From: Matthew Hunt
My current (planned) configuration is a Gigabyte mainboard with Intel i7-960
and 32GB ram (maxed out).
You're buying new parts? I'm happy with my i7-930 that I built a year
and a half ago, but I don't see any sense in investing in Socket 1366
parts at this time. It's at end-of-life:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5216/intel-discontinuing-some-clarkdale-lynnfield-and-sandy-bridge-desktop-cpus
The Sandy Bridge (Socket 1155) parts are faster for the same price,
and have at least a chance at an upgrade path.
According to the Mainboard specs it's Socket H2 (LGA 1155) and the CPU
is Socket H2 (LGA 1155).
Gigabyte GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3
Actually, it looks like the i7-960 is no longer available since I put
this together and it will be i7-2600 instead.
I'll be using the on-board video to begin with.
If you stick with the i7-960, you're sure you have a MB with onboard
video? It's not part of the CPU or the X58 chipset. The 1366 platform
is pretty focused on people adding high-performance graphics cards.
Some (but not all) Sandy Bridge CPUs include on-CPU graphics, and some
(but not all) motherboard chipsets allow you to use those graphics.
Video Chipset: Intel® HD Graphics (CPU embedded)
2. But I am considering a SSD for the scratch disk. Is 64GB large enough?
That seems to be the current price point I'm comfortable with. Any brand
recommendations?
I use a 64 GB SSD for my Windows 7 Pro installation, critical apps
(Office, Lightroom, web browsers, etc.), LR catalog, some Windows
virtual memory (2 GB), and hibernate file (6 GB). I have ~16.5 GB free
at this time. Important to note that if you want to be able to
hibernate your computer, the hibernation file will be the size of your
RAM, and needs to reside on the boot disk. My user profile ("home
directory") is *not* on the SSD; I relocated it following these
instructions:
http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/2009/05/18/how-to-move-your-windows-user-profile-to-another-drive/
I highly recommend an SSD for the kind of things I listed above. It's
a huge improvement in system usability.
If you get a Sandy Bridge CPU and a MB with Z68 chipset, you can take
advantage of "Smart Response Technology", which lets you use an SSD as
a cache for your mechanical HDDs. That way, you don't have to worry
about what to put on the SSD, and what to put elsewhere. Based on
reviews, this setup works quite well, and I would strongly consider it
for a new build.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review
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