New Rig Spec

[Clellandmc]

I'm looking at getting a new PC, which I 'm looking at playing some intense gaming on and want it to last me a few years, below is a spec I have put together. What do you guys think of the spec and are their any recommendations you can suggest and if it will all work together, lol.

• Antec P182 Black
• Antec TruePower Quattro 850W Modular PSU - 2x 8pin PCI-E, 2x 6pin PCI-E, 4x 12V Rails 80PLUS Energy Efficiency
• ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard
• OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 (OCZ2N1066SR2GK) Dual Channel SLI Ready Edition
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)) Retail Boxed Processor
• Western Digital Raptor 150GB S150 16mb 10000rpm
• Western Digital Raptor 150GB S150 16mb 10000rpm
• Extra Value Nvidia 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 Dual DVI PCI E Graphics Card OEM
• Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM
• NEC Optiarc AD-7170S-0B 18x DVD±RW/DL/RAM Serial ATA Black - OEM
• Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Socket 775 CPU Cooler

Comes to a total of £1230.

 

[rich[182]]

Quality case & psu there
Personally I'd go for one of the Gigabyte P35 boards, only because theres a lot of threads on various forums with problems on recent batches of Asus boards
Memory - I'd use Corsair XMS2 or Crucial Ballistix, also get 4Gb for your 64 bit Vista
Don't bother on the Quad core yet, for now just get a E4300 for £75 and o/c to 3.3GHz as the new Quad's are out in Jan so the Q6600 is rumoured to come down 50% in price
Save some money and replace the raptors with Western Digital's AAKS drives
Re. 8800GTX, theres still no evidence that even the 8800GTX/Ultra will cut it with the likes of Crysis at very high res with all the bells and whistles switched on
Theres new 8800GTS640 cards out in 4 weeks which are specced halfway between current GTS640 and GTX so maybe theres some good deals to be had with old stock of current GTS's shortly, or a new GTS640 o/c will be 80-90% performance of a GTX and much cheaper
For spending in excess of £300 on a GPU I'd wait till the next gen cards are out, not the 1st gen DX10 cards

 

[Bl1ng3r]

tbh, id say that is a really good rig youve made their, but maybe try a fatality motherboard? they are almost perfect for gaming and have everything youll need, also like rich said: I'd use Corsair XMS2 - that would be your best bet in terms of RAM, primarily because corsair offer the top-end RAM in the market aswell as giving you a lifetime warranty - nice choice of gfx card there also, but surely if your spending that kinda money, just SLI the 8800's? - a possibility for that money

 

[Clellandmc]

Thanks for the comments guys. I think I'll have another look at the options after your advise.

The reason I didn't bother SLIing the GTXs is because I didn't think they performed a great deal better than a single GTX card.

There seems to be loads of motherboard with Crossfire support, but not many with SLi support, am I missing something?

 

[Adams_16v]

im purchasing this very soon:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA804)

Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)

OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM

Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

Comes to £900 all in

 

[ben_p]

dont get a corsair psu!...

there are better out there for the monies.

other than that adam its a good spec... also the pc case's by LianLi tend to be very pricey but, if its what you want!!

 

[Adams_16v]

whats wrong with the psu's matey? I got that recommendation from the overclockers forum, everyone was rating them highly? any recommendations?

The case is £55 I think. I fancy a nice looking but practical one if im building a beast

 

[Clellandmc]

I see you have the Abit IP35, guessing that reviews quite well from what I can see, does anyone actually have that board here?

 

[Adams_16v]

Not had one myself, but I have read good things about them!

 

[ben_p]

the psu's are ok, heard good and both bad reviews about them. enermax all the way! or thermaltake, not heard a bad word said yet.

how much is the corsair?

 

[Adams_16v]

£68 but tempted with a 100w more to be on safe side.

 

[Clellandmc]

How will I know how many watts I'll need for my setup? I know that too much is better than not enough but...

 

[Mike_182]

650-700w off the top of my head, probably get away with a bit less but it'll be tight then.

 

[rich[182]]

The Antec Trio 650W is a quality PSU at reasonable price, it's not simply a case of getting so many watts either, some of the cheaper PSU's that claim peak power of 650W are a shower of s***e and are nowhere near 650W, one factor to take serious are the number of 12v rails and the current they can run. The Antec has 3 x 12v rails and loadshares between them, total draw upto something like 60A, dedicated rail for PCI-E connections and the like, also got a damn good fan too
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-063-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

 

[Dink]

for that price i'd get this

 

[Adams_16v]

how about this buddy. same price as your original spec just about.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-005-OC

 

[Clellandmc]

how about this buddy. same price as your original spec just about.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-005-OC

Hmm... yeah I've looked at that and my spec is becoming more and more like that one, lol. What I'll probably do at the end of the day is check the price difference and see if it's worth building it myself or not.