My New Build

[quatmeat]

hey guys, i got all the parts picked out, i wanna build a computer for hardcore gaming mostly, with a little bit of video/sound editing. I wanna spend a max of 1.8k on it. And if you guys can suggest anything that will save me money, but not suffer in the performance, that would be great. Not sure if i wanna overclock yet, i think i could be fine on default settings.. well tell me what you guys think, suggestions for new/different parts would be appreciated thanks.

here's a link to it: Wish List
and here' s a list of all the parts

Case- Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower

Mobo- GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX

Video Card- EVGA 512-P3-N841-AR GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

Processor- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor

RAM- G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

HD- SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drive- LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe

Extra Cooling- Tuniq Tower 120 P4 & K8 CPU Cooler

Monitor Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support

 

[chinaman1472]

At that price, for SLi, my recommendations:
Same Case
Same Mobo
Video Cards - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16814130325
Power Supply - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16817139002
Processor - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16819115037
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16820231122
HDD - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16822152052
DVD Burner - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16827151154
Extra Cooling - http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16835154001

Subtotal in Newegg wish list was just under $1700.

Don't forget you'll need Vista 64-Bit to see/use 4GB, otherwise it'll be 3.2-3.5GB.
Extra Cooling is unnecessary unless you overclock really.
E8400 is cheaper, faster, cooler, and uses less power than the E6850.
Get DDR2-800 instead of DDR2-667 memory.
500GB is cheaper than 250GB dollar per gigabyte.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14161/4
Tech Reports recent review shows that you only lose about 5-15 frames (and the difference are at fps where the game is still playable most of the time) in most cases, and that's with the 8800GT SLi, not the 8800GTS vs the 8800GTX SLi. If the extra $240-460 is worth those extra frames, then by all means, go for it. But I'd rather treat myself to a couple of tanks of gas for my car .

 

[MarcVenice]

I'm pretty much with Chinaman on everything. When not overclocking the tuniq tower will be a little overkill, and the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro will be more then sufficient in terms of cooling and quietness.

Have you considered NOT going SLI btw ? I mean, you could save almost 90$ on the PSU and 150$ on the motherboard. That's 240$ saved, because right now, a single 8800gt or 8800gts still offers great performance. In total you'd be saving 500$ !!! In a years time, when Nvidia's and ATI's new high-end cards are out, and have settled in price, 500$ will buy you a videocard that will blow away 2 sli-ed 8800gts's. And that, without the hassle of SLI, which doesn't always scale that well. Hell, in roughly 6-8 months time I bet 250$ will buy you a videocard that will perform equally if not better then 2 sli-ed 8800gts's.

 

[Roguestar]

You could just not SLI and use a single 3870X2.

 

[quatmeat]

i took your suggestions on the processor, RAM, and video cards, but why would you suggest that power supply over the one i have now? and also i like liteOn a lot.. and i dont see much of a difference in the two (liteon and samsung) and also why that particular fan/heatsink over the other.

 

[imported_wired247]

your setup looks totally fine IMHO, and so does chinaman's setup, either way you won't go wrong

 

[MarcVenice]

Hmmm, the OCZ PSU will be fine, you don't really need 700w though, and you could get a modular powersupply instead. Gives a cleaner look, and better airflow. Not sure why he picked the tuniq over the arctic freezer 7 pro, the tuniq is better, but also more expensive. If you ever plan on doing some 'heavy' overclocking, the tuniq would be the way to go, for little to 'medium' overclocking, the arctic freezer 7 pro will be just fine.

 

[chinaman1472]

Tuniq is well within the budget and is a better cooler.
But in the case of not even overclocking, stock cooling would be just fine.

 

[quatmeat]

hey guys, i talked to some people and took your suggestions and changed pretty much everything on my build.. figured that in 5-6 months a new video card will come out and my SLI will become obsolete so im just gonna stick with one card for now. Also upgraded to a Quad Core processor, and plan on overclocking it and changed the fan/heatsink too. I changed the motherboard, because it seemed best for my processor/cooling device. tell me if you think i should use the ASUS I picked or one that would be better for my setup. thanks

 

[quatmeat]

also do you think i should just go with Window XP Home edition, the 64 Bit edition or Vista?

 

[chinaman1472]

Good choices, some notes:

Motherboard - Do you need all those extra features? A $100 motherboard generally has the same overclocking capabilities. For instance, the Gigabyte P35-DS3L at $90 will do nearly the same thing, minus a Crossfire setup and some extra ports. That being said, the ASUS mobo you picked out is still a good mobo. Though its well within your budget, money saved on your computer is money you can spend elsewhere.

CPU - E8400 is still the better choice for hardcore gaming while Q6600 is the better choice for hardcore photo/video editing. E8400 also overclocks a little higher (4.0GHz I hear with good cooling). The E8400 is also cheaper and runs cooler at 45nm.

Video Card - SLi won't necessary be obselete. It's just that spending 2x as much money doesn't necessary equate to 2x the performance. Having 8800GT(S) in SLi will still competitive after a year unless every game released is programmed like Crysis (or Supreme Commander). Video cards get released nearly every 6-12 months, so something will always be faster. I don't know if a $250 video card in a years time will be equal or beat SLi 8800GTS... but sure as hell give it a run for its money, depending on how the market goes. But you're probably better off saving money on your overall system now and getting a new video card next year.

Heatsink - IIRC, the Tuniq Tower (and ThermalRight Ultra 120?) is still the reigning champ. Not saying that the Zalman you picked out is bad, but the Tuniq Tower is still the same price, even after the extra 120mm fan ($40 + $15 fan). If you like the Zalman you picked out, by all means pull the trigger, it's unlikely the performance of either will be noticeable (maybe a degree or two difference, an extra 100mhz).

OS - Vista 64-bit if you want to fully utilize 4GB+ RAM.

Also, I picked out a Corsair PSU because its well known they use quality parts and tend to be fairly quiet. The OCZ you picked out is probably just as good. Same reasoning as the Tuniq Tower.

 

[quatmeat]

yah thanks i took your suggestion on the motherboard, that saved me some money, i didnt even realize that other one was expensive cuz of the crossfire. Also i'll use that Uniq Tower, seems to perform better than the zalman, and zalman has lights that i wont be able to see anyways. Im stil not sure a/b using vista though.. i heard games like crysis run better using directX9 rather than 10.. and that Xp is just more stable.. im willing to upgrade to vista later.. still not sure if i should do it now or later when a better service pack comes out. I also added a moniter and bigger HD

 

[chinaman1472]

If I had the choice, I'd probably opt to use the extra 500-800MB of memory and Vista rather than XP if I had to buy an OS. I think most games have been patched up to use DX10 just as good as DX9 and Vista is fairly stable now.

Monitor seems good, you might want to check out the Video and Graphics forum for a little more information. For me, the best way to shop for monitors (and TVs) is to go down to the store and physically see the unit and the picture it produces before making the purchase.

 

[imported_wired247]

vista 64 bit... it's the most logical way to go for most people unless there is something specific that you know for sure won't work on it.

The service pack is coming out in less than a month, and even without the service pack, I have not experienced one crash. It is far superior to XP when installed on new, powerful machines

Can't imagine what "more stable" would feel like... vista simply kicks ass

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: quatmeat
also do you think i should just go with Window XP Home edition, the 64 Bit edition or Vista?

XP-x64 is an abomination. Go with Vista and you'll be pleasantly surprised. For all the Vista-bashing out there it's surprising how few people have actually tried it instead of just going straight to slating it.

 

[MarcVenice]

Hey, more then a 100 million copy's of Vista have sold allready, it's not that bad, in fact, it's pretty good. Oh, and Vista is REQUIRED to run in dx10, but that does't mean you can't run in dx9 if you wanted to. As for stability, it has crashed three times on me now, every single time it happened when I wanted to run speedfan, for some reason it doesn't play nice with other software, but besides speedfan, I've had no bsods or any other instability issues so far.

 

[quatmeat]

so i should go with the 64-bit edition of Vista, since i have 4gigs of ram, not the 32-bit. ive read there are some compatability issues w/ the 64bit edition though.. soemtimes w/ motherboard drivers and things like that.

 

[MarcVenice]

Tbh, a lot of people on these fora use Vista 64x, and I haven't seen many if any complaints at all. Yes, Vista 64x used to SUCK, but it no longer does. It's been a pretty smooth experience for me, and I've been using it for 8 months or so. Vista 64x Ultimate btw.

 

[hoovie]

I'm going to agree on the E8400. Unless you are doing something that you would really benefit from 4 cores, the dual core E8400 will more than be sufficient. Not to mention that on air cooling, some people have overclocked it to 4.5Ghz.

On a side note, I too am building a system, but sadly, I already had a copy of vista home premium(bought last year, around this time). I assume that the 64bit version is NOT available to me, if I didn't buy the explicitly labeled version? (sorry about the hijack)