Soon to take the plunge and buy a SCAN!

[en3sge]

***Please note this thread has been copied from the custom build forum where I accidentally put it*** Hopefully its in the right place now!

Hi everyone!

Im new on these forums although I have been reading them a lot over the past few months before I signed up.

Im about to 'take the plunge' and buy a new SCAN system soon. I say 'take the plunge' as this will be my first ever gaming pc (and therefore my first, and biggest, financial investment into a pc).

So this brings me to SCAN. Anyone remember the advert for stella - 'reassuringly expensive' - thats how I view SCAN. Its seems other companies can give you packages that are a bit cheaper but all reviews suggest the SCAN components are very solid. This, coupled with a fantastic post-sale customer service (Ive been following a user of this forum 'recon' and his build that keeps going wrong and the scan response has been amazing - AAAA service) and I know where my money is going.

I dont want to write an essay so I will keep the praise short (ha). I am looking to buy a 'SCAN 3XS Intel X58 Core i7 - Custom PC Premium Grade' but I have a few questions and ammendments I want to make. I will list below (if anyone can help here I would greatly appreciate):

1) Overclocking - Is it possible to have more than 2 BIOS settings for overclock? I know the i7 920 can reach 3.8 but I would only really use that when essential. I would like one at stock, one at 3.2 (or somewhere around there thats very stable) and one at 3.8Ghz for flight simulator or other cpu limted games.

2) I want to get 285GTX SLI but I hear this can cause microstuttering problems. Does SCAN know if this is a big problem with SLI and should I just choose one card and upgrade when the 300 series comes out?

3) Does the overclocking include the graphics card and RAM?

4) Would SCAN install windows XP on a partition if I gave them my current XP code (I have an old pc I dont use anymore with XP media centre so I dont want to buy XP again)?

5) IS there a 2Gb gtx 285 I can use instead of the 1Gb (thinking of AA at high resolutions)

6) Can I switch from graphics card to onboard graphics when I do not need the power (e.g. surfing the net)? Or is there a 'low power' setting on the 285s so it underclocks itself when not needed?

7) Can SCAN disbale the UAC on windows vista before it arrives?

8) Am I limited by the case options or can I choose any case I want?

Thats a lot of questions but as you can probably tell, this is a big financial commitment for me and one I wont make for another 5 or 6 years at least so I want to make sure its all good.

Oh and I will probably be ordering later in August when my wages have gone through

Thanks everyone!

[sammorris]

There is a 2GB GTX285 but it's incredibly expensive. Two of them in SLI will set you back a substantial amount of money. Your best options are either to stick with the GTX285 pair or get a pair of HD4870X2s - the latter uses a little more power, but works out better value than the SLI combination in a large proportion of games (obviously not including the SLi-biased titles like GTA4, Cryostasis and Crysis). I don't know how much Scan mark up stuff when being installed in a 3XS system, but two 1GB GTX285s retail are £481, two 2GB cards are at least £552 (and currently unavailable, so the resultant price may change). Scan are unfortunately also out of reasonably priced 4870X2s as well, but in a couple of weeks' time when you order this status may change.

1. Some boards allow the use of profiles but overclocking with most boards is quite simple, if you know what changes were made, you can just turn them off and save in 30 seconds flat.
2. With regard to my earlier post about the 4870X2s I have no noticeable microstuttering issues in CF-supported titles with my system. I can't speak for the SLI setups.
3. GPU overclocking is only done software-side in the graphics driver. RAM, however, is part of the CPU overclocking process.
6. You can't disable the cards entirely (or at least you can, but it makes no difference to power consumption) -all graphics cards underclock themselves whenever they're not running a 3D application - nvidia GPUs are better at this than ATIs, but the second GPU on X2 cards uses almost no power at all when idle, which balances it out
7. I imagine they probably could, but why can't you do it? it's really easy to do... :S

[en3sge]

There is a 2GB GTX285 but it's incredibly expensive. Two of them in SLI will set you back a substantial amount of money. Your best options are either to stick with the GTX285 pair or get a pair of HD4870X2s - the latter uses a little more power, but works out better value than the SLI combination in a large proportion of games (obviously not including the SLi-biased titles like GTA4, Cryostasis and Crysis). I don't know how much Scan mark up stuff when being installed in a 3XS system, but two 1GB GTX285s retail are £481, two 2GB cards are at least £552 (and currently unavailable, so the resultant price may change). Scan are unfortunately also out of reasonably priced 4870X2s as well, but in a couple of weeks' time when you order this status may change.

1. Some boards allow the use of profiles but overclocking with most boards is quite simple, if you know what changes were made, you can just turn them off and save in 30 seconds flat.
2. With regard to my earlier post about the 4870X2s I have no noticeable microstuttering issues in CF-supported titles with my system. I can't speak for the SLI setups.
3. GPU overclocking is only done software-side in the graphics driver. RAM, however, is part of the CPU overclocking process.
6. You can't disable the cards entirely (or at least you can, but it makes no difference to power consumption) -all graphics cards underclock themselves whenever they're not running a 3D application - nvidia GPUs are better at this than ATIs, but the second GPU on X2 cards uses almost no power at all when idle, which balances it out
7. I imagine they probably could, but why can't you do it? it's really easy to do... :S

Thanks for your suggestions here. You know I actually hadnt thought of having 2 4870X2s together. It is about the same price as 285 SLI as well. But Ive just done a bit of research on that idea and it seems games dont scale well past 2 cards and there have been some catalyst driver issues running two of those cards before. I would rather keep my system as simple and clean as possible.

Another reason I went for gtx285s is for CUDA. I know it hasnt really taken off yet but there are some games that really benefit from it. I like the idea of reserving one card for CUDA as well or, even better, running folding at home on one card whilst the other is gaming. I know the gtx 285 is pretty good at that.

Hmm point taken though that the 2Gb card is not only rare but also expensive. I heard that with SLI setup the computer does not recognise the extra video ram so even with 2x1gb on the 285 sli, the system will only see 1gb. Which is annoying!

Anyway thanks for the help

[sammorris]

There aren't any notable catalyst issues running the two cards, no more than you'd get with two radeons, or any SLI setup. The only downside is of course that two 4870X2s only work with vista or windows 7. My recommendation (regardless of whether you use QCF or not) is to get the PC with no OS installed, and get the Release Candidate version of Windows 7, which is free until the OS' release. It is still lacking a couple of features, but is much more efficient and stable OS than Vista.
Right now I don't really see the benefit of CUDA, ATI cards run folding at home too (though perhaps not quite as efficiently, I don't know).
Obviously the other problem with high end graphics memory is that there is only enough registry in 32-bit Operating Systems for 4GB between the system and the graphics. 4GB of graphics RAM would mean you couldn't have any system RAM at all, so it will be split up. Long story short, for anything beyond 3GB of RAM and a 1GB graphics card, 64-bit is essential (and Windows XP 64-bit is far worse than vista or win7).

[en3sge]

There aren't any notable catalyst issues running the two cards, no more than you'd get with two radeons, or any SLI setup. The only downside is of course that two 4870X2s only work with vista or windows 7. My recommendation (regardless of whether you use QCF or not) is to get the PC with no OS installed, and get the Release Candidate version of Windows 7, which is free until the OS' release. It is still lacking a couple of features, but is much more efficient and stable OS than Vista.
Right now I don't really see the benefit of CUDA, ATI cards run folding at home too (though perhaps not quite as efficiently, I don't know).
Obviously the other problem with high end graphics memory is that there is only enough registry in 32-bit Operating Systems for 4GB between the system and the graphics. 4GB of graphics RAM would mean you couldn't have any system RAM at all, so it will be split up. Long story short, for anything beyond 3GB of RAM and a 1GB graphics card, 64-bit is essential (and Windows XP 64-bit is far worse than vista or win7).

Ok I will have a look into the radeon solution. Certainly the price (i.e. identical almost to 285 sli) is a plus point.

I might add at this stage though that I am looking to run 3 OSs in the future. XP for my older games (that dont always work backwards with vista), vista for vista optimised games and windows 7 for anything/everything else. Thats a lot of OSs! But I am getting frustrated with the lack of vista functionality on some of my more treasured games that go back a few years.

I am looking at 6Gb corsair dominator RAM. I want to run triple channel so it is either 6Gb or 9Gb but the latter might be overkill. But on the other hand I am so un-confident with opening up my PC and fiddling, I want everything to last me at least 3 years.

Still have a bit to research. I never thought buying pcs would be so complicated! (but I am actually quite enjoying the research and its helping me get more clued up on current tech anyway )

[sammorris]

I too am frustrated by the lack of support for older games (and by the way, running dual graphics makes that situation worse - it seems to apply to both CF and SLI), dual booting is one option, but what I decided to do was take some old bits, add a couple of new ones to finish it off and make a basic system capable of running all my old games in XP, then joined them together over a network and a KVM switch. It wasn't especially cheap, but it's an invaluable approach.
Triple channel should ideally be 6GB or 12GB, not nine. Apart from a couple of alt-tab related issues, I haven't had to run many programs that work in vista in compatibility mode - the few examples that I do were pre-vista but just happened to work with it.

[en3sge]

I too am frustrated by the lack of support for older games (and by the way, running dual graphics makes that situation worse - it seems to apply to both CF and SLI), dual booting is one option, but what I decided to do was take some old bits, add a couple of new ones to finish it off and make a basic system capable of running all my old games in XP, then joined them together over a network and a KVM switch. It wasn't especially cheap, but it's an invaluable approach.
Triple channel should ideally be 6GB or 12GB, not nine. Apart from a couple of alt-tab related issues, I haven't had to run many programs that work in vista in compatibility mode - the few examples that I do were pre-vista but just happened to work with it.

Thats a good idea actually. Concentrate the new pc on the newer stuff and do windows xp gaming seperatly on a diffrerent machine. I guess I wouldnt need more than 2Gb RAM, 9600 graphics and a small 150Gb hard drive to do all that. No more than a mid range C2D either. Might be an idea for the future. All my money is going into this beast at the moment.

I am very much looking fwd to fight simulator X, X3 terran conflict, stalker CS, Oblivion, GTA IV, COD MW2, Cryostasis and the next DOOM all running at 1080p fluently (well, gta at a stretch ha)

Im still working out which hard drive setup to use. If I dual boot windows 7 and Vista then. Both can reside on a partioned 10,000rpm veloceraptor? With space left over for important program files like a few games etc? Then leave the 1Tb 7200rpm fr everything else literally. Thats what Im thinking at the moment. SSDs are out for me cos they still dont seem to represent great value for money and there is a question mark over their longevity.

[sammorris]

Yeah exactly, my spare PC is an E5200 and an HD4830, it has 4GB of RAM because that was so cheap, and a 1TB HDD if necessary for extra storage since that was also relatively inexpensive, but I've only filled about 150GB of it so far. I have to warn you, FSX, X3, STALKER:CS, Oblivion, GTA4 and COD6 will certainly run fine at almost max on a 1080p screen, and Doom 4 probably will as well, but Cryostasis certainly will not. It is much too demanding for today's current SLi or Quad crossfire setups, you may have to cut it back to low-medium settings to get a reasonable frame rate. Your best bets for a primary HDD will either be a Velociraptor or a next-gen Intel X25-M 80GB (The white one).

[en3sge]

Yeah exactly, my spare PC is an E5200 and an HD4830, it has 4GB of RAM because that was so cheap, and a 1TB HDD if necessary for extra storage since that was also relatively inexpensive, but I've only filled about 150GB of it so far. I have to warn you, FSX, X3, STALKER:CS, Oblivion, GTA4 and COD6 will certainly run fine at almost max on a 1080p screen, and Doom 4 probably will as well, but Cryostasis certainly will not. It is much too demanding for today's current SLi or Quad crossfire setups, you may have to cut it back to low-medium settings to get a reasonable frame rate. Your best bets for a primary HDD will either be a Velociraptor or a next-gen Intel X25-M 80GB (The white one).

I didnt know cryostasis was graphics hog. I know it runs better on Nvidia cards (much like crysis does) and you have an ATI setup - are you putting Physix onto the processor? I have heard that can really hit the frame rate.

Oh to SSD or not to SSD...? The new Intel is supposed to be good and far less noisy than the raptor for sure! But it is £171. Literally the cost of the machine at the moment is just shy of 2 grand and I really cant afford over that. Again, it goes back to do I SLI or crossfire or neither...? Might have a word with some of the scan guys if they ever appear on this thread. See what they think. At the moment, all opinions considered!

Im also starting to wonder if I will ever go back to sub-HD Halo 3 on my xbox 360 after I start playing crysis at 1080p on my new rig...well thats a question for another day!

[sammorris]

PhysX on the CPU causes unbelievable lag on a non-physx card, typically around a 75-90% performance hit. It is still a severe impact on a GPU physics card as well though (at least 30%). I am not actually running Cryostasis since I use 2560x1600 I'm basically stuck with 8-10fps on minimum detail, so I'll wait a few years for it to be playable. This is from hardware benchmarks.
£170 for an SSD is a reasonable amount of money but Velociraptors aren't actually that much less than that, so it's a tough call.

[Mossy]

Hi En3Sge

I think its just taken me 20 minutes to read through all this but it deos make an intresting read. As of RECONS build I can highly recomend the the GTX295 CO-OP cards just off the results from testing and it actual gaming it seemed seemless of course this was a SLI setup or QUAD SLI and may become quite expensive. 2 GTX285 in your case would still be a very good option under testing these cards seem to perform well and go well in the Silverstome/Antec cases due to their good Termal properties.

Please feel free to give me a quick shout if you wish to speak over the phone I may have some interesting specifications for you to look at.

Regards

[sammorris]

Assuming you mean GTX295 if he's worried about memory with 285s, 295s are even worse, they take severe performance penalties with heavy AA due to lack of memory. 285s are better for this but obviously expensive for single GPUs.

[en3sge]

Hi En3Sge

I think its just taken me 20 minutes to read through all this but it deos make an intresting read. As of RECONS build I can highly recomend the the GTX295 CO-OP cards just off the results from testing and it actual gaming it seemed seemless of course this was a SLI setup or QUAD SLI and may become quite expensive. 2 GTX285 in your case would still be a very good option under testing these cards seem to perform well and go well in the Silverstome/Antec cases due to their good Termal properties.

Please feel free to give me a quick shout if you wish to speak over the phone I may have some interesting specifications for you to look at.

Regards

Thanks for the case advise. I was in fact looking at the antec P193 case so thats handy!

Tbh in an ideal world the Nvidia 3xx series would come out right now and I wouldnt have to worry about SLI! ha but Im not going to wait until early next year just because of a graphics card.

As it stands, Im looking to purchase shortly after 20th of this month (money reasons!) so Im just cementing my options down at this early stage. I know the world of computing changes quickly but hopefully things will remian mostly static within the next 20 days or so.

The biggest decision I have to make is do I go for 285gtx sli now (or equivalent) and get pretty much the best gaming possible right now OR go for the single card, use (slightly) lower settings for now and then upgrade to the 3xx series early next year. But that is 5 months away...agh decisions.

The rest I am kind of 90% settled on, with a few modifications I will go through with you guys on the phone/email nearer the time.

One thing though: is it possible to come and collect the system from your workshops in Bolton and then come and meet the guys who built it? First, I just dont trust couriers with such a precious thing but also I would just like to say hello and thx to the builders/testers (if possible)? That will be a day trip ha I live in Reading. But good fun!

[Mossy]

Assuming you mean GTX295 if he's worried about memory with 285s, 295s are even worse, they take severe performance penalties with heavy AA due to lack of memory. 285s are better for this but obviously expensive for single GPUs.

This was a typo I actually typed 395 deleted it then retyped 395 for some reason.

We are all entittled to our opinions as i said we have setup RECONS system with the 295's and had some very good results. Most reviews and personal experience the NVIDIA cards out performs the 4870 X2 not only this it does it using less power / heat.

[Mossy]

en3sge

It will be possible to collect the system I am sure I can organise somehting like this.

Regards

[sammorris]

Overall arithmetic performance wise, the GTX295 outperforms the HD4870X2, but as the OP said he wants plenty of memory performance, something the GTX295 is direly short of. Two GTX285s or an HD4870X2 will fare better in this regard, but to bump the performance up on the Radeon side, two 4870X2s will really be needed, which is no problem as they're so much cheaper than the alternative.