Ideas for my new system

[boardy]

Hi guys,

Just started my new job and gonna have a little money soon, so I'm looking at a new PC. Not looking OTT to start off with tbh, just something better than my 2500+ and 9800pro lol.

Here's what I came up with -

AMD 3700+ SD

Asus SLI Premium

1Gb RAM

2x Asus 6800Ultra's SLI'd

2x IDE 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on ATA RAID card

IDE 160Gb Seagate Cudda (Storage Master IDE onboard)

Asus StarIce 4 HSF

OCZ Powerstream 520w

DVD / DVD-RW off old machine

Lemme know what u recon guys. I wanna try SLI but want the best cards I can get for sensible money (For the time being )

Cheers

Boardy

 

[jellybeard999]

Hi guys,

Just started my new job and gonna have a little money soon, so I'm looking at a new PC. Not looking OTT to start off with tbh, just something better than my 2500+ and 9800pro lol.

Here's what I came up with -

AMD 3700+ SD

Asus SLI Premium

1Gb RAM

2x Asus 6800Ultra's SLI'd

2x IDE 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on ATA RAID card

IDE 160Gb Seagate Cudda (Storage Master IDE onboard)

Asus StarIce 4 HSF

OCZ Powerstream 520w

DVD / DVD-RW off old machine

Lemme know what u recon guys. I wanna try SLI but want the best cards I can get for sensible money (For the time being )

Cheers

Boardy

7800GTX, dont SLI for the sake of it, 2x6800U = more expensive, and not as good...

go for a better HSF (Thermalright / Thermaltake Big Typhoon (supossed to be good from what i hear)

SATA drives, unless u already got em

that board aint the best clocker either, the Abit AN8 is meant to be good, thats if the DFI isnt stable enough for u

 

[Phil Stanbridge]

..but running on air clocking isnt going to be an issue. The Asus is a solid contender. Definitely go with 7800GTX. Its the best card on the market, and save up for two!

 

[PHILIP1193]

right have you ever heard an asus star ice and ultra hsf??? cuz man they are loud!!!

Right teh asus star ice aint very good and is very noisy and is massive it really is, get an akasa evo 33 also get a 7800gtx or maybe a gt version still both better than a 6800ultra and both a lot less quiet.

Change yr psu to teh new targan modular, fully braided lines and targan makes the ocz believe it or not and is a superb psu believe me!!! and its cheaper

Why run ide hdd in raid and have to buy an ide ata card to buy them, sata is just as cheap and all n force 4 mobo's have raid controllers and theya re more importantly faster even buy a proper sata 2 drive faster than a raptor in some cases and cheap!!

Other than that yr good

Phil

 

[jellybeard999]

Change yr psu to teh new targan modular, fully braided lines and targan makes the ocz believe it or not and is a superb psu believe me!!! and its cheaper

Actually TOPower make the Tagan, OCZ and Globalwin PSUs

 

[stocky]

Check this one out:

Zalman CPU Cooler CNPS9500 LED

It is meant to be better than some water systems! I have one on order

 

[Phil Stanbridge]

Check this one out:

Zalman CPU Cooler CNPS9500 LED

It is meant to be better than some water systems! I have one on order

Its not a bad cooler but very loud at 12v. I am going to be using them in my air cooled systems however.

 

[Mindless-Moron]

are we forgeting that some water systems actually includes stuff like the cool river kit? so of course its going to beat some of those inferior solutions. but yes tis a good cooler shame about hte fan, if it were me i'd put a panaflo of nexus fan on htere. apparently hte sycthe ninja is better when equipped with a 120mm fan, but its huge.

 

[jellybeard999]

Check this one out:

Zalman CPU Cooler CNPS9500 LED

It is meant to be better than some water systems! I have one on order

Supposed to be as good as xp90c and loud fan with its fan insanely loud, but when silenced, not as good as xp90c with a quiet fan

 

[mbmapit44]

My ideas:

Hi guys,

Just started my new job and gonna have a little money soon, so I'm looking at a new PC. Not looking OTT to start off with tbh, just something better than my 2500+ and 9800pro lol.

Here's what I came up with -

AMD 3700+ SD

DFI SLI-D

2Gb RAM

1x 7800GTX

2x IDE 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on ATA RAID card

IDE 160Gb Seagate Cudda (Storage Master IDE onboard)

Arctic Freezer

Tagan 530W (modular/normal up to you)

DVD / DVD-RW off old machine

Lemme know what u recon guys. I wanna try SLI but want the best cards I can get for sensible money (For the time being )

Cheers

Boardy

And if you haven't already got the hard drives swap them for the new samsung spinpoint sataII range. I just swapped 2 74gb raptors for 2 250gb samsungs and they are faster and inaudible!!!

 

[GoLLuM4444]

AMD 3700+ SD

DFI SLI-D

2Gb RAM

1x 7800GTX

2x IDE 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on ATA RAID card

IDE 160Gb Seagate Cudda (Storage Master IDE onboard)

Arctic Freezer

Tagan 530W (modular/normal up to you)

DVD / DVD-RW off old machine

I agree with you on the other changes but why 2gb of ram? That just forces 2T timings and makes it slower for alot of things. It depends what the computer will be used for of course but 1gb is always the most flexible (unless you want 2x1gb sticks which aren't as good clockers).

 

[maverik-sg1]

2x 1GB sticks are a solid investement for gaming and for MS VISTA or XP 64bit.

Gollum is right about the clocking, but for most things except benchmarking the difference is offset by the ability to store more data in RAM and keep things running smoothly (BF2 and Doom3 run better with 2gig.

Ballistix will run at 270+ FSB but only at 3-3-3-7 (ish) and is considered to by many to be the best available right now.

Everything else is down to personal taste for air cooling also consider:

Vapochill Micro

Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro

Mav

 

[stocky]

Supposed to be as good as xp90c and loud fan with its fan insanely loud, but when silenced, not as good as xp90c with a quiet fan

Any links to confirm this, as I'd be interested in a read...

 

[maverik-sg1]

Gigabyte unit is reviewed in customPC this month and I quote:

"Our FX55 fully loaded ran 24degress Celsius cooler than the reference HSF"

They also liked the hyper 6+ from cooler master which even ran a few degrees cooler than the arctic freezer on the Prescotts (= loads of cooling potential for A64's) but was incredibly loud compared to the Gigabyte.

Mav

 

[boardy]

Cheers for the feedback guys.

Just so you know, machine is gonna be used for SWG (MMORPG), work, MSN, and gd ol net, aswell as all the other benching apps seeing as I have pro licenses for most of em lol.

I was thinking of the DFI board but have had LanParty's before and everything that could go wrong, did. Put me off them for a fair while and dont really want to risk it again.

I only want 1Gb RAM, 2Gb is complete overkill IMO and when I had 2Gb before saw absolutely NO performance boost in anything I did. Only when timings drop for 2Gb will I even consider it but I want tightish timings and a little room for OC.

On the IDE / SATA front, if I do want to OC IDE drives are much more stable than SATA from experience and feedback I've had on my problems before on here. Unless someone can guarentee that the OC isn't gonna be reduced at all by SATA drives I'm sticking to IDE. I do already have about 4 PCI RAID controllers for IDE so it's not really any extra money to RAID them

I'm also looking at the 6800u in SLI because all the bench's I'v looked at they beat a single 7800GTX and I really don't have the money atm for 2 of them lol. They have gone on the upgrade list or mayb just stay on the 6800s until the new gen nVidia stuff comes with 512Mb RAM on each card

Changed my mind on the PSU and CPU HSF tho i think after looking at some reviews. May go OCZ 600w PS but also looking at that Tagen. Not sure on HSF, so anymore input would be great.

The entire system is getting put on H2o at some point nearer xmas tho prolly, all purchased from our mate good Phil which will do CPU, GFX and NB if i can be ****d with that lol.

Any feedback on all that'd be great.

Cheers

Boardy

 

[Master_G]

I would recommend 2 air coolers, the Vapochill Micro for it's impressive temps whilst being so light, and then the heavyweight Thermaltake Big Typhoon, it's big and it gets the job done.

G

 

[PHILIP1193]

most of the top benchers use sata drive to run windows off so id place my bet on them been fine and personally iv had no probs and im reasonably clocked up and never thought of my sata drive to be teh prob!!

What about two 7800gt's they are cheaper and faster than two 6800 u's, as well as a hell of a lot quieter and run cooler jst look at the benchmarks to prove it, and they support do HDR too.

Phil

 

[maverik-sg1]

most of the top benchers use sata drive to run windows off so id place my bet on them been fine and personally iv had no probs and im reasonably clocked up and never thought of my sata drive to be teh prob!!

What about two 7800gt's they are cheaper and faster than two 6800 u's, as well as a hell of a lot quieter and run cooler jst look at the benchmarks to prove it, and they support do HDR too.

Phil

Boardy mate, I'd agree with everything Phil said here - Mobo manuf' have learned the lessons from yesteryear and SATA is now every bit as stable as IDE.

Dont forget 7800's run cooler and use less power so you got a better chance of achieving excellent reults and having enough juice to push to the limits of the system, not the PSU.

The 7800GT's offer good middle ground (saving you around £110 on sli vs GTX's) but you are right, probably after xmas their prices will drop too - the problem you have with 6800GT's (dont get ultras mate) is that the price is one the slide, offloading them in a few months probs mean a big price drop. Better off buying on GTX now and one after xmas.

I am a big fan of the vapo micro too.

Mav