Ok which One

[bigduke6]

Guys i have narrowed it down to these 2 set ups - my budget is £1900, using mostly for gaming, which one and why?
3XS AMD Vision Black (New AMD 6 Core!) - New May 2010
** 3XS AMD VISION BLACK SYSTEM ** - Custom Series Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AM3, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 1600/1800/1866, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, ATX
120mm Akasa Apache Black Ultra Silent Fan HDB bearing PWM fan *OEM Fan Only Acronis True Image Home 2010 - System Back Up Software

Antec P183 Advanced Super Mid Tower Case (£96.97)

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, AM3, 3.2GHz, 9MB Cache, 125W (£205.90) 1

CPU Coolers Compare
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme Rev.C - 6x HeatPipes on 48 Alium Fins (£29.97) 1

AMD Phenom II professionally overclocked by our 3XS engineers (£0.00) 1

Memory Compare
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3 PC312800(1600), CAS 8, DHX, BEMP (£94.12) 12

ATI Graphics - Multi GPU Crossfire Options Available Compare
2GB XFX HD 5970 Black, 725Mhz GPU, 3200 SPs, 4000MHz GDDR5 (£459.59) 1

Power Supply Unit Compare
650W Corsair CMPSU-650TX (Single Graphics Card) (£66.65) 1

System Drives Compare

80GB Intel SSD Gen 2, (Read 250MB/s Write 70MB/s) (£145.80) 1234

Storage Hard drives Compare

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache (£46.67) 12

Optical Drive 1 - DVD/Blu Ray Compare
Sony AD-7240S-0B - 24x DVDRW (£13.59) 1
Optical Drive 2 - DVD/Blu Ray Compare
Sony AD-7240S-0B - 24x DVDRW (£13.59) 1
Floppy Drive / Flash Card Readers & Writers Compare
Akasa AK-ICR-07S 3.5" Internal Multi Mem. Card Reader Incl. M2, Micro SD & USB port (£4.79) 1
Sound Card Compare
Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity 7.1 - PCI-E (£79.79) 1

Operating system Compare

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64bit - Retail (£79.07) 1

or
3XS Intel X58 Core i7 - Custom Series - Updated May
3XS X58 Core i7 System Silverstone FP51B Black Transfer Bracket
120mm Akasa Apache Black Ultra Silent Fan HDB bearing PWM fan *OEM Fan Only Akasa 8 Pin Extension cable
Thermalright Chill Factor 2 Acronis True Image Home 2010 - System Back Up Software

Antec P193 Advanced Super Mid Tower Case, Black, Door, w/o PSU (£106.97)

Motherboard X58 Compare
Asus P6X58D-E, Intel X58, S1366, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1333/1600/2000, SATA 3Gb/s RAID, ATX (£145.17) 1

CPU Compare
Intel i7 930, 2.8Ghz, 4.8GT/s QPI, 8MB Cache (£198.17) 1

CPU Coolers Compare
Prolimatech Megahalems Super 6 Heatpipe Tower Cooler (Performance Option) (£35.97) 1

Your choice of an Intel i7 professionally overclocked by our 3XS engineers to 4Ghz (£0.00) 1
Memory - Selecting 12Gb of memory will limit your overclock! Compare
6GB (3x2Gb) Corsair XMS3 DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600), CAS 9 (£121.12) 1

NVIDIA Graphics - Multi GPU SLI Options Available Compare
1536Mb Asus GTX 480, 700Mhz GPU 480 Cores, 3696Mhz GDDR5 (£370.48) 1

ATI Power Supply Unit Compare
650 Corsair HX Series Modular PSU (Single Graphics Card) (£79.50) 1

System Drives Compare
80GB Intel SSD Gen 2, (Read 250MB/s Write 70MB/s) (£145.80) 1234

Storage Hard drives Compare

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache (£46.67) 123

Optical Drive 1 - DVD/Blu Ray Compare

Sony AD-7240S-0B - 24x DVDRW (£13.59) 12
Optical Drive 2 - DVD/Blu Ray Compare

Sony AD-7240S-0B - 24x DVDRW (£13.59) 12
Floppy Drive / Flash Card Readers & Writers Compare
Akasa AK-ICR-07S 3.5" Internal Multi Mem. Card Reader Incl. M2, Micro SD & USB port (£4.79) 1

Sound Card Compare
Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity 7.1 - PCI-E (£79.79) 1

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64bit - Retail (£79.07) 1

[Shiva]

Personally I'd go with the 2nd setup. I much prefer Intel over AMD currently plus you get another 2 gigs of ram in it with the tri-channel architecture of i7. The Megahalems is also a beast of a heatsink, combined with the Apache Black fans will be a very very quiet and running cool setup. They really are whisper quiet fans and I love the ones I have in my current machine. The Asus P6X58D-E is a good motherboard too. I was considering the Asus P6X58D Premium for my recent build and the difference is minor.

You get the 5970 on the first setup but the gtx480 on the 2nd. While the 5970 is a dual chip card, it will beat the 480 in terms of raw fps but you can add a second 480 for SLI and it will easily beat that 5970 (but cost more ofc). I'll be using the gtx480s instead of ATI (5870 or 5970) and I'm usually an ATI customer. Nvidia finally convinced me to give them a 2nd chance heh.

Definitely the 2nd setup!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would put this post in the hardware section to get more replies.

The GTX480 consumes more power than an HD5970 and running a pair of them off a 650W PSU would be pushing it IMHO.

[jjgreenwood]

I've got the bottom setup with a hx1000 psu, I've got the premium motherboard but only cos usb 3 wasn't on the basic one when i ordered. Its plenty quick enough for most things although I may get a 2nd 480 in the future to make 3d run a bit smoother.

Having said that the 1st one will be quicker for games out of the box so depends what you want.

[Philipp]

Hello bigduke6,

Its great that you are considering a 3XS system as your next system!

I would personally opt for the Intel based system, IMO the Intel X58 platform is far superior to that of AMDs whilst I love the fact AMD are trying to bring hex core tech to the masses (in comparison to Intels 980X) I would still pick the trusty 930 clocked at 4Ghz every time

If you have any further questions in regards to our systems please feel free to either post up or drop me a mail philipp@scan.co.uk

Best Regards

[Philipp]

The GTX480 consumes more power than an HD5970 and running a pair of them off a 650W PSU would be pushing it IMHO.

Running 2 480s from a single 650W PSU wouldn't be possible, 1Kw Corsair HX is needed for that