New Rig - Advice needed

[tomglenn]

Hey all,

Over the next month or so I'm planning on building a new rig (As my old one was built 3 years ago and is now so ancient, i use a dell laptop instead!).

My plans for hardware are the following, but I want your input as this will be my first REAL GAMING rig. My old rig was budget (and again I state, 3 years old!).

I expect to have about £1400 to spend on it by the end of August, and will probably fork out a bit more out of Septembers wages too if I feel it needs any sprucing up or fine details added (Sound card, etc... the non-essential niceties).

PSU: Antec TruePower Quattro 850W Modular PSU (£112)

Mobo: Asus Striker II Extreme 790i (£240)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz (£210)

CPU Heatsink: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 (£16)

GFX: XFX Nvidia GTX 280 (£320)

RAM: 2GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Enhanced Bandwidth Edition (£131)

HDD: Maxtor 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 32MB Cache (£41)

All suggestions appreciated...

I am not 100% sure on the graphics card or ram... and i will possibly get a better (10k rpm) hdd.

Edit: It's worth noting that I already have a case for this computer (as i will be stripping out all the parts from my old rig and using that case) which is a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream

[Pat123]

Ide say go for a p45/x48 motherbaord.. Unless you NEED Sli

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=818516

and for a processor ide say Q6600 and hold off for the new ones?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=643237

RAM

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=782925

PSU is fine

GPU ide say the X2 is looking a pretty good choice.. 4870X2 when it hits the shelves.

CPU cooler should be fine..

HDD the one you have picked is fine.

[tomglenn]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the suggestions.

A quick question - What would the advantages be over having the P5Q Crossfire board, rather than the Asus Striker II Extreme SLI Board. I am not planning on going for Crossfire or SLI since one GTX 280 should suffice!!, so I might be interested in switching if there is reason enough to do so.

Also, did you mean the 9800GX2?

Edit: Another thing is, I have only really been following the Nvidia chipsets (Since the 680i)... Could you explain to me a little bit about the P45 and X48?

[Brooksie]

Intel chips are much better overclockers.

[tomglenn]

Ok I've done a bit of digging after your suggestions of an Intel based board, and I have also changed my mind about spending a shed load of cash on the GTX 280 after seeing the performance benchmarks of the HD 4870... Really... I don't need to spend an extra ~£200 for +5~10 fps on crysis at max res!

PSU: Hi-Power Black 1000W Modular 13.5cm Fan PSU (£70)

Mobo: Asus P5E3 Premium/WiFi-AP (£190)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz G0 Stepping 95W Edition (£110)

CPU Heatsink: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 (£16)

GFX: PowerColor HD 4870 512mb (£175)

RAM: OCZ 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz Kit Gold Series (£160)

HDD: Maxtor 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 32MB Cache (£41)

Let me know your thoughts.. I've managed to bring the entire rig down by around £350 from the changes, with little sacrifice to performance.

One thing that concerns me is the motherboard... When the new HD 4870X2 card comes out, I would like to be able to Crossfire it with the 4870 i plan on getting now... But this will require CrossfireX right? (Since it would essentially be 3 cards on 2 slots) I don't think the board I have chosen supports CrossfireX... Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Edit: Is the 95w edition of the Q6600 G0 Stepping a better or worse overclocker than the standard Q6600 G0 Stepping?? Theres only a £10 difference between the two, so I would like to get the better overclocker!

Edit 2: Adding a NZXT LEXA BlackLine Red Mid Tower Case With LCD Temp Display to the mix... Planning on giving my old computer to my parents, so it's best if i buy a new case!

[Bungral]

The 4870 X2 is two cores on 1 card and only takes up one PCI-E slot. The normal 4870 is a single core card that also take up one PCI-E slot so you could run them both on that motherboard.

Maxtor harddrives are ok but if you have a lil more money to spend, these are highly rated. Samsung Spinpoint F1

[tomglenn]

Hi Bungral,

Thanks for that info. I was under the impression that since it will essentially be 2 cards in one, it might need CrossfireX. But its good to know I will be able to run it with standard Crossfire!!! Will the same apply for 2x HD 4870X2s?

I have now ordered my parts other than the harddrive and case.

I have two 250GB SATAII hdds in my current pc which I will use one of for now, and I will be ordering a new hdd and case next month.

Estimated Delivery Date is Tuesday 11th August with next day delivery, all parts purchased from EBuyer totalling at £734.16 delivered.

Not bad at all, considering I almost got convinced into buying a Macbook Pro for £1500 with laughable specs in comparison!

Thanks for all your help everyone