have been released and prices have come down over the past two months.

I did end up getting the i5 2500K. I couldn't pass up the deal I got at $179. I took the difference to upgrade other stuff.

I ended up getting  a Zotac Geforce GTX 560Ti for graphics. It was a really tough decision against the AMD 6950, or even going cheaper down to a 6870 or 6850. In the end, I went Nvidia and got a 560. Zotac gave me that display port I wanted. The 560 despite being a bit higher in power, is quieter than the 6950. It has some headroom for overclocking if I desire. Lastly, Nvidia is just more solid in the driver department and compatibility with old games. So, they won me over. Really tough call though. I hope I don't get burnt by the potential NVidia HDMI audio issue.

Due to pricing, I ended up giving up on the Caviar Black 1TB and getting a Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB. I got twice the storage for a price still cheaper than the Caviar! $69.99 was a bargain for this drive. I also did not give up much performance. Despite being 5400RPM, the Spinpoint uses denser platters and is pretty close in performance. I know they had a previous firmware bug, but it seems to be worked out now. Hopefully the Samsung drives end up being reliable.

That leaves me with 3 components left.

1. SSD. This is the second toughest choice behind the graphics card. I tossed out the Vertex 2 idea after OCZ played shady politics by changing out the NAND, reducing the performance, and keeping it secret. Not cool. I can get the 128GB RealSSD C300 for $229. However, plenty of next gen drives are coming to market now and I was seeing what the price would be. Unfortunately, most are $279-$300 (Intel 510, Plextor M2 etc) which is just too much to pay for a 128GB drive. There is still the C400/M4 (micron/crucial) and the Vertex 3 which may do better in price. There just doesn't seem to be firm release dates on these drives. I can't wait much longer. I need to build the system.

2. Power Supply. Call me crazy, but I want a Seasonic X-560. For the extra dollars, I get a power supply that is nearly silent (fan doesn't even spin unless high load), top quality components and regulation, very modular, and premium efficiency. Since I keep my computers for years and years anymore, the extra efficiency will pay for the difference over the next few years ($10-$20 per year saving). Too bad in 4 months it never went on sale ever that I saw.

3. The case will be a Lancool PC-K62. It won out over the CM690II in the quality department. Better/Quieter fans, rubber vibration stoppers, better dust filters, and a clear window with no vents/holes. It will end up being quieter and not sacrifice much cooling. I was waiting for a sale, but it's not sold many places and doesn't seem to ever go on sale.

[Nightcrawler]

Bought the rest of it. I ended up going with the Crucial RealSSD C300. All the other next gens in stock were too expensive and had limited performance improvement, so the C300 gave the best bang for the buck in my opinion.

Got a few dollars off the case and free shipping on the Lancool PC-K62, so I picked that up.

In a twist, I ended up getting the Seasonic X-650 because it was on clearance making room for the X-660 and it ended up being cheaper than the X-560, X-460 and X-400! Didn't really need 650W, but price was great. And the efficiency curve on the 650 may be slightly better suited than the 560 as highest efficiency is typically at around 50% load and it will have higher threshold before it turns the fan on for silent operation.

So, everything is on it's way and I'll probably start building the system next weekend! It's been a long time coming as my current machine is 6 years old. 

[I.S.T.]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Should have checked here sooner.

Those Samsung drives have issues with data corruption. Check the manufacturing date. If it's past January, then the drive is safe. Me, I got one of the bad ones. ._.

[Nightcrawler]

No worries. I was aware. I flashed the firmware prior to doing anything with it. Should be fine.

On a side note, my 2500K chip will run at 5Ghz!