Building A Gaming Rig - A Living Document. (A HEXUS Project)

[nvening]

but, if someone asked me what the ultimate gaming pc they could get then 2xultras would be the answer.

[fthlagen]

but, if someone asked me what the ultimate gaming pc they could get then 2xultras would be the answer.

I don't disagree but it's a only theoretical superiority.

What could that set up do that a single-card rig couldn't?

I'm not trying to be contentious but the best gaming PC is surely one which plays the most currently demanding game to the highest possible standard. After that, all you have is redundancy in the system - which is useful for the future or for non-gaming stuff like pifast.

If people are using this guide to build rigs then the advice on components should be sensitive to pocket-power as well... and unless I'm mistaken, two 6800ultras/X850s etc running in SLI (while clearly the best combination of hardware possible) will never be put in a position of having to do as much work collectively as one similar card. Not yet anyway, unless you're doing some freelance CGI work for Lucas (and that's not gaming).

[nvening]

Thats true, but, it still does not change the fact that this would make the best gaming machine.

[fthlagen]

OK - I admit it, I'm just bitter I didn't wait for SLI!

[nvening]

Pricy Perfection - 256MB Gigabyte GV ATI X800XT. £300

You can get an x850 xt pe for £260 at dell ( if you dont want to mention sli)

[Karl|Neo]

Looks like the threads suffered from stickyitis again, which is a shame, maybe a bit of an update would liven it up once more? It HAS been 6 months after all

If we had this update we should try and get everyone to recommend their favourite hardware and why, and have Vaul pick the creme de la creme of hexite knowledge and experience (which has to rather big). What does every one think?

Good work btw Vaul, good to have a source to go to if your unsure on a piece of hardware.

[BUFF]

yes, I agree e.g the price quoted for a 9800 Pro is £140 but they are £80 now.

[Karl|Neo]

exactly, in fact the 9800 pro ive seen for £80 is an AIW too

[Stewart]

Thanks for all the kind words. Now I'm back moderating this forum, I'll set about updating it, get some words down about the FX-57s, X2s and 7800s in SLi.

Ooooh, fun.

[TooNice]

I would also be interested in opinion regarding RAM.

[rAMrAID]

I am thinking of building a nice gaming system. My current system is a Shuttle with an Athlon 3200+ and AGP 9800 pro, but i don't want to waist money on a new AGP gfx card

I was thinking of going a bit mad and getting the follwing fron Scan

2 x 1Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty
256Mb XFX PCI-E GF6800GT DDR3 Tv/DVI *Full Retail Package
2 x 250GB Samsung SpinPoint P120S (SP2504C) SATA II, 7200rpm, 8MB,
Akasa Eclipse-62 Midi Tower Case - Hi-End
600W Enermax Noisetaker SLi EG701AX-VE(W)-SFMA (20+4) SLi PCI-E READY
Akasa Evo 33 (AK913) HeatPipe Cooler for AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon FX CPUs
2 x 120mm Akasa Amber Case Fan, 3 Pin, 2 Ball Bearing , Ultra Quiet and Long life
LG GSA-4163B Black 16x16 ±R Dual Layer + X5 DVDRAM DVD Writer, OEM UK
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 4000 32/64Bit CPU

going to cost around £1200 inc VAT

The only thing i am undecided on is either to get 2 x 1gb 512mb matched pair ram kits or 1 x 2gb 1gb matched pair kit. the 1gb memory modules seem a little bit slower than the 512mb kits, but i could be wrong!

[Konan555]

Well, I thought Intel CPUs were faster at general crunching (Encoding, Un-Raring and the like) whilst AMD had the edge in gaming. Firstly because of Hyper Threading, so it should be faster to surf about, whilst Zipping something up or whatever, and secondly because if Intel don't hold the lead in the desktop enviorment, and we know they certianly do not hold any lead for gaming... why does anyone buy Intel CPUs? I figure they have to have some sort of advantage.

Yes, they do have advantages and people do buy them for it. Although desktop environment might be a bit too much of a general term. Since this is a gaming thread, you're probably quite right to talk purely AMD (I'm not sure, I lost interest in performance gaming a while back when I realised I still Prefered DooM 2 and sonic the hedgehog, although casion zone STILL does my eyes in ).

When I built up my current system I ended up with a P4 2.8HT on an Asus P4P800 board and an XP 3200 on a similar spec Asus board sitting on the bench.

Naturally I tried both. And sold on the Athlon.

My computer's now built pretty much for Audio work (16 I/O channels at 24-bit 96KHz with 8 noiseless mic inputs) and as such I chose the system purely on that.

The difference in the amount of realtime effects each CPU was quite staggering at the time. Then there was the fact I could run the 2.8 at 3.2 without the aide of a fan (low noise DEMANDED for audio work of course). Then the fact that my audio cards really where none too happy on anything but an intel chipset (although I did get them to work with the AMD after a lot of timer tweaking).

I also do a little bit of video work but didn't do any comparisons.

So yeah, intel still have their applications where they're king. Mainly A/V in my experiance (perhaps why the MACs chose intel?). In most cases I'd also prefer to see intel based systems put in offices environments aswell, out of simplicity if nothing else (although I'm still not sure why you need more than a P200 MMX for writing letters and doing tax returns). In relation to this thread that doesn't mean much though - although my P4 2.8 seams quite happy running the games I have tried on it, so I'm quite happy there aswell. Quake 3's definately sitting on the Ti4200 I still have as the limitation anyway (since it quite happily encoded a load of DV footage whilst playing Q3 without any noteable loss of speed).

As for the ability of HT, it's not a pure gain in multi-tasking. As I understand it it'll speed up the execution of single threads aswell since it can execute further down the cache using reduntent parts of the CPU running the current instructions.

[leachy86]

Manchester here, and an absolutely awesome article this has turned out to be!

Now, I've waited all day today from 9am for my 'Next Day Delivery' from Overclockers UK of all my new spec. I recieved my case from MicroDirect at 3pm, expecting the components to follow, but it didn't happen. Hopefully tommorow now.

Until I read this article I had no idea how much of an importent factor chosing a PSU was. Hell, I was even looking through the Q-Tec PSUs, but my common sense alone led me away on the bases that they were way too cheap.

I actually went through Overclockers UK knowing I had a £1100 budget for the box alone, chose each part and then right at the very end realised the case I chose (ThermalTake Armor Black) came unsupplied of a PSU, therefore I went looking for a cheap(ish) PSU. I went with an Akasa Ultra Quiet 400w Paxpower PSU.

I need to know if that's any good before I even screw my motherboard in to the cases, because I really don't want the spec I've chose to frazzle.

Athlon 64 San Diago 4000+, GeForce 7800GTX, 1GB Corsair PC3200 XMS on an Asus A8N SLi.

I've heard a few good things about it on forums, but I'd like to know any of your opinions if you know anything, negative or possitive, about the Akasa.

I know Akasa generally make cheap components, especially things like cooling and case modifications, but the PSU looked convincing for the money. Anyways, £40 isn't exactly too shabby for a power supply I don't think.

I won't be able to sleep tonight, with the prospect of building my beast up tommorow and getting online with Battlefield 2 and completing Half Life 2, only this time it won't be at 40 frames a second, it'll be blisteringly fast.

Again, great thread and great site.

Hexus is now an established bookmark on my Firefox toolbar.

[benevolent]

This is an excellent thread. It has helped me so much, on my trek to finding out how to upgrade my computer! LOL! Thanx for spending your time and writing this!! See ya!

[Xenctuary]

Fantastic thread. It really has helped inform me and steer me toward better decisions.

[Recco]

Excellent thread with many excellent pointers.
The bit on the PSUs scared me into buying a decent Akasa model, lol.