Is this a good gaming system?

[astrotzky]

Hello,

I plan to buy a new computer soon and I thought it's wise to ask more people about my choices.
Here is what I have in mind:

Motherboard : http://www.asus.com/products.a...l1=3&l2=11&l3=709&l4=0]ASUS Maximus II Formula[/url] (200 EUR)
CPU : http://processorfinder.intel.c...tails.aspx?sSpec=SLB9L]INTEL E8600 - Core 2 Duo, 3.3GHz[/url] (230 EUR)
Video card : http://www.asus.com/products.a...model=2450&modelmenu=1]ASUS EAH4870X2 Radeon HD 4870 X2[/url] (460 EUR)
RAM : http://www.corsair.com/_datash...IN2X4096-6400C4DHX.pdf]Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX, 2x2GB, DRR2-800[/url] (100 EUR)
HDD : 2 x http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=459]Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS[/url] (480 EUR)
PSU : http://www.zalman.com/Eng/prod...oduct_Read.asp?idx=198]Zalman ZM850-HP - 850W[/url] (160 EUR)
Case : http://www.thermaltake.com/pro...dalf_lcs/vd4000bws.asp]Thermaltake Kandalf LCS[/url] (240 EUR)
DVD writer : Samsung SH-S203P (40 EUR)
Keyboard : http://www.everythingusb.com/l...5_gaming_keyboard.html]Logitech G15 2005 or G11[/url] (80 EUR); hope I will still find G15 2005 (had that cool wheel)
Mouse : http://www.logitech.com/index....e/devices/187&cl=us,en]Logitech MX 518[/url] (45 EUR)
Display : http://www.samsung.com/us/cons...odel_cd=LS24KIEEFV/XAA]Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM, 24'', 1920x1200[/url] (360 EUR)

In total it's about 2500 EUR and this is kind of my budget (can go a few hundreds higher but I don't really want to).

And here are my reasons:

Motherboard
- it's a P45 chipset based mobo because I don't trust NVIDIA on chipsets and it's not a X48 because I don't plan to use CrossFire (P5 has 2 PCIe ports, but each is 8x unlike 2 x 16x on X48)
- has hardware RAID (Speeding HDD)
- performs fine in reviews
- I trust ASUS as a brand

CPU
- fastest Core 2 Duo
- I plan to overclock it and would like not to increase the voltage; from the reviews I read this processor is the most stable with this kind of overclocking (probably brought by the new E0 stepping)

Video card
- needed a bad video card because I want to play all the games maxed out at 1920x1200
- the only thing better than this (but only slightly and not in all games) is 2 GTX 280, and that's at least 300 EUROs more. It's a no-brainer who provides better value here

RAM
- 2 x 2GB seems the best/enough for now (will use Vista or XP 64 bit editions)
- I trust the brand
- it's on ASUS' Qualified Vendor List which means it has been tested with the motherboard so I won't have problems

HDD
- 2 pieces of the fastest hard-drive available
- will use RAID 0
- solid state hard drives are just too expensive now (perhaps in a few years...)

PSU
- has enough juice (including amps)
- respected brand
- performs ok in reviews
- it's very quiet

Case
- looks cool
- it's quiet
- it has water cooling and I want that (I like it quiet), but I am not ready to make case modifications. I'm sure that if I were to cut the case myself it would look horrible

DVD RW
- from the reviews it seems ok
- has LightScribe which might come in handy

Mouse
- it's wired (had some bad experiences with gaming using wireless mice)
- can change DPI on-the-fly while you are in the game
- it's lighter than G5 (I don't like brick mice - heavy and big)

Display
- I like 24'' / 1920x1200
- it performs ok in the reviews
- has HDMI
- looks nice
- has TN panel which means it's cheap and it doesn't have noticeable input lag; I don't mind viewing angles: I will be gaming right in front of it


The video card will probably be the most noisy component and I will probably buy a water block as soon as I know there is no fabrication problem with it. I heard that mounting a water block voids the warranty so I want first to make sure I won't return it.

What do you think?
Will I have any incompatibilities?
Known issues with any component?
Are my choices correct?

P.S. Sorry for the huge post.


Thank you.


edit:
- added clarifications
- added links to the components' specifications
- updated prices

 

[DSF]

I think you're going to be underwhelmed by the impact of RAID 0, especially with only two drives on an integrated controller. My opinion is that it won't be worth bothering with.

I would save yourself some money on the CPU and go with the E8500. The slightly higher performance of the E8600 doesn't justify the much greater price tag even if you are overclocking. An E8500 is going to be fast enough for any game out there even without overclocking anyway.

 

[Blueychan]

Wow that's a killer system. I think it's a bit overkill, for gaming.

A couple things that stick out are the HDs and the CPU. I think you better off going for a single drive because the increase in performance of two drives is no where close to the price that you pay for another drive. As for the CPU, I suggest you get the E8500, the cost is $100 less and you only lose 166MHZ. Well if you have money like that, it's cool then.

 

[dmw16]

previous posters make excellent suggestions. dial it back a little unless you like spending money for unrealized performance.

 

[astrotzky]

I think you're going to be underwhelmed by the impact of RAID 0, especially with only two drives on an integrated controller.

The RAID0 will be on the Silicon Image controller (hardware). I don't know how good it is.
I though I will see a 1.5 increase in speed.

That said, you got me thinking about RAID0...
You said it's not always notable? I'm asking because I will also do some programming and my IDE (IntelliJ) really likes a fast hard drive.
Two of the fastest hard drives seemed like a good idea...

I think you're going to be underwhelmed by the impact of RAID 0, especially with only two drives on an integrated controller.

I read that the new E0 stepping allows me to overclock more without increasing the voltage.
I also read that the E8xxx have some problems with the thermal sensor which they fixed. I wouldn't like to see my CPU reporting 80C. Even if probably the real temp is not that high at all.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

RAID 0 won't give you 1.1 improvements, much less 1.5. It's only 5-10% faster.

Power supply is unnecessarily expensive.

I would get a cheaper motherboard, but whatever.

Get the E8500 or E8400 instead of the E8600, way too expensive for another .5 multiplier tacked on.

The built-in watercooling on Thermaltake systems is pretty bad, not much better than good air cooling. Go to the Cases/Cooling forum if you want to watercool.

HD 4870 x 1 is plenty for 1920x1200.

Just trying to save you some money.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: astrotzky
I read that the new E0 stepping allows me to overclock more without increasing the voltage.
I also read that the E8xxx have some problems with the thermal sensor which they fixed. I wouldn't like to see my CPU reporting 80C. Even if probably the real temp is not that high at all.

An E8600 might, but then again it might not. There are no guarantees in overclocking. Even if it does offer more performance at stock voltage, it's not going to be by leaps and bounds. You'll still be paying around 40-50% more for a performance improvement in the neighborhood of 5-10%. It's just not a smart decision fiscally.

Why so worried about stock voltage anyway? There's no single stock voltage on these chips, some come from the factory set to run at a higher voltage than others. If you, by the luck of the draw, get one of those higher-voltage chips then what did your $100 buy you? I'm pretty sure the temperature reporting issue has been fixed on the E8400 and E8500 chips at this point, but poking around the CPU forum would tell you for sure.

As far as RAID, I'm not sure where you heard that the performance improvement was that large, but it isn't. AnandTech has done more than one benchmark on the subject, and the conclusion is always the same. If I recall correctly, their RAID setup using WD Raptors shaved 1-2 seconds off of a 30-40 second level loading time. Worth the expense of the two drives plus the controller? Not in my mind.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: AnandTech HD Review 2007
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast loading times
The results speak for themselves with the RAID 0 setups offering extremely minor performance improvements in actual game load testing. You will likely not be able to notice any differences during actual game play with a RAID 0 setup. We know it was impossible for us.

BF2 Daqing Oilfields loading times
Once again we see a minimal difference between our RAID 0 and single drive configurations in this benchmark with only a one second difference in load times. In repeated testing it was difficult to discern any differences between the RAID 0 and single drive setups.

Nero Recoding
If you do a lot of video encoding then RAID 0 could end up saving you some precious minutes each day. Is it worth the cost or effort? Probably not, but it is one area besides benchmarking where RAID 0 actually made a difference. Of course, if you don't already have the fastest CPU for encoding available, that would have a far greater impact than RAID 0.

File Copying
We finish our tests with a benchmark that should have favored the RAID 0 setups due to a pure write scenario. Unlike our iPeak test (and for that matter a similar test in PCMark05) where the largest differences in scores between setups were generated, we have RAID 0 making no difference in this test and actually scoring worse than a single drive setup in two instances.

Final Thoughts
If it is not obvious by now, RAID 0 will provide outstanding results in synthetic benchmarks but really does nothing in actual applications.
RAID 0 sounds impressive in a system configuration and provides a performance placebo effect when viewing synthetic benchmarks. However, RAID 0 is just not worth the trouble or cost for the average desktop user or gamer, especially with the software RAID capabilities included on most motherboards.

AnandTech RAID-0 Raptor Review 2008
If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

 

[MarcVenice]

High-end components are often improportionally more expensive, they often maybe 20% extra speed, but cost 50-100% more. The HD4870X2 isn't such a bad buy imo. But two velociraptors are. I'd buy one instead, and buy a 750gb HD for storage. Same story for the e8600. I bet an e8400 will overclock to nearly the same speeds as a e8600, provided both are e0's. So save yourself 100 euro's there.

PSU is also rly expensive. For a single HD4870X2 a corsair 750tx will do as well, which I bet is a LOT cheaper. Hell, a 650tx or 620hx will suffice. I'd buy a p5q pro, also has 2 pci-e slots and probably all the features you need. I'd lose the case, buy a p182 or something similar instead, maybe a antec 900. Buy a tuniq tower 120 or similar HSF and it will provide almost the same cooling as the watercooling in that case.

This will save you a lot of money. You can also look at it like this. If you spend 1500 euro's now, you can spend another 1000 euro's in a years time. That way you will have FAR more performance then going with the most expensive components right now.

 

[astrotzky]

This is what I have decided:

1. Motherboard: I like the Maximus II Formula one, even if it's expensive.
2. CPU: will buy a dual-core. I will buy a quad when at least 50% of the games I play can take advantage of it. I will also get it cheaper.
Now, I know E8600 it not worth the money, but it's the only way to make sure I buy a E0 stepping (I buy online) so I will go with that.
3. Video card: 4870x2 it is. No question about it.
4. RAM: I keep it. Of the DDR2-1066 2x2GB kits on the ASUS Qualified Vendor List I can't find any of them to buy. I don't want to buy memory that's not on the QVL. I know it will probably work, but I also know that the memory on the QVL works for sure).
5. HDD: It seems 2xVelociraptor in RAID is not worth it. What do you recommend? Would a 64GB SSD system drive and a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS, 640GB for data would be a good ideea? Or maybe two? In RAID ? At least the price of two of those is still a lot less that a single Velociraptor.
6. PSU: It seems Corsair is pretty popular. Do you have recommendations to make for a quiet model?
7. Case: I'm torn apart on this. I understand their water kits are the entry point to water cooling. All the reviews I read said it's ok (not great), it's on par with high-end air cooling. Is this true? Because, frankly I don't need more.
And one more thing. I CAN'T go with air cooling. Water is the only way to make the 4870x2 silent.

So that left me with 3 questions: HDD, PSU and case. Could you help me here, please?

 

[DSF]

RAIDing two drives expecting a useful performance gain is just a fool's errand. That's true for any desktop drive. Even moreso than the E8600, the slight performance gain you might see doesn't justify the exorbitant price tag. I would stick with a single WD Caviar 640GB.

My brother has a Raptor (not VelociRaptor) and I have a Samsung Spinpoint 500GB. You know who gets into the level first when we play games online? Me. I'm not saying the Spinpoint is faster, I'm just saying that hard drive performance for gaming is highly overrated, and that other factors can influence loading times. (And loading times are about all a hard drive is good for in gaming - a hard drive isn't going to influence your frame rate in any meaningful way.)

My Corsair 520HX is as quiet as a PSU gets. All of their models have a reputation for quiet operation, although I haven't used all of them personally.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: astrotzky
Or maybe two? In RAID ?

I could have sworn I already posted Raid0.txt in this thread already.

Get yourself a pair of the 640GB WD Caviar drives; one for your OS and programs, and the other for media storage. Hard drives make very little difference to gaming unless you've absolutely bought the biggest and best CPU, fastest GPU and quickest and largest amount of RAM.