Recommendations for a new system please

[DoctorJellybean]

I'll be placing an order next week for components to build a new system for myself (from Novatech of course lol). I have a rough idea what to get, but would like your input.

These are the components I would like some input on:

Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Hard Drive
Graphics Card
Sound Card
Fans
PSU
DVD Writer
Monitor
Keyboard & Mouse

Budget: £1,000

Main Use: Games, PhotoShop, Video Editing and Music Encoding

One of my concerns is the Graphics Card. Do I get one top of the range DX10 card, or 2 mid range and combine 'em in a SLi configuration?

Looking forward to your comments! Thanks.

[Conrad]

Motherboard - BFG 680SLI (although others here will definitely disagree - read some reviews and you'll soon see why I'm so quick to recommend).

CPU - Q6600, goes without saying.

RAM - Corsair or Geil DDR2 6400, 2GB.

Hard Drive - Personal preference really.

Graphics Card - 8800GT or GTS, 640MB.

Sound Card - Err... Not too clued up I'm afraid, my audio strength lies in car audio systems!

Fans - depends on the case! But CPU wise the Arctice Cooling Freezer Pro 7 did me wonders and gets a lot of good reviews.

PSU - Hiper. I have the 580W and have no troubles...

DVD Writer - Personal preference, they're all much of a muchness nowadays.

Monitor - Not my strong point, hopefully someone will chime in.

Keyboard & Mouse - Logitech G15 and Logitech MX518 or Razor Copperhead.

[Jonny2Bad]

Thats a good system, definately go for the 8800gt and not the gts640mb, i'd go for the 22" asus monitor as for sound card go for the creative extreme gamer, hard drive the samsung 500gig or western digital 500gig!!

[DoctorJellybean]

After trawling the various forums, reading the various reviews, etc, I made a provisional shortlist. Perhaps someone can tell me whether it will work all together nicely, e.g. no bottlenecks, etc.

Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI nVidia 680I

CPU: Intel Quad Core Q6600 95watt G0 Stepping OEM *

PSU: ThermalTake Toughpower Series Cable Management 700W Active

PSU Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer

RAM: Corsair XMS6400 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB) 800Mhz Non-ECC

Hard Drive: 2 x Samsung Spin Point SATAII NCQ 500GB

Graphics: 2 x Novatech NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

Sound: Creative X-FI Xtreme Gamer

* As the CPU is OEM, I'd need a proper heatsink.

Getting back to the Graphics, wouldn't a single Novatech GeForce 8800GTX 768MB HDCP Enabled Dual DVI PCI Express (575MHz Core Clock) (1800MHz Memory Clock) (1350MHz Shader Clock) card be better than 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB cards?

Any suggestions are welcome :)

[Jonny2Bad]

God no about the gfx cards the 8800gt's are only 3% below a gtx in performance so 2 in sli are gonna be pretty darn good. Thats a quality system!!

[PulpzillA]

all for under £1000 :shock:

[DoctorJellybean]

LOL no, I'll be stretching it a bit. Looks like around £1,200 at the moment

[Jonny2Bad]

You really dont need the sli unless your running a 30"moniotr so I would drop the 2nd 8800gt if your over stretched and maybe get another later when your bank balance has recovered slightly lol

[DoctorJellybean]

Hmm. Might consider Intel Dual Core E6750 instead of Quads, maybe a cheaper sound card as I use headphones and being hard of hearing as well, can't hear the extra sound quality lol. Monitor wise, I'm not sure if I should go for a 22" as 19" is big enough for me. Also, a single GeForce 8800GTX is cheaper than 2 GeForce 8800GT cards. More savings can be made if one hard drive is 500GB for Windows OS and programs, and the other one 250GB for data files.

[Taxation]

get a
Q6600
680i mobo
2GB ddr800
512mb 8800gt
corsair 620W
Then your choice in case
Any DVDRW drive
250GB harddrive
Windows vista home premium

thats the basics of it
Shouldnt cost too much
Most of the stuff you wouldnt notice the difference between the top brands and a generic brand
Get the cheapest 8800gt you can, they all perform the same at the same clock frequency, which you can change yourself
Get a decent 2GB RAM, not value, you will notice a difference here
Hard drive, you wont notice a difference
Same as the optical drive

[Jonny2Bad]

Not quite so tax on the hdd the performance on the samsungs and wd hdd are near to a raptors performance, and if there is the possibilty of going sli inthe future thenbetter to get the branded gpu as so to be able match it later if needed

[Taxation]

different gpu makes work together, i got a generic 7900gt, and that clocked further than a XFX XXX7900gt, or whatever it was called.

And as for hdd, thats not really my strong point, but i have used quite a few different makes, and havent noticed a difference

[Jonny2Bad]

I think its better to have the same make of gpu to run them in sli as they have to be identical to get the full benfit from sli, and yes the wd 500g almost matched the raptors for performance but i think the samsung is the better drive from the reviews ive read

[DoctorJellybean]

1) As the CPU is OEM (Intel Quad Core Q6600 95watt G0 Stepping), will the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro fit on the Asus P5N32-E MOBO? I assume the Artic is a combined heatsink with fan?

2) Will the ThermalTake Toughpower Series Cable Management 700W Active PSU fit into the Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer case, considering that the PSU location is at the bottom? Is the 700W sufficient, or do I need the 750W version (giving that I'll be using SLi 8800GT)?

[Jonny2Bad]

Yes 700 is ample and there is a chance the 12v wire wont reach the motherboard but this is easily solved by an extension from maplins for £2.99 but it'll probably be ok!! Yes get the socket 775 arctic cooler and it will fit fine!

[DoctorJellybean]

Thanks Jonny and everyone else :D

This appears to be my final list:

MOBO
Asus P5N32-E SLI nVidia 680I Socket 775 DDR2 GB Lan SATA II Raid 7.1Channel Audio

CPU
Intel Quad Core Q6600 95Watt G0 Stepping 4 x 2.40Ghz 8Mb Cache 1066 FSB Quad Core OEM

Heatsink
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775

Case
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate

PSU
ThermalTake Toughpower Series Cable Management 700W Active

RAM
Corsair XMS6400 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB) 800Mhz Non-ECC

Video
2 x Novatech NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB PCI Express Graphics Card - Retail

Sound
Sound Blaster Audigy SE/7.1 surround sound with EAX support (being hard of hearing, see no reason to spend more)

Hard Drives
Samsung Spin Point SATAII NCQ 250GB 8Mb Cache Hard Disk Drive <9.0ms 7200rpm - OEM
Samsung Spin Point SATAII NCQ 500GB 16Mb Cache Hard Disk Drive <9.0ms 7200rpm - OEM

Monitor
NOVATECH 19" Wide Screen DVI, 16:10, 5MS Response time, 850:1 Contrast ratio

DVD Writer
SAMSUNG 20x DVD+/-R/RW/RAM SATA OEM BLACK

Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft OEM Multimedia Keyboard and Intellimouse

Have I left anything out lol?

[Conrad]

Sorted!
Near enough identical to my system too. :shock: :lol:

[Jonny2Bad]

No I think you've got everything, I probably wouldnt be going for the sli if I was honest 1 8800gt is good enough to play any of the up coming games at full spec, and probably spend the extra on a 22" asus monitor and maybe the extreme gaming sound card, thats if it was my list!! Let us know how you get on with it also!!

[DoctorJellybean]

Arghh don't make me change my mind Jonny :?

It is a little bit more than I wanted to spend, but at least it will keep me going for the next 3 years or so .... I hope :roll:

Now I just have to wait for the delivery, and Novatech says Monday 12th :shock:

[Jonny2Bad]

Ah sorry no stick with it if you've chosen and ordered its gonna be an amazing pc whatever and will last you well into 3yrs, you know that q6600 overclocks too well over 3ghz and even if you punch the fsb up too 1333mhz it will turn it into a £600 chip!!

[DoctorJellybean]

Ah sorry no stick with it if you've chosen and ordered
Too late! I followed your suggestion, now it is one 8800GT, and swapped monitor for Asus 22" and sound card for Extreme gaming. I can always add another 8800GT next year. Cheaper to add then to replace sound card and monitor lol.


you know that q6600 overclocks too well over 3ghz and even if you punch the fsb up too 1333mhz it will turn it into a £600 chip!!
You know, overclocking is not something I have ever done, although it does interest me. Just how safe is it? I assume you have overclocked yours? If so, maybe you could tell me how you did it?

[Jonny2Bad]

Good choice great monitor and and sound card and yes if really required add another gpu later, and yes its safe and easy go into your bios look for the overclocking features change your fsb to 1333 and your vcore voltage to 1.4v and away you go a £170 chip turns into a £600 extreme chip running 4 core of 3ghz totalling 12ghz oh yes feel the power he he!!!

[PulpzillA]

doesnt it decrease the life expectancy of the chip though?

[DoctorJellybean]

If Intel has manufactured it especially to allow overclocking, I wouldn't imagine so. But then I'm no expert on overclocking.

[Jonny2Bad]

only if you run it at extreme temps, but my q6600 idles at 24c which is nearly 50% of my old p4 3.2ghz so how much can i really be damaging it, not a lot!!!!

[PulpzillA]

well why dont they djust overclock all the chips before selling them :?

[Jonny2Bad]

Because there are people and lots of them that would rather pay £600 for a chip!!

[mattk]

1) As the CPU is OEM (Intel Quad Core Q6600 95watt G0 Stepping), will the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro fit on the Asus P5N32-E MOBO? I assume the Artic is a combined heatsink with fan?

2) Will the ThermalTake Toughpower Series Cable Management 700W Active PSU fit into the Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer case, considering that the PSU location is at the bottom? Is the 700W sufficient, or do I need the 750W version (giving that I'll be using SLi 8800GT)?

mind you if you get aboard with those fancy heatpipe modules on (i.e asus striker extreme) the freezer 7 just aint gonna fit.

i tried it.. it looked like it fitted correctly but was only maing 1/2 contact witht the cpu. ran the QX6800 @ 60°C under load... (this is a 130w cpu!). so yeah this heatsink is the beez kneez! if it fits on your mainboard! :-p

[DoctorJellybean]

mind you if you get aboard with those fancy heatpipe modules on (i.e asus striker extreme) the freezer 7 just aint gonna fit.

so yeah this heatsink is the beez kneez! if it fits on your mainboard! :-p
Considering my board is Asus P5N32-E SLI, will the Freezer 7 fit? If not, can you recommend an alternative cooler?

[mattk]

ok just thrown one together...

fits ok.. about 1mm clearance from the copper heatsink on the top of the board and very clear of the others.

[DoctorJellybean]

ok just thrown one together...

fits ok.. about 1mm clearance from the copper heatsink on the top of the board and very clear of the others.
Wow! Now that is what I call service :D Thank you.

[Jonny2Bad]

ok just thrown one together...

fits ok.. about 1mm clearance from the copper heatsink on the top of the board and very clear of the others.
Ha ha love that!!! Just throw together fantastic lol

[DoctorJellybean]

The PC has finally been assembled! The MOBO light comes on, the case fans all spin, CPU Cooler fan spins, video card fan spins. No long beeps when turning the PC on. Tomorrow is D Day, when I'll be installing the OS!

[Jonny2Bad]

Omg how can you not do it now lol it will take 45 mins at max to get the thing up and running i couldnt wait lol

[DoctorJellybean]

Well old boy, as one gets on, one tends to get more patient :D

It was too late last night, and I knew if I started with the OS installation, that I wouldn't stop until I've installed a game too and had a go lol.

[Jonny2Bad]

Lol ive never been 1 for patience, and i would have had a game too, all ok thins morning os installed?

[DoctorJellybean]

Nope, OS won't install. Going to start a new thread. Also got a dead pixel in middle of monitor.