New Gaming Build... Comments Pls :)

[Ralphuk]

Anyone suggest any changes? Plan to overclock it at some point hence the Opty.

Opti 175 Dual Core (2MB, 2.2 GHz) £365.06
Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe £104.45
Corsair TwinX PC3200 2GB, 2-3-3-6 £146.29
XFX 7900GT256MB £232.65
Vapochill Cooler £21.08
Cooler Master Cavalier Case £47.93
Enermax Modular 500W PSU £70.25
Seagate Barracuda SATA 2.0 200 GB x 2 in Raid 0 config £117.24
DVD ROM Sony Silver £13.74
DVD RW Sony Silver £28.60

[mmmalas]

all looks good, but If were you, I would hold until AM2 socket is out,

its only a month or two if you can wait. but thats me

[Ralphuk]

Yeah I might just do that, I've been looking at builds for quite awhile so another couple of months wont hurt

[mmmalas]

I am myself waiting for it too, I was thinking of upgrading.

but then I thought its a bad idea, since I need to change the memory / cpu/ mb after few months

[iranu]

Personally I would spend less on the chip and more on the graphics card. I'm unsure what the difference between the dual core opterons and the x2 cpu's are, but I'd be surprised that the difference is worth the extra outlay over an easily overclocked x2 3800 and an opty175.

If you can wait a bit then new technology is almost upon us so either go for that or enjoy the price drop on existing tech.

[atrull]

I think you'd get more out of it if you spent less (and got a single core higher mhz cpu ) spending more on the gfx card - 512MB ?

[ExceededGoku]

ye go for the Opty 165 and upgrade that graphics card to an X1900XT or a 7900GTX, my preference is the X1900 as its faster and better IQ. Not a fan boy comment just plain truth.

[Dark Horse]

Yup, I agree too. Opteron 165 will probably overclock as well as a 175 but is ~£100 less. Spend the differenceo on a raptor or better graphics and you will appreciate it more.

[nvening]

If you are only "Planing to OC" What spend £100 more for the same cpu as a 3800+, all be it with MB of cache so something like a 4200+.

[NightshadowUK]

Opteron 170 perhaps?

[sawyen]

The £100 premium just to get from 1.8 to 2.0Ghz is just not worth it, Besides.. the 165 probably came from the same bin as other 175s.. so they're jsut as overclockable..

As long as you get a decent board that can handle async or 1:1 high HTT, then you're fine.

The 3800X2s are pretty good, but some lousy stepping can really hurt its headroom... I for one is one of those sad souls that got a 3800 X2 that can even get past 2.5Ghz without throwing loads of volts at it. Don't remember the stepping for my chip.. But I can barely hit 2.6Ghz even with over 1.55V..

[javalord]

Forget the AM2, not going to bring much to the table. I'd advise on some backup solution as well. Whilst I've personally found seagate drives reliable, your still leaving yourself open to loss for little performance gain. Opt 170 would probably be better value for money.

[TooNice]

I would go either Opteron 165 or 170 depending how much of the "best" you want.

You will have a better chance of getting close to 3Ghz with the 170, and your motherboard won't need to support stupidly high HTT to get there.

The 165 is locked at 9x so you want to make sure your board can handle high HTT if you go that route. Having said that, the A8n-SLi Deluxe doesn't have much of a reputation for high HTT, so it will be worth swapping it if you intend to do some overclocking, especially with lower end Opteron.

To a lesser extent, I also question of HD config...

[Ralphuk]

Thanks fer the comments guys... Gives me much to think about

[iranu]

Yes remember that if you run raid 0 to be a bit more fanatical about backing up your data. Having switched from raid 0 back to 2 seperate drives I certainly notice the difference in speed when loading games.