Final parts of my spec

nicktay2605

nicktay2605

nicktay2605

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Joined
22 Mar 2007
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Hey guys, well I've been paid so its time to finish my new computer :D

I already have an E6600, EVGA 680i SLi, Lian-Li V2100+, an 8800GTX, and 4GB Corsair Dominator XMS2 Ram, but I was wondering if you could check the last couple of parts and advise me as to whether they are ok.


Enermax Galaxy 850W EGA850EWL ATX2.2 Modular PSU (£170.36)
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Soundcard - Retail (£58.74)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS SATA-II 16MB Cache x 2
(£176.22)
LiteON LH-20A1P-487C 20x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer - Retail (£25.13)
Noctua NC-U6 Dual Heatpipe Northbridge Cooler (£16.44)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM (£75.19)
Lian-Li TR-3B Black Aluminium Fan Controller (£22.27)
Noctua NH-U12F (Socket LGA775/754/939/940/AM2) Heatsink (£36.41)

There isn't anything glaringly obvious I have missed is there? Also, I was wondering if maybe the PSU is overkill, but do want to future proof as I will probably buy a quad-core soon (ish). Lastly, I don't have an operating system of any kind so don't really want to pay for XP, thought I might as well take the plunge with Vista. Is this a wise decision? Seems a bit pointless to pay £60 on XP when it is being phased out. Thanks for any advice/help.
 
Great choice of PSU - may seem like overkill now but it will see you through at least another major upgrade and will still have enough grunt for 8800GTX SLi plus some extravagant extras like water pumps if you feel the need later on.

The rest of the spec looks spot on but I would change the Liteon drive to an NEC. I've always had problems with Sony/ Liteon drives. I've been using NEC for a few years now and they are simply not fussy about what brand/ dye discs you use. Basically they'll burn a beer mat if its the right size and shape :D LOL.

Thats the easy part - now onto Vista.

I've been running Vista home premium 64 bit since launch and, generally, I've found it pretty solid. Some great new features.

The only problems I've had in a big way is with Nvidia drivers with STALKER - Shadow Of Chernobyl - Basically its useless, crashes constantly and is basically unplayable.

All of my other favourites (Far Cry, COD2, Need For Speed Series, Doom3, Prey, Splinter Cell Series, HL2, CS Source etc) run flawlessly on my 8800GTX.

Just expect some of the usual teething troubles (as there was with XP at launch).

One thing that does suffer under Vista is benchmarking as Vista is so memory intensive - 3DMark in particular - my 3DMark 06 score in XP was around 11,000 and its dropped to just under 10,000 under Vista.

This aside, you'll need XP or Vista 64 bit for it to see that 4GB RAM your planning on anyways :)

Regards

AndyOcUK
OcUK Tech :cool:
 
Hey, thanks for the great reply andy, I'll change the drive for an NEC :)

If I still had a copy of XP lying around I would be tempted to stick with that for the time being, but seeing as this is a completely new build I think I might as well go for Vista, even if I have a couple of problems. The benchmarking is a bit annoying as I was hoping to see how the new system compares to my old one, but nevermind. Was also planning on buying Stalker so might wait until they release a patch for it that makes it more compatible with Vista.
 
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