New PC - Advice please

[Andy14]

Good afternoon everyone. I think this might turn into a lengthy post, so I hope you'll bear with me and be able to help with my queries.

My reason for upgrading is primarily to play games. Mostly WoW right now, but who knows what else I'll be playing in the next 2 to 3 years. I play games at 1920 x 1200 and ideally with all the lovely effects turned on, set to max and with a frame rate well above 30 fps.

Presently I have a 2-year old system from Gladiator that has a Core-2 overclocked to 3ghz and an 8800gtx card. This runs wow for example fairly well at the above screen resolution, but not with everything maxed, and especially not when raiding.

Number one criteria here is that if I can't get a system MUCH better than the above, then I am best off waiting another year (until I can). I especially keep hearing that the new Nvidia cards are not that much faster than the 8800 gtx - I hope this is just hype / sour grapes.

Bearing all the above in mind I'm looking at a 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 PC and have a few questions regarding specification.

1) The case -- My present system has a Antec 900 case. It looks excellent, is very quiet and easily big enough for me. Is there a reason to buy any of the other cases over the 900 ? I don't want anything bigger, but soundproofing would be a bonus as noise is important to me.

2) Would the "upgrade" heat sink allow faster / more stable overclocking ? Or is it simply for show.?

3) Does the heatsink require a fan to be installed on it ? When you click on the info link it suggests it does and that one isn't provided.

4) Memory -- With the new i7 memory management is there any advantage in the more expensive memory ? Tests I've seen suggest not and 3gb seems plenty sufficient for any applications / games out there right now.

5) Graphics -- The biggy !! I thought the 260 overclocked would be ideal, but the 280 is now only a few £'s more and looks to be definitely faster. Do you agree that this will meet my needs ? If possible I'd like to avoid driver unfriendly, power hungry, space grabbing double cards like the 295. I take it all these cards are the new 55nm ones ?

6) Could I choose a 1.5TB drive instead of the 1Tb unit ? How much difference would a Velociraptor really make to the performance of the PC if used as a boot / os drive ? Is it really (to a human) noticeable ?

7) Sound cards -- I really want to have the MIC and Phones jacks on the front of the case wired in for easy switching - is this done as standard / possible.? When raiding a Headset is often needed, but most other times I like to use the speakers.


I don't need an OS as I already have Vista Ultimate and a actually want to put Win7 beta on it.

I'll take advice on extra fans / lighting, but would happily upgrade the fans to silient ones if they are not fitted as standard.

Finally. Boot speed is of massive importance and I see that the reviewed system had issues here. Can this be resolved and how much time would this remove ?

Thankyou for the help - it's really apprecated.


PS An estimate of delivery dates if ordered this Friday would be useful too.

[sleepyhead]

1) The case -- My present system has a Antec 900 case. It looks excellent, is very quiet and easily big enough for me. Is there a reason to buy any of the other cases over the 900 ? I don't want anything bigger, but soundproofing would be a bonus as noise is important to me.

Scan do a quiet i7 build. see here

4) Memory -- With the new i7 memory management is there any advantage in the more expensive memory ? Tests I've seen suggest not and 3gb seems plenty sufficient for any applications / games out there right now.

Get 6GB tri-channel kit; then when time rolls on you wont need to add/change memory. You do need 64bit OS though.

5) Graphics -- The biggy !! I thought the 260 overclocked would be ideal, but the 280 is now only a few £'s more and looks to be definitely faster. Do you agree that this will meet my needs ? If possible I'd like to avoid driver unfriendly, power hungry, space grabbing double cards like the 295. I take it all these cards are the new 55nm ones ?

You may not like double cards but right now you can't argue the value for money side on a 4850X2. In games with working crossfire profile it is bilstering fast compared with similar value cards. The GTX285 is over priced and the GTX260 needs to come down in price in line with the 4850X2 price drop.

6) Could I choose a 1.5TB drive instead of the 1Tb unit ? How much difference would a Velociraptor really make to the performance of the PC if used as a boot / os drive ? Is it really (to a human) noticeable ?

Hrm...I personally think the Velociraptor drives are a gimmick to all but those that actually need the speed. If noise is a concern, and if these Velociraptors are like previous generations, they are noisey drives. Right now I have 2x1TB Samsung F1 drives and they are pretty quiet and so is the WD 500GB AAKS drive. SCAN could point you in the right direction of how to make the PC boot quickly.

[QUOTE=Andy14;1622038]
Finally. Boot speed is of massive importance and I see that the reviewed system had issues here. Can this be resolved and how much time would this remove ?
[quote]
I believe this has been covered by SCAN elsewhere on the forums as to why the review system had a long boot time.

[Andy14]

Thanks for the reply sleepyhead.

On the system, I prefer the normal I7 based one I originally chose. Looking that the other one the Tri-slot RAM looks to be removed (dodgy) and it appears not to be overclocked either. And why does almost every Scan system come with a different case ?

On RAM, 3gb will be fine.. Even that will need 64-bit OS to use it all with a big graphics's card. 6gb is overkill, but I have to admit that it's cheap. Main question is does the faster RAM make a difference and from what I see in reviews of I7 systems the answer is "no".

Definitely would not choose the 4850x2. I've seen many bad reviews / comments regarding the drivers and it straight away takes up space, power and only provides an advantage in certain games. I'd far prefer a good single card. If I went double bubble then it would be for the best and that's the 4870 or 295.! Just my preference I'm afraid.

You confirm what I thought too with the Velociraptor drives. Big money for tiny gain and probably a high noise penalty too.

Interested to hear from a Scan person as I'm bordering on ordering this very quickly. Certainly any purchase I make has to be supplied in Feb / March.

[Mossy]

sleepyhead has done a lot of the work for me and has given very good advice, I admit although the velociraptors are very good drives and fast in your situation I also feel a Samsung will be quieter and fast enuogh considering the system specification.

I can customise this to your requirements if the config does not allow online I can do this manually so fan chioces can be changed if required. We try to keep to the 3XS specification as much as possible though as we do test this equipment to run it to the highest possible standard.

Any questions please fell free to ask for Paul in sales I will be able to hopefully answer your quieries and proceed with your potential order.

Best Regards

[Andy14]

sleepyhead has done a lot of the work for me and has given very good advice, I admit although the velociraptors are very good drives and fast in your situation I also feel a Samsung will be quieter and fast enuogh considering the system specification.

I can customise this to your requirements if the config does not allow online I can do this manually so fan chioces can be changed if required. We try to keep to the 3XS specification as much as possible though as we do test this equipment to run it to the highest possible standard.

Any questions please fell free to ask for Paul in sales I will be able to hopefully answer your quieries and proceed with your potential order.

Best Regards

Unfortunately Paul, I don't really think you answered any of my questions at all there.

[Philipp]

Thanks for the reply sleepyhead.

On the system, I prefer the normal I7 based one I originally chose. Looking that the other one the Tri-slot RAM looks to be removed (dodgy) and it appears not to be overclocked either. And why does almost every Scan system come with a different case ?

On RAM, 3gb will be fine.. Even that will need 64-bit OS to use it all with a big graphics's card. 6gb is overkill, but I have to admit that it's cheap. Main question is does the faster RAM make a difference and from what I see in reviews of I7 systems the answer is "no".

Definitely would not choose the 4850x2. I've seen many bad reviews / comments regarding the drivers and it straight away takes up space, power and only provides an advantage in certain games. I'd far prefer a good single card. If I went double bubble then it would be for the best and that's the 4870 or 295.! Just my preference I'm afraid.

You confirm what I thought too with the Velociraptor drives. Big money for tiny gain and probably a high noise penalty too.

Interested to hear from a Scan person as I'm bordering on ordering this very quickly. Certainly any purchase I make has to be supplied in Feb / March.

Hi Andy

Great to hear you’re considering ordering a 3XS machine...

The system sleepyheads provided a link for is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) it uses the Intel board (hence only 4 RAM slots) we used this board due to the fire wire controller.

Take a look at this review

http://www.scan.co.uk/downloads/CPCR...X58_Corei7.pdf

This is the machine you are looking to buy..

I would if you can go for 6 GB of RAM, yes it’s slightly over kill but on the other hand 3 GB is slightly under kill and a step back from the 4 GB "norm".

In regards to the speed of the memory it doesn’t really make a great difference as the X58/Core i7 platform uses triple channel memory.

Ill now try and answer some of your more specfic questions

1) The case -- My present system has a Antec 900 case. It looks excellent, is very quiet and easily big enough for me. Is there a reason to buy any of the other cases over the 900 ? I don't want anything bigger, but soundproofing would be a bonus as noise is important to me.

For the money its a cracking case, if you have it currently and like it stick with it. Unfortunately sound proofing cannot be installed into the case, if you require a more silent system take a look at the Antec P182 or Cosmos. If you want a case that is not on the configurator that’s not a problem just let me know what case you want.

2) Would the "upgrade" heat sink allow faster / more stable overclocking ? Or is it simply for show.?

Its a higher rated heat sink and should offer slightly better performance, in all honestly stick with the Ultra extreme 120, we have found it will handle the 920s at 3.6Ghz without problem.

3) Does the heatsink require a fan to be installed on it ? When you click on the info link it suggests it does and that one isn't provided.

Yep sorry this is a limitation of our configurator, if you check the "base specification" top right, there are 2 120mm fans included for the heat sink.

4) Memory -- With the new i7 memory management is there any advantage in the more expensive memory ? Tests I've seen suggest not and 3gb seems plenty sufficient for any applications / games out there right now.

Covered above, I would go for 6 GB.

5) Graphics -- The biggy !! I thought the 260 overclocked would be ideal, but the 280 is now only a few £'s more and looks to be definitely faster. Do you agree that this will meet my needs ? If possible I'd like to avoid driver unfriendly, power hungry, space grabbing double cards like the 295. I take it all these cards are the new 55nm ones ?

If the 280s only a little more then I would go for that, its worth pointing out that the 280s are 65nm if you want the 55nm part look towards to 285...

6) Could I choose a 1.5TB drive instead of the 1Tb unit ? How much difference would a Velociraptor really make to the performance of the PC if used as a boot / os drive ? Is it really (to a human) noticeable ?

Yes the performance is noticeable, but so its the noise and heat they are good drives, personally I would use a Samsung 750/1000 good price, nice and quite and still very fast...

7) Sound cards -- I really want to have the MIC and Phones jacks on the front of the case wired in for easy switching - is this done as standard / possible.? When raiding a Headset is often needed, but most other times I like to use the speakers.

Yes this is wired in, we connect everything possible in a system, both will be usable in your system.

If you would like anything expanding on or any further info dont hessitate to give me a shout

Cheerios

[Andy14]

Thanks Philipp. I just have to make a couple of decisions now and see what the money comes to and when you can deliver it.

I'll have a look at the cases that you recommended. Noise reduction is important to me, but the present setup with a Ant900 is not noisy and the system will be sitting under the desk. For the price it still seems a bargain and looks the nuts.

Standard heatsink it is then. 6Gb of sensible RAM. Normal sound card or the gamer one with the front case ports wired up. I'll forget the Velociraptor for now. Clearly overkill.

Not sure about the Graphics card though - and this could still be a killer ... Seems that there is the 280 (65nm) which is only a few £'s more than the 260 black, but then it jumps to £130 more for the 285 black which is clearly not worth it.

Do Scan do a 55nm 280 / 285 card that isnt the "black" and therefore probably similar price to the 260 overclock ? For 285 black money I may as well have the 295. Something I'm trying to avoid

And how much better are these cards than what I already have ? Do you have any test data from 1 of these rigs that I could compare to my present PC ?

Also.. Can anyone recommend a good (and fast) USB KVM switch for 2 PCs.?

Lots to think about.

[Andy14]

Had a good look through the case last night and it's a bit dewildering to be honest. Quietness is very important but so (obviously) is cooling. I want to get the best out of the overclock and don't want to risk getting a case that will cause overheating issues. I need very little expansion capability as I'm unlikely to add anything greater than another hard drive or 2nd optical disk during the time I have it and I don't really want anything where I have to fiddle with fan speeds / etc.

I notice too that most of the cases are massive. I thought my Ant900 was big ! In comparrison to most of the cases that are options it's a streamlined minow !!

So this probably leaves me a straight choice between the Ant 900 and the P182. The P182 seems to have a stupid front though where you have to mess about to get access to things you need (like Mic and Phone / USB).

The graphics card choice is far far harder !

• 260 Black. Most sensible and probably cost effective. Based on the 55nm process.
• 280 (65nm). Probably very similar performance to the above for £35 extra.
• 285 black. I don't understand this at all. The 280 / 285 are the same cards but 65nm and 55nm versions. 55nm is cheaper to make and the cards sell for the same price. So I'm paying £92 extra for someone to overclock it slightly ? On the plus side it's the fastest single card.
• 295... If I got this it's still not a cut and dry case. The 260 black / 280's are probably faster in games (like WoW) that don't utilise SLI properly. And it probably makes a ton of noise too.

So I'm really just confused and torn between :-

• Buy the 260 black as it's good value and practically a 280.
• Just throw money at it and buy the 295. But how p%s3d off am I going to be when it's slower than a 260 in the game (WoW) that I play most and howls like a banshee ?
• Throw the towel in, save money, get a AMD Ph2 black overclocked system with a 260.
• Wait for another year.

Any thoughts ?

[sleepyhead]

Thanks Philipp. I just have to make a couple of decisions now and see what the money comes to and when you can deliver it.

I'll have a look at the cases that you recommended. Noise reduction is important to me, but the present setup with a Ant900 is not noisy and the system will be sitting under the desk. For the price it still seems a bargain and looks the nuts.

Standard heatsink it is then. 6Gb of sensible RAM. Normal sound card or the gamer one with the front case ports wired up. I'll forget the Velociraptor for now. Clearly overkill.

Not sure about the Graphics card though - and this could still be a killer ... Seems that there is the 280 (65nm) which is only a few £'s more than the 260 black, but then it jumps to £130 more for the 285 black which is clearly not worth it.

Do Scan do a 55nm 280 / 285 card that isnt the "black" and therefore probably similar price to the 260 overclock ? For 285 black money I may as well have the 295. Something I'm trying to avoid

And how much better are these cards than what I already have ? Do you have any test data from 1 of these rigs that I could compare to my present PC ?

Also.. Can anyone recommend a good (and fast) USB KVM switch for 2 PCs.?

Lots to think about.

My apologies for confusing the situation with the link to the DAW build; I merely wanted to illustrate that SCAN do build PCs that run very quietly as noise is a concern of yours.

At the 1920x1200 resolution you wish to play at I personally believe the GTX295 (and for the matter HD4870X2) is overkill however it is your money your choice. I know you have concerns with the HD4850X2 so a cheaper option would be the GTX260 (55nm) for now and upgrade to the GTX285 once nvidia drop the stupid price tag for them.

Have a look here for a good review on the GTX285 (stock and overclocked with 2-way and 3-way Sli).

[Philipp]

Had a good look through the case last night and it's a bit dewildering to be honest. Quietness is very important but so (obviously) is cooling. I want to get the best out of the overclock and don't want to risk getting a case that will cause overheating issues. I need very little expansion capability as I'm unlikely to add anything greater than another hard drive or 2nd optical disk during the time I have it and I don't really want anything where I have to fiddle with fan speeds / etc.

I notice too that most of the cases are massive. I thought my Ant900 was big ! In comparrison to most of the cases that are options it's a streamlined minow !!

So this probably leaves me a straight choice between the Ant 900 and the P182. The P182 seems to have a stupid front though where you have to mess about to get access to things you need (like Mic and Phone / USB).

The graphics card choice is far far harder !

• 260 Black. Most sensible and probably cost effective. Based on the 55nm process.
• 280 (65nm). Probably very similar performance to the above for £35 extra.
• 285 black. I don't understand this at all. The 280 / 285 are the same cards but 65nm and 55nm versions. 55nm is cheaper to make and the cards sell for the same price. So I'm paying £92 extra for someone to overclock it slightly ? On the plus side it's the fastest single card.
• 295... If I got this it's still not a cut and dry case. The 260 black / 280's are probably faster in games (like WoW) that don't utilise SLI properly. And it probably makes a ton of noise too.

So I'm really just confused and torn between :-

• Buy the 260 black as it's good value and practically a 280.
• Just throw money at it and buy the 295. But how p%s3d off am I going to be when it's slower than a 260 in the game (WoW) that I play most and howls like a banshee ?
• Throw the towel in, save money, get a AMD Ph2 black overclocked system with a 260.
• Wait for another year.

Any thoughts ?

My old system used to be in a P182, personally I loved the case, and the ports are accessible from the front of the case without opening the door.

You do however need to open the door to access power/reset and optical drives.

All in all it’s a good case with build in sound proofing and decent fans…..

About the graphics cards take a look at the below review it should make things a little clearer

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16913

Oh the 295s don’t make a ton of noise they much quieter than expected,

If you’re looking towards an AMD system have a look at the 3XS AMD 790FX Dragon System (we can stick a NVIDIA card in there if required)

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/Category.asp?S...rCategoryID=20

Waiting another year is an option and maybe a good one…. How much is your current rig struggling with WOW at the moment, a new system will give better performance but how much and at what cost??

Are there any upgrades you can do to your system that will increase performance but also allow you to carry the new part over to a new system, such as Graphics card?

If I have missed anything feel free to give me a nudge and Ill get onto it ASAP

Cheerios

[Philipp]

My apologies for confusing the situation with the link to the DAW build; I merely wanted to illustrate that SCAN do build PCs that run very quietly as noise is a concern of yours.

At the 1920x1200 resolution you wish to play at I personally believe the GTX295 (and for the matter HD4870X2) is overkill however it is your money your choice. I know you have concerns with the HD4850X2 so a cheaper option would be the GTX260 (55nm) for now and upgrade to the GTX285 once nvidia drop the stupid price tag for them.

Have a look here for a good review on the GTX285 (stock and overclocked with 2-way and 3-way Sli).

Good advice

[Andy14]

Interesting review on the graphics cards. Thanks. I would definitely rather choose a 295 over individual SLI configs.

Good news too to hear that the 295 isn't as noisy as I perhaps expected. I guess it will need a bigger PSU though ?

Does the P182 really reduce the noise over the Ant900 by much ? The Ant900 does also have that really handy place to store your iPhone on the top too and all the front ports are right there where you want them....

My rational to upgrade now is that each year before the end of my finiancial year (for 15 years) I have always upgraded my PC's. Last year was the first exception. Quite simply, for the first time in 15 years I couldn't find anything a year ago much quicker than what I already owned. Now a year on again I still find that I need a monster rig to beat what I have by any significant margin.

1920 x 1200 when I bought my monitor was OMG. Now everyone talks as if it's "low-res". Yet PC's STILL don't seem to be that much faster. Very strange.

Another driver is that I want to test Windows 7 and I don't want it on my primary PC. So this opens the door for a new purchase.

Hoe well does my present system cope ? Very well really. 30fps+ nearly all the time, but I do have to run it with the settings turned down. Having said this, WoW doesn't really look massively different even when they are turned up

If I get a new PC then this one will take the serious load and I'll need a KVM switch to jump to the other as required. The biggest issue with the present machine is load times tbh. Once I login to Vista it takes AGES before I can actually work. A reason why I was concerned about the scan i7 boot times.

I'll stop waffling now

[sleepyhead]

If the gfx cards are still a concern for you, have a look at this summary. OK the article is relatively old but it shows what the old GTX 260 (65nm, 192 core) with the old drivers could do.

It would be a suitable interim until the GTX 285 falls in price or you feel that the GTX 295 is worthwhile upgrade.

Anyhow the gfx is only 1 query you had...

Oh and 1920x1200 is not "low-res" to me; after all this is only 120 lines better than 1080p resolution. PC's don't tend to seem that much faster but relating to gaming, old games don't tend to fully untilise new cards and new games on new cards..well..they tend to do the job. Try a new game on an old gfx card and it may struggle. Now I'm just waffling...however Nvidia did take step back with the 9800 range so the "true" successor to the 8800 gtx/ultra (in my eyes) is the GTX260/280/285.

Ahh and the "boot speed" issue...is answered here

Oh and here is a review of the i7 920 (overclocked) with a GTX260. Hexus Linky

EDIT: Sorry, I sound like I am trying to sell you the GTX260. I merely wish to present my view on the current gfx cards relative to their current sale price. Anyhow, good luck with your purchase, whatever you choose; your system will be amazing

[Andy14]

Thanks again Sleepy.

Cost btw is not an issue, I just want to get the right system. So I don't want to pay for 2 cards (like the 295) if I'm only using 1 (which I believe WoW does). And then I won't be continuing to pay for the cost of supplying power to the 2nd card either.

On the other hand the 280 seems be no faster than an overclocked 260, and the overclocked 285 is so expensive that I "may as well" have the 295 - lol.

I've seen the link before to the boot time post, but it just makes a totally generic statement and doesn't give any solid statements as to how much time the actions actually saved.

Read all the reviews. They all look great. It's what really attracted me here in the frst place tbh.

Thinking cap now needs to be applied.

[sleepyhead]

If WoW is the ONLY game you play, then (from googling) avoid any dual card setups. Seems more problem than it is worth.

But if you are looking to play other (more recent) titles, then sure, go get a dual GPU setup.

Still at 1920x1200 I'd stick to a single GPU setup and so I'd be looking at a GTX260/280/285 or HD4870 1GB.

Anyhow, that's just me..though I would buy the GTX295 if money was no object purely from a geeky point of view.

[Andy14]

Safe to say that WoW will not be the only game that I play, but right now I play it more than any other and I'd imagine that will be the case for a month / two at least yet.

I fully appreciate what you say about the geek inside. For almost 15 years I never considered all this with PC's I just bought the best and knew it would be the best. Now there's so much more to consider and actually buying the "best" could give you a system with driver issues and actually slower frame rates than a cheaper system.

Single GPU solutions are old school and you know that any speed increase will be applied to everything you play. As much as the tempation is to just get a 295 I still think that SLI is not in a place for me. Never gone for it before and still think it's wrong for me now. Which is a huge shame, because deep down I want a 295

Then I have to eliminate the 285 black because it's just not sensible value. Leaving the 260 black or 280. Based on this I've put together 2 systems that I think are my choices. Well... Those, or wait another year....... Had to spec ATI cards in both as the configurator doesn't allow Nvidia solutions in the AMD rig.

Case: Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200mm Top Fan
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black 3.0GHz 2000MHz HT 8MB Cache
CPU Coolers: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 120mm Heat Sink Fan
Overclocking: 3XS System Core-Logic Overclocking*10 - 20%*
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 Dominator - PC2-8500 (1066) - CAS 5
ATI Graphics - Multi GPU Crossfire Options Available: 1GB XFX ATI HD4870 775Mhz GPU 800 Cores GDDR5 Mem XXX
Power Supply Unit: 620W Corsair HX Series PSU (Dual VGA Cards)
System Drives: 1000 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Storage Hard Drives: *Storage Hard Drive Not Required*
Floppy Drive Flash - Card Readers & Writers: Akasa Multi Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Port
DVD Writer: Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±R 12x DVD±DL DVD+RW x8 -RW x6 SATA Black
Blu Ray Reader Writer: *Blu Ray Drive Not Required*
Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium
Operating system: *Operating System Not required* (System Tested under Microsoft Vista)
Extended Warranty: Standard 3XS System Warranty

£1355

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Custom Coloured Cases: *No Custom Colour Required*
Case: Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200m Top Fan
CPU: Intel i7 920 2.66GHz 4.8GT s QPI 8MB Cache Retail
CPU Coolers: Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme 120mm Heat Sink Fan
Overclocking: 3XS System Core-Logic Overclocking*10 - 20%*
Memory: 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) CAS 9-9-9-24
NVIDIA Graphics - Multi GPU SLI Options Available: *No NVIDIA VGA Card Required* (ATI Required)
ATI Graphics - Multi GPU Crossfire Options Available: 1GB XFX ATI HD4870 775Mhz GPU 800 Cores GDDR5 Mem XXX
Power Supply Unit: 620W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU (Single Graphics Card)
System Drives: 1000 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Storage Hard drives: *Hard Drive Not Required*
Solid State Drives: *Solid State Drive Not Required*
Floppy Drive Flash Card Readers & Writers: Akasa Multi Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Port
DVD Writer: Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±R 12x DVD±DL DVD+RW x8 -RW x6
Blu Ray Reader Writer: *Blu Ray Not Required*
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card 7.1Ch
Operating system: *Operating System Not required* (System Tested under Microsoft Vista)
Extended Warranty: Standard 3XS System Warranty

£1600

Reviews I have seen suggest that the AMD is as fast as the i7 for gaming. So is it worth another £245 for the Intel solution? Again the geek in me wants the i7, but the common sense part is saying "it's £245" for nothing.

Money isn't really an issue here (but noone likes being ripped off - especially by Intel / Nvidia) so would the i7 be the better bet ? Would it overclock better ? Am I missing a few other advantages ?