While looking at the AMD Phenom cpu's I couldn't help but lust over the 1055 6 core.

6 cores is total overkill and waste of $$ for poker and programming right?

yes

honestly you'd be fine with a dual core 555BE

whatever route i highly recommend overclocking that ****

any suggestion on an good affordable mobo that has 4 dimm slots and does DDR3?

I'll probably go with the 555 and try to unlock it to a quad core based on this http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/53...ing-guide.html

I like Gigabyte, Asus, MSI. Make sure to get something that has heatsinks to the left of the CPU sockets, it will help with stability and reliability if you overclock.

afaik, there's no 120GB x25-m. either 80 or 160. there are a few other good SSDs in the 120 range though if that's the amount of storage you need. a RAM upgrade is probably not gonna do anything for you. the 3 prime cases where it will help are for (i) intense rendering stuff, (ii) intense encoding stuff (e.g., HD video encoding), and (iii) for running virtual machine monitors.

with 80gb intel ssd yes, with 120gb probably too, with 160gb it might get close

depends on the application, the i5 will be faster for number-crunching stuff. for poker, the MBP would probably be faster due to the SSD.

Yeah, I meant the 160gb x25-m.

I do run a virtual machine (vmware+win7) so the 2gb is gonna be useful but considering the price of a 4gb dimm, I'll just try out the SSD for now.

I just upgraded to a 160gb X25-M Gen 2 (and W7 Ultimate) (OS, Programs, and SQL DB)0 recently, and a 1tb Caviar Green (data), in my Ci7-920gb w/9gb RAM. It is like a brand new computer. I can't recommend it enough, if you can afford the Intel 160gb Price tag.

I hate laptops, but was thinking I could sneak in an extra ~10hrs of sessions a week if I had one, what type of specs will I need to run HEM+4 tables of rush? Don't need to do any gaming on it, probably won't even browse on it... so yeah just for poker

Been looking @slickdeals, but I don't want to get a $350 laptop and have it be ****ty for 4tabling, and I don't want to buy an i5 gaming rig or whatever when I won't ever game on it.

Thanks for any input guys

LOL fozzy

even without your SSD, an i7 920 with NINE gigs of ram IS a new computer

Slap a Noctua NH-D14 on there and turn it up to 4GHz+ and it'll feel like a doubly new computer
tho actually you might not notice the difference

+1 on D14

I'm at 4.2ghz without much effort using a D14.

what's your load temp under linx?

Is it easy/quick to install on my system that is already built and running?

Nope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djki8c31Dqs

It's not quick but I wouldn't say it's hard. It's basically like Legos and making sure to take your time with it especially if you're new.

I would rather not completely disassemble my PC which is currently working fine. Chances are high that I screw up something and end up with a $2,000 paperweight.

After 20 passes max is 80c on one core 78 on the rest.

I've installed some HSF's that were a pain in the a@@ but the D14 isn't one of them. I have and HAF 932 though, and its like an airplane hangar inside there. It might be a little more work with a case that doesn't have much room inside.

Nice. I hit past 90 but I'm a bit crazy as I have my w3520/920 at 4.32g.

+1

Never ever buy a Mugen 2 unless you want a really hard install. I love big cases too, I have a CM ATCS 840, and it's pretty good, I wouldn't get it again though. Thinking about getting a Mountain Mods Ascension, but I'm waiting for Intel hexa cores to drop in price, which is prob never gonna happen, so hopefully AMD Bulldozer instead.

Perhaps this deserves its own thread but I'll throw it in here for now

I have a free copy of Win7 I got from my school, but never got around to installing it. I plan on getting a SSD, but am in no rush, and will probably wait until the holiday season because there will hopefully be some solid deals. My current HDD is 500gb. Here are my questions:

-Should I partition my hard drive, that way when I get the SSD I should be able to just move/clone the partition somehow onto the SSD, and then be able to keep this 500gb drive for storage?

-If the above is possible- is there a program where I can partition off part of my hard drive and not have to backup/restore all the movies, songs, etc that I want to keep? Can GParted do this off a live-linux CD? Never really played with that program

-Let's say I partition off 40gb right now for Win7 and my programs. When I get my SSD, if it is bigger than 40gb and I try to clone it over, will I lose the extra space?

I don't know about partitions, but my favourite geek/technology discussion forum says that cool new SSDs using cool new technologies will have cool new prices and bigger capacity in October.

Yeah thats pretty toasty. I had mine up to 4.4ghz but I wasn't happy with the temps so I backed it down. One of these days I'm going to try water cooling.

I really like the Corsair 800d. Thats probably what I'm going with for my next build. Supposedly Sandy Bridge is due before the end of the year. I would expect that to bring down the prices of 970/980 considerably.

New 30" Dell is on the way. The successor to the 3008, the U3011 is exptected to hit stores end of October.
The display specs are very good, very good connectivity also. The case will definitely hold some USB ports, fwiw.

Just to let you guys know, because 30" is always a topic here and it probably has a slight impact on the 3007/3008 prices.

I hope the prices finally come down a bit by January. I hope to get 1 or possibly 2 new 30" in 2011.