Can u guys make sure I'm not being stupid please?

[midzt]

Hey guys,

Abuot to build a new system, and being out of the loop for a while,, I've been reading and a lot has changed since I last built a PC ( I'm currently using an iMac) so was wondering if you guys could just have a look over to see if everyones compatible and that I haven't overlooked something increadibly obvious and generally not being amazingly stupid.


Thanks!

Anyway here goes:

Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP, iP35, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX 512MB

Asus HD 3870 PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 2250 MHz, GDDR4, GPU 775 MHz, 320 Streams, 2 x DVI-I (Crossfired)

2GB Celenade Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 6, Retail

700W Tagan TG700-BZ "Dual Rail" Gold Plated PipeRock Modular Cable Management, +80% Efficiency

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail


This obivously doesnt include hard drives and optical drives etc......

So is it ok, any recommendations? or is it gonna be one of these

[SiM]

Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP, iP35, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX 512MB Fine

Asus HD 3870 PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 2250 MHz, GDDR4, GPU 775 MHz, 320 Streams, 2 x DVI-I (Crossfired) I would look at a 3870x2 instead

2GB Celenade Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 6, Retail Why cas 6 ram? Bad choice ram imo. Cas 4 corsair is very cheap anyway

700W Tagan TG700-BZ "Dual Rail" Gold Plated PipeRock Modular Cable Management, +80% Efficiency Fine if you are crossfiring. also corsair 620w will be enough

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail Fine

[midzt]

Thanks for the quick reply, yeah i wasn't really too sure on the ram so i thought id go for something cheap, but will go for corsair now i reckon.

I was wondering about 3870x2 vs 2x 3870, it seemed cheaper to buy two cards rather than one and i read there wasnt too much difference in the performance.

[MSIC]

My opinions:

The Asus P5k motherboard - great.
The Asus 3870 is fine, ignore the X2 rubbish, the single card is powerful and doesnt suck too much power. Get the X2 (or similar) if you will be playing games at 1920 x 1200 resolution or higher only (and also demand all effects turned to max).
2 Gig RAM - Never heard of Celenade before, and it probably is fine, but Corsair Value Select is £26.90 for 667Mhz stuff.
As for the PSU - unless you really know that you need 700 Watts (ie multicard GPUs, hot and overclocked Quad Cores AND 4 or more hard drives, something a little less would be fine. The Efficiency matters though. Try this 550W Corsair unit for £55.
Honestly, the recent PSU number madness is a pure marketting issue from the companies trying to out-do one another, justified by less than 1% of the market who may actually need it.
Intel Core2Quads are lovely little CPUs - will you be overclocking?

It all looks compatible to me.

PS At SiM - like the edit time Or is that a sig?
PPS What the hell are you guys doing up at this crazy hour? Get to bed.

[midzt]

Cheers for the input.
Im not too sure about whether I'm going to overclock, don't think I will in the near future, but if the options there I mite do later.

Also I'm in HK atm so its afternoon for me

[Hicks12]

get the 3870x2 if you plan on playing high res like above 1600x1000, crossfire is less effective at high resolutions as it cant use the bandwidth as its own so you really get 512mb but with the 3870x2 i believe it works better.

[MSIC]

get the 3870x2 if you plan on playing high res like above 1600x1000,

I'd have to politely disagree with that being considered "high resolution" these days, given the ability of modern graphics cards. A Radeon 3870 or Geforce 8800GT (both 512MB) are each fine and capable at anything up to 1680 x 1050 (or the less common 1600 x 1200) in most modern games (Crysis be damned ). 1920 x 1200 on 24" monitors is the next level up, and these cards will still do ok here, but not as good as 2 cards.
Just my opinion though.
And see what [H]ardOCP think here.
Or even our own Hexus here.

[staffsMike]

The HD3870 is certainly enough for 1680 x 1050 imo. No need to get two.

If you are dead set on crossfired HD3870's though, get the X2 as you save money on the motherboard to support it and it's supposed to work well more of the time as crossfire and SLi setups can often let you down in certain games.

They are around £235 on ebuyer at the moment so the cost's should be very similar.

[Hicks12]

I'd have to politely disagree with that being considered "high resolution" these days, given the ability of modern graphics cards. A Radeon 3870 or Geforce 8800GT (both 512MB) are each fine and capable at anything up to 1680 x 1050 (or the less common 1600 x 1200) in most modern games (Crysis be damned ). 1920 x 1200 on 24" monitors is the next level up, and these cards will still do ok here, but not as good as 2 cards.
Just my opinion though.
And see what [H]ardOCP think here.
Or even our own Hexus here.

I know your point but i have too say i was on about using a card with 1gb (intotal 3870x2) is better for higher res then crossfire 3870 normally. They are still great but will get a better performance

[MSIC]

Oh, ok, no problem.

[Webby]

The 3870 X2 is 2x GPUs each with access to 512MB or RAM they don't share! (naughty children that they are).

Anyway from what I have seen the X2 makes for slightly better performance but that could be from its higher clocked GPU.

Realistically if you are going with a board which supports crossfire and your not sure if you will need the extra power of the second card get a single 3870 try it see what you think if you decide you want more then get another one. If money is no object then get the 3870 X2 and enjoy the goodness

[midzt]

Thanks for the input guys.

I prob will just get one 3870 for now, and see how that goes, altho I did set aside around 200 quid for a card. I guess that can go on something else.

If I were to Crossfire it later on, would I have to get the exact same cars? make and all? what are the rules for crossfiring?

[SiM]

I think it can be any make... if the clock speeds differ slightly then the faster one will underclock itself