could any1 give me some advice on a ocuk product and general

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:07

Hi all, firstly just wanna say its good to be back!! used to be a regular here (alanguk), anyway to the point (sorry for the long post),

ok i have been very lucky enough to inherit (sp?) a fair bit of money and want to buy a top notch system (something i prob will never be able to do again so im taking the chance now

), im setting my budget at £3000 and have been looking at the '"Ultima Extreme Crossfire X1900 XT-X" AMD Athlon 64 FX60 Dual DDR Silent PhysX Enabled System' but i have a few questions about that and would also like to look into building my own 'super' system as i have always built my own before now and would rather do that really,
any help would be greatly appreciated as i lost touch on the hardware side of things recently!

ok here go's

with the above mentioned system does it have room for expansion, i know it wont need any for a good while but i mean for things like hard drives etc, i dont wanna buy a comp i cant add to or upgrade easily, im thinking about just buying the bits from the list the comp has and building myself but im worried ill miss sommin i need

i want really strong gfx power for gaming and photoshop etc so i have been looking at dual gfx cards... i been seeing SLI and crossfire plastered all over the place but dont really understand if they are for having 2 gfx cards or just extra's etc..ive seen pci-e crossfire mobos and this has confuzzled me,do i need a crossfire mobo to be able to use crossfire???is crossfire even for dual gfx cards or just a new gfx card feature??
i think this is what has thrown me...do u need these to be able to use 2 gfx cards or what lol??

what motherboards should i be looking out for if i wanna go pci-e?? and do these need the same ddr ram as normal or new stuff??

any suggestions on things not to buy or somthing that really is needed nowadays

well thats it i think, now i written the post i forgot other bits i wanted to ask so ill prob ask again and bug u guys soon, looooads of thx to any1 who replies in advance for help its appreciated!

Mikey1280 · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:11

I would wait till ocuk bring out some conroe based rigs if you want to buy a prebuilt machine.

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:13

Mikey1280 said:
I would wait till ocuk bring out some conroe based rigs if you want to buy a prebuilt machine.

whats one of them hehe???

nikebee · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:17

alangelluk said:
whats one of them hehe???

the Conroe's (Core 2 Duo) are Intel's new Dual Core processors, they've come leaps and bounds over the past Pentium 4's and are kicking butt in the benchmarks as well as overclocking.

the E6600 Conroe costs around the £250 mark, and can beat AMD's FX62 at stock speeds... which should set you back around £700

Conroe is out in about a months time, but preorders are already on the go and more motherboards are being released too.

edit: it's also worth noting not really to bother with the PhysX cards, yes they can do some fancy screen effects but the hit on performance is stupendous and therefore aren't really worth the money.

if you're building it yourself and are considering something like a PhysX card, rumors are ripe about ATI and nVidia and that they may very well both be bringing out their own PPU's in the near(ish) future.

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:18

Man... you've got the cash just in time for the "Conroe Madness"!

The new Intel Processor is the new IN thing in town. Good pricing and wipe the AM2 FX62 in many cases, and that's just Conroe's Mid class chip E6600. The XE edition is needless to say, Powah! Unlocked multi and priceds reasonably compared to FX62.

It'll be released 23rd July, you can preorder now.

You might want to wait abit for the Mobo.

With that pricing, you can look into Watercooling/Phase cooling to clock that XE Conroe (if you do buy it, to voer 4 GHz)

Needless to say, a Dell 30" monitor is waiting for you to buy for your system.

Herem's my layman's SLi/Crossfire explaination:
High resolution or BIG/Wide monitors above 20inch can benefit from having SLi/Crossfire Graphics, gives it more "power".

SLi is slightly better than Crossfire now, but Crossfire still have potential to go further yet.

Hope these helps.

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:26

Dr Jones said:
Man... you've got the cash just in time for the "Conroe Madness"!

The new Intel Processor is the new IN thing in town. Good pricing and wipe the AM2 FX62 in many cases, and that's just Conroe's Mid class chip E6600. The XE edition is needless to say, Powah! Unlocked multi and priceds reasonably compared to FX62.

It'll be released 23rd July, you can preorder now.

You might want to wait abit for the Mobo.

With that pricing, you can look into Watercooling/Phase cooling to clock that XE Conroe (if you do buy it, to voer 4 GHz)

Needless to say, a Dell 30" monitor is waiting for you to buy for your system.

Herem's my layman's SLi/Crossfire explaination:
High resolution or BIG/Wide monitors above 20inch can benefit from having SLi/Crossfire Graphics, gives it more "power".

SLi is slightly better than Crossfire now, but Crossfire still have potential to go further yet.

Hope these helps.

heh thx, im not gonna bother with cooling or clocking, been there done that and couldnt be assed to maintain the water.c

(had dangerden setup)

u say the sli/crossfire gives more power but are they needed to go dual gfx cards??? are the just purley a addon or are 100% needed for dual ???i will be buying a 20' monitor at least so are they suggested??

nikebee · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:26

Dr Jones said:
*snip*

i thought that many Conroe chips were cold bugged?
and SLi motherboards for Core 2 Duo's have got a bit to wait yet, i think its the nForce 570 and 590 series.

nikebee · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:28

alangelluk said:
u say the sli/crossfire gives more power but are they needed to go dual gfx cards??? are the just purley a addon or are 100% needed for dual ???i will be buying a 20' monitor at least so are they suggested??

yes mate, to run two graphics cards you need SLi (for nVidia cards) or Crossfire (for ATI cards... obviously

)

if budget allows, get a bigger monitor... and it wont be NEEDED, but you'll definately see a boost.

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:33

nikebee said:
yes mate, to run two graphics cards you need SLi (for nVidia cards) or Crossfire (for ATI cards... obviously )

if budget allows, get a bigger monitor... and it wont be NEEDED, but you'll definately see a boost.

ahh ok cool, brilliant im getting ya....so sli or crossfire is a individual piece of hardware that connects em together???

do the gfx card have to be crossfire ones or can any be used and can that be put on any pci-e mobo or does it have to be a crossfire/sli mobo???

(sorry for questions)

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:33

nikebee said:
if budget allows, get a bigger monitor... and it wont be NEEDED, but you'll definately see a boost.

Nay... BIGGER Monitor = SLi or Crossfire for higher resolution, no?

And I never knew "many of the " conroe chips are cold bugged... where did you hear that from?

Stelly · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:34

Yes I agree wait untill OcUk bring out Conroe based systems

Stelly

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:34

alangelluk said:
ahh ok cool, brilliant im getting ya....so sli or crossfire is a individual piece of hardware that connects em together???

and can that be put on any pci-e mobo or does it have to be a crossfire/sli mobo???

The mobo MUST be able to support either SLi or Crossfire.

ATi chipset base mobo usually supports Crossfire in the Higher end, vice versa with nForce and their Nividia GPU.

You're looking for a mobo which inc 2 PCI-E 16x, one for each GPU for a "Dual GPU setup"

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:39

right cool, so now u guys told me that i seen that there is a 'master' crossfire card for sale and it says to add any slave...can any card be a slave ???

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:42

Any card of that series can be a slave, regardless of brand (that's one of the "advantage of Crossfire").

So a mastercard for X1900 series can "enslave"

ALL x1900 ATi cards...

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:47

so where does the monitor connect to?? just one of the cards???? sorry if im being thick lol, im thinking here that crossfire is just a mobo feature that needs the crossfire cards... or is there some piece of hardware that connects to the 2 cards and u plug into that ??

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:49

The 2 GPUs are linked, so you can just connect to the mastercard or slave, don't matter AFAIK.

dirtybeatfreak · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:51

cool, now i finally get it lawl, u need 1 card which is capable of being 'master' and a card that is crossfire able and they have to go into a mobo which supports crossfire. u can then plug the monitor into either cards slot and both will share the gfx...

finally heh

thx again all

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:58

Opps... my mistake, you will have to connect to the Mastercard.

nikebee · 26 Jun 2006 at 22:58

alangelluk said:
ahh ok cool, brilliant im getting ya....so sli or crossfire is a individual piece of hardware that connects em together???

do the gfx card have to be crossfire ones or can any be used and can that be put on any pci-e mobo or does it have to be a crossfire/sli mobo???

(sorry for questions)

sort of, if the motherboard supports SLi/Crossfire then all you need to do is plug the two cards in and connect them together.

if its SLi, you only need to make sure that both cards you've got are the same model. i.e. two 7800GTX's, or two 7900GT's etc...
a 7800GT and a 7900GT will not work together
same as a 7900GT and a 7900GTX will not work together, the models must match.

for crossfire, you need to buy the "mastercard" for the series you want.
if you have an X1900 graphics card, you need to get the X1900 Mastercard and you can then link the two together.

Dr Jones said:
Nay... BIGGER Monitor = SLi or Crossfire for higher resolution, no?

And I never knew "many of the " conroe chips are cold bugged... where did you hear that from?

1) as i said, if he's only really going to get 20" then SLi/Crossfire is probably a waste... definately if your getting a decent widescreen or a 25"+ monitor then you're looking at SLi/Crossfire to push decent frame rates and high/max settings.

2) not really heard it from anywhere, just a few observations i've made from forums... although this was a fair while ago so it might have been early CPU's and its probably all sorted now? :confused:

Mr Jones · 26 Jun 2006 at 23:04

nikebee said:
2) not really heard it from anywhere, just a few observations i've made from forums... although this was a fair while ago so it might have been early CPU's and its probably all sorted now?

I sure hope, got a mate who has a phase changer and wants to upgrade from a P4, kept telling him to wait for Conroe - if Conroe is cold bugged, then he'll blame me for "persuading" him to wait for nothing

nikebee said:
1) as i said, if he's only really going to get 20" then SLi/Crossfire is probably a waste... definately if your getting a decent widescreen or a 25"+ monitor then you're looking at SLi/Crossfire to push decent frame rates and high/max settings.

Agreed, no ppoint SLi or Crossfire if you use 20". A single GPU is really sufficient, and the best Single GPU IMO is X1900XT-X, that's what I'm gonna get for my set up for a 19" CRT.