New parts advice!

[Scythe000]

Hi everyone, new to the forums and I basicly need your opinions on my rig-to-be about what changes could be made to make it better. I've only been to a few retailers so far. Scan, Overclockers and Dabs and here are the results.

Dabs/Overclockers/Scan

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Intel Nahalem i7 920 S1366 2.66 GHz

£218.25/£213.99/£202.17

Gigabyte X58-UD5 mobo

£205.65/193.90/£185.17

Corsair DDR3 6GB (3x2GB) 1333MHz

£69.93/55.64/£59.63 - (Dabs/Overclockers/Scan)

XFX GeForce GTX 260 - Core 216

666/2300MHz - £169.19 (Dabs)

EVGA GeForce GTX 260 - Core 216 670/2304MHz - 174.99 (Overclockers)

XFX HD ATi 4870 XXX 775/3800MHz - £139.48 (Scan)

Corsair Memory 650W TX

£79.15/£68.69 (Dabs/Overclockers

Corsair Memory 750W TX

£87.49 (Scan)

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 7200rpm 32MB SATA2

£80.86/£80.99/£74.94

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£953.55 (Dabs)

£936.50 (Overclockers)

£872.70 (Scan)

The only real things that remain are sound, case, CPU cooling. A capture card would be nice but that can be added much later on.

It should be noted that with the case I have some restrictions to both the height AND depth and that it sits under my desk.

Height: 60cm MAX; Depth: 46~48cm

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Current 5 year old comp:

Intel Pentium P4 HT 3Ghz

Asus P4P800-E Deluxe

1GB Corsair DDR 200MHz - swapped out 2x 256 and 1x 512

Sapp. Tech Radeon X1650 512MB - replaced twice so far. ATI 9800 Pro 128mb then ATI x1600 512mb

Maxtor 200GB HDD

Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BNA Black - two fans replaced

Generic 550W PSU

2 DVD drives - normal and a dual layer burner - swapped out old ones last summer

Thanks to any who read through this WALL OF TEXT and I appreciate any help given by those who give their input.

 

[tinytomlogan]

For starters forget OCuk.

As for the GPU, the 4870 and 260 are very much on par with each other, but if you fancy joining the OC3d Folding team get the Nvid, otherwise Id persoanally say get the ATI.

Air cooler - Thermalright Ultra Extreme or a Coolermaster V8

Case - Coolermaster Haf or a CM Storm Sniper would be my personal recomendations for the £100 mark.

 

[f0x.]

Your gfx card also depends on what way you play your games, if you want quality i would go green with the Nvidia, there drivers always seem more mature and usually gives a sharper image/better colours imo , but for sheer fps go for ati

 

[Scythe000]

For starters forget OCuk.

As for the GPU, the 4870 and 260 are very much on par with each other, but if you fancy joining the OC3d Folding team get the Nvid, otherwise Id persoanally say get the ATI.

Air cooler - Thermalright Ultra Extreme or a Coolermaster V8

Case - Coolermaster Haf or a CM Storm Sniper would be my personal recomendations for the £100 mark.

Folding team? Sounds interesting, care to explain?

Both of those desks are far too big depth-wise and it's quite a challenge trying to find something which I won't trip over when I get up, the coolers seem ok but ideally I really should wait until I've bought a case so that I know how much room I've got left to spare.

Your gfx card also depends on what way you play your games, if you want quality i would go green with the Nvidia, there drivers always seem more mature and usually gives a sharper image/better colours imo , but for sheer fps go for ati

I noticed how in the benchmarks the 260 beat the 4870 for almost more than half of the tests though it did fall short a few times which isn't so bad. My friend is absolutely obsessed with the 4870 and shuns anything you might dare put in front of him and if I were to ask for proof as to WHY it's better he runs for the hills!

Buying from Scan then I'd probably lean more towards ATI than nVidia.

Just wondering what you guys think of the rest of the stuff on the list now.

Thanks guys.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Im a red fan boy mate tbh, games = ATI, folding/benching = Nvidia

Folding at home is a way to contribute towards medical research for alzhimers and parkinsons amongst others. You basically run a program which use's you cpu/gpu to similate protien folds.

Proteins fold millions of times a second in the body naturaly but when one of the folds malfunctions this is what can cause the medical issues.

By us using our PC's to help we effective make a massive supercomputer to help Stanford Uni with their research.

What do we get out of it? Well you get points for each work unit and its all about trying to get your team up the score board.

For more details go HERE we have a great team all doing what we can, we welcome any new members and Ill personally help you get set up if you fancy joining.

 

[Scythe000]

Im a red fan boy mate tbh, games = ATI, folding/benching = Nvidia

Ahh so I HAVE heard of this before and it's an amazing idea, when I get the new system up and running I'll definitely sign up. So why nVidia in particular and not ATI?

 

[Diablo]

The programme just works better on Nvidia cards, they do folding faster (and get more points)

 

[Freak]

folding is based around the shaders of the card.

The way ati cards are produced they lack them so arent as good as the same leveled nvidia card.

 

[lasher]

Welcome to the Forums matey.

Introductions can be made here...

http://forum.overclock3d.net/forumdisplay.php?f=4

hope to see that new rig folding for OC3D soon