New Scan System?

[floz]

Hi guys

Need a bit of advice if possible. I have been looking around for a new P.C for a little while and have a spec in mind and scan on the shortlist. would appreciate any suggestion or thoughts on the below.

Its only used for Games really. don't want anything watercooled or overclocked as its too much hassle to maintain. also concerned over heat as our last PC from evesham always struggled to stay cool after a long session. Ideally want to spec if up so it will last 3 years with out having to fiddle with it too much.

Here is the spec from website... though I was hoping to make a couple of additions not on the site (underneath).


1 *No Custom Colour Required*
1 *Custom Side Panels Not Required
1 Intel i7 965 Extreme, 3.2GHz, 6.4GT/s QPI, @ 3.8Ghz
1 Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 Exclusive Dual Fan CPU Cooler (Fans Included)
1 *No System Overclocking*
1 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) CAS 8-8-8-24
2 1GB XFX GTX 285 Black, 690MHz GPU, 240 Cores, 2600MHz GDDR3
1 *No ATI VGA Card Required* (NVIDIA Required)
1 1000W Corsair HX Series Modular (Dual GTX295 or 4870X2 Cards)
2 300 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor, 10000rpm, 16MB Cache
1 *Storage Hard Drive Not Required*
1 120Gb OCZ Vertex Series (Read 200MB/s Write 160MB/s)
1 Scan Black Floppy Disk & Internal Combo All in 1 Card Reader
1 Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±R, 12x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black
1 *Blu Ray Not Required*
1 Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional - PCI-E (x1)
1 *Use On Board Network*
7 120mm Akasa Amber Case Fan, Ultra Quiet and Long life - No LEDs
2 Sharkoon 4" White CCFL 2in1 Kit
1 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit
1 CyberLink PowerDVD 8 Standard Movie/Audio Player & Decoder
1 2 Years Scan Extended System Warranty (£3001 - £5000)

a couple of questions sprang to mind....
1) Should I get 12gb of ram do you think
2) can I get all noctua fans to help keep the noise/Heat down a bit more?
3) would a temp monitor/ auto fan controller be useful?
4) could you add a OCZ aphex SSD instead, I've heard its faster?
5) would it be worth getting the corsair RAM cooler?
6) do you think two GTX 295 would be faster.... I've read reviews that indicate, not really most of the time and slower on some occassions.
7)Is the titan fenrir a better CPU cooler do you think...
8) The RAID 0 velociraptors are quite cool, but seem overkill... esp with windows on the SSD... is there anything that you would think would give me more bang per buck?
9) can get wondows 7 loaded or a partition set-up ready.... how do you guys do dual booting?

Thanks very much... excuse my brevity... this the third time I have typed this up!

James

[Philipp]

Just working on this now

[floz]

Thanks Fella. Sorry for all the questions. Make the wrong call and we're stuck with it for 3-4 years so like to be through! seems to be a fair few more option than last time we bought a games PC!

J

[Philipp]

Hi James,

Great to see you’re looking towards scan for a new system

You don’t mention what case or system you’re looking at, if you could get me this info it would be great….

The Intel 965 Extreme has just been superseded by the new Intel 975 Extreme if the past is anything to go by the 965 will be made end of life shortly; as such we will be replacing the 965 options on the web with 975s.

I would however highly recommend opting for the Intel 920, and the 10% option over clock. I know you have said you don’t want over clocking but I can assure you that the 920 clocked at 3.2 GHz will be 100% stable and will produce little extra heat, more importantly this will save you around £500 and the performance will be higher than that of a stock 965ee.

The rest of the spec seems spot on

Now to the questions

12 GB of ram is sheer over kill for a gaming system, it is also something that can be easily upgraded further down the line (you won’t need to).

Not a problem using the noctua fans…

We can add temp monitors if you like; I personally don’t like them as they only measure the temperature of the heat sink they are attached to, also most then require you to manually adjust the speed of the fans. We have found that the main board headers do a cracking job of keeping the system cool and quiet.

We haven’t had chance to test the Apex drives yet, however if you would rather use them it is not a problem.

I would recommend the RAM cooler for 12GB as the 6 sticks sit close together; if you are opting for 6GB then the cooler isn’t really required.

In our experience, 2 x 295s are only really needed for gaming at high resolutions 2500x1600 (30inch Dell/Mac Monitors), you are quite right in thinking that 2 x 285s scale better than 2 x 295s I believe this is down to support for what is in essence quad SLI.

The titan fenrir is an awesome cooler, it’s a little on the noisy side at full tilt and if you don’t mind a little noise I would highly recommend it, if you are concerned about noise levels I would stick with the noctua, all in all both coolers will cope without problem with either the 920 @ 3.2GHz or the 965 @ 3.2GHz.

They probably are a little over kill for what is in essence storage drives, bang for buck use 2 x 1000GB Samsungs.

If I have missed anything or you want me to go into any further detail feel free to either post back or email me directly on philipp@scan.co.uk

[Philipp]

Thanks Fella. Sorry for all the questions. Make the wrong call and we're stuck with it for 3-4 years so like to be through! seems to be a fair few more option than last time we bought a games PC!

J

Its really not a problem, feel free to ask all the questions in the world, I would rather take the time now to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Cheers

[floz]

Hi Philip.

Appreciate your help very insightful, unfortunatly the forum has done it to me again, so apologies for brevity this is my second attempt, again!

system was a black widow, so the TJ-07 (no spider though, sorry)!

I'll think on the CPU, you certainly make a pursuasive argument, and everyone seems to agree! my question is: What could I spend the money saved on to improve the system do you think?

with the HD's I'll be using them all for games (plan was to put slightly older ones on the raptors and the new games and windows on the SSD). I was wondering, as above, what other components you'd recommend putting the money into, if I just got a 750GB spin point F1 instead. (so I know my options)!

could you just give me a little detail on how the dual boot business works please? what does it "look like" when in use... (is it possible to give us a blank partition ready for windows 7)?

Last new question I promise, any reason your not using the Asus P6 Deluxe, seems to have won the custom PC vote, which is the source i've mainly been using...

And finally... Could you email me the cost implications of your recommendations for: (just how much extra for each will do:
OCZ Aphex SSD
Noctua Fans
Titan Fenrir
(need to run it past the bank manager)!

virtually there I think.... having a dead steaming hulk of a PC in the study is accelerating the process somewhat!

J

[floz]

Perhaps that nvidia 3D screen what not rather than the drives/processsor... I was going to get a new monitor in a couple of months anyway....

I've heard good reviews and its only going to get better with driver releases... is the samsung monitor any good though?

J

[Philipp]

Hi J,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you…

What I would spend the money on…. I would say an SSD but you have selected one, maybe water cooling but you don’t want to go down that route, everything else in your system is spot on so really there isn’t anything left up upgrade….

Good monitor, keyboard & mice?

The 3D screens are amazing, however I couldn’t personally use one for gaming (eyes hurt) on the other hand I know of people playing on them for hours and swearing never to go back to a standard monitor. The good news is you can flick between normal mode and 3D with the touch of a button, the picture on the Samsung panel is one of the best I have seen in both modes, again I know of people who have bought the panel just to use it without the 3d...

I think your either going to love it or hate it; the problem is you need to see/use it first to find out…

We can create a boot menu, when you turn the system on you are presented with a list of OSes you can use, just select and away you go, we can have a partition ready for windows 7 this isn’t a problem

We use the Asus P6T deluxe on the X58 Core I7 system, the black widow is the next system model up if you will, as such we opted to use the rampage board we find it clocks better and also lets us store up to 8 BIOS profiles…. If you want the P6T again this isn’t a problem both are cracking boards

The difference in cost would simply be the price of the components, from my working out it’s about £20 more expensive with the below amendments

OCZ Aphex SSD
Noctua Fans
Titan Fenrir

If you need anything else just give me a shout

[floz]

Cheers Philip.

going to be doing some further reading around and finally sitting down on Sunday (next time i'm home, grr), to thrash out a final spec. Few big descisions to make: processor and disks. but will be pretty much as is I would think.

Whats the best way of ordering? Should be call up and ask for someone. Seems silly to go over everything again and don't want to get anything wrong!

Cheers

James

[Philipp]

Hi James,

Just email me the final spec and any further questions, I will get a member of the sales team to give you a call, after I have brought them upto speed with the spec

Cheers

[floz]

Hi Phillip

Just about there I think. final specs are below... we decided on going with your advise on the Oc'd 920 and the spinpoints. Instead we thought we'd like a 3D vision set up.... However ideally need a larger monitor than 22"... something more like 24"-26". Do you have any insight into when we might see a larger pannel on the market? (it doesn't look too tough to install myself after, i'm fairly handy...)?

Below are final specs with the couple of off the menu options we'd like noted....

Base Specifications

Silverstone TJ07B-W Black Aluminium Full Tower Case with Window
3XS Black Widow System
Asus Rampage II Extreme, Intel X58, DDR3 1600(OC)/1800(OC)
Scythe KAMA-BAY Black System Cooler
2x Revoltec RL048 White LED 92mm fan – Replace with Noctua NF – B9
Thermalright LGA1366 Bolt Kit
3x Akasa Fan Splitter Cable
3x Zalman Fan Extention Cable
Acronis True Image Home 2009 HDD Backup & Restore Software
Build / Configure / Test / H.E.
Scan 3XS System - 1year Onsite Warranty (Mainland UK)
Scan System Configuration (Details confirmed at checkout stage)


Qty Selected Specifications

1 *No Custom Colour Required*
1 *Custom Side Panels Not Required*
1 Intel i7 920, 2.66Ghz, 4.8GT/s QPI, @ 3.6Ghz with 20% OC (D0 Step)
1 Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 Exclusive Dual Fan CPU Cooler (Fans Included) – Replace With Titan Fenrir
1 *No System Overclocking*
1 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) CAS 8-8-8-24
2 1GB XFX GTX 285 Black, 690MHz GPU, 240 Cores, 2600MHz GDDR3
1 *No ATI VGA Card Required* (NVIDIA Required)
1 1000W Corsair HX Series Modular (Dual GTX295 or 4870X2 Cards)
2 1000 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache – RAID 0
1 *Storage Hard Drive Not Required*
1 120Gb OCZ Vertex Series (Read 200MB/s Write 160MB/s) – install Operating system on SSD (just windows vista H.P).
1 Scan Black Floppy Disk & Internal Combo All in 1 Card Reader
1 Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±R, 12x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black
1 *Blu Ray Not Required*
1 Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional - PCI-E (x1)
1 *Use On Board Network*
7 120mm Akasa Amber Case Fan, Ultra Quiet and Long life - No LEDs – Replace with Noctua NF – P12
2 Sharkoon 4” Blue CCFL 2in1 Kit
1 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit
1 Microsoft Office 2007 – 60 Day Trial - REMOVE
1 CyberLink PowerDVD 8 Standard Movie/Audio Player & Decoder
1 *No Software Required*
1 *No Software Required*
1 *Monitor Not Required*
1 *NVIDIA 3D Vision Not Required*
1 *Gaming Keyboard Not Required*
1 *Gaming Mouse Not Required*
1 *Gaming Mouse Mat Not Required*
1 *Speakers Not Required*
1 Standard 3XS System Warranty - 2 Years (1st Year Onsite / 2nd Year Return to Base)

Can you get someone to give me call regarding ordering and finalising the price with the few options not on the site..., (don't really want to post my phone number. How do I get it to you)?
How long do you recon? Can't wait!

[floz]

Is Philip on holiday?

[floz]

Finally got to ordering of the above , Many thanks Philip for all the advice (all of which we took)! Inc Overclocking!

Maybe we can get some pictures during the systems build. Once again thanks again.

[Carlh]

Floz,

I have passed all the paperwork to the system build team for you and I shall request that pictures are uploaded during the build process.

Regards,

[floz]

Hi CarlH

I see the system has started to be built...Please don't forget a few Pics....

Many thanks..


Fred

build 28712

Inv.1591965.

[Lee24]

Nice spec mate you will be very very happy with that for a long time good luck,

and i got to say well done scan you make buying a new system easier for people good job guys