New parts, less than a £1000

[dual2max]

After selling the old opteron machine I think it is about time to buy another cumputer.
I have a case, power, dvd drive and a mouldy water cooling system and was wandering if my basket choice was ok. No more than a £1000.
Although previous builds were AMD/NvidiaSLI, surely there is not that much between INTEL/ATICrossfire.
Any advise appreciated.




Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro SILENT Heatpipe 1024MB GDDR4 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (21119-01-40R) £169.99
(£199.74) £169.99
(£199.74)
Asus Maximus Formula SE Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £159.99
(£187.99) £159.99
(£187.99)
BFG Ageia PhysX Accelerator - Retail £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838) £101.99
(£119.84) £101.99
(£119.84)
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD501LJ) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Sub Total : £816.93

VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £144.53
Total : £970.41

 

[Aod]

if you're going for xfire then you'll need a Board with the x38 chipset. if not, then a p35 board would be just as good and a fair bit cheaper.

nVidia is releasing some new 8800 cards in a few weeks, like the 8800GT. they promise to be very good, so you might want to wait for them.

there are only a couple of games that use the PhysX card so far. a waste of £80 unless all you play is GRAW2 and UT3.

unless you're overclocking i'd get 4GB of PC2-6400 instead of 2GB of PC2-8500, for almost £30 less.

you don't seem to have a PSU specced there. i'd reccommend a Corsair HX-620.
Similarly, you also don't seem to have a case specified. choose one based on looks really. the P182 is very easy to build into though.

Lastly, the Gigabyte "D" series motherboards are the favorites at the moment. they use solid-state cap's and have 6 phase power regulation for better overclocking. they're generally more durable than normal motherboards.

 

[thehmsjellyfish]

Even if he is overclcoking PC6400 is fine.

 

[Darg]

My personal choice would be the Abit IP35 (pro if you want xfire) motherboard. And I'm not sure what Aod means but you can run crossfire just fine with any P35 board that has dual PCI-E graphics card slots like the IP35 Pro.

Most people will tell you to go with the Abit boards as they are cheap and fantastic overclockers getting slightly better results then most Asus and GB boards from the reviews I've seen.

Basically you're spending a lot of money there that you don't need to.

Your motherboard is too expensive.
The Ageia physX is a waste of money.
The Corsair RAM is overpriced get some PC6400 for £60~.
Vista Ultimate? Why? Just get Premium unless there are features in ultimate you need.

I'd also go with the Western Digital AAKS drives over the spinpoints. The AAKS drives are the fastest at that price almost rivalling the overpriced Raptors.

 

[dual2max]

if you're going for xfire then you'll need a Board with the x38 chipset. if not, then a p35 board would be just as good and a fair bit cheaper.

The Asus is an X38

there are only a couple of games that use the PhysX card so far. a waste of £80 unless all you play is GRAW2 and UT3.

I have UT3. And what if more are released!!!!

unless you're overclocking i'd get 4GB of PC2-6400 instead of 2GB of PC2-8500, for almost £30 less.

See below.

you don't seem to have a PSU specced there. i'd reccommend a Corsair HX-620.
Similarly, you also don't seem to have a case specified. choose one based on looks really. the P182 is very easy to build into though.

As stated, I have a Case (Silverstone) and PSU (Enermax 600)

Lastly, the Gigabyte "D" series motherboards are the favorites at the moment. they use solid-state cap's and have 6 phase power regulation for better overclocking. they're generally more durable than normal motherboards.

Yes, the Gigabyte DQ6 was tempting, but is not on offer.

Even if he is overclcoking PC6400 is fine.

From above, because PC8500 is faster, and I wanted the best.

Basically you're spending a lot of money there that you don't need to.

Your motherboard is too expensive.
The Ageia physX is a waste of money.
The Corsair RAM is overpriced get some PC6400 for £60~.
Vista Ultimate? Why? Just get Premium unless there are features in ultimate you need.

So what you are saying is a £1000 computer can be bought for £500.
But it wont run all programs, is slower, it wont overclock as much, is not the gamers choice, wont last as long and basically isnt quite what I asked for. For a £1000 ±50, what would you choose?

 

[Cr0fty]

It will overclock more, and be faster. but for cheaper.

And you get the satisfaction of having a faster computer and money left in your wallet...

 

[WarBird]

get rid of that "PhysX" card and get a gtx tbh

 

[mp260767]

reason the switch to 6400 memory was mentioned was due to the fact the 6600 would need to have 500fsb against it to make full use of the 8500 memory, which isnt too likely.

X38 mobos are recently released whereas the abit ip35/ip35 pro are proven stable/overclockers.

o/s wise is they a reason you went for Ultimate, does it offer something you definately need over premium ?