£1300 for a custom PC headache. Help!

[Jay007]

Im tired of my shuttle 3000xp 9800pro system and believe its time for a new system for all the up and coming games during the christmas period. But im truly am stuck with what to get. Ive decided to go with a core2duo set up but motherboard choice is the biggest headache atm. First i waited for an Nforce5 mobo but now hearing they've ceased to exit and nvidia have decided to jump to Nforce6 for the cor2duo ive decided against waiting for them. Same goes for ATi's R600 mobo which i wouldnt be surprised if that never makes reality.

so now looking at my choice its either a p965 or the i975x intel chipset, ive read that P965 has better performance while i975x has crossfire which in the future would be great for a graphics boost. Also with the choice amongst each chipset makes it even more difficult. im simply tempted to just go with the most exspensive one which is the Asus P5WDG2-WS i975X but is it worth it?

My next headache is the graphics card and not knowing if to go with an expensive Ati 1900xt or to just by a mid-range card now and hold on to my cash for a DX10 card which arent too far away and ive read should boost performance of current games as well being future proof.

Also if possible id like to get a 20" WS monitor but have no idea which one to get and not sure if it will fit in the budget.

So basically if anyone could be so kind to give some advice it would be much appreciated.

Im also gonna be ordering the stuff from only either Scan or Aria due to there buy now pay later scheme.

[NightshadowUK]

The Core2Duo motherboard to get at the moment is:

- ASUS P5B Deluxe

Or if your budget allows:

- ASUS P5W64 WS

As for a 20" Widescreen, the Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP is the one to go for.

[Clunk]

Dont be fooled into buying the most expensive board, it might look like good value for money on paper, but when you actually unpack it and look what you get for your money, its not very impressive. Also, ask yourself if you will ever really use most of the onboard features, if you will use them, go for it, but ill bet most people dont use them....end of rant

The P5B deluxe is a great board, overclocks well, good bios support, build quality can be iffy, as with all asus boards, also, if you do get an asus that has the heatpipe cooler on it, take it off before you run the board and check that it is sitting flat on the northbridge, they often dont sit flat and any kind of voltage raise could end up with a dead northbridge, or generally decreased performance.

[danroyle]

1st nforce does exist it's called the nforce 590/570 etc

the 965 chipset is the way to if you don't want nforce avoid the 975x chipset it's the top one but they put the crappy ich7r southbridge on it which means the midrange chip the 965 performs better because it has the new ich8r southbridge which gives better stability and better overclocking

also the intel chips still don't support sli were the nforce boards do although intel are supposedly beta testing there sli drivers

the abit ab9 pro seems to be a good clocker as is the asus p5b deluxe

graphics card whatever you buy they will bring out a newer better one 2 days later so just get what takes your fancy

also if you are going for core2duo buy faster bandwidth ram and don't worry too much about the latencies it doesn't matter with intel performance amd are more about low latency intel cpu's like raw speed i would reccomend some adata vitesta ram it's really fast and clocks well and would set you back about £250 for 2 gigs

[Robbie G]

If OP doesn't need loads of features on the board then he should just go for the DS3 or DS4 if he also wants two PCI-E slots, firewire, and better RAID support.

[Jay007]

Hey first up thanks for the great advice guys, very helpful and narrowed my choice right down with the mobo choice.

Ive decided to give up the crossfire(a GX2 will do nicely) and go with a p965 and it will be out of abit AB9 Pro, Gigabyte DS4 and ASUS P5B Deluxe. Quick question though about the DS4, what would the extra PCI-Exprees(16x) be used for?

The Dell monitor does look very swish but ive notice the NEC LCD20WGX2 which seems just as good and cheaper.

The A-data ram would be perfect and cheaper than corasir. any idea where i could get some?

[Robbie G]

The second PCI-E slot on the DS4 could be used to run a second video card in SLi or crossfire (with a BIOS update to F7), but it's not genuine x16, it's x4 I believe. Still better than a slap in the face however.

[danroyle]

Hey first up thanks for the great advice guys, very helpful and narrowed my choice right down with the mobo choice.

Ive decided to give up the crossfire(a GX2 will do nicely) and go with a p965 and it will be out of abit AB9 Pro, Gigabyte DS4 and ASUS P5B Deluxe. Quick question though about the DS4, what would the extra PCI-Exprees(16x) be used for?

The Dell monitor does look very swish but ive notice the NEC LCD20WGX2 which seems just as good and cheaper.

The A-data ram would be perfect and cheaper than corasir. any idea where i could get some?

you can get the adata at www.memoryc.co.uk

[Jay007]

How much of a performance difference will there be between PC-6400 and PC-8000? and does the extra cash warrant it?


Heres my set up so far - RAM and GFX card. seems like i'll be going over the budget.

[danroyle]

not a huge difference although pc8000 would be better as your fsb is set to run at 1066 so you wouldn't need to run the ram on a divider

and at £253 for the adata pc8000 stuff it is cheap g skill g skill f2-8500 stuff is £360

and corsair is not that great if you get a chance pick up custom pc november edition huge review of all the top ram very interesting read

[NightshadowUK]

Just pondering what made you choose that PSU?

[Jay007]

Just pondering what made you choose that PSU?

600W, becuase it seemed more than capable for my needs plus any future upgrades with Sli or crossfire and additions of more Hard drives and maybe a blu-ray or HD-DVD drive, Physics card and sound card. Plus coolermaster are a reliable company to go with and these were there new line of PSUs.

What would you have gone for?

[danroyle]

600W, becuase it seemed more than capable for my needs plus any future upgrades with Sli or crossfire and additions of more Hard drives and maybe a blu-ray or HD-DVD drive, Physics card and sound card. Plus coolermaster are a reliable company to go with and these were there new line of PSUs.

What would you have gone for?

the 85% efficiency is a bit worrying 15% ripple on 12v rail is what about
1.8v either way thats alot of ripple go with a good enermax or hiper

[NightshadowUK]

Or a Tagan / Seasonic.

[Steyr]

E6600's on today only too, save you another 4 quid

[GrahamC]

I was trying to give some info for a monitor that may be of interest to the OP but the forum sofware won't let me so i'll not bother. lol