Review of my new system (includ: 7900gtx)

[AndyDel]

I've always been a conservative spender. I'm only 22 yet i have a daughter and my own house with a mortagage, something i'm very proud of. But with conservative spending has come a inability to splash out of myself when i deserve it, so a month ago when i was looking at remortagaging to get the cash to expand my house from 2 bedroom to 3 i decided to add a couple of thousand for myself on top. Now i have a fairly decent laptop, zd8000 series HP. But that was purchased by work and despite it's ability to play games such as CS:S at a respectable 50fps i wanted something "special". So with the extra 2 thousand pounds i decided to treat myself, £300 or so went on a long weekend away for me and my partner and the other £1700 i decided to completely blow on a new system. So.. Here it is..

Before Build.


After Build


Inside Case


Close Up On Case


Close Up On Monitor


Now heres what i purchased.

CPU: AMD Athlon64 4800+ toledo.
Graphics Card: BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (670mhz core speed)
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi
RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR XMS4000PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS3
Hard-Drive 2x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache
PSU: Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU
Monitor: Hyundai ImageQuest B91A 19" LCD
Case: CoolerMaster Centurion 532 Aluminum
CPU Cooler: Akasa AK-920 EVO 120 Direct Heatpipe Copper with Fan Controller

Also Other Gubbins Include:
Wireless Combo Logitech Set
Netgear Wireless Router

So to kick off... Where did i purchase my stuff from.. After agonising the fact people kept slagging off OCuk and they were the only ones who had the 7900 i wanted in at the time i went for them, push comes to shove i was close enough to drive round if i needed to return things. Total cost was roughly £1600-1700.. It all came promptly next day and in addition was well packaged. With pleasent support stuff at OCuk helping me work out the motherboard (been a long time since i put a PC together, p3 550mhz donkeys years ago).

To Considering If Buying This Stuff:
The 7900gtx is an exceptionally large card, now i'm not goin for an SLI setup i can't honestly see the point.. However if you decide to don't get this case, the rack for the floppy etc isn't far off the graphics card if you whack a 2nd card into the lower PCI express slot, which means you can't actually get the PSU PCI express power socket into it. Not unless you remove the entire rack.

In addition you have to take the case cpu flow pipe off the side if you want to fit a large heatsink, i'm using the standard one provided with the CPU currently but i will fit the one i purchased tomorrow.. Wanted to get a comparison.. Currently running at 32 idle and 38 load.

3D Mark 05:
Score of 10564 with AA turned off.

Which is on par with what tomshardware got on the same settings, except the test setup they used had an fx-57.

Overall i'm very happy with the purchase, i haven't had time to delve into any benchmarks and i only put it together yesturday.. But i will make sure to post some in the coming week once i've whacked FEAR and Quake4 on it.

If i could change anything about the setup.. I would of probabley spent a little bit more on the motherboard and case, but otherwise i'm very happy with the outcome.

[GFiSH]

Nice spec. I like the way you've gotthe same pics on your screen as you've posted, very cool.

Like the ashtray too

[kempez]

Nice mate. Good work

Just needs a bit of cable tidying

All looks pretty good going

[YorkieBen]

git

i hate you

[ExceededGoku]

^ lol nice post and specs

[Nox]

VERY nice - I got my BFG from Novatech, they didn't have the GTX in stock (was probably a good job lol) When are you getting some cable tidies in there???

Nox

[kasavien]

Nice job, and excellent spec, i would be too afraid of messing something up if i was putting a system together worth that much and again cable tidies would help things, air flow and aesthetics and the like

[YorkieBen]

also I would reccomend getting a quiet 120mm for the fan mount at the rear, it is more important imo than the front fan.

otherwise the psu fans exhausts all the hot air who imo isnt great as it heats up the psu which will cause the psu fan to ramp up and reduce its efficiency and lifespan

[villarule]

Is that the A8N-SLi premium? looks the same box as mine though I dont know if the box designs are the same across the range, if it is the premium, good choice, I love mine too

Also, same keyboard and mouse combo as me

Quite freakily, same router im going to be getting


Nice setup there, good choices, and everyone deserves to splash out on themselves. When I got my xmas bonus, I couldnt resist spending it, mainly because I felt I deserved it :d