Serious Gaming rig recommendations

[Sirrion]

Sometime in late July - Mid August, I plan on creating a new rig that will be about 90% gaming and 10% everything else (Surfing, Music, Movies, etc). This will be a heavy gaming rig and I want to create a very good, clean, high performing system for up-coming titles like QuakeWars, HL2 Orange, Crysis, etc for a good 1-2 years. I have decided to go with the following items but am having trouble deciding on a CPU and PSU.

I plan to purchase the following:

Asus p5k Deluxe Mobo
2-4 gig DDR2 PC2 8500 Ram (Was thinking OCZ Reaper)
eVGA 8800 GTX 768 mb Video Card
Cooler Master Stacker 830 case
Swiftech home-made Water Cooling system (Cpu, GPU, Chipset)
Western Digital Raptor 10000 rpm 150 gig (or 2x 75)
Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Sound Card
Windows Vista Home Premium

With these items on the list, first off I need advice on a good quality PSU that will provide enough juice to power these items. In addition, i plan on doing as much Overclocking as i possibly can squeeze out of the CPU, I'm trying for 4.0g's if i can. Can someone please offer some recommended PSU's to keep this powered? Will a 520 watt PSU suffice or should i be looking for something more?

Most importantly, I am concerned about which CPU to purchase. Obviously I will be sticking with Intel, but I'm having a difficult time decided between the eXXXX models and the QXXXX. As the price reduction approaches, I am leaning towards the Q6600, but In all honesty, will Quad cores be complete overkill for gaming? Keep in mind I am planning on keeping this rig for roughly 2 years, so I am partial to the "yes" answer. BUT....I am also aware the g0 steppings will be released later this year and for my overclocking purposes, those new 45nm cores will be much easier to O/C (in terms of them producing less heat of course). Is a Qxxxx overkill for gaming, or is it true that future games (within the next year or so) will be able to take advantage of the Quad cores? I'm of the mind-set that even if only a few popular games will take advantage of the Quad-cores, that is enough for me to purchase it. But Also keep in mind i ONLY game on this rig. I rarely run more than 1 or 2 programs at a time, and never dwell into video editing, rarely burn cd/dvds, etc.

So we have the following possiblities:

A) Purchase e6400 and just stick with it indefinitely.
B) Purchase e6400 soon, and use it until the market has been flooded with g0 stepping 45nm cores. Then purchase a Q6600.
C) Purchase Q6600 from current stock of cores and hope Water cooling will suffice to allow a decent amount of O/C.
D) Wait for the g0 steppings to flood and purchase a Q6600 sometime in September

At this time I'm not leaning towards any of the above more than the others, so I will gladly take any recommendations or thoughts on the matter.

1 last thing, can i get a general consensus on whether or not the OCZ Reaper is a good set of Ram for gaming and O/Cing? Are there a few other sets that would perform just as well, or better for around the same price or cheaper?

Thank you ahead of time for all thoughts on this subject.

 

[PCTC2]

just a quick thing, get an E6420 instead of a E6400.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
just a quick thing, get an E6420 instead of a E6400.

Yep, what he said. :thumbsup:

Since you indicate that gaming is your thing then the E6420 is definitely the way to go.

 

[bryanW1995]

I would lean towards b with pctc2's advice factored in. 6420 is almost exactly same price as 6400 right now. If you're thinking b or d, you might want to wait until jul 22. http://i.slickdeals.net/attach...tid=38611&d=1179164443
As you can see, you will be able to spend very little to get a lot of performance. the e4400/e4500 especially look good as they are unlikely to drop much in price in the coming months and they have high multipliers so you can overclock to your heart's content!

 

[Cheex]

:thumbsup:

Get an E6420 now and then get yourself a 45nm G0 Q6600 later....FTW!!

:thumbsup:

 

[nyker96]

yes I agree with others E6420 is the better choice for price and get a nice Quad a bit later when games start using quad more and it becomes dirt cheap. as for PSU, I think you need some seriously good model like Corsair but I can see you go SLI later so I can say you need something HX 620 or better. The link below has a nice section on PSU reviews check it out, I'm sure it'll be enough to help you pick a nice high end PSU. But whatever you do don't skim on the PSU, on a high end system, stability longivity all depend on PSU.

Linky

 

[MarcVenice]

Yeah, you'll be better of with a higher overclocked e6420, at 3.6ghz, then with a qaudcore clocked to 3-3.2ghz. Slap one in later on, considering you have a p35 mobo, and be a happy gamer. Go with 4gig, and whatever is cheaper. High-end ram like that barely justifies the insane prices compared to increases in speed.

 

[amenx]

Since you already have a good sized budget for a decent rig, why not consider the e6850? It will be the same price as the Q6600 in July (around $266) and has far greater OC potential than the e6420. If reaching 4ghz is a goal, that will do it far easier than the e6420, its stock speed is 3ghz and has a 9 multi.

 

[BoboKatt]

Yes if you are willing to spend the new prices for the q6600 and an e6850 is the same price but runs at 3GHz to start and has a nice multiplier, I would for sure go for that over the quad. Wait on the qaud.... man you don't need it unless you are using apps that specifically take massive advantage of the extra cores. You will still be clocked lower and have a "harder" time oc'ing that. You will deal with a hotter chip... and maybe some boards still have some issues with quads.

The Reaper RAM looks good.. I am stuck between that and the Ballistix personally. If anyone want to chime in please do.

 

[Sirrion]

Thanks everyone for all the good information. At this point I am leaning more towards the E6420 or possibly the E6850 for now, and then purchasing a Q 45nm maybe later this year. On a similar note concerning ram, will "Good" ram do just fine for my O/C expectations or is it more advisable to go with "Extreme Super-Duper Awesome Wow" Ram? I plan on purchasing 4 gigs so id like to try and buy "Good" ram to save on costs, but if i will see noticable differences between "Extreme" and "Good", I may go with the "Extreme" ?

 

[PCTC2]

well, if you get a Gigabyte P35C instead of the Asus, you can just pick up some decent DDR2 and then upgrade to DDR3 at a later date.

 

[Modelworks]

Stick with dual core for now.
Put the extra money into ram.
You will see much more benefit from the ram than you will more cores.

 

[orion23]

Here is the REAPER RAM:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/....jsp?ProductCode=85282

$140 After a $40 MIR (only 1 rebate per Houshold though, family member?)

However, if you read the reviews @ the egg, not very promissing..

I personally recommend the Crucial ballistix line. Best RAM I have ever owned.


If you cannot wait, get the E6420 for now. Maybe a used E6400 from ebay.

You can also try www.tankguys.com and pre-order a G0 Quad from them. Highly recommended reseller.

The rest of the hardware can be purchased already since prices are not likely to change on the VGA or motherboard, or even the PSU.

About the motherboard... Asus will be launching a "NEW" P5K Premium board which they claim is even better than the P5K deluxe. Both look identical so I really don't know what they are doing...

PSU?

I have used 3 OCZ 700W SLI units in 3 different systems and I couldn't ask for more.

I don't have a Quad, but my PSU can hold my P5K deluxe, E6600 @ 3.8 , 4ghz, 3 X 400GB SATA HD's, 8800GTX (overclocked) bunch of fans, controllers, lights

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Search.jsp

You couldn't go wrong with any other branded 700W + units.

Read the reviews @ the egg on PSU's...

 

[Eomer of Aldburg]

Im actually facing the same problem that he has. Should I also go with the Dual core now even after the price drop?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Eomer of Aldburg
Im actually facing the same problem that he has. Should I also go with the Dual core now even after the price drop?

If you have the same situation, why would you go another path? Unless you don't have the money to upgrade later.

 

[drakore]

For a gaming rig, i like the e6420. High enough clock speeds, room for overclocking, it's cheap so if you want to go for a penryn in a couple months then it's not a big deal. I would not get a Q6600, kinda pointless since you said a system change would be done in about 2 years. Games are not currently written for 4 cores, and i doubt they will be fully quad core ready by that time. So yeah the e6420 is good.

The mobo is good, but take a look at the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6, it is a good alternative. Runs cooler than the P5K, but does kind of have a big heatsink design. Either board will serve you well.

For this rig I wouldn't recommend going with the GA-P35C-DS3R, because of the life of the system. You are a big time gamer obviously, and DDR2 will have enough longevity for 2 years. When it comes time to change this system, then you could look at making the change over to DDR3, when the speeds are higher and latencies are lower. The problem with the combo board is the lack of speed supported by the board for DDR3.

PSU is a no brainer. Corsair 620HX FTW! It will do what you need it to do no problem, with room for additional components. It's modular, and holds rails under load like it ain't no thang.

If you want to go into detail about decisions you can PM me

 

[Eomer of Aldburg]

Should I wait for the price drop to get the E6750 instead of the E6420?

 

[orion23]

Well, the Q6600 has been on sale @ fry's.com for $300 shipped!

 

[Eomer of Aldburg]

Originally posted by: orion23
Well, the Q6600 has been on sale @ fry's.com for $300 shipped!

300 is a bit more than I want to take 266 or 186 preferably.

 

[Rhoxed]

Get the e6420, Crucial Ballistix ram, and for PSU its up to you, i would reccomend 650W+ i have an Antec True Power Trio 650W running an x2 3800 @ 2.7ghz, 5 Hard Drives, 7800GT SLI, 2 DVD burners, and 8 case fans with no problems with load power.