first Scan system

[Bletch]

Hello Scan support and anyone reading.

I've taken the 3XS Black Hawk and cut back a bit, only having around £2700 to spend. I'm still messing around with it and have a few questions.

I would like my choice of gfx card to be either a 1792MB GTX295 or 2x 1GB GTX285s.

Only 2 PSUs are offered. 620w or 1000w. Would the 1000w one be okay for either my choice of cards?

I've also taking a liking to both Silverstone cases, the FT01B-W and the TJ07B. Are both good all round cases?

And finally my choice of chip would be either an i7 940 or i7 920 but I'm not sure about overclocking, shall I just go for it & opt for the 10-20% one?

Thanks for your time

[TAKTAK]

Hello Scan support and anyone reading.

I've taken the 3XS Black Hawk and cut back a bit, only having around £2700 to spend. I'm still messing around with it and have a few questions.

I would like my choice of gfx card to be either a 1792MB GTX295 or 2x 1GB GTX285s.

Only 2 PSUs are offered. 620w or 1000w. Would the 1000w one be okay for either my choice of cards?

I've also taking a liking to both Silverstone cases, the FT01B-W and the TJ07B. Are both good all round cases?

And finally my choice of chip would be either an i7 940 or i7 920 but I'm not sure about overclocking, shall I just go for it & opt for the 10-20% one?

Thanks for your time

I would think that the 620w PSU would be fine in either case (i'm guessing it is a Corsair HX620w? [which can do more than it is rated for]), although i might be tempted to go for a 700w (The corsair TX750w tends to be at a nice price point) for 2 x GTX285s (but i'm not sure how much power they pull, so that could be massive overkill) or go for a cheaper none modular PSU and make Paul unleash some Jedi-cable-fu to get them hidden

and i would go for an overclocked 920, as it offers better bang for your buck than the others...

Silverstone are one of the good case manufacturers, and their Tiemjin (sp?) series is simply exquisite , another manufacturer to look at is Lian Li, as they make great case too

[Philipp]

Hi Bletch,

Great to hear your thinking of a 3XS Black Hawk, a 620 Corsair will handle a single 295 or 285 as it has 2 x 8pin connectors.

Stick with a 920 Cpu and if you select the 20% OC option we will clock it to 3.6Ghz

I dont think you can go wrong with either choice of case, they are both stunning

Feel free to fire away with anymore questions...

[Bletch]

Hi guys, thanks for taking time to reply.
You both seem to be recommend the 920 chip which would save me a bit of cash...to throw at 2xGTX285s
But may I ask what sort of overclock would be capable of the 940 chip?

My main use will be Photoshop work & gaming on a 27" Dell. I've got a lot of catching up to do too, Bioshock, Crysis & Far Cry 2 are all on the shelf waiting to be installed on my dream PC.

Thanks again for your thoughts

[Andy14]

I've ordered my PC recently and from what I can gather the guys are clocking the 940 at the same 3.6Ghz as the 920 so there would be no advantage at all. Even if they got an extra .2 out of it no way would it warrant the extra cost.

I too came at this from a "cost is no object" point of view but didn't want to spend cash on things I just wouldn't notice in my everyday use.

Therefore I'd look carefully at a 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 system with a GTX295 card in it and ask just what more than that the Black Hawk will really deliver. Might save yourself a shed load of cash!

If you really want the extra few % by bundling 2 x 285's then you can also upgrade the above system to do that and it will still be a shed-load cheaper.

[Clocker 1]

Welcome bletch I myself am a new member of the Scan / Hexus community and have recently ordered a new 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 system and I'm excitedly awaiting its arrival ! ! I'm going mad in the process anyway Andy14 is spot on about the processors , I was going for the i7 940 at first until Phil let me know that they can OC the i7 920 to 3.6 which is the exactly the same speed they'd OC the i7 940 to ! so your getting the same performance out of both chips ! so it made sense ( and saves money ) to get the i7 920 . Also the cases you mention are both great cases . The Tj 07B case is my personal fave as its got a lot of room for expansion / upgrades . Its an awesome case for water-cooling if you are considering that in the future ? ( My water-cooled system was in the Tj 07B until i got the Lian li v2100B ) I to agree with Andy14 about opting for a 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 system with a 295GTX , I use my system for Photoshop / video editing and gaming mainly , i use 2x 30inch monitors so i opted for 2x 295 GTX, but if your using a 24inch monitor 2x295 GTX is overkill . Either the 285 or the 295 are great cards but it depends on what your be using them for etc . .I hope some of my ramblings have helped in some way M8 ! keep us updated . PS you made the right choice going with Scan, they have been really helpful and given me a lot of good advice ( THANKYOU PHIL )

[Philipp]

Thanks for the great feedback Clocker

Bletch as Andy and Clocker have pointed out the over clock would be no higher with a 940 or 965.

The main reason being heat we believe that with an air cooled system 3.6Ghz is going to be very close to the limit.

It’s also worth pointing out that Scans over clocks are 100% stable, and by 100% stable we mean Prime 95 running across all cores at 100% for 24hours

Cheerios

[Bletch]

Hi everyone
Thank you all for spending time advising me, much apprechiated. You've all convinced me to opted for the overclocked 920 based on the 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 system, instead of the Black Hawk.

One more question though, how does this chip compare with an overclocked Q9650? The reason I'm asking is because my mate will take the p*** if I don't get a machine as powerful as his (he's got two whopping GTX280s too!).

Thanks again for helping everyone.

[Andy14]

The I7 is the daddy now and clocked at 3.6Ghz not much will even come close.

If all you want to do is beat your mate - just put 2 x 295's in it.

[yupyupno]

the 920 is a lovely little chip

you should note that i think clock for clock the i7 are 40% faster in some applications

so the q9650 could be clocked at 3.6ghz, the 920 at 3.6gz, the 920 should eat it alive!

there are some really good benchies if you look around

if you're into encoding videos etc, then the i7 are the way to go, add that with a good nvida card, add badaboom, and you've got yourself one sweet editing system that will destroy anything out there.

For games, they are a bit closer, not 40% faster, but have a clear advantage i think.

@philipp, when i pm'd you about being stable, i meant around an hour lol, not your 24 hours

[sleepyhead]

This should give you a good idea of what a stock i7 920 can do against a hoard of other intel CPUs.

The i7s are in a league of their own.

[Bletch]

Awesome! sounds like my mate will need to trade his in There's always been a bit of competition between us, since my first PC infact...which was I believe a P200 with 'whopping' 4mb(!!) ATI Rage2 gfx card.

Thanks again everyone and for the link too Sleepyhead, am having a read

[Philipp]

Theres some cracking advice on this thread....

Bletch if you need anything more from me just give me a shout

Cheers

[Philipp]

@philipp, when i pm'd you about being stable, i meant around an hour lol, not your 24 hours

Hehe an hours not stable....... go for the 24 mate

[Bletch]

Oh no! Dilema. On the customisation screen I've been confronted by 120mm coolermaster case fans. I'm not sure how many to go for...assuming at the moment I think my gfx card will be 2x GTX285s. Anyone?


I can't thank anyone via options Is this because of number of posts?

[Philipp]

What case are you going for Bletch, the cooler master fans have LEDs in pick the colour you want, failing that pick the akasa amber if you don’t want LEDs.

Cheers