New gaming rig... Yet again...

Printable View

21-09-2006, 04:26 PM
danjamin

New gaming rig... Yet again...

Okay, like so many others, I'm going to tell you what I'm planning to spend my cash on...

Price is limited to something under £2000, because I'm using my student loan to fund this, and I need *some* money left over for books and stuff. Or a MacBook Pro :p Stupid, I know, but I need a new PC...

Anyway, here's what I've got planned, and the cheapest prices I could find online;

Mobo - Intel D975XBX "Badaxe" - £141
Processor - Core 2 Duo E6600 - £218
RAM - OCZ PC2-5400 Gold GX XTC - £153
Graphics - XFX GeForce 7950GX2 Extreme - £383
Case - Aerocool ExtremEngine 3T - £68
PSU - Seasonic M12 700W - £133
HD - Maxtor DiamondMAX 320GB - £61
DVD, etc - Sony 16x DVD-RW Dual Layer - £22
Sony 16x DVD-ROM - £12
Sound Card - Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music - £57
Speakers - Creative Inspire T6060 5.1 - £47
Cooling - Scythe Ninja Plus - £33
2x SilenX iXtrema Pro Fan - 2x £19
Keyboard - Logitech Ultra Flat - £11
Mouse - Logitech G7 - £47
Monitor - Asus PW201 20" LCD Monitor - £362

TOTAL - £1784

I plan to overclock quite a bit, and will use this machine mostly for gaming... Hard Drive space isn't all that imporant to me, I've got a number of spare drives at my disposal, hence only 320GB here...

Yeah, so any suggestions you guys could make to this setup, eg compatibility issues or better value/performance?

Much appreciated, Dan.
21-09-2006, 04:31 PM
kalniel

Very nice. You will totally regret blowing your student loan on something that goes out of date as quickly as a computer later, but hey, you can ignore the old fart's ramblings I'm sure.

Not sure about an ultra-flat keyboard for comfort.
I've had very bad experiences with Sony DVD-RWers, so I'd strongly recommend avoiding them, but others may say different.
21-09-2006, 04:34 PM
dave87

imho - ditch the 7950 and get an x1950 :)

Otherthing is you wont need a 700w psu - get the 600w S12, it'll be perfectly adequate.

Sony DVD-RWs (the later ones at least) are fine, but I wouldn't bother with the X-Fi.

Dave
21-09-2006, 05:49 PM
danjamin

Okay, so any suggestions as to what [non-sony] DVD burner to get?

*Clings onto the idea of quad sli in the near future, so retains the 7950gx2* Thanks anyway though :p
22-09-2006, 10:34 AM
kalniel

Anything by LG, pioneer etc. etc. :p
22-09-2006, 10:39 AM
MSIC

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalniel

Very nice. You will totally regret blowing your student loan on something that goes out of date as quickly as a computer later, but hey, you can ignore the old fart's ramblings I'm sure.

Not sure about an ultra-flat keyboard for comfort.
I've had very bad experiences with Sony DVD-RWers, so I'd strongly recommend avoiding them, but others may say different.

I was going to add something to this, but you know what, i'd recommend just re-reading what Kalniel wrote again. Good advice.

PS NEC dvd drive.
22-09-2006, 11:48 AM
Chunkers

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalniel

Very nice. You will totally regret blowing your student loan on something that goes out of date as quickly as a computer later, but hey, you can ignore the old fart's ramblings I'm sure.

What he said.

7950GX2 ? Why not tone it down a bit and spend some more on food, clothes, even beer.

Sorry, none of my business I know.

Chnks
22-09-2006, 12:02 PM
lodore

i would serguest sony drive since my nec drive gave up on me
22-09-2006, 12:52 PM
MadduckUK

i would suggest pioneer as my sony drive would frequently refuse to eject discs for no apparent reason.
22-09-2006, 01:03 PM
dave87

I would suggest quad sli is pointless - two x1950s in crossfire (when they sort the drivers out) will be much better....
22-09-2006, 01:07 PM
harry1

i was looking at custom pc this month with the dream pcs, omg they were a joke the vadim and the scan rhino, and it had a 7950 gx2 and said that it could run any game at the 24 inch res... and had fps to prove..

(well done scan the black rhino was wicked imo)
22-09-2006, 01:51 PM
darrensen

I have built many PC's over the past for myself and for friends. Most of them are gaming machines and end up costing £1500. I have done loads of research into my next machine and have decided to buy a Macpro. It has 2 Dual core Xeon cpu's @ 2.66ghz and i'm having a X1900XT 512mb GPU. It's only costing me £1500 Ex Vat, but you could downgrade the cpu's to the X2 Dual core 2ghz.

It's a very powerful system and then you can install windows on the machine as well.
22-09-2006, 02:02 PM
kalniel

Ew.. FB-DIMMs.. *shudders*
22-09-2006, 02:09 PM
darrensen

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalniel

Ew.. FB-DIMMs.. *shudders*

Lol yeah that is 1 downside.......the memory is expensive. But that's only a minor issue. 2gb memory would be fine anyway.
22-09-2006, 02:24 PM
Dark Horse

I'd go with most of what is said above. Main things I would change are:

7950gx2-->x1950 or a cheaper 7950gx2, they can be had for £315

Psu to 600w Silverstone ST60f for £90, 700w is overkill and bit pricey

Fans from the £19 each things to 2 Yate Loons (rebadged nexus fans) from Silencio_777 on ebay for about £8inc p&p each.

I would also get a fan controller if you're looking for a quiet computer

I would get rid of the X-Fi, unless you're an audiophile its a waste of money as onboard is pretty good these days.

If you've already got loads of storage then get a Raptor with the money saved from above.
19-12-2006, 05:12 PM
danjamin

Okay, I've made quite a number of revisions to the above setup, mostly due to cost issues.

Also, I'd rather hold back until the 2nd gen DX10 cards are in full flight before I got my whole sli/xfire setup going, and at that time i'll have a monitor, gpu, cpu and motherboard upgrade to deal with.

But until then, this lost should do me fine for any games i'm wanting to play for the next year or so... [And leave me with enough cash to pay for my internet :p]

Motherboard Asus P5B Deluxe - £114
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 - £112
RAM G.Skill PC2-6400 HZ - £241
Case Antec 900 Ultimate Gamer - £73
Graphics Card BFG 7600 GTO - £110
Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda 9 160GB - £41
Optical Drive Samsung SATA DVD-RW - £25
Mouse Logitech G7 Gaming Mouse - £51
Keyboard Saitek Eclipse II - £28
PSU Silverstone ST60F 600W - £89
Monitor Hanns-G 19" TFT - £118

Comes to a shade over a grand. Nice cutback on my previous offering. :)

I am slightly torn between my two case selections though, so any thoughts on either would be helpful.

I'm going for the E6300 because I've heard you can get pretty decent OCs on it, and compared to the rest of the C2Ds, its really quite cheap. I doubt I'll be needing the extra 2MBs of cache it lacks, at least not for now, because I'm not really into the whole media encoding thing :p

I know there are better motherboards, but I've done my research, and this is just what I'm looking for, and just in my budget.

Noticed the lack of IDE drives? :D I'm well modern ;)

As I said, the 7600 and monitor are merely temporary, until something based on the G80 is slightly more affordable, and a decent Core2 overclocking motherboard (450FSB+) WITH SLI comes into being.

Not counting the 680i offerings, because as it stands, they're no more affordable than a 8800 atm. Not really worth it IMO.

God, I'm waffling... Suggestions appreciated, thanks, Dan.

P.S. I know I'm missed out cooling, I'm just going to salvage that out of my current PC, which has a Scythe Ninja just sitting in it, not really doing much... And this PC is going to my flatmate/girlfriend anyway, and it'll be a cold day in hell before she manages to stress even a Presler beyond the stock cooler. Unless MSN + firefox get built in CPU stress tests in their next "upgrade". Sorry, I digressed. Ignore that :)
19-12-2006, 06:00 PM
danjamin

EDIT - After having seen the prices on the 7900GTs, I've updated my rig to a proposed XFX 7900GT for about £104.

Better card for less :)
19-12-2006, 06:25 PM
NightshadowUK

Spend the extra fiver and get a 250GB HDD?

Also, IMO, cordless mice = :mad: but then maybe that's just me.
19-12-2006, 09:40 PM
s_kinton

Quote:

Originally Posted by danjamin

Graphics - XFX GeForce 7950GX2 Extreme - £383

Buying this card would be a big mistake. You can get a 8800GTX for that same price!!!

If you're gonna blow £2k of your student loan (another big mistake imo), then at least get the latest gen kit, otherwise you're gonna want to upgrade to dx10 when you get your next loan installment.

Im paying back my student loan now. Dont forget this isnt money for free!!!
19-12-2006, 09:43 PM
danjamin

yes it is, its a bursary :P and the most recent post is the new setup, so you know.
19-12-2006, 10:01 PM
Smudger

Was it the Hanns-G HC194D you were going to get? If so, I would be careful if you're planning to use DVI. I've found most DVI cables won't fit, owing to the proximity of the connection to the swivel stand. I'm on the lookout for a DVI cable with a short plug at the mo, haven't found one yet...
20-12-2006, 09:08 AM
MSIC

Nice, agreed about getting the 7900 for £100, and also agree about upgrading hard drive to 250 GB (get either samsung 't' or seagate '10' series for both good speed and lack of noise).
20-12-2006, 10:09 AM
danjamin

Quote:

Originally Posted by danjamin

Hard Drive space isn't all that imporant to me, I've got a number of spare drives at my disposal

And since then, I've bought myself a pair of 500GB Seagate Barracudas, so I'm even more set that I was before.

Yeah, I know, it's only another fiver or something for the extrat 90GB, but I've got the price under a grand now, and if I go spend an extra fiver on one component, I'll end up doubling the price of the whole thing, knowing me :\

Not to say I'm ignoring your ideas, just that I'm fine for storage.

And Smudger, thanks for the heads up about the display, that was the one I was planning to get, and I will be using DVI. Are there any other monitors out there that you suggest, similar specs and price?

My ultimate goal is three 19" monitors plus one of those Matrox TripleHead2Go boxes. [If they bring out a DVI version. If not, then the DVI isn't that important]

Thanks, Dan.
20-12-2006, 10:15 AM
ikonia

Sad that uni fees are so high and this is what you choose to spend your student loan on.

Look at IDE DVD drives - you'll have no hard disks on these so they won't have problems sharing a ribbon with them, plus they are cheaper.

If hard disk space isn't an issue why have you just bought 2 500GB drives ?

Just do what you want as you seem to have an idea in your head you're going for.
20-12-2006, 10:42 AM
danjamin

The reason its not an issue IS because I keep on buying new disks...

And this is what I have left of my student loan, after having bought all of my books and things... And the fact that my flatmate and I work about 90 hours a week between us sort of means that this money is just sitting round not doing much...

I'm only saving about £5 by getting an IDE DVD-RW, and I figured that since I'm already using the sata controller, i can disable the IDE channels, and free up tiny bit of work on the motherboard and cpu. At least this is what my thinking is, I may not be entirely right in that view...
20-12-2006, 12:59 PM
MSIC

Quote:

Originally Posted by ikonia

Just do what you want as you seem to have an idea in your head you're going for.

Hey come on - there's no need to get stroppy and insult the guy! Handbags at dawn anyone?
20-12-2006, 02:28 PM
danjamin

Hehe.

Sorry if I'm not really taking many suggestions into account, I have researched this quite well, and was merely posting here to clarify that what I've got would work well, and to find out if anyone had any problems with the above hardware.

I want to make sure that everything will be "perfect" when I finally spend my money :)
20-12-2006, 02:30 PM
ikonia

I'm not getting stroppy or insulting anyone ?

It just looks like he's got a clear idea of what he wantsand as he's said he's researched it, so he may as well just do it rather than keep going over and over.
20-12-2006, 04:28 PM
CrazyMonkey

Still i would get a 8800GTS maybe even GTX and spend the extra money elsewhere.