New system

[herman368]

Hi I'm thinking about building a new rig that will hopefully play F.E.A.R. maxed out and be fairly future proof.

Heres the stats excl vat off ebuyer:

AMD Athlon 64 San Diego 3700 £164.33
Gigabyte Geforce 7800 GTX £306.35
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe S939 £85.98
Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2PT 1024MB £75.97
Seagate Barracuda ST3200822AS 200Gb 8Mb Cache 7200RPM £58.94
AG Neovo F419 19" TFT 12ms £161.99
Antec Sonata II £64.67
Saitek Eclipse Keyboard £25.52
LG GSA4163 16x DVD R/RW/RAM £26.20

With VAT and delivery thats about £1150 delivered.

I was just wondering if the CPU, Mobo, RAM combination might be bad or if it is a generally bad deal.

[Fat`Albert]

you should be able to get an 8ms LCD for a similar price nowadays... id recommend that

[Rohan]

Nice rig, but you might have to rethink the motherboard. I have the A8N-SLI Deluxe and I haven't been completely happy with it.
If you're overclocking the A8N-SLI isn't the best choice, because it won't run the memory above 240Mhz at 1T, but more importantly the maximum CPU voltage is 1.55v. Also the chipset fan is very noisy and prone to failure.

If you're running at stock then it's a very solid motherboard, apart from the chipset fan issue, which you can fix by fitting the passive zalman heatsink.

An alternative is the DFI Ultra-D. Or the Epox 9NPA+ Ultra. Both are good stable motherboards, which will overclock well.

[herman368]

i dont really plan on any overclocking (mainly cos i dont know how and am scared of it) so i think the a8n will be okay. Is the cpu and ram too slow the gfx?

[philyau]

i dont really plan on any overclocking (mainly cos i dont know how and am scared of it) so i think the a8n will be okay. Is the cpu and ram too slow the gfx?

no the cpu is perfect m8, but u m8 want to consider the corsair 3200 1024XLPT ones they are 2-2-2-5 ram latency which will be better. also if you got the cash you might want to think aobut going 2gb?

phil

[Rohan]

I think that CPU and RAM will go well with the 7800GTX. Your rig should last you quite a while. And there's room to upgrade later too.

[Rohan]

And yeah, 2GB would definitely help if you're going to be playing Battlefield 2

[herulach]

If you are buying 1GB sticks, do yourself a favour and get crucial Ballistix. best timings of any !gb stickout at the mo, and prob one of the cheapest.

Or if you only want a gig of ram, then get 2 512mb sticks or you cant run dual channel, which is about a 10% performance hit dependant on what youre doing.

[herman368]

Does having better ram actually make a difference in games? I used value ram in a system and it flies in everything.

Oh and herulach that ram has two 512 sticks

[herulach]

Does having better ram actually make a difference in games? I used value ram in a system and it flies in everything.

Yes, but not a great deal, it might get you 1 or 2 extra fps, but if you can afford it. Also the ballistix is rated up to at least pc4000, and does go higher, so you have plenty of headroom if you do decide to overclock.

[iranu]

That ram will be fine if not overclocking. Tight timings make very little difference at stock speed. Spec looks good, however, think carefully about the monitor. My thinking is; no point spending wads of cash on a 7800gtx if the monitor will only do 1280x1024 (if it's a stop gap until you go fully SLI go 17")

[herman368]

To be honest all i am worried about is bottlenecks...

But just out of interest how much is 1 gb of ballistix?

[herulach]

To be honest all i am worried about is bottlenecks...

But just out of interest how much is 1 gb of ballistix?

In two 512s its 90.46 shipped from crucial.com, or for 1 stick its 111 quid, but as i said, dont just buy one stick, you want either 2 or 4, preferably 2, cos A64 mem controllers have issues with 4 dimms.

[herman368]

That ram will be fine if not overclocking. Tight timings make very little difference at stock speed. Spec looks good, however, think carefully about the monitor. My thinking is; no point spending wads of cash on a 7800gtx if the monitor will only do 1280x1024 (if it's a stop gap until you go fully SLI go 17")

I hear you, the main reason I chose that gfx card is because of future proofing at 1280x1024 resolution. Anyway I just cant find any cheap LCDs that have at least 17", DVI, low seek times and high resolutions.

[philyau]

I hear you, the main reason I chose that gfx card is because of future proofing at 1280x1024 resolution. Anyway I just cant find any cheap LCDs that have at least 17", DVI, low seek times and high resolutions.

you tried looking at digimate's at aria, they are really really good quality monitors with DVI too and 3yrs/

phil

[herman368]

OK guys check out this new deal I just found. I think ill go for the new 7800 GT instead of the GTX. Highlighted are the changes.

AMD Athlon 64 San Diego 3700 £164.33
Gigabyte Geforce 7800 GT £238
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe S939 £85.98
Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2PT 1024MB £75.97
Seagate Barracuda ST3200822AS 200Gb 8Mb Cache 7200RPM £58.94
Coolermaster Wavemaster £103
Antec True Power 380w ATX PSU £21.88
LG Silver 16x DVD R/RW/RAM £26.69

So this is just a base unit and it is incl vat and delivered for £901.97! Thats a pretty good deal if you ask me.