Building a new pc and need help.

[Moodymoe1]

I am building a new pc and have questions and need some expert advice. Keep in mind that this pc will be used for extreme gaming. If there better parts than what i have please tell me about them and recommend the best setups.

The specs are as follows:

COOLER MASTER Stacker RC-832

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 Motherboard

CORSAIR Dominator 4 x 1GB DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)

CORSAIR CMXAF1 Fans

EVGA 768-P2-N881-AR GeForce 8800Ultra 768MB

agan TG1100-U96 ATX12V / EPS12V 1100 Watts Power Supply

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

Thats what the specs are looking like as of now. I need help in determining the proper heatsink for the cpu, what are some good case fans for the case. I would also like to know if all of this hardware is compatible with each other and also with the windows vista operating system. I would also like to know about the raptor hard drives and if it is worth it to purchase one to put the os on. note, the heatsink will have to fit perfectly without interfering with the ram fans. Do the ram fans actually make a difference?

Happy 4th of July to all.

 

[f4phantom2500]

ok, if you'll be gaming, get a core 2 duo. the dual cores overclock MUCH better and are WAY easier to cool than the quads. in almost every game out today (except supreme commander), they are faster than quads since they overclock so much better and since today's games can only use 2 cores. don't worry about future games taking advantage of quads; by that time, you'll be able to get a better quad core that will overclock better and run cooler for cheaper than today's quads.

as for the RAM, those fans won't really make a difference; if you get RAM with some d9's, even if they don't have that fan, they will overclock like mad. also on today's processors the higher ram speeds don't really make much of a difference in games anyway (a few percent; it won't mean the difference between jittery and smooth gameplay, it will mean the difference between smooth and smooth...perceivably none).

the geforce 8800 ultra is a waste of money man; it's just an overclocked 8800gtx, and the performance difference is not nearly worth the hundreds of dollars. so save some cash and get the gtx. also they're probably gonna do a major card refresh once real dx10 games show up, which will be later this year. when that happens, your 8800 ultra won't be very ultra anymore. considering that, if i were you, i would just save even more cash and get an 8800gts 640mb (or 320 if you run lower resolutions than like 1600x1200), since you'll be able to upgrade to a much better card later this year. i know, i know, it will be tough to suffer with a 'lowly' 8800gts, but i have faith in you. in any case, don't get the ultra, just consider the gts's and the gtx.

as for the raptor drives, no they aren't really worth it man; those 7200.10's are screamin', you wouldn't really notice the difference in a real-world situation, so might as well just get the 10 and have a ton of storage.

 

[MarcVenice]

OVERKILL on the PSU lol. Get a corsair 520W, and if you think, for some reason, but I can tell you know, you are wrong, that you need more power, go for the corsair 620W. Anything over that is pure madness.

For a HSF, go thermalright ultra 120, with some extremely quiet fan in it. It will cool like mad, and be quiet too. I would probably get 1 raptor drive though, 1 150gb raptor drive, for your OS, APPS and games to run off on.

 

[Skott]

The 150Gb Raptor is the best hd. The 7200.10 is a great drive but its only a close second to the Raptor. Like Marc said a Raptor as your main drive is ideal. Put your O/S on it and games. If you want more storage get a second 7200.10 to pull that duty. Games arent faster on a Raptor but loading zones within games and O/S boot up and shutdown is certainly faster and for high end rigs that makes the Raptor worth the money IMO. Now if you were to say you wanted to pay more attention to cost then yeah, use only the 7200.10 drives.

The 8800Ultra might be the baddest card on earth right now but if it were me I'd get a 8800GTX and overclock it. The Ultra is just too stupidly high priced even if it is the baddest card out right now. Having the best is great but when they try to overprice something like the 8800 Ultra I dont believe in supporting it. Besides a OCed 8800GTX gets you pretty darn close to a stock Ultra for a lot less money.

As for a hsf I would put the Tuniq 120 as best. If you cant find that then something like the Thermalright Ultra 120 is probably the next choise although there are some others that can come pretty close to it. Your case will determine hsf more than anything.

For a psu I would go with a Corsair HX620. It'll take care of all your needs and thats including overclocking. You wont need more unless you decide to SLI or CF which if I understand you you correctly you are not going to do. I wouldnt go with a Corsair HX520 in your particular case. Since overclocking is involved having the extra power is going to be a help. It also allows for future upgrades on the video card side of things.

Just my 2 coppers

 

[f4phantom2500]

eh, i still don't think the couple of seconds you'd shave off of booting up windows would warrant the cost of the hard drive, considering how massive the 7200.10's are. also, i haven't noticed slow loading zones within games due to my 7200.10, so i don't really know what he means by that. if you really want to dedicate a drive to os and games and another for storage, get 2 7200.10's.

 

[Moodymoe1]

Thank you all for the responses, they really have changed my mind. I read a post on how the intel processors are gonna drop in price, and like you said new video cards are coming out so i guess i should just wait.

My current setup is :

Core 2 duo e6600

Abit aw9d max

2 gb crucial anniversary ram

ati radeon x1900xtx 512mb

Segate barracuda 16 mb cace perpendicular 250 gb

500 watt psu ultra

ultra aluminus case


The problems with this is that the video card gets hott when i max out the games it goes to like 91 C. I think air flow is bad. Nothing happens with the card its just that i dont like running it hott

The cpu is fine with the scythe infinity 30 - 34 degrees.

Do you think that i should buy THE psu , case, video card, ram and migrate my stuff to the new case. And oc my processor.

Will there be any problems because i have windows vista.

Is my motherboard good enough for everything.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813127011


Thank you for all of your responses.

 

[Moodymoe1]

I think i will just get a 7200.10. 2 of them it is good enough. I maxed out my hard drive a few times and had to delete stuff over and over and its not fun. So with the 1 tb of space it would be nice. Thanks for the replys

 

[f4phantom2500]

oh you already have an e6600? you should *definitely* just overclock that man! your current rig is pretty good, just get more RAM if you want and replace the videocard and whatever else, but keep your processor and ram at least, they're still definitely very good. if i were you, i would hold on to that chip until penryn's out, then get one of those quads, as anything that comes out between now and then will basically be the same as yours, only different clock speeds and/or more cores (and like i said, quads now suck at overclocking and aren't even beneficial in games). so if you just oc that thing you'll have a high end processor that, if replaced now, would give you negligible improvements (except maybe a quad in supreme commander...but i already covered that a few times lol). basically if you oc that thing, it will be much cooler and faster in almost every game today since it'll almost certainly hit a higher clock speed than the current quads.

 

[kagy600]

I think i will just get a 7200.10. 2 of them it is good enough. I maxed out my hard drive a few times and had to delete stuff over and over and its not fun. So with the 1 tb of space it would be nice. Thanks for the replys

7200.10 is a series of drives, many sizes to choose from. We can tell that you mean the 500gb model, just throwing out my 2c.

 

[Moodymoe1]

Originally posted by: f4phantom2500
oh you already have an e6600? you should *definitely* just overclock that man! your current rig is pretty good, just get more RAM if you want and replace the videocard and whatever else, but keep your processor and ram at least, they're still definitely very good. if i were you, i would hold on to that chip until penryn's out, then get one of those quads, as anything that comes out between now and then will basically be the same as yours, only different clock speeds and/or more cores (and like i said, quads now suck at overclocking and aren't even beneficial in games). so if you just oc that thing you'll have a high end processor that, if replaced now, would give you negligible improvements (except maybe a quad in supreme commander...but i already covered that a few times lol). basically if you oc that thing, it will be much cooler and faster in almost every game today since it'll almost certainly hit a higher clock speed than the current quads.

Hey i got a question, the ram i got now is ddr 667 but it is a d9 chip. I wonder if i should replace them with the 4gbs of corsair ddr2 1066 or ddr2 800. How about my motherboard is it good, to oc. I remeber it was the best when i purchased it, last summer *). Do i need better cooling than what i have now? scythe infinity

 

[Moodymoe1]

Originally posted by: kagy600
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>I think i will just get a 7200.10. 2 of them it is good enough. I maxed out my hard drive a few times and had to delete stuff over and over and its not fun. So with the 1 tb of space it would be nice. Thanks for the replys</end quote></div>

7200.10 is a series of drives, many sizes to choose from. We can tell that you mean the 500gb model, just throwing out my 2c.

Yeah i meant the 500 gb model. Is there a significant difference in speeds between the 500 and lower models?