New Build Advice.

Just looking for a bit of advice on this new build. It's been quite a while since I built my last setup so not really all too sure if theres any thing really great i've overlooked, and anything i've included that I should avoid. Also if theres any glaring mismatches in what i've chosen.
I have a rough £1000 budget (want to stop myself getting carried away.)
My overclocking knowledge is slim to none. Though i wouldnt mind giving it a shot at some point.
I spend most of my time gaming, if that makes any difference to certain choices.

Main Parts:
Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI - £82.19 inc VAT
Intel Core 2 Duo, E8600, Wolfdale Core E0 - £182.05 Inc VAT
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler - £15.26 inc VAT
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE 896MB - £252.17 inc VAT
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 - £65.38 inc VAT
EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1, NF780i SLI - £156.22 Inc VAT
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - £54.05 inc VAT
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - £129.00 inc VAT
LiteON DH-16D3S-02C 16x Serial ATA DVD-ROM - £11.20 inc VAT

Case:
Akasa infinti ZOR Gamer Black Tower Case - £75.89 inc VAT

Total: £1,035.12 inc VAT

Planning on getting a 2nd identical gfx card sometime within next 6~ months so thats why i've chosen the SLi mobo.

With regards to ram, I was recommended to get the OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz ReaperX (Priced at £82.24 inc VAT), they don't have them on scan but i was jus curious as to how big an improvement they are on the Corsair ones i've chosen, and if so are they actually worth me getting. I wouldnt mind forking out the extra £20~ if they going to make a major difference.

I plan to keep my mouse, monitor, keyboard and headphones.

Any advice would be apreciated. Thanks.

I wouldn't bother SLi'ing those cards, either buy a 280GTX now or just stick with the one card. Unless you are gaming above 1920 x 1200 none of these cards are really going to struggle for a while.

Just noticed the price of that card.. ouch. They are around £170 for bog standards, you might as well get that or the 280GTX as above.

Nvidia boards are a pain in the back side to overclock sometimes. I don't know anything about that board but it will probably be inferior to the intel boards. P45 is the newest chipset (and last 775 board, worth noting i7 is just around the corner). The DFI P45 board is very nice or the Asus P5Q deluxe (or even the -E version).

The E8500 will overclock very well anyway, so you might as well get that if you overclocking and save a bit of money.

The freezer 7 is noisey when it's working at it's best which is not as good as something like the xigmatec towers on scan's today only (today - monday 12pm).

I'd try on board sound first unless you have particular need for the dedicated soundcard.

The WD drives are very nice, I'd be tempted by a couple of 640GB AAKS's though. £100 for both, more space and the cache shouldn't impact too much on performance. They are considered amongst the fastest drives.

ReaperX memory packs huuuge heatsinks which often get in the way of the CPU cooler so I'd stay clear. The pretty much no diffrence between it and:

- 4GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 CAS 4-4-4-12 ~ £64.57

And I second what Mike said about the soundcard, I'm having a world of trouble with mine in the Battlefield games. Creative are pants. I'm either going to go back to onboard or purchase one of these in the near future:

- Asus Xonar D1 ~ £56.39

All the goodness of X-Fi but without Creative drivers.

Agreed with that also, forgot about it lol. Standard heat speaders are fine and cause much less trouble in the long run. Performance wise there will be little difference. That said corsair dominators PC8500 (with the fan) was only about £80 the other week on scan.. thats a nice deal :)

If you really want to overclock these 1333MHz chips though you might consider 1066MHz (PC8500) ram.

The case is quite new so I havn't seen a review of it yet. Plenty around doing the same sort of thing though. The coolermaster CM-690 is a nice one. Akasa's omega is more expensive but huge.

Oh and with single GFX you would only need 500 -600W. Corsair 650W TX would be good though.

Thanks for the speedy reply.
In that case do you think it's worth me waiting for an i7?

You've got a decent budget certainly. No idea how that will translate to i7 though. No doubt that will mean DDR3 and new untested mobo's.

Hard to say what will be better in terms of the overall package. Certainly performance wise the i7 should give core 2 a pasting but we'll have to see.

If you are in a position to wait, the core 2's will drop in price anyway..

I bought an XFi extreme audio a few months back, but I wanted to leave this setup intact. Also i've never had any problems with this one. So would it make sense for me to just get another one of these?

You'll be looking a fair way into 2009 before 'affordable' i7 chips and motherboards start appearing. Even then they'll be nowhere near as cheap as S775 gear is now, and then there's DDR3 to consider...

Saying that the performance increase is supposedly a worthy one, but then when are games CPU limited these days anyway?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thrashed

I bought an XFi extreme audio a few months back, but I wanted to leave this setup intact. Also i've never had any problems with this one. So would it make sense for me to just get another one of these?

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It sounds like you got lucky with the first one, unless Creative have got their act together over the last few months - anyone know anything?

Is it worth going for the..
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, DHX
over the..
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18, DHX

And is it worth me spending the extra cash on the lower range of the gtx280's (an extra £50~) or jus sticking with the top end of the new gtx260's.

Yeah the former has tighter timings (4-4-4-12 vs 5-5-5-18).

And definitely, the GTX280 dominates the GTX260, but then the ATi HD4870 is faster than the GTX260 in most cases, and a hell of a lot cheaper...

Also if you went ATi you could rule out SLI all together and get a nice, stable P45 motherboard.

I'm sorta used to nvidia cards, don't really know whats what when it comes to ATI.

Could anyone recommend me a good ATI card for a reasonable price, in which case i mite consider going for it.

Curious as to which mobo to go for and how much to spend on one?

The HD4870 is faster than the GTX260 sometimes, not the GTX280 though, if thats what you meant :)

So am i best to get a p45 mobo for around £100~ Such as the Asus P5Q-E, iP45.
Still can't decide on which gfx card however.

What's your resolution?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thrashed

So am i best to get a p45 mobo for around £100~ Such as the Asus P5Q-E, iP45.

---

Yeah the Asus P5Q for £80.83 is the P45 sweet-spot from what I've heard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightshadowUK

The Asus P5Q for £80.83 is the P45 sweet-spot from what I've heard.

---

Thanks, now due to the money saved on the mobo between this and the previous choice i can get a mid range 280gtx i think now.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/618/scanbasketxg3.png
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/sca...png/1/w586.png

So after a few changes, thats how my new setup looks, just got to wait for the gfx card and the psu to come into stock, which hopefully shouldnt take too long.

Just a few recommendations:

The AC Freezer 7 Pro can get pretty noisy, check out the...
- Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ~ £22.27

Change the DVD/CD drive to a Samsung, they're the best around at the minute...
- Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE ~ £15.09

Pre-overclocked graphics cards are a huge waste of money when you can just do it yourself using nVidia's software...
- 1GB Leadtek GTX 280 ~ £244.11

£50 for 170MHz is quite frankly a joke so get the E8500, you'll notice no difference what so ever...
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 ~ £131.47

£130 is a rip off for a 1TB drive when the Samsung F1 is as good as it is...
- 1TB Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1 ~ £81.89

I've heard the samsung hdd's are really unreliable, and the seagate ones arent much better.
But when it comes to the gfx card i'd rather have it pre-oc'd just for conveniance and warranty. Which is why I chose the BFG.

For near enough £100 extra though.. got to question the bangs for bucks. Did you say what resolution you want to play at. Because the standard 280 will not miss a beat at 1920 x 1200.

I havent really played any recent recent games, besides Age of Conan, which this setup could barely handle. So I don't really know what res's I'd be looking to run with the 280.

Well it will be governed by your monitor size, so what it that? :)

Really if you want to spend £330 on a graphics card then you should be looking at the 4870X2 kicks the pants off the 280GTX if your not getting a 4870X2 then just get a stock clocked 280GTX spending almost £100 for a very small performance gain is insane.

I also agree with Nightshadow getting the E8500 makes much more sense.

Finally as Staffsmike suggested at the start 2x 640GB WD AAKS will be a better option than a single 1TB drive in my opinion and ~£30 cheaper

Hmm, like i said before i havent got a clue when it comes to ATI, though is it worth it going for the 4870X2? However is £299.50 more reasonable for one of the 280's?

Oh and I have a 19" Samsung LCD Monitor, which i wouldnt mind Replacing for a 22-24" The monitor isnt as desperate in need or replacing now.

Well 22" doesn't need anything more than a 260GTX really, 280 will last god knows how long at that resolution (1680 x 1050). 24" (1920 x 1200) need's little more than a stock clocked 280GTX. Spending £60.. £100 more on an overclocked edition isn't really worth it. If the card is going to die it will either be right at the start when you have warranty anyway or a few years down the line when you will probably change it anyway.

No need for a HD4870X2 at those resoltuions. 30" screens are the only real reason for that card.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/365...basket2wr8.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/sca...jpg/1/w747.png

Apart from the gfx card think i'm bout sorted with this now?

Use the today only page I think you have missed some cheaper prices. www.scan.co.uk/todayonly

The motherboard, though alright is a bit basic. The PRO would be better, the -E even better than that.

I like the DFI myself though.

Thanks for the tip on the today only, got it to... Total: £904.57.

7 more constructive posts here will earn you free delivery from them as well, if you didn't already know.

Ah cool, a friend had mentioned something like that before.

By constructive, what counts as constructive?

Not spamming just to get 20 posts lol Everything so far is fine i'm sure.

Ah ok cool :D should be under £900 with free delivery.

Mite go over to the monitor thread to have a look at some 24"'s.

Just want to say thanks to Everyone who's given me some advice, i appreciate it.

Yeah the last couple of posts could be classed as spamming you could have just edited your post, now go and post some constructive comments on some other threads to make up for it :P