Help me build THE ultimate gaming PC!

shadowake

shadowake

shadowake

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OK so I crashed my Toyota Supra about a month ago (it span off a roundabout doing a meesly 25mph and a car smashed into the side of me and wrote it off). I'll now have to get a small car to get insured, but since I have a massive wad of insurance money burning a hole in my pocket I thought now was a good time to scrap my old PC and build a new one! Since I have around £8000 and need to spend about 2-3 of that on a car I should have about 5-6 grand to play with although it would be nice to leave some over lol.

I've come up with a rough parts list as you can see below, but wanted people to comment on what they thought of these parts and if they would recommend any changes? As the last system I built was about 2 years ago I have no real experience with these parts and don't know what they are like for reliability, clocking etc etc

Thanks for any advice.

computer.jpg
 
The first things that stand out for me is the Physx card and the Killer NIC, simply you do not need them.

Also I would look at custom watercooling or if you prefer a kit the choose the Swiftech Apex kit.

If you go down the custom water cooling kit you could buy the none watercooled motherboard and graphics card and build them into your own custom loop etc.
 
Ye gods that crazy!

Personally I dont see the point - be better to spend £1.5k on a really nice box for now which will still last 2 years EASILY. Stick the rest in GILT/BOND something like that, in 2 years time can do the same thing!

The %£ return or 'bang for your buck' decreases steadily even above £1k imo.

Im sure everyone elese will however be salivating!

Mike
 
Slinwagh said:
The first things that stand out for me is the Physx card and the Killer NIC, simply you do not need them.
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Must agree I was unsure on the Physx as no decent games really support it yet, but thought may as well as it won't do any harm.

Have to disagree on the Killer NIC though. A friend of mine has one and its awsome, on WOW you can actually walk into Stormwind without everything jumping around like fish on trampolines.

As far as custom water cooling goes, I'd like to have a go, but I've never watercooled before and would'nt fancy damaging anything. I'll check out the system you mentioned as I havn't really looked into this properly yet, anyone else with a kit recomendation would be much appreciated too.
 
despite the fact that you have money burning a hole in your pocket IT REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY is not necessary to spend that much on a system. You could spend less and get almost exactly the same performance.

The things that stick out for me:

killer nic : forget about it
Pysx card : waste of time, money and effort
6850QX - Save ~400 or whatever and get a Q6600 and overclock it using your nice water cooling
Maybe get 3 x 500 gig drivers instead of 2 x 750 as you'll save a lot there too and it'll be safer 'spreading the data' in case of disk failure i suppose.
 
shadowake said:
Have to disagree on the Killer NIC though. A friend of mine has one and its awesome, on WOW you can actually walk into Stormwind without everything jumping around like fish on trampolines.
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I would have to disagree there, at the end of the day the connection speed you have to the internet can not be accelerated by a NIC in your PC, this has been debated many times on here and I am confident to say more people will agree with me.
 
Slinwagh said:
I would have to disagree there, at the end of the day the connection speed you have to the internet can not be accelerated by a NIC in your PC, this has been debated many times on here and I am confident to say more people will agree with me.
Click to expand...

It has had a lot of bad reviews online...I guess if I get rid of the Killer and Physx I could also get rid of the 2 port PCI expansion as I'd only have 1 PCI for the sound card. Would probably save not far off a grand too.
 
melbourne720 said:
I'd rather have a 24" Dell or Samsung than a TV as a monitor, but I suppose that's down to personal choice.
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It would be hard to get a monitor big enough to suport full 1080i HD res, not to mention the plasma has freeview built in which saves me a PCI slot for a TV card on the motherboard.
 
shadowake said:
It would be hard to get a monitor big enough to suport full 1080i HD res, not to mention the plasma has freeview built in which saves me a PCI slot for a TV card on the motherboard.
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My 24" Dell supports 1920 x 1200 so again you caould say yourself a stack of cash.
 
OK so what monitor would you guys say was the best for under £700 so I can make a quick comparison? I supose I could always get an external TV card?

I guess I can also look into dual screen if I used cheaper monitors.
 
Are you going to be aming on that Plasma screen?

I would higly recomend getting a proper pc monitor.

You dont need Ultras they are a waste.

Drop the QX6850, just get the Q6600 and clock it up.

And £375.99 on a motherboard?

How much is all that coming too?
 
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stickroad said:
And £375.99 on a motherboard?

How much is all that coming too?
Click to expand...

A lot. :rolleyes:

So following on from all your sugestions, replacing the plasma with a monitor getting rid of the killer and physics and swapping to cheaper 500GB HDD's, all VERY good sugestions which I will definately do.

You also recomend using a Q6600 instead of the QX6850, was wondering what you can clock the Q6600 up to on water? compared to the 50?

Also if I go for custom water cooling and get rid of the watercooled 680i board and the watercooled ultra's, what would be the best board/card's to replace with for ultimate clocking and performance?
 
Rather than just throw money away why not think about what your doing!

I would consider a 1080p LCD (Samsung)

Dual 24" LCD's for everyday work

Forget all the "Ultra" this and "top end" that, your just throwing money away!

I'm not a lover of SLI.

Remember this will be the latest/great for about 3/4 months until:-

Penryn CPU's
New Nvidia cards (9 Series)
 
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HEADRAT said:
Rather than just throw money away why not think about what your doing!

I would consider a 1080p LCD (Samsung)

Dual 24" LCD's for everyday work

Forget all the "Ultra" this and "top end" that, your just throwing money away!

I'm not a lover of SLI
Click to expand...

Don't worry im not going for 2 monitors way to expensive.

Besides the reason I came on here was to get opinions and eventually come up with a cheaper system that would perform almost as well.

If I was just going to throw money away I would have just bought all the stuff on my list and ignored everyone else. So far I've taken into consideration all the ideas I've been given. Why just tell me to "Forget all the Ultra this and top end that" when you could sugest what I should use instead of certain items, it would be a whole lot more usefull than basically just wasting a post to call me stupid...
 
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Asus Blitz Extreme Intel P35
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400C5

shadowake said:
Don't worry im not going for 2 monitors way to expensive.
Click to expand...

but actually very useful ;)

If you are going to water cool then do it properly with Danger Den stuff rather than the Zalman

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=57&subid=193&mfrid=372

I'm no expert in water cooling but there are plenty here that are and could give you recommendations.

HEADRAT
 
HEADRAT said:
Asus Blitz Extreme Intel P35
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400C5
Click to expand...

Will check into these.

PS are the GTX's clockable to the ultra speeds because the ultras are just basically factory clocked GTX's anyway?

HEADRAT said:
but actually very useful ;)
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I know got a dual screen setup at work and it's great, would like dual screen at home so could surf the web/check emails on one screen whilst gaming on the other. Supose could get a cheap 17" LCD as my second screen, would be a hell of a lot cheaper and more realistic than a 24.
 
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