Last minute Upgrade Opinions sought...

[tickleonthetum]

in the next week and a half I plan on ordering the parts to upgrade my system, this is what I have selected:

LN27163 Intel i7 920, D0 SLEBJ S1366, Nehalem, 2.66 GHz £204.90
LN26454 Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel X58, SLi/Xfire, Sok 1366 £204.90
LN14373 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound £4.95
LN25719 Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366RT 120mm heat sink KIT £51.62
LN25578 Thermalright Ultra Series Polycarbonate Fan Holder £4.59
LN24850 Thermalright 120mm Fluid Dynamic Bearing Fan £11.49
LN25380 LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±R, 16xDVD±DL £16.43
LN26163 CM STORM Sniper Black Ultra Mid Tower Gaming Case w/o PSU £124.17
LN27874 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600) 7-7-7-20 £129.38
LN26468 Corsair Airflow Fan for up to 6 x module cooling £23.74
LN26886 2 X 1TB Seagate ST31000528AS Barracuda 7200.12 £125.93

Total cost at Scan £915

I went for the Storm Sniper case as it has Dust Filters. I will be overclocking the i7 to around 3.6 (more if stable and cool).

I will also be buying 2 X Sapphire HD 4890 Atomic (1000/4200) Graphics Cards from elsewhere (unless Scan can get them on the 30th), and a side fan for the case direct from CoolerMaster.

Total cost at other places £515

Total cost of upgrade: £1,430

I already have CoolerMaster Real Power M 1000W PSU, 320Gb HDD, 17" 1280x1024 Monitor, CLSB Audigy (1) PCI. Next year I will get a 24" Widescreen Monitor, 2 more HDDs, 1 SSD, CLSB PCI-E sound card and webcam.

Does all this sound OK?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the game used only for gaming?? At least with current games the Phenom II X4 955BE is around the same speed as a Core i7 920 for crossfired HD4890 cards:

http://www.modreactor.com/english/Re...re-i7-920.html

Also an HD4870X2 will do the job perfectly fine on a 24" screen and even in most cases a single HD4890 will be good enough. Also I would look at getting a Samsung or Western Digital 1tb hard disk instead of the Seagate ones too. Also an SSD seems a bit OTT for gaming unless of course you are using Photoshop.

[tickleonthetum]

UPDATE

It's been suggested to me that I would be better off getting a single Sapphire 4890 Vapor-X now and then a single 58xx Series card in October. Then next year I would get a second 58xx card and a 24" 1920x1200 monitor.

Thoughts?

[Pob255]

also LN25719 Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366RT 120mm heat sink KIT £51.62 comes with the fan holder and fan
You only need to buy another one if you're planning on using 2 fans and I'm not really sure how much better it is with two fans

if you're happy to spend that sort of money you may want to consider one of the self contained water systems like the CWCH50 - Corsair Cooling™ Hydro Series H50
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Corsa...nce-CPU-Cooler

personally I think you're mad to spend this much on a pc but it's your money

[tickleonthetum]

Is the game used only for gaming?? At least with current games the Phenom II X4 955BE is around the same speed as a Core i7 920 for crossfired HD4890 cards:

http://www.modreactor.com/english/Re...re-i7-920.html

Also an HD4870X2 will do the job perfectly fine on a 24" screen and even in most cases a single HD4890 will be good enough. Also I would look at getting a Samsung or Western Digital 1tb hard disk instead of the Seagate ones too. Also an SSD seems a bit OTT for gaming unless of course you are using Photoshop.

The system will be used for a bit of everything, gaming (from The Sims 3 to Crysis), Photoshop, video editing, web browsing (including video streaming), music/video playing, Word, CorelDRAW, etc...

I only get intel CPUs.

I've had both Seagate and WD drives and found the Seagates better in general.

I'm aiming for a very fast machine.

[PeterStoba]

UPDATE

It's been suggested to me that I would be better off getting a single Sapphire 4890 Vapor-X now and then a single 58xx Series card in October. Then next year I would get a second 58xx card and a 24" 1920x1200 monitor.

Thoughts?

That sounds alot better! The 5 series will probably perform the same as crossfire 4890 and cost around the same as one.

[tickleonthetum]

also LN25719 Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366RT 120mm heat sink KIT £51.62 comes with the fan holder and fan
You only need to buy another one if you're planning on using 2 fans and I'm not really sure how much better it is with two fans

if you're happy to spend that sort of money you may want to consider one of the self contained water systems like the CWCH50 - Corsair Cooling™ Hydro Series H50
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Corsa...nce-CPU-Cooler

personally I think you're mad to spend this much on a pc but it's your money

Yes I'm planning on using 2 fans in a push/pull configuration for maximum cooling, and thus maximum overclock. I'm really hoping to get the i7 920 upto 4GHz as many have done so with just this setup.

The H50 gives about the same results as the TRUE 120 push/pull.

[tickleonthetum]

That sounds alot better! The 5 series will probably perform the same as crossfire 4890 and cost around the same as one.

That's what they are all saying...

I would overclock the Vapor-X to around 900/4200 so it would nearly match a single Atomic model and apparently is still pretty quite at that setting!

Now I've just got to find out if the 58xx series is really coming out in Oct/Nov or not. If it isn't out untill next year I may as well drop back to my original idea.

I will have upto £1,200 a year to spend on the PC for a few years.

All of this will be under Win7 Pro 64bit which I've already pre-ordered.