Buying the ultimate gaming PC

[Chedburn]

Hello everyone! I'm in the process of building an Elite gaming machine. I mean... best of the best.

My current is shown below

The Old machine:

-Motherboard is a Gigabyte 754 slot.
-Athlon 3300 sempron (i had to downgrade it when my athlon 3400 blew up)
-Two 100GB+ 7200rpm HDDs
-1.5 GB DDR Ram
-Radeon x1800
-Sound blaster X-FI with 7.1 surround sound speakers
-400watt psu
-Windows XP
-Two 24" TFT Monitors (duals) 1920x1200 each
-All ya standard other stuff, dvd rom, floppy etc

After a few months of research my mind is more or less made up for my new system. The elite one.

The New Elite machine:

-AM2 motherboard

-Athlon 64 FX-64 (which comes out tomorrow I believe, unless they changed it, otherwise i will go for FX-62) It has been classed the greatest gaming CPU of all time by many sites.

-Two or more 100GB+ 10,000RPM+ HDDs, maybe 15,000RPM

-4 GB DDR II RAM

-Radeon x1800 (maybe crossfired, if it will make a big difference)

-Sound blaster X-FI (may aswell keep this sound card as its pretty elite anyway)

-600w+ psu

-Windows XP (and windows Vista in january when its released i think since the FX are 64 bit and support it)

-Two 24" TFT Monitors (duals) 1920x1200 each

-Water cooling

What are your thoughts on this setup i'm buying. So far i have only ordered the case (an elite one ) with water cooling at the price of £500!! My total spending limit is around £3000 but less unless i have to spend that amount (vice versa). I will begin purchasing the components in a few days.

I play a few games, including CS:S, BF2, Eve-Online. Will all these work perfectly on best quality with this setup?

Does the RPM on HDDs make a big difference?
Does crossfireing GFX cards make a big difference?
Is the FX-64 the one to go for?
Do i need a bigger PSU for this?
What would you suggest?
What do you think I should change?
Do you have any tips?

Thanks alot :-)

P.s Sorry I finaly found a decent place for this to go, in the Hardware help section. This place is a maze! :-D

[HyeongSeong]

I think you have posted in the wrong section of the forum. From all the review that I had come across (althon 64 vs Conroe) there is no way that the FX-64 is going to be the best game for gaming. You should have look at this link and see for your self:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6184&page=8

I know that FX-64 is not in there but I don’t think that pump up a bit on the clock speed will improve thing that much compare to fx62.

Definitely go for the new Core 2 Extreme X6800.

[unreal]

Very nice system mate, beats mine like 10-fold

However my two pieces of advice are;

1. If you're gonna make such a hefty investment, waaaaaaaaaait for the new generation of graphics cards which I assume are coming very soon - if they are not, get what you've chosen
2. Core 2 Extreme X6800

[mart_haj86]

As much as it pains me to say it. (being a AMD fan boy n all).. the Conroe is the way to go at present

[Chedburn]

Thanks for the advice. I'm a complete noob when it comes to intel, i have always been an athlon guy. I will have a look at some reviews of it after i've read the Hexus gaming pc building guide. I will keep checking up on this thread

Im also guessing this intel cpu does not support 64 bit, does this mean I will have to buy another one when vista comes out in order to use it? Also, how long do you think this CPU will stay the best, or one of the best?

And yes sorry, i know i posted in the wrong area. I realised that after posting and browsing the forums for quite some time. I have to say, hexus is a nice place. :-)

[Steve B]

all the intels now have 64-bit extensions, so they will be capable of running windows Vista when it appears

[Spud1]

Yeah Conroes have 64-bit - but thats kinda irrelavent at the moment...64bit is just a marketing gimmick at the moment for home users - and has been ever since the athlon64 was released. Sure you can run 64bit windows, but you see negligable performance increase (and in some cases decreases), and will probably suffer from driver hell unless all your devices are new and common..32-bit is still the way to go for now in the consumer market

I would say go conroe for sure though, since you have the budget for the top end one GFX wise you could wait for the next generation, but as you already have an X1800 you could always stick in another one and go crossfire..will last you for a while yet (i'm still happy with my single X800 )

A question for you though - how did you spend 500quid on watercooling??? better be near as dammit silent for that price...you could get a phase change cooler for less than that which would give you sub-zero temps..

[Steve B]

im guessing a UFO with w/c prefitted

[Chedburn]

Hehe, yes I realise spending £500 is a little retarded, and yes...... It is prefitted which I know is a very nooby thing to do and i could very well have fitted it myself. But it is a Very good case - Lian Li G70.

It was £435 to be exact.

Lian Li G70 Case
Profiled AquaComputer Radiator Cut
Fitted with Evo360 Radiator, Black Grill and 3 x Papst 120mm Fans
Aquabay with Aquatube Reservoir
Black Aluminium Fascia for Aquabay
Aquastream v3.5 Pump with Front Status Bay
Black Fascia for Aquastream
3 metres of 8mm tubing
ACFluid , Thermal Compound, Case Badge, Allen Key Set


I just love the look of it and I know its going to look/work better if a professional fits the water cooling. - And i had the cash to do it

After reading up on the 6800 i am starting to like the sound of it. I think i'm one post away from being able to post links (OMG YES), could you check the one out on dabs.com and tell me if thats the one or not and if thats a decent price? It gives alot less specification details than dabs usualy does for some reason. And theres a 1-2 week wait If I change CPU now, that puts all my motherboard ideas down the drain. What the socket / best socket type for this CPU?

Cheers

[Steve B]

the cpu appears in the LGA775 package, and theres a few motherboards around that you can use with it.

Gigabyte do a good range, the DS3, coming in at around £100, the DS4 coming in at around £110, or the DSQ coming in at around £140. All these motherboards use the 965 chipset, which, according to recent tests is slightly better than the Intel "Badaxe" i975 chipset. Coming from Asus, theres the P5W-DH series, also running the i975 chipset. that ones the most expensive of the bunhc, coming in at around £150.

That said, conroe boards are thin on the ground at the minute, so if you can afford to wait a couple of weeks just to see things pan out, it'll be very beneficial. Also, current memory compatibilities are incredibly limited, as BIOS issues haven't been resolved and current BIOS are not that far past beta stage. If thats a risk ur willing to take then go for it, its worth it totally, as the performance gain over an FX-62 is insane

[Chedburn]

I suppose its worth the risk, motherboards aren't really an expensive/hard thing to change if I need to.

Thanks v much for the help, I seriously would not know where to start when it comes to intel motherboards/cpus.

So at this moment in time, I believe the best setup would probably be:

Gigabyte S775 Intel 965P ATX GLan 8CH Audio ATX
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0&v=2#infoarea

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Socket 775 2.93GHz
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...1143&InMerch=1

I feel bad asking, but could you check them over for me and see if they will work with each other? And would you say this was the best option for me?

Thanks very much

[Steve B]

my conroe is sitting waiting for me at home, and im having trouble deciding which board to go for. My thoughts are with the DQ6, but the justification of an extra £30 for a marginal amount of extra features is causing me to contemplate the DS4. The extra 2 sata ports will definitely come in handy, and the heatpipe cooling system is always a bonus. Plus its only an extra tenner over the DS3

[Spud1]

looks a good choice to me - I would say buy through scan, but that dabs link is almost 100quid cheaper...

[Chedburn]

This motherboard?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0&v=3#infoarea

You said it has an extra 2 sata ports. It has one customer review on that motherboard from dabs:

Linux uses beware!
Reviewed by Bradley. Review Posted 02/08/2006
Those wishing to install Linux beware! The sata hdd controller causes soo much problems.

Of course, hes only talking about linux, but what if it it messes with windows? Just thought you may like to express your thoughts on this review.

Yes, Dabs always seems to be cheaper than everywhere else. They also deliver straight to my door usualy the next day, sometimes the same day which is always nice! And if i don't like it, i simply fill in some stuff on the site and they send someone to pick it back up from me for free! Dabs 4tw.

[Steve B]

currently, ive not heard of any problems with the ds4 under windows, as everyone seems to be getting on OK. Pair this board with the 6800 and get some PC8000 DDRII memory, and this thing will absolutely scream along!

[Chedburn]

Ah yes, I was looking at the PC28000 a week ago. I was thinking about getting

Crucial 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM PC2-8000 Unbuffered Non-ECC CL5
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...150,4294955836


However, £339 for 2GB is hell expensive heh. Ive read some reviews on the Crucial brand and they seem pretty good, very popular. Is it worth getting two of these equaling to 4GB?



Having said that, I just noticed on the motherboard specs:

Supported RAM Speed
PC2-4300
PC2-5300
PC2-6400

Doesn't seem to support the PC2-8000?