New PC Build - Feel free to tear me apart

[nzavitz]

Hi guys, it has been a while since ive built a PC but my friend has asked for some help with this. I have about $2000 CDN to work with and she wants a pretty solid gaming platform.

MOBO : MAXIMUS FORMULA (ASUS) x38 chipset i think ?
PROC : E6850 4 MB L2 3 GHz 1333 MHz
MEM : Mushkin HP2-8500 High Performance DDR2 SDRAM, 2GB Dual Pack x2 (4GB)
PS : Corsair TX 650W Power Supply w/ 120mm Fan
Video : either 2x 9600GT SLI or 2x 8800GT SLI

She will be running windows XP still so there is no point in going over the 4gb of ram.


My questions are, is that enough wattage on the PS to run the SLI setup?
Which of the two SLI video card solutions would you chooose ?
I am not a fan of quad cores either but one of u might be able to convince me otherwise.

What do u think of this ?

The case and other misc stuff she is taking care of.

 

[Jax Omen]

You can't do SLI on an x38. Your only options for SLI are the Nvidia motherboards. Either drop SLI (maybe get her a nice 8800GTS (G92), or go with an SLI-capable motherboard.

How much is that E6850? an E8400 is only around $200US and it faster, plus it overclocks better.

 

[jaqie]

You can do SLI if you get a single-card SLI on a card, like the GX2, but SLI is actually a bit of a headache for non-techies if home built, so you may want to just go with a single high end card.
If you don't plan on overclocking it (and for someone else's use I DON'T recommend it) then you don't need to spend on that high end of a ram, just slap in some not-so-overclockable but oh-so-reliable kingston ram and save some cash for something else.

I've never heard of nor run a corsair PSU, but you may want to do some checking out to see if it is truly a good supply or not. The list of supplies I will run is short indeed: pc power & cooling, fortron source, sparkle ltd, silverstone. IMO using anything less reliable is tantamount to tossing your computer components inside an arc furnace.

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: jaqie

I've never heard of nor run a corsair PSU,

Well FYI, they're quite popular around here.

corsair psu's are recommended in probably over 75% of new computer threads I've seen here




OP: the PSU you picked will do SLI just fine, as long as it's not something insane like 2x 9800 GX2's.


Pick up an e8400 and a 780i chipset SLI mobo.

Stick with 2x2GB DDR2-800 ram, you won't need DDR2-1066 unless you're overclocking very heavily.

I think the 9600GT's in SLi is a pretty good value

 

[nzavitz]

Thanks for the tips. I cant believe i missed that on the x38 / non SLI thing lmao. Im just a huge fan of ASUS mobos.

 

[Roguestar]

Corsair PSUs are in fact made OEM by Seasonic, they're of generally very high quality.

 

[Darksorrow]

what about the OCZ Silent?

 

[imported_wired247]

nothing wrong with OCZ PSU's that I know of. nothing at all. sometimes these things are just a matter of preference.