First PC Build

[MrGonja]

first time building a rig from the ground up. all info good/bad needed and welcomed

case: antec 900 (already have)
psu: antec 650w (already have)

mb: evga 680i sli a1
mem: crucial ballistix pc 6400 ddr2 (2x1gb)
cpu: intel e6850 (w. stock fan for now)
vcard: 2x evga 8800gts 320mb sli
hdd: raptor x 10k 150gb

newegg ~ $1500 shipped

goals:
-fast gaming / tooling around online, dont really do video and audio editing. so bascially gaming, music, online, maybe some movie/anime watching
-i plan to overclock the system later after i got it up and running and was planning on down the road using water so not sure if i want to spend now on a fan/heatsink (feedback welcomed)

questions:
-will one 8000 gts 320 due for now until i can get the money for a 2nd one?
-is it worth the $30-40 for a sata dvd burner for the cooling, i have an old ide one and figured it would look cleaner if using sata

as i said first time builder and all feedback good/bad welcomed!

 

[LightningRider]

I would not go SLI if you are only going to get an 8800 GTS 320MB, by the time you want to get another one, there will be something better out that will perform in a single card solution. SLI is best only if you are going to be gaming at very high resolutions and it's best if you do it right away with high end cards. Otherwise I think it's a waste of money.

If you decide not to invest in SLI (which again I think would be smart unless you need to game at really high resolutions, and also because it's sort of a waste to SLI 8800GTS 320MB cards), then you should get a P35 based motherboard instead of the 680i. Try the ASUS P5K at around $150.

I think you should get at least a 8800GTS 640MB, but if not just stick with the 8800GTS 320MB and then upgrade later when the G92 (9800GTX) comes out.

If you already have DVD drives and you're not looking to replace them then there's no need to get SATA just for the sake of it. If you're looking to upgrade them then I would probably get SATA drives as I do find the cables annoying myself.

Also you might consider the Intel Core 2 Q6600 at the same price as the E6850. More and more applications will be using Quad in the months and years to come so if you don't want to upgrade for a while, it might be smarter to buy the Q6600. I think in the long run the Q6600 is the better buy, though the E6850 is faster today. Keep in mind that 6600's run hotter than the E6850's when it comes to OC'ing if you want to OC.

 

[MarcVenice]

If you're going to use watercooling, I'd go qaud, it should OC to 3.2ghz on water easily. As for SLI, no, don't sli 8800gts 320mb. Buy 1 gtx instead. But a single 8800gts 320mb is allready a darn fast card, so it won't dissapoint you. If you're not gaming at resolutions PAST 1920*1200, then a 320mb version will be fine. Very few games are bottlenecked by the 320mb memory, compared to a 640mb one, and it saves you quite a bit of cash. Just use your IDE drive, it shouldn't pose any problems, and how often do you look at the cabling inside your case ?

 

[drakore]

Uhhh depends if you put video cards in the water loop... i would recommend against a quad, if you want to overclock u can hopefully ramp that chip to a nice clock.

For your usage a C2D is better.

As for the SLI i would get rid of it, get an 8800GTX instead, then get a better board. Everything else looks good.

 

[MrGonja]

thanks for the feedback....i exactly researched the 8800gts vs. gtx, and ill the research pointed to (2) gts 320mb owning (1) gtx in all graphics benchmarks any thoughts / feedback on that? and as for goin e6850...i did my research as well and if i order now ill def go e6850 cause u cant get a g0 q6600 without pre-ordering and waitin from a company such as tankguys

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I took a quick look around and didn't see any reviews that placed a GTX vs GTS320 SLI directly, but I did find a couple that used the GTS640 SLI.

This one at FiringSquad, shows that the 640 SLI does pretty well against the single GTX at 1600x1200. Some games are better than others, showing up to a 30+% improvement. CoH was actually lower on the SLI, and, on others, the improvement was small-- 8-10%.

What monitor are you using? I didn't compare results higher than 1600x1200 resolution, but, if that's where you are, then I suppose a case could be made for going 320 SLI. The thing is cost vs performance. When just grabbing numbers from AT's real-time pricing engine, it looks like the cheapest GTX is $480 and 2 of the cheapest 320s are $532. So, on average according to the benchmarks on FS, the SLI gives a 17% boost in performance, and only costs 11% more.

Again, I suppose that's an ok tradeoff (again, assuming that 640SLI = 320SLI). But, keep in mind that not ALL games show benefits from SLI. And, if you look at those benchmarks, at no time does the SLI take a game from being UNplayable to playable.

It really comes down to what resolution you play at (and the games you play). But, even at 16x12, I don't see the 17% increase for 11% cost increase being worth it. With results being that close, I'd go with the single card. It's cheaper, and if you run into a game where SLI doesn't function correctly, the single GTX will destroy a single 320GTS.

 

[bamacre]

Drop the Raptor, dollar for dollar, worst thing you can buy.