Building my gaming machine, any suggestions?

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HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
Hey everyone,
I just finished a project of mine, I decided to build a gaming PC but I wanted it to be a Mac, so I bought a cheap Mac Pro on ebay then added to it over a month or so, I wanted to spend about the same price as a basic Mac Pro from Apple, £2,000 so here's what I bought, I had a couple of other bits, SSD a couple of Raptors, but I put them in some other stuff I have.

£750:

- Dual 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro 2006 1,1
- 2GB DDR2 FB-DIMM 667mhz RAM
- 250GB HDD
- Superdrive

This is what I've now ended up with after my upgrades:

- 2 x Quad Xeon X5355's @2.66 overclocked to @3.2ghz - 1.313v FSB@1600mhz
- 12GB DDR2 FB-DIMM Kingston RAM @800Mhz
- Sapphire 5870 1GB + XFX 5970 2GB Crossfirex 850/1200
- SATA III 6GB/s + USB 3.0 Asus U3S6
- Bluetooth 2.1 + Airport 802.11n
- 2 x 64GB OCZ Vertex 2E SSD's RAID 0 - Mac OS X 10.6.4
- 60GB Crucial C300 6GB/s - Windows 7 Pro x64
- 1.5TB WD Green - Mac
- 1.0TB WD Green - NTFS
- Liteon Blu-Ray R/W x12
- Apple 1000w PSU
- 5.25" 450 PSU

All together I spent £2,300 so I went a tiny bit over budget but I did my best not to compromise.

The only other thing I'm thinking of buying is swapping my Asus U3S6 for a dedicated Nvidia Physx card.

Obviously some of my stuff only works in Windows but as I'm not really playing games in OSX that's fine for me.

I'm looking for suggestions to improve my setup so any are welcome. Except those that say "duhhhh haha buy a PC and sell your Mac" because those really are irritating.



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buzzsaw13

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2004
3,814
0
76
I don't think dual quad xeon's were necessary. I'd say your setup is completely fine, what kind of display do you have?
 
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nsafreak

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2001
7,093
3
81
Yeah, sorry but I don't think you're going to get any help here. First off it's in the wrong section. Second off it frankly looks like you just went and purchased the most expensive parts you possibly could and stuck them in a PC. If that's how you want to do your builds fine but most folks around here have some sense of practicality.
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
buzzsaw13 said:
I don't think dual quad xeon's were necessary. I'd say your setup is completely fine, what kind of display do you have?
Click to expand...

true enough, but the motherboard takes xeons and I found some a matching pair for £250 which I thought was quite reasonable. I've got two displays, a 23" LG Flatron W2234S which is so so and a Sony Bravia XBR4 which I use most of the time as I dont really need anything over 1080p... Do I?
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
nsafreak said:
Yeah, sorry but I don't think you're going to get any help here. First off it's in the wrong section. Second off it frankly looks like you just went and purchased the most expensive parts you possibly could and stuck them in a PC. If that's how you want to do your builds fine but most folks around here have some sense of practicality.
Click to expand...

Not really, I didn't choose things based on price, I chose them after deciding what I needed and then looked at reviews and posted on forums until I found the best of a given item, I.e. with my graphics cards I chose a 5870 initially as I prefer ATI and read good things, then I thought about adding a second but I read that trifire is the "sweetspot" for CrossfireX graphics card so I bought a 5970 as I don't have enough PCIe slots for two more cards.

Everything was based on advice that I found online, nothing was because it was expensive. And I thought that alltogether it came out quite reasonably considering that a base Mac Pro costs £2,0000

Also... what section would be better?
 
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buzzsaw13

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2004
3,814
0
76
I'd probably invest in some screens that can do at least 1920x1080, kinda wasting all those expensive parts if you aren't going to have hi res displays to go with them.
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
buzzsaw13 said:
I'd probably invest in some screens that can do at least 1920x1080, kind wasting all those expensive parts if you aren't going to have hi res displays to go with them.
Click to expand...

Well my Sony Bravia is 1080p... and it's a great TV, looks good, good reviews? Would a smaller monitor really be a huge benefit.
 
Fanatical Meat

Fanatical Meat

Lifer
Feb 4, 2009
35,862
17,404
136
You're going pretty expensive, there really aren't many games that will tax a reasonably modern PC now. Id go a lot cheaper and upgrade/change when you need to. I have a intel C2quad 9650 with an nvidia gtx260 that runs everything I try perfectly, why spend more? Also a dedicated physics card is kind of a waste it really doesn't help anything but being able to brag about it.
Keep in mind many games are console ports like it or not and like I said most reasonably modern PC's will run them fine.
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
Fanatical Meat said:
You're going pretty expensive, there really aren't many games that will tax a reasonably modern PC now. Id go a lot cheaper and upgrade/change when you need to. I have a intel C2quad 9650 with an nvidia gtx260 that runs everything I try perfectly, why spend more? Also a dedicated physics card is kind of a waste it really doesn't help anything but being able to brag about it.
Keep in mind many games are console ports like it or not and like I said most reasonably modern PC's will run them fine.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is true, but I always like to go a little bit too far with things, I'd like th physx card for Mafia 2 and Batman, I like the effects they look fun. But your right I did go expensive, it just frustrates me if I buy a game and can't play it properly for whatever reason, plus I don't like to upgrade often I'm hoping this should last me a while.
 
GaryJohnson

GaryJohnson

Senior member
Jun 2, 2006
940
0
0
The procs are Core architecture right? That seems like a heck of a lot of money to spend on a Core based system. Wouldn't Nehalem/Westmere have been a better deal?
 
SparhawkJC

SparhawkJC

Junior Member
Jul 7, 2010
17
0
0
What Mac games do you need to upgrade your comp to run anyways? Being more specific would allow people to give more suitable advice.
 
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HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
SparhawkJC said:
What Mac games do you need to upgrade your comp to run anyways? Being more specific would allow people to give more suitable advice.
Click to expand...

I don't run any Mac games they are all windows, I wanted a Mac, I Use Mac OS 90% of the time, But I like gaming and so if the mood takes me I reboot into windows. :)
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
GaryJohnson said:
The procs are Core architecture right? That seems like a heck of a lot of money to spend on a Core based system. Wouldn't Nehalem/Westmere have been a better deal?
Click to expand...

It would but the processors I chose are the best my mobo would accept, plus my processors cost £250 westmere would have cost a he'll of a lot more and nehalem would be at least £500 per processor...
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
RocksteadyDotNet said:
You've got more dollars than sense.
Click to expand...

I really didn't think it cost that much, it was £300 more expensive than the cheapest quad core Mac Pro from apple, for a rather awesome 8 core Mac Pro with stuff apple dosent offer

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...co=MTg5MTY5NDQ

Compared to buying a new one and speccing it up or buying another Mac and building a PC to similar specs it's cheap!

mizzou said:
why did you choose MAC if gaming was your focus?
Click to expand...

Gaming wasn't my focus but I want to be able to play games well if the mood takes me, I use windows occasionally and just for gaming if I can help it, I really don't like using it for anything else :)
 
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Malak

Malak

Lifer
Dec 4, 2004
14,696
2
0
neckarb said:
I don't run any Mac games they are all windows, I wanted a Mac, I Use Mac OS 90% of the time, But I like gaming and so if the mood takes me I reboot into windows. :)
Click to expand...

But why the hassle? Why waste the money? Windows is superior in every way, not just gaming.
 
HAL9000

HAL9000

Lifer
Oct 17, 2010
22,021
3
76
Malak said:
But why the hassle? Why waste the money? Windows is superior in every way, not just gaming.
Click to expand...

Windiws is superior in one way, application compatibility I was a PC man until I got my first Mac a while a go now I'm never going back, trust me even in the short time vie been using windows again recently I've been banging my head against The table, I've not wasted any moneyive done things at a pretty good price.

I can't stand so many things about windows, OSX is just better, and Linux is better thannthat (just not as user friendly)
 
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