Falconise Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 Yeah, I know. I never count them up on the bill, but do mail them out. When the money comes back, it is just a gift horse. Note that a lot of them MAY be Canadian only! Once you get the list locked down and priced, I will double check your pricematches to be sure you are getting the best deals possible. a lot of mail in rebates required in order to shave a few buck here and there........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 LOL, no! Digging through this crap is part of the process no matter what or how you buy. Consider how much you have learned in the last couple days! How much is education worth to you? Cost is only time at this point! I have bought many a parts, and sometimes built complete systems in order to learn about the tech. Education to me is worth a few hundred bucks sometimes. I can recoup some of it when I sell stuff. It is minor compared to course fees or even books! Be assured, I am enjoying this. 'Tis no trouble at all. Another thing to check on is duty to cross the border. I know there is one coming up, but no idea about going down. Also, broker fees often apply to duty and cross border -- usually around $30. I checked a couple of the rebates, the OCZ is good for the US, but Corsair is Canada only. So ymmv! It may be well worth your while to take the final specs to some local stores and see if they can match it in price and components. You can also keep shopping the US sites for the same specs and see if the prices are better -- they should be because the parts have no duty tacked onto them when NCIX brings parts up here. Exchange alone should make a big difference, the canuck dollar is at 80 cents these days! The pricematches will certainly be approved, and you will get an email telling you so. If one is NOT approved, you then have the option of changing the item out for another, or cancelling the whole order. No worries there. On to your list... That PSU is nice, but at $105 (before rebate) it is steep and at that price there are better units like the Corsair 620W (not on sale this week). The StealthXStream 600w at $85 is basically the same unit except no modular cables. Modular cables can be more trouble than they are worth. Go with the SXS 600, or even the Corsair 400w if you need to trim costs. The mobo will take an NV card, no problemo. The ram is better, but costs more (considering that Corsair's MIR is no good in the US). The vid card is a great price even without the MIR, grab it! The DVD can be replaced with one of the two I posted above, save a few bucks. The HD can be replaced with the same unit I posted above, on sale. I still need to look at other options here, perhaps drop Seagate because there is no longer the 5 year warranty advantage. Well, This is what I've narrowed it down to: (based on advice and price matching at NCIX) Case: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26048&promoid=1060 PSU: (changed it to this based on advice to get the 8pin EPS connection) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 Thanks Falconise. Great to see someone with your knowledge and experience post on the Forum. My pleasure! I know I don't fly with you guys these days, but I have a lot in common with you all and keep in touch because of this. The one thing I can give back is knowledge and advice, and am happy to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 A little confusion here on your part, I beleive.....I live in Canada (ontario) That being said... I thought I had chosen a proper PSU by jumping to the OCZ Fatality 500watter....if not I'd choose the OCZ Stealthxstreme 600w. (At a glance it was 77.?? at bestdirect.ca) And I'd choose this dvd drive instead of the other LG I had picked http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=32234&vpn=GH22NS30%20BLACK&manufacture=LGElectronics&promoid=1060 If those were the only 2 changes you'd make then I'm gonna go ahead and try to price match and see what the grand total would be. Unfortunately my cart got emptied and I need to redo it in order to price match and give you a total so that you could try to do better I'll re-post when I've done that. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 Hard Drives - frusterating changes. All Seagates except their enterprise drives have 3 year warranties. No idea when they changed this, but whatever. I have 4 of these 250gig 16mb cache: http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=14120DR2390&vpn=ST3250410AS&manufacture=SEAGATE They were on sale for $49 a pop not long ago, now they are never even listed. I wanted one more so I could shuffle things around and then use 4 of them in a RAID 0 array. Nix on that for now. For a dollar less, you can get the 320gig version (which is really a 500gig drive with one side of one platter disabled because it is faulty): http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=14120DR8821&vpn=ST3320613AS&manufacture=SEAGATE That may be an option for you to save some money, if you really don't need 500 gigs. I have one 500gig 32mb cache that I was planning on eventually getting 4 of, to build another 4x drive RAID 0 array. Nix on that, because this drive is not available or in stock. It used to be $65, well worth the extra coin to upgrade from a 250gig: http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=14120DR9680&vpn=ST3500320AS&manufacture=SEAGATE Now all they have is a 16mb cache version, but a year newer: http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=14120DR8025&vpn=ST3500418AS&manufacture=SEAGATE They dropped the cache down to save money, but I have no idea if they got the speed back in other advancements. Surfing for benchmark comparrisons would be the next thing to do, but later for that. This is all she wrote for Seagate, unless you look at the bigger drives. The only option other than these is to look at Western Digital (I am mad at them because of one of my four 250gig drives is being problematic, hence my need to change the drives in the array), Hitachi (not the fastest drives on the market) and Samsung (also not the fastest). I hate it when a product disappears from availability before I am done buying them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 OMG, lol, that is great news! MIRs are good then, as well as no duty, brokerage or exchange rates. Yes, the SXS 600w would be a better choice. The 550w Fatality is only good if you must have modular cables. IMHO, modular cables can cause problems, more resistance due to the extra connection. Besides, it is cheaper and rated higher. Looking forward to the final price check. A little confusion here on your part, I beleive.....I live in Canada (ontario) That being said... I thought I had chosen a proper PSU by jumping to the OCZ Fatality 500watter....if not I'd choose the OCZ Stealthxstreme 600w. (At a glance it was 77.?? at bestdirect.ca) And I'd choose this dvd drive instead of the other LG I had picked http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=32234&vpn=GH22NS30%20BLACK&manufacture=LGElectronics&promoid=1060 If those were the only 2 changes you'd make then I'm gonna go ahead and try to price match and see what the grand total would be. Unfortunately my cart got emptied and I need to redo it in order to price match and give you a total so that you could try to do better I'll re-post when I've done that. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 OK Falconise, This is the FINAL?!? spec......lol Let me know if you find anything better (or any glaring hardware conflicts) Case: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zooly Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 how about this: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GTX+260/280+Series/nVidia+GeForce+GTX+260+1.792GB+216+Core+PCI-E+2.0+Ret+?productId=35448 It should be cheaper in the USA though as we in the UK get screwed all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 And I know that some of those prices are only valid until today!!!........what a mess. Nono my friend! They are valid only as far as putting them into your cart. Once in the cart, the prices will remain for 1 week! After that, they will be at regular price. So the trouble is only in putting old priced things into your cart, not holding them there. In fact, I am pretty sure that if I had something in may cart, and posted you a link, you could still add it at sale price as long as it isn't more than a week old. And I also have to remember to mail in the rebates in order to get that price after all is said and done. (almost every item had a rebate or some sort, either instant or mail in...the mail ones totalled somewhere in the Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 when I was price matching, I'm not sure If I was doing it right....lol The price match price I used was the price that the competitor had (including any MIR), so some of the price differences may look inflated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 Jeeze, sorry about a few of these. I should have mentioned to look out for erroneous prices which are calculated AFTER an MIR! See below... Case: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 thanks for the reply.... not sure what I was thinking when I input those price matches yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 I also read that if something changes price prior to the item being shipped and billed you can contact them and get the new price.Now my biggest challenge is gonna be putting that sucker together when it arrives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 YVW! Glad it is working out. I think you will be amazed at how fast it is compared to what you are using now. I am in Vancouver. Yes, I would build it for you if you were here too! LOL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 22, 2009 Share Posted April 22, 2009 WOW, now I know why I bought all my previous system pre-assembled....lol memtest can take a couple of days??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blairgowrie Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 Sorry to highjack Fireman's thread. Hold on, it was Tonar's thread to start with. Anyway great thread and great sales job Falconise, Getting Fireman to open his wallet is a major victory. But I digress. I ordered an Artic Cooler for my CPU from Canada Direct in Vancouver about 3 days ago and was totally blown away when it showed up in Ontario yesterday. I have never seen anything shipped or delivered that fast. I have also been using the price search you posted and can't tell you how impressed I am with it. BTW what is your opinion on the Asus 11 Rampage Extreme Board? I am starting to think of a new build and have heard such good things about the board, I thought I might get it now. I have an E8500 and an 850W OCz PSU with 2 X1950X in Crossfire in my current rig and could add those. I am interested in overclocking the E8500 and the Asus board looks like a good board for that. DD_Snacko has that board and I think he likes it a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 Whoaw... that vid card is on sale this week (starting last night) for $150 (-20 MIR). http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36773&promoid=1001 May be able to get this new price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonar Posted April 23, 2009 Author Share Posted April 23, 2009 Sorry to highjack Fireman's thread. Hold on, it was Tonar's thread to start with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 The more memory you have, the longer it takes. A single full pass of 2GB of fast ram in a fast system may take 30 minutes to an hour. Double that for 4GB of ram. Running a single full pass is just a starting point. I usually run a few full passes, then 20 passes of test 5. Repeat for every change I make in the BIOS. See how it can start consuming time? You had one dimm fail? In what test? It may not be the dimm, it may just be a setting, or perhaps swapping the sticks in the slots may help. First thing to do is pull the good stick and run just the one that errored. Run a full pass, see what happens. If it still errors, you can then tweak the timings settings to see if you can settle it down... it really depends on what test it errored on. If you settle it down, then add the second stick and see if it is still ok. If we can determine that the stick is bad, you are best to not run it at all, it can hose your operating system. Memtest may seem quite simple at first glance, but it really is a very powerful tool when used right, and has a lot of options hidden away. For the most part, it is used in a process of elimination to determine problems or perhaps if changes made in the BIOS are stable and improve performance or not. When overclocking, passing memtest is no garuntee that the system will be stable in the OS. However, if memtest errors you can be damn sure the OS will not load safely. You can leave overclocking alone, or until you get interested in it. Power savings and sleep functions work best with stock settings anyway. However, stock settings don't necessarily mean AUTO. You can run stock speed with manual settings and get a pretty good boost in performance. Tweaking the memory falls under this. For example, you purchased DDR2-1066 memory that is rated to run at 1066MHz. However, the mobo when set to auto will most likely run the ram at 800MHz (which is the industry standard speed for DDR2 ram). To get the ram running at 1066MHz you will have to make some changes in the BIOS, and then verify that things are stable with Memtest, and then in the OS by running some stress programs. If the settings are not stable, you can hose your OS install real easy, and at the very least the computer will crash or bluescreen. WOW, now I know why I bought all my previous system pre-assembled....lol memtest can take a couple of days??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 Glad to see this! I've heard it before that NCIX and DC doesn't mess around when it comes to shipping. For folks that live in an area that may not have a decent computer supplier, this is a godsend. Buying the VIP membership enhances this with free RMA returns and priority queue for orders. The price search is a huge advantage and time saver, as long as you don't get tripped up with false prices like we did above. You just have to follow the links farther and verify prices, but a few clicks later you can be sure you have the best price in Canada. That Rampage II is shweeet! It's the one I would like to get when I get my next upgrade, mostly for the overclocking dials. Otherwise, the eVGA X58 is my next choice because I won't have easy access to those dials when the system is in my case. They have now released a version 2 of the Rampage, so I would safely say that the hardware bugs have been fixed. I mean, bugs that were present in the first board that were not fixable by software or BIOS updates. This always seems to happen with any cutting edge boards, and can sometimes be huge problems. I remember eVGA replacing (for free) a lot of bad 680i boards (iirc). The Rampage II will not run an E8xxx cpu. It is a LGA 1366 socket, not a socket 775. So it only takes the Core i7 CPUs. The Core i7 920 is the cheapest of which, at around $350. Also, it is a DDR3 only board, and takes Triple Channel so you need a kit of THREE sticks DDR3 memory, which is still a little pricey for the good stuff. The good thing is that memory performance is out of this world, and the CPUs finally have a built in memory controller for insanely low latency. Cutting edge stuff, not cheap to get into, but well worth it if you regularly take advantage of 4 cores with video encoding etc. Have a look here for some expert info and benchmarks: http://i4memory.com/f54/ Same guy, with a Core i7 running at 4.7GHz on AIR! http://i4memory.com/f80/i7-920-4769mhz-true120-air-13746/ Probably gobblygook to most folks, but to get a perspective on things look at his SuperPi benchmark in one of the screenshots. He has completed a SuperPi 1M test in 8.6 seconds with the CPU at almost 4.8GHz. That test would take over 30 seconds to complete with an AMD X2-6000 at 3GHz. This is insanely fast! Sorry to highjack Fireman's thread. Hold on, it was Tonar's thread to start with. Anyway great thread and great sales job Falconise, Getting Fireman to open his wallet is a major victory. But I digress. I ordered an Artic Cooler for my CPU from Canada Direct in Vancouver about 3 days ago and was totally blown away when it showed up in Ontario yesterday. I have never seen anything shipped or delivered that fast. I have also been using the price search you posted and can't tell you how impressed I am with it. BTW what is your opinion on the Asus 11 Rampage Extreme Board? I am starting to think of a new build and have heard such good things about the board, I thought I might get it now. I have an E8500 and an 850W OCz PSU with 2 X1950X in Crossfire in my current rig and could add those. I am interested in overclocking the E8500 and the Asus board looks like a good board for that. DD_Snacko has that board and I think he likes it a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconise Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 Oh, another thing about the Rampage II is that it is an eATX size, which is bigger than the standard ATX (usually a server board is this size). So it will only fit in a larger case that has an eATX spec. Examples are the Cooler Master HAF932: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33029&vpn=RC%2D932%2DKKN1&manufacture=COOLERMASTER&promoid=1001 The Cosmos, and a number of others: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=104&subminorcatid=88 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blairgowrie Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 As usual, great info Falconise. I think the Dogz should put you on a permanent retainer like I am on. What I might do then is see if I can pick up a Asus Rampage Extreme on ebay or at a low price and use that. Then a little further down the road, when and if prices drop, get a new case and a 11 Extreme board and an i series CPU. That would allow me to keep what I have as a backup machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 Whoaw... that vid card is on sale this week (starting last night) for $150 (-20 MIR). http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36773&promoid=1001 May be able to get this new price? WOW, thanks for the heads up....I've been away all day. Just got off the phone from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 fireman, did Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 nope...its coming in pieces, so to speak. gotta call them back tomorrow however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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