Another one of those help with gaming rig questions

[Monkeyyy]

I would like to build a gaming rig. I have a budget of about 1500, but I could be convinced to go up to 1700 if it is a huge jump in speed. (also willing to go down to whatever if the speed increase for 1500 is barely noticeable.) I might dabble in overclocking (air cooled, and I almost need a quiet system, limiting, I know. Although I could be convinced to go high noise if it means super speeds) I want a system that could be upgraded within 1 year so that it would last me up to total 2 years (more is better of course.) I'm also willing to wait (not more than about 1 month unless there is something huge on the horizon that is gonna blow my mind.)

I've been looking at the SLI configs, but have been turned off by some of the comments on this board. I'm gonna be running games like HL2, DoomIII and such. If I end up overclocking, I'm gonna be doing it for the first time so pointers would be more than welcome (probably gonna look mostly at the boards here unless told otherwise.)

Also, I don't need a monitor and I want a sound card that can do my Klipsch 5.1 Ultras proud (but still run games well, and I listen to alot of Jazz on my speakers.) No worries about mouse/keyb either since I don't see the reason to move away from the current keyb/510mx combo.

Finally, thanks in advance for any advice guys (and gals), this is gonna be a self present since the last 6 months have been quite stressful (All work and no play make Monkeyy dull boy, but end up as 1700 in bank account to blow on anything - already got the street walker and blackjack thing going so no worries)

 

[Monkeyyy]

So I did alot of looking around, I'm thinking of the following, can you guys make suggestions as to the difficulty of getting this system up and whether the components are too over the top?

Antec SLK3000-B with an extra Vantec Stealth 120
NEC ND-3520A BK
Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM SATA w/ 16MB Buffer
OCZ El Platinum Rev 2
DFI Ultra-D
Fortron 530W PSU
AMD 64 3200+ (90nm) retail w/ stock fan
Audigy 2 ZS
Saphire X800 XT

So the questions:
1) is the 120mm fan going to fit the front of the case?
2) is the PSU overpowered for this system?
3) is the 300GB HDD worse than the dual 74GB Raptors by enough to justify price/GB?
4) are the OCZ overkill and how hard is it to OC?
5) am I gonna need better/more cooling material to get the 3200+ to look more like 3500+? how bout 3800+?
6) is X800 XT better than Leadtek 6800GT across the board? who prefers which card and for which games? isn't the shader 3.0 worth it considering Nvidia is $50 less than ATI?

Can't see myself switching to LCD ever, so higher than 1280x1024 is definately viable resolution option.

 

[WW2Planes1]

1) yes, check the antec website and you'll see that the case supports 2 120mm fans (one rear, included; one holder for a front fan)
2) Fortran seems to be reccomended. That's probably more power than you would NEED for that system, but I for one feel that it never hurts to have a little breathing room
3) NO. and Dual Raptors are not much better than a single Raptor.
4) I'm not up on my specific OCZ model names, but in general, the very expensive RAM is only overkill if you're not planning on overclocking. If you are planning on OCing, with the DFI I would say you might want to look at the OCZ VX (extended voltage) series. If you're not planning on OCing, than Corsair or Crucial value ram should give you the performance you need.
5) I've heard that newer 90nm cores don't overclock as well as the older ones, but 2.4 to 2.6 doesn't sound unreasonable on stock cooling.
6) the X800XT is slightly better than the 6800GT in most games. with the exception of Doom III. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2290&p=1 read that and decide. I couldn't say one way or the other as it depends on 1) how much gaming you intend to do, and 2) what games you want to play.

 

[maluckey]

Good setup, though I would go for the 24 pin Fortron (FSP-550) so you are future proofed for the next generation of boards, which by specification will all be 24 pin.

 

[crimson117]

What's the total price look like for your current choices?

I play World Of Warcraft at 1600x1200 on a 6800GT with a Barton@3200. I'd save $50 and get the 6800GT, especially because you said you wanted to upgrade in a year. Video card prices have not changed significantly since Summer 2004, so the $50 you spend in a year will get you much more than the $50 you'd spend now.

Also, make sure you've got a floppy drive to install the SATA drivers when installing Windows.

 

[Ike0069]

Looks like a very good system, except that maybe you should go with an X800 XL. They are ~$300 and perform very close to the 6800 GT, even better in some games. Maybe use the extra money on a 3500+ since you're not sure if you will OC.
Also, I would choose the MSI Neo4 over the DFI MB, or the Chaintech VNF4U if I wasn't going to OC much (just to save a little money). But the DFI is still a good board.

 

[Monkeyyy]

OK, I'm definately going to be overclocking. I'm also starting to lean towards the 6800gt (because of a Chaos Theory article I ran across). Finally, the FSP-550, that only has 18A on the 12V rail, is that gonna be enough for a rock solid oc? I was leaning towards the OCZ Powerstream 520. The total cost of system before tax comes out just a hair over 1530.

 

[Promethply]

Originally posted by: Monkeyyy
OK, I'm definately going to be overclocking. I'm also starting to lean towards the 6800gt (because of a Chaos Theory article I ran across). Finally, the FSP-550, that only has 18A on the 12V rail, is that gonna be enough for a rock solid oc? I was leaning towards the OCZ Powerstream 520. The total cost of system before tax comes out just a hair over 1530.

Best to make sure that your PSU has at least a total of 25 Amp. on the 12V rail(s)

 

[Ike0069]

Yea, I would get a PSU with more +12V amps. The Powerstream 420 (+12V@30A) would be plenty though.

 

[maluckey]

The FSP 550 is 36A CONTINUOUS to the +12v side of the house. Perhaps you forgot it is dual channel. It supplies 18a continuous to EACH +12v line. There is no other PSU on the market even close to that performance at the price of 79 dollars. The Antec True-control 550II (dual rail) is weaker all-around and costs far more.

The FSP 550 is used by many on Xtreme system forums. It also powers my rig with an OC'ed FX5950 Ultra (256MB) vid card, which uses the same amount of juice as a 6800 Ultra 256MB.

Overall, you would be hard pressed to find a system that can overtax the FSP 550. If you can't run it with a FSP-550 then you need a Zippy.

 

[hans030390]

there is a rosewill PSU (500watts) that has some amazing amps (34 on the +12 rail...) for only $50 i believe....check that out at newegg, and it comes with adjustable fan speed on the back of the PSU.

and to be future proof for at least a year, you want a 6800gt. it has Shader model 3.0 (which WILL be needed for next gen games) where as any ATI card currently out only has 2.0...

what ram are you getting?

 

[Monkeyyy]

Wow, Newegg is mean. I went over and looked at the FSP 550 and it really looked like it was only providing 18A on one rail. They really need to clarify the fact that there is a CPU rail and a IO rail and they both operate at 18A each. Thanks for pointing this out maluckey, I was gonna waste an extra $40 on an OCZ because of Newegg's messed up specs (where'd you get the price at $79 for the FSP-550PLN? on newegg it's going for $92. Is the FSP-550PLN the one I want?)

I'm gonna run the OCZ El Platinum Revision 2 PC 3200, rated at 2-2-2-5 timing and apparently people are getting alot out of them. But if I could get my hands on the OCZ VX 4000 I would definately switch for those (2x512MB of course). Does anyone have a better suggestion for memory that handles overclocking well?

 

[Ike0069]

well, just so you know, Newegg just post the specs as given by the manufacturer. Most of the other (maybe even all) brands show when the PSU has dual rails. Be mad as Fortron.

 

[Monkeyyy]

Hi guys, thanks for all your help from earlier. I just have one other question: wouldn't it be much wiser to wait for the Venice core to come out with their version of the 3200 as opposed to buying the Winchie?
2 reasons:
1. the price of everything else could possibly drop
2. This will be the first time I'm going to overclock so I'm pretty much talking out my bum, but isn't it true that people get better overclocks with the earliest renditions of a specific core? For example, wasn't the winchie a better overclocker about 6 months ago? Also, the fact that the Venice boasts to give more head room in terms of how high the stock GHz can go, doesn't that almost ensure a more stable and higher overclock?

(I know, reason 2 almost seems like 2 or even 3 reasons)

 

[maluckey]

Monkeyyy

Go to Directron.com. They have the FSP-550 in both Dual rail, and single rail. I checked yesterday and it was 79 dollars. Look under server PSU.