Advise for new setup?

[Memphis`]

I have around £1500 to spend, want to go for AMD X2 im thinking and SLI hopefully for gaming.

Can anyone advise any particulary good components for that price?
e.g. RAM, HD, Motherboard, GPU, CPU, coolers, etc.

[kasavien]

How does this sound...

LN8248 SilverStone "TEMJIN" J05B (BLACK) Aluminum front & SECC Body (w/o PSU) £68.89 £80.95

LN9130 Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe DDR400 NF4-SLi PCI-E SATAII Dual Raid 5 2xGbE Lan NV F'Wall USB2/1394 8ch Audio £91.36 £107.35

LN9106 2Gb (2x1GB)Corsair, DDR400, non-ECC, 2x184 DIMM, unbuffered, 2-3-3-6, Silver H/S, L/T Warranty £149.00 £175.08

LN11320 530w Tagan EasyCon - TG530-U15 - 2Force Silent Modular PSU £59.79 £70.25

LN11598 Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower Cooler (Socket 478, LGA775, 754, 939 and 940) £31.99 £37.59

LN11866 Samsung SH-W162C/BEBN Black 16x16 ±R Dual Layer DVDRW Writer OEM UK £23.48 £27.59

LN11657 200Gb SATA300 Samsung SpinPoint™ P120S (SP2004C) 7200rpm, 8MB - NCQ £58.78 £69.07

LN7120 Mitsumi FA404M 1.44 Black FDD+Int USB2 7 in 1 Card Reader (SM/MMC/SD/CF/MD/MS) Fits in 3.5" FDD Bay £10.49 £12.33

LN12467 512MB Leadtek WinFast PCI-E 7800GTX Extreme MyVIVO £445.00 £522.88

LN10970 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4400+ S939 1MB (2.2) Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty £305.44 £358.89

TOTAL £1,461.96 inc VAT

You've got me tempted now, although i would be too scared to build something that expensive myself as i would almost certainly mess it up. That above setup is assuming you have peripherals as that is just the base unit. If anyone can add anything else be my guest.

My opinion on SLI btw is to get a kick ass card now and wait till that won't perform and get a second later and hopefully it will be cheaper by then. Personally i would go for ATI by the way, probably an X1800XT

Hope this helps

Andy

[Memphis`]

With the SLI though, wouldn't getting say 2 6800 GT's be better than getting 1 512 7800 GTX?

You'd end up with the same amound of memory, its cheaper, and you get more overall pixel pipelines.
Wouldn't this option be more powerful?

But like the rest of the set up, may go for 2 HD's with Raid 0 though.

[RavenNight]

Two 6800GTs would be fairly close though a 7800GTX would still be a good bit faster (esp. the 512MB one) also the 7800GTX gives you expandability later, you could by another one when things start to slow down.

[kasavien]

As far as i know the 7800GTX would out perform 2 6800's plus you get new features with the 7800 that the 6800's won't have because they are a generation behind. And then yes in a year or two when things start to slow down you could get another 7800GTX

[RDL]

Yeah that suggested setup is good, thought why not upgrade to the A8N Premium motherboard, and also whack in another 200gb HDD and a Raptor for boot? Depends how the cash is going and how much hard drive space you need.

What monitor will you use with this by the way?

[billythewiz]

You may also need an OS. I know that paying for Windows XP isn't very fashionable, but a leggit copy can be had for ~£60

I'd also question the wisdom of spending 40% of the cost on a single graphics card.

A single 7800 or X1800 is definately the way to go, rather than 2x 6800 sli, but a 256M 7800GT can be had for £300 less than the 512 GTX.

With every component, no matter what it is, at the bottom end you can spend a little more money and get a much better product, but at the top end you spend a lot more money for just a little more.

The money saved could pay for a really nice 19in TFT.

[NightshadowUK]

I'd be tempted to go for something like this as it'll give killer performance and won't break the bank.

EDIT. This here is actually the same card but it'll come in an un-marked box.

You can only really justify getting a GTX if you plan to game often at huge resolutions (1600x1200) and with AA and AF levels turned up.

[user1453]

wouldn't the perforamance of two 7800 gt cards beat a 7800gtx 512 and be cheaper?

[NightshadowUK]

Two 7800GTs would probably beat a single 7800GTX but as for being cheaper, I'd say not.

You can pick up a GTX for less than £350 now (see here). If you feel you'll actually need a GTX I don't recommend you get the one in the link, I'm just using it as an example. I'd go for either this or this.

Give Hexus' own report on the card a read through - aside from other things you'll could be verging on a CPU limited system (games wise at least).

[project187]

actually u can get one for under 300 with the good cooler (512 one) and yes two 6800 are qucker than a 7800 gtx but when u enable hdr they are not also there is no point wats so ever using sli really unless u are running 1600.1200 it will make no differnce the gtx 512 is far quicker than any 6800 put together and is overkill,tbh mate no point even thinking bout sli till u have a 20 inch monitor just waste of time and money also if gaming is wat you are doing what was the reason for dual core (i know they will be dual core game(s) soon but not many and they are a good eeal slower atm??)

[project187]

yer but evetually when gam,es do catch up then you could add another 512 gtx instead of being stuck with 2 glorfied 6800`s

[Memphis`]

What monitor will you use with this by the way?

Reckon I'm going to get a good 19" CRT.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...nitors_66.html

[project187]

one gtx be it 512 or norm would be fine i think you would notice neally no diferecne with two mate