Soon to take the plunge and buy a SCAN!

[en3sge]

Hi everyone!

Im new on these forums although I have been reading them a lot over the past few months before I signed up.

Im about to 'take the plunge' and buy a new SCAN system soon. I say 'take the plunge' as this will be my first ever gaming pc (and therefore my first, and biggest, financial investment into a pc).

So this brings me to SCAN. Anyone remember the advert for stella - 'reassuringly expensive' - thats how I view SCAN. Its seems other companies can give you packages that are a bit cheaper but all reviews suggest the SCAN components are very solid. This, coupled with a fantastic post-sale customer service (Ive been following a user of this forum 'recon' and his build that keeps going wrong and the scan response has been amazing - AAAA service) and I know where my money is going.

I dont want to write an essay so I will keep the praise short (ha). I am looking to buy a 'SCAN 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 - Custom PC Premium Grade' but I have a few questions and ammendments I want to make. I will list below (if anyone can help here I would greatly appreciate):

1) Overclocking - Is it possible to have more than 2 BIOS settings for overclock? I know the i7 920 can reach 3.8 but I would only really use that when essential. I would like one at stock, one at 3.2 (or somewhere around there thats very stable) and one at 3.8Ghz for flight simulator or other cpu limted games.

2) I want to get 285GTX SLI but I hear this can cause microstuttering problems. Does SCAN know if this is a big problem with SLI and should I just choose one card and upgrade when the 300 series comes out?

3) Does the overclocking include the graphics card and RAM?

4) Would SCAN install windows XP on a partition if I gave them my current XP code (I have an old pc I dont use anymore with XP media centre so I dont want to buy XP again)?

5) IS there a 2Gb gtx 285 I can use instead of the 1Gb (thinking of AA at high resolutions)

6) Can SCAN disbale the UAC on windows vista before it arrives?

7) Am I limited by the case options or can I choose any case I want?

Thats a lot of questions but as you can probably tell, this is a big financial commitment for me and one I wont make for another 5 or 6 years at least so I want to make sure its all good.

Oh and I will probably be ordering later in August when my wages have gone through

Thanks everyone!

[RECON]

Hi en3sge

My 3XS build had a run of bad luck, but as you can see the support from Scan has been top notch
You are in safe hands

Ill try and answer your questions

1. Most motherboards offer multiple bios settings and you can switch between them
Talk to the sales team and im sure they can add some extra profiles you would like

2. I have not heard of the stutter issues

3. Overclocking includes the ram only, This is matched with the CPU overclock i think
The Scan guys can explain as I dont really understand this

4. Not something I can help with

5. There is a 2gb 285 card
In my opinion if you want to spend this amount on a GPU go for the new Evga 295 coop
Its a single pcb 295 card that cost a little more but the performance is outstanding

6 . Im sure that can be done
Its easy to do yourself, only a 20 second job

7. Scan will build into any case they sell
Talk to sales when you make the order to make sure that the case will take all your parts

Hope that helps you

[en3sge]

Thanks recon.

Have to say, your recent posts have been very inspiring (in the 'never give up' kinda of way). Reminds me when I bought a launch ps2 at Argos in yr 2000 and I had to return 5 of them before they gave me a refund due to faults. They had been sold a bad batch unfortunately. Well, I then went to Dixons to buy one and that one had backwards compatibility broken so I ened up buying 6 in the end before the 7th was right! Happy days...

So yep SCAN cust service seems extremely good. Thanks for your suggestions. I am probably not going with the 295 as there are a few games out that dont support SLI and therefore in these situations you are effectively getting a gtx260 performance. Plus the GTX 285 SLI seems to be unbeaten in pretty much anything (except by tri/quad SLI).

I am still a bit concerned though about the power usage of the computer when idle or just internet browsing etc. This is how I spend my time - 55/35/10 in terms of internet/gaming/other and for that 55% I dont want to be using too much power as it isnt needed. But with the 35% I want as much power as possible!

Do you know if there is an option to chnage to onboard graphics in windows? Or some sort of solution to use a very low graphics setting?

Thanks!

[en3sge]

***NOTE PLEASE DO NOT POST REPLIES HERE AS I MIS-POSTED IN THE WRONG FORUM. I HAVE RESTARTED THIS THREAD IN THE SCAN 3SX SYSTEMS SUPPORT FORUM WHERE I ORIGINALLY INTENDED IT TO GO*** (Sorry mods for any inconvenience)