Help!?! - New Rig???

Hi M8ys

i was tinking about going for a an Alienware Aurora 7500 due to all the problems ive had with my current rig and building it all up and was going to spend £2500 which is still only gonna get me a 7900GT a Dual Core 4200+, 2 Gig of Ram, Aegia Physx Card and liquid cooling for the processor.

but after seeing scans panther bundle im in 2 minds this is what i can get would like anyones opinon please:

Panther Quad SLi DIY Barebone - £1409.99
AMD Athlon 64 X2 FX-60 Socket 939 , Toledo Core, 2x 2.6GHz , 2MB Cache, Retail - £727.33
2GB (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX XPERT LED, DDR PC3200 (400), 184 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 2-3-3-6 - £217.36
Coolermaster Aquagate MINI 120 Water Cooler System - £46.75

i havent added any hard drives or dvd writter as ive got 2 raptor hard drives and a LG writter.

i just not sure if its woth it or not.

Thanks

StAnToN
:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

If you've got the poppy to spend then its worth it - is it worth that much to you?

A lot of money for a system that you will want to upgrade in a year to take advantage of direct x10.

^ true, imo if your into spending that much then it would be sensible to wait until DX10!

I'm pretty sceptical on Quad SLI for a few reason. The first is that this is rev A hardware, the first bauyers always get stuck with iffy drivers and little harware glitches that are ironed out later. Do you want to be a guinea pig in a 1000 pound experiment? Even if everything works fine the added benifit over normal SLI seems minimal unless you've got a 30" screen [drools]. I'd just stick with normal SLI for now and invest the money you save in something more useful like a better screen, a good set of speaker, or a new game. All of these options will be both cheeper and more noticible.

A second thought: I don't know what your long term budget is, but unless you are prepared to spend that kind of money on a regular basis (at least yearly) I'd save some for upgrades. For example spens 1500 now and save 1000 for later. As much as you'd like to have the best now, I woun't be the best in a short time and you wouldn't want to say have 4 9800s or a similar configuration. I guess what it boils down to is plan your upgrade cycle and don't spend it all on a little preformance increase instead of saving it for later unless you will have more to spend then.

Sorry about my rambling and my rather anti-SLI attitude.

P.S. I'm American so my British currency amounts are just guesses

Hi thanks for all your input so far much appriacted.

the thing is i know what im like for money so if ive got it ill spend it!

its just when taking a 2nd look at the aurora set up im going for it dosent seem wotrth it when i can build a quad sli rig up like that and spend the more or just slight less cash if you see what i mean.

its true that im guinepiging the system i suppose as i would love to see what real world gaming results come from this set up.

but when im looking at what scan are offering if you put the same stuff there offering in the wiyth just two xfx 7900gtx cards in there there is only a difrence of £200 for 2 cards compared to 4.

and what im getting at alienware is the 2nd from lowest processor and liquid cooling and the 2nd from top graphics card x2.

i dont know its just hard to make a decision like this without more details on the quad sli system but dont what to go buy an alienware system and a week later see that the quad sli is a beast of a system.

Thanks

StAnToN

I'm sure reviews will come in the next week or so benchmarks will start rolling in. My impression was that this was expected to give a boost in certain cases (really, really, really high resolutions), so if you're running beyond HD it makes sense. Just so I know what monitor are you using. If its not huge I'd take the 200 pounds you save by not going Alienware and invest it in a huge LCD (but why stop at one, hehehe). Anyways the bottom line is a week may clear all your questions up, so I'd reccomend patience if you plan to go quad. Also if you have any money you're having trouble spending send it my way :).

i currently have a Dell 2005fpw so run my res at 1650x1080 at the moe.

I don't think you'd benifit that much from quad SLI, I would guess normal SLI could spew out 60 fps (max for that monitor, or at least for my 2001FP) for any current game at reasonablyhigh settings. Of course I could be spewing gibberish so listen to any reliable review before you listen to anything I say. Another thing, have you thought about liquid cooling the video card. I know I'd love to water cool mine to get rid of the annoying noise it generates, and 2/4 cards can't be any quieter. Also its just cool and shouldn't be too much more difficult if you get an expandable liquid cooling system as opposed to a prefilled system. Don't know much more about that, but better cooling and less noise never hurt anyone (I guess it's just the less money that hurts).