best prebuilt OC'd gaming PC. £1500 budget?

Reaper 392 · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:35

a friend of mine has an absolute limit of £1300 to £1500 to spend on a gaming PC. its gonna be used for a long time, so something that will last would be good.

originally he was looking at the ultima drednaught with a the SLI option but someone suggested that a sandybridge processor would be better, and i can really see why.

i found the ultima mosasaur, but that comes with a much worse graphics card (the HTI Radeon 6950)

so, with that in mind, what can you reccomend?

*edit*
this would be the perfect build for him. if its around for under £1500, that would be great:

Intel I7 2600K overclocked @4.6Ghz
motherboard with 2 PCIe x16 slots, both running @ x16 speed when using SLI
2 GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards

also, he would really like purple lights on the fans :rolleyes:

Renni 95 · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:36

Check'd this out: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=1951

?

Reaper 392 · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:45

sadly, that doesnt come with overclocking, and i know full well he wont be happy overclocking his own computer (he's not even happy to build it)

also, none of the sandybridge MoBo's available have x16, x16 SLI support

Lemin · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:48

If you phone them they will upgrade the gfx card to whatever you want.

Renni 95 · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:49

Ahh bugger, a easier option would be, cant you buy the parts seperatly and you build it for him?

Reaper 392 · 21 Feb 2011 at 22:51

he is over 100 miles from me. we are literally talking to each other right now through the forum chat for a game we both play on the xbox, so there is no way i could build it for him.

thanks for the info about phoning them lemin, that might be the answer.

*edit*
im currently looking at the ultima mosasur, but looking to change the graphics card from the HIS radeon HD 6950 2048MB to the Asus GTX 480 1536MB. is this wise?

as far as i can see, it would give a £30 saving, a gain of far cry 2, and going by this benchmark site, a better graphics card

Squid · 21 Feb 2011 at 23:06

6950 not "much worse" card , and you can still Cross Fire

Orcvader · 21 Feb 2011 at 23:17

Although the benchmarks show otherwise, in real games performance the two perform quite similiar, with the 480 trailing ahead by about ~7fps. But the 480 does consume a fair more amount of power and is pretty noisy.

What resolution will he be playing on? The 6950/480 is a powerful card at 1920x1080 so maybe getting an SSD instead of Crossfire/SLi would be a better choice?

Reaper 392 · 21 Feb 2011 at 23:26

forgive the ignorance, but both of us dont really know the advantage of a solid state drive, other than quicker loading times.

also, what games actually support crossfire/SLI, and how many will there be that do in the future?

stulid · 21 Feb 2011 at 23:58

Reaper 392 said:
forgive the ignorance, but both of us dont really know the advantage of a solid state drive, other than quicker loading times.

also, what games actually support crossfire/SLI, and how many will there be that do in the future?

Its not the games that need to support Crossfire/sli, its the ATI/nvidia drivers that need profiles for each game to get the best out of them.

Pighardia · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:03

i think the problem with these benchmarks are that you have to remember that just because one gpu beats another, it doesn't mean that the other is necessarily a bad card.

The problem comes from weighing up the price/performance difference.

Reaper 392 · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:05

stulid said:
Its not the games that need to support Crossfire/sli, its the ATI/nvidia drivers that need profiles for each game to get the best out of them.

will ATI/Nvidia release driver updates for all the new games, or is there something you do while in the game to get the most out of crossfire/SLI?

the main question ive got is, what kind of a boost are we looking at here if the crossfire/SLI is fully supported?

*edit*
also, pighardia, the GTX 480 was higher on the benchmark and cheaper, which is why i was after that one instead (but im happy to bow to orcvader's greater knowledge on the actual performance here)

stulid · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:07

Reaper 392 said:
what kind of a boost are we looking at here if the crossfire/SLI is fully supported?

use this - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188

just select a card, and then select the SLI/CF equivalent in the second box and hit "view comparison"

for example - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=302

Reaper 392 · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:17

stulid said:
use this - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188

just select a card, and then select the SLI/CF equivalent in the second box and hit "view comparison"

for example - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=302

thanks so much, thats really helpful.

(possibly) last question is: if the crossfire is running x16, x8, will you get half the gain compared to x16, x16?

stulid · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:26

Just found this also - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/10/08/ati_crossfirex_vs_nvidia_sli_new_games_performance/
-------------------------------------------------------

to your question.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/23/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x8x8/

This was done for SLI, and if you read the conclusion, it basically states that there is no performance difference between 16X/16X and 8X/8X unless you are running a silly high resolution across three monitors.

There is also a thing to check on which ever motherboard you decide, that is, does it run both pci-e slots at the same speed? this is called symmetrical SLI/Crossfire.

a lot of motherboards that claim Crossfire/SLI actually run the first slot at 16X and the second at 4X (not 8X), this is called Asymmetrical, this basically isn't as good.

so for example,

This does it right(symmetrically) - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-432-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

this does it Asymmetrically - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-431-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

the only real way of checking this is to visit the motherboards manufacturer website and checking the specifications of the board, or ask here.

Pighardia · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:33

stulid said:
There is also a thing to check on which ever motherboard you decide, that is, does it run both pci-e slots at the same speed? this is called symmetrical SLI/Crossfire.

a lot of motherboards that claim Crossfire/SLI actually run the first slot at 16X and the second at 4X (not 8X), this is called Asymmetrical, this basically isn't as good.

definitely take care to follow this, as i bought my motherboard thinking it supported crossfire, only to find later on that it only suported asymmetrical. It was my own fault for not checking, but it will not say on descriptions until you properly go deeper to find out.

Reaper 392 · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:40

once again you've saved the day stulid. what would i ever do without you?
(first the masses of help with my PC, now your churning out the answers with my mates. i cant thank you enough)

sooooo, does this do the right crossfire, or not:
- MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
(x16, x16; x16, x8, or x8, x8 are all good)

ive done a little bit of digging, but without any joy

stulid · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:42

yes it does.

I know this as a fact.

Pighardia · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:44

it should be a bit easier to find out. Very easy, if you don't know your stuff, to do what i did.

you see a mobo with crossfire enabled on it, and think you're set.

Reaper 392 · 22 Feb 2011 at 00:47

thanks.

last question is: will it be worth my mate phoning up to see if he can change the two ATI Radeon HD 6950's for 2 GTX 480's or not?

*edit*
wow, just seen the power consumption for two 480GTX's SLI'd is 851W, aka, 101 more than the power supply, so i guess this isnt an option