Need help building the best system.

[lcpiper]

OK guys, I am looking into building pretty much the very best system money can buy. Notice I said building and not buying.

Here is my primary issue;

Selecting the correct motherboard. Almost everything else is academic once I have chosen the right motherboard. To do this I need some answers and I think I am close but not entirely certain about a thing or two so here we go.

How many seperate video cards and duel video cards can be supported under Crossfire/SLI ? This will determine if I need 3 or 4 PCIe x16 slots, etc.

Please keep in mind the upcomming release of duel 4870 cards, TY.

BTW, I am looking at several current options including Skull Trail and 790i boards.

 

[Bungral]

Well if money is no object then yeah you could look at Skull Trail which takes 2 CPUs which again cost a crapload or the Foxconn BlackOps which is single socket but again well expensive.

If your talking single CPU then you could opt for the recently reviewed Asus Rampage Extreme or the Maximus 2 formula

Based on an Intel chipset so SLI is out of the question but it would let you a 4870X2 (which are out as of yesterday by the way ) or again if money was no object then you could sling two of those together for some 4 way GPU action. Two of those together though at the moment isn't showing massive increases.

If you opted for the 790i something like the Striker II Extreme, that is based on an Nvidia chipset so would let you SLI some GTX 280s together or even 3 of them for Tri-SLI. These chipsets tend not to be as solid as their Intel counterparts and also in most cases don't overclock quite as well.

Depends on what you're using it for and also your budget, if you have one at all?

 

[lcpiper]

Thanx, all good info.

Questions, Crossfire first.

So you say the Duel 4870 cards are not scaling very well but can a can you run four 4870 cards in Crossfire or is three the limit with the exception of paired Duel 4870s ?

Can you run three Duel 4870s ?

Can you run Quad SLI with four individual cards or only with something like a pair of 9800 GTX X2 cards ?

I'll need to know the absolute fastest video card setup in order to know how many x16 slots I need.

Of course the 4870s are very new and everything that can be done with them and what they are actually capable of might not be very well known yet. But these are the answers I need first.

 

[-VK-]

So you say the Duel 4870 cards are not scaling very well but can a can you run four 4870 cards in Crossfire or is three the limit with the exception of paired Duel 4870s ?

Not with the current drivers.

Can you run three Duel 4870s ?

Not with the current drivers.

Can you run Quad SLI with four individual cards or only with something like a pair of 9800 GTX X2 cards ?

No, only with a pair of GX2 cards.

I'll need to know the absolute fastest video card setup in order to know how many x16 slots I need.

Um...why? Will you be play on a ridiculously huge resolution monitor, or purely for e-peen wiggling? Also, afaik the maximum number of x16 slots on motherboards at the moment is 2.

Of course the 4870s are very new and everything that can be done with them and what they are actually capable of might not be very well known yet. But these are the answers I need first.

Mmhmm.

 

[Rastalovich]

Money is one thing, performance can be had at a cost, but u also have to weigh up whether ur going to want to be `tinkering` with the pc, or have-to tinker with the pc. For alot of people time is also money.

On the overclocking front. If u plan to oc it, want to do a minimum oc, or the best of best oc`er cpus. Easy oc and money`s no object, I`d be buying the best extreme cpu out there.

This`ll also impact on memory choices. If u go extreme cpu, memory isn`t that much of an issue, u just buy a good solid set - however if ur getting a non-extreme cpu, u`ll wants will be different.

Pricewize: extreme cpu + solid memory vS regular cpu + quality memory, can sometimes not be much in that equation.

 

[Bungral]

See blue answers.

Thanx, all good info.

Questions, Crossfire first.

So you say the Duel 4870 cards are not scaling very well but can a can you run four 4870 cards in Crossfire or is three the limit with the exception of paired Duel 4870s ?

You technically can run 4 single 4870s but drivers and lack of motherboard options make it pretty pointless. If you were gonna do that then two 4870X2s would be the way to go but like I said even then only scale well 50% of the time.. This is likely to increase with newer drivers though. Two 4870X2s would take up two 16x PCI lanes. Could run on two 8x lanes but not as well.

Can you run three Duel 4870s ?

No... Can only use two of those linked together.

Can you run Quad SLI with four individual cards or only with something like a pair of 9800 GTX X2 cards ?

Nope... Maximum for individual SLI at the moment is three cards linked together via a SLI bridge. If you're talking about the 9800GX2 then I'm pretty sure you can only use two of those together for Quad SLI and three of them isn't possible.

I'll need to know the absolute fastest video card setup in order to know how many x16 slots I need.

Well it's a toughie... From what I've seen three GTX 280's scale better than two 4870X2's but it's just not worth the money and would limit your options on motherboard choice.

Of course the 4870s are very new and everything that can be done with them and what they are actually capable of might not be very well known yet. But these are the answers I need first.

 

[lcpiper]

Thank you very much guys, your answers were right with what I thought I new about this but I wanted to be sure. Can't build the fastest PC if you leave something open that should be filled. Thank You again. I'll be around.

:worship:

 

[k4p84]

.

also if you are looking to overclock the system or for better cooling all round i would definitely say go to water cooling.

If you are considering Skull trail some of the boards have a very nice line of, cpu1 , cpu2, northbridge so setting up a loop to incorporate these is very easy.

Aqua Pc could help you out if you drop them a line. Tell them what you want and they can make it happen. They also do pre-installed cooling in some cases.

ED

 

[lcpiper]

Oh, I'm an old hand at overclocking and watercooling. You are right though, a system like I intend to build will almost require watercooling, hell, it might require an exhaust hood I mean the heat output is going to be conciderable.

I'll point you at some of my previous work and as you check it out keep in mind that this system is cooling the hottest processor made at that time, over-volted and overclocked to almost the highest speed attained with it, in my garage in Arizona in August

http://reviews.pcapex.com/cooling/wintsch_labs_arctic_web_w-437w_tec.php

 

[Mr. Smith]

I started drafting a reply when I realised I'd written about 1000 words.

Instead of posting an essay answer me a a few questions?

1. What size monitor/resolution will you be using?

2. What will you be doing on your PC in order of importance? (heavy/med/light gaming, encoding/decoding, cad, internet/email, 'crunching', etc)

3. Do you care the PC you build now will be totally bested in a few months by Bloomfield?

 

[lamboman]

As Mr Smith said.

As for tri-SLI against dual 4870X2s, that one is difficult. I am gonna say that they will probably be about even, with future driver updates of both of them, but the 4870X2 setup is definitely the most cost effective way to go.

 

[lcpiper]

Monitor will probably be this one or something similar but I haven't fully explored all the range of options.

DELL ULTRASHARP 2408WFP

24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor

I expect the resolution will be 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 if the monitor supports it.

The system isn't for me and the person it's for gave me simple instructions, "I have money, build me the best gaming system you can."

I like this job.

 

[Mr. Smith]

The res on that is 1920x1200... One 4870X2 will handle that res fine. Tri sli is w@nk to be frank. Check the videos on youtube.

Anyway, grab a qx9650 watercooled and clocked to 4ghz or more, rampage extreme, 4gb of some stupid fast ddr3, 2 SSDs in raid0 to boot, and a couple of velociraptors for other apps/storage, one or two 4870X2's in CF and a nice pcp&c 1000w ish psu. That would make a pretty nice rig.

 

[lcpiper]

I am almost right there except for the HD configuration, using an Areca 1210 RAID controller and four Velociraptors. The motherboard choice of course isn't set yet. Was going with a Q9770 for the CPU. And I may hold off and get a good look at the new watercooled 4870 X2 cards comming out, ATM there are few options available for watercooling this card. I am also looking hard at the case. My first thought is to go with a Lian-Li, maybe the A77B, but there isn't a whole lota room inside for all the radiators needed to cool this hardware. I might just go crazy and use a Lian-Li PC-343 cube server case. I already have one and one thing is for sure, you can do anything with this case.

 

[Mr. Smith]

The qx9770 isn't worth the extra money - £200 extra over the qx9650 for a bump on the fsb (which you will do OC'in) and a tiny bit of L1 cache...

What exactly are you w/c? The 45nm chips are pretty cool, one pa120.3 would EASILY handle the cpu and nb/sb etc and depending on your gpu config you might need an extra double or tripple rad...

Care to share the current specs/plans?

 

[lcpiper]

Alright, I am looking very hard at starting my own gaming computer company. Looking at what the other companies offer I think there is a niche sitting at the very top of the spectrum, the place where the others don't quite go. But I have an additional twist to add in that the cases will be custom made from the ground up and that the components will be the best possible with no compromises whatsoever.

I will not sell alot of them because I don't think alot of people will pay the prices I'll have to charge but this is the reason that price/performance doesn't fit in the equation. You can't sell the best and not have the best inside. There also won't be many options available other then case color and maybe a couple of others. There will only be two versions, overclocked and stock although the stock version may well use Retail overclocked video cards.

There will actually be an upgrade pool of money from his purchase that I will use to upgrade components of his computer in the future so that when something significant hits the market like Nehalim and Display Port I will upgrade his system from the pre-paid pool. He will recieve extra keyboards and mice at purchase time.

The customer service will be the highest imaginable, think Rolls Royce customer service. When a customer calls with a problem I'll know who they are before I answer the phone and I'll answer with "Mr. Jones, What can I do for you today?". I'll know if Mr. Jones' computer is online, I'll fly to Mr. Jones' home if needed or spend time with Mr. Jones showing him via remote desktop how to send an email with attachments.

Mr. Jones will be paying an absolute premium for his computer and more on top just because he is buying much more then a computer. In fact, Mr. Jones may actually be buying a computer instead of a BMW M3. This is why the computer must be the best possible without compromise and the price differences that you are mentioning are virtually immaterial. It's also the reason for the custom case. No one is going to pay that kind of money for another box that sits under his desk.

 

[TJS]

Good luck in forming your company, though besides your current customer it may be hard to keep this business afloat.

Companies like Voodoo and Alienware already cater to the wealthy who don't know how to or care how to build a pc themselves. I also came to the conclusion that when both got incorporated into bigger companies (Alienware into Dell, Voodoo into HP (I think its HP ) that maybe that sector of the market isn't big enough. You see quite a few other companies vying for a piece of the pie these days, but I'm sure they're barely getting by.

Lets face it... most gamers bought a pc they could afford, and more and more gamers are building their own computers themselves (its so easy, I do it myself. ) Its cost effective above all, and you get what you need, not what you don't.

Again, good luck with the venture, hope you do it a good long time.

 

[Mr. Smith]

Where are you in the world? Irrespective, the world is kinda in a recession, this isn't a good time to enter the business world targeting a very small niche as an ultra expensive PC maker...

Look at the RIP list of online traders...

 

[lcpiper]

Thank you.

I only know of a few reasonably successful companies at the top end of the gaming computer industry.

Alienware (owned by Dell)

Voodoo (Bought by HP, now history, HP dismantled Voodoo)

Falcon Northwest, (Still independant)

Smooth Creations (Just recently heard of these guys)

But none of them really cater to the rich and famous and that's my target. The guys who are rich, see it, want it, and buy it. The only question is how do I make them want it.

Answer: They only have to buy it and enjoy it.

I feed it and pick up after it leaves a mess. And I make it look exclusive, unique, individualized, no two exactly alike.

 

[Bungral]

Yeah good luck with this...

There was a company that catered for high end custom machines that looked pretty good too and were too very expensive.

They were called Vadim and very recently went in to liquidation