Help on new Gaming Build please :)

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4 Dec 2007
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Hi everyone, new to the forums but not new to OcUK, my previous gaming rig was put together around 4 years or more now, got most the parts from here and was a beast of a PC at the time, still runs okay now, but im ready for a new upgrade :)

Budget: Okay my budget on this rig is going to be around £1700 or so max including VAT, hopefully i can stay around there.

Purpose: I'm a gamer,so the aim of this rig will be to be a good gaming machine that will last me a while , and will be able to be upgradable in months to come etc if i need to as well. I will be using it for any other general everyday use too, multimedia stuff as well,but mainly gaming.

I'm aiming to try get the PC Sli ready too, although this brings me onto another point.. I was intending on getting 2 BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC's, and running them i'n SLi, but i was reading around a bit on various forums and many people advised not to go Sli and just get one better card, saving money, and also IF i wanted to go Sli i can just buy a 2nd card (which would then be cheaper) and add it in. I got told Sli is only good if your running on a TFT over 24 inch or so , at full res , or multi screen etc? is this true? and i would only get a little FPS increase if i did use it now?

I have a 17inch TFT at the moment, and there is no point keeping that with the new parts i will be getting, so i am going to get this TFT now for the upgrade:

Samsung SM-206BW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £149.99 (£176.24)

I heard it does well in gaming too, (while reading CustomPC mag).So with this in mind, and should i go for 1 good 8800 card or 2 GT's in Sli??

Components in mind so far (trying to make the rig Sli ready still):

------------------

Asus Striker Extreme nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £159.99 (£187.99)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6700 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £284.99 (£334.86)
(don't think the extreme is worth the extra money is it?)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz SLI-Ready Edition Low Latency Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2N800SR4GK) £109.99 (£129.24)

OCZ GameXStream 1010w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £124.99 (£146.86)

Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 Black No PSU £86.99 (£102.21)

(around £790 in total for that, the GFX card option will take up a lot more, + HDD,speakers maybe too)
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Thats what i have so far, i am still unsure on what HDD i want to get, and the question still remains about which Graphics Card to get, 2 in Sli or one good 8800 model and if i wanted Sli in a few months or so then i can do so?

Also i am going to be most possibly getting Vista Home Premium 32-bit for this system..

Any help / discussions would be really helpfull, you all seem really nice people on these boards so i'm looking forward to your input :)

I'm aiming to buy the parts in around 2 weeks or so hopefully, once i get a build together and play around with what i want and best to get with the money. Hope the post wasn't too long, but want to really try get as good as specs as i can for this upgrade. Thanks in advance :)
 
Welcome to the forums. A few questions here - why Vista 32bit? You have selected 4gb of Ram which a 32bit OS won't be able to access all of. Do you have space on your desktop for a larger monitor? There is a 24" monitor that OcUK sell that is pretty cheap and supposed to be very good.

I personally wouldn't bother with SLi because it is frequently more cost effective and simpler to just upgrade the graphics card as and when needed. With that in mind I'd suggest something like this which includes a good monitor, cheaper Ram, motherboard and PSU but all more than capable for anything you could wish to do. I've left out speakers, keyboard, mouse and soundcard as they are generally dependant on users own preference. :)

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £131.99
(£155.09) £131.99
(£155.09)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £229.99
(£270.24) £229.99
(£270.24)
OcUK Value L2442W 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £224.99
(£264.36) £224.99
(£264.36)
Sub Total : £1,024.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £183.72
Total : £1,233.56
 
Nice, thanks for your reply, and i knew i'd get asked the question about the 32 bit and the RAM :) , well i've never used a 64 bit OS yet, and haven't researched much on it, would it be fine using it with all current games/apps? Does Vista Home Premium 64-bit run most things i need to okay without many bugs or anything? i just haven't looked into 64 bit much, and didn't want to hit many problems...

Just looking at the specs of that build now too :) not bad, i didn't realise a 520W PSU would be okay to use with a lot of the high spec and higher graphics cards / Sli when sued.
 
Nice, thanks for your reply, and i knew i'd get asked the question about the 32 bit and the RAM :) , well i've never used a 64 bit OS yet, and haven't researched much on it, would it be fine using it with all current games/apps? Does Vista Home Premium 64-bit run most things i need to okay without many bugs or anything? i just haven't looked into 64 bit much, and didn't want to hit many problems...

I have been using Vista HP 64bit for the last 3-4 months and have not really had any problems with it. Although in terms of software, I have not really tried anything that old on it, which is where there may be some compatibility issues.
 
Hmmm i might try out vista home prem 64 bit then... i'd be able to make full use of DX10 as well won't i? I can't really think of any old software that i really use anyway, im just going to be using a lot of the newer games, software as well, (currently playing lord of the rings online too ;)) .
 
So would a 500W PSU do fine with Sli / the rest of the powerfull hardware? Wouldn't it be better to just get a higher one?
 
So would a 500W PSU do fine with Sli / the rest of the powerfull hardware? Wouldn't it be better to just get a higher one?

I wouldn't use the HX 520w with SLi although it would probably cope, but then since the motherboard I picked doesn't support it the point is moot. It does support Crossfire but the slots are 16x and 4x so hardly ideal anyway. My advice would be to shelve the idea of SLi/Crossfire and simply buy a good graphics card as and when needed to replace the 8800GTX. :)
 
Hey Xion, very sound advice by semi-pro waster and the specification is pretty much perfect. As regards to the support for Windows Vista 64-bit. The support for Windows Vista overall is now excellent. The majority of the manufacturers out their have now released 64-bit drivers for their hardware and as regards to software, once again, the majority of software now work perfectly fine under Windows Vista. :)
 
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