Well, I thought I'd start a blog about my planned i7 build, somewhere to document the mini-project it will be. It will represent my first foray into 'semi-professional' overclocking, as at the moment I've only got an average cooler in the Freezer 7, an average Core 2 Duo chip in the E6700 and a below-average mobo in the Gigabyte GA-P965-S3. My RAM is good though - the Corsair XMS3 does 4-4-4-12 timings @800MHz at 2.0V, not too shabby. I say semi-professional, as it won't have watercooling, and won't have an amazing motherboard. I'm also not OC'ing or modding my GPU - my poor old 4850 cooks itself on stock settings.

Anyway, onto the build:
  • Intel Core i7 860 2.80Ghz CPU (target OC 4GHz)
  • MSI P55-GD65 motherboard
  • G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB DDR3 CAS7 1600MHz RAM
  • Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB HDD
  • Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan CPU cooler
  • Akasa 12cm Blue LED case fan (to replace my current exhaust)
  • ATI Radeon 4850 GPU (from current rig)
  • Samsung 250Gb HDD (from current rig)

I'll be updating this blog once I've got the parts, and while I'm on the build. Due to the parts that I'm re-using from my current rig, there is work to do to get it operational again - I'll be replacing the GPU with an nVidia 9500GT, and replacing the case with a new cheap one (with a no-brand PSU *shudder*). Plus I've got to clone the main boot drive onto the VelociRaptor, quite a bit of data to shift there.

Target date for build commencement is 24th October - my next post should be then!