Is this spec OK?

NathanE · 17 Feb 2007 at 12:20

x2 Seagate 500GB (intend to RAID1 them)
x2 XFX 512MB 7600GS Dual DVI Passive Cooled
x1 NEC 7170 DVD/RW
x1 E6400 CPU
x1 Gigabyte DS4
x1 Enermax Liberty Modular 400W PSU
x2 OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)

Comes to £917.17

Anything I'm missing?

Thanks!

syke · 17 Feb 2007 at 12:29

Can i ask why you want 2 7600 GS's?

Ronaldo · 17 Feb 2007 at 12:29

Antec TruePower Trio 550W PSU (£64.61)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) £111.61)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (£122.19) (can swap for e4300)

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400 Dual (£117.49)
NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW (£21.14)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 (£193.86)
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (£105.74)
(storage)
2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB ST380811AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - (£65.78) (raid)

total inc shipping
Total : £815.29

and its better then what you chose and cheaper

edit £932.77 with 4gb ocz

Supercow · 17 Feb 2007 at 12:49

Yea I'm with Ronaldo on this one, those GFX cards aint too great.

NathanE · 17 Feb 2007 at 12:52

I chose the two 7600's as I'm not really a hardcore gamer and require at least 3 DVI outputs. I won't be SLI'ing them either. They are passive cooled which I like. And 512MB each will give a total of 1GB for Vista to store window textures.

I also don't fancy buying a 1st generation DX10 card - I'd rather wait a year for some DX10 games to come out and see what the cards are like then. I read some reviews of the 8800GTS but the power consumption at idle ruled them out for me. Then I can just buy one to replace one of the cards and I'd only have wasted £80

The 3 hard drives is a good idea but I'd rather stick with just two (for noise reasons). Also I just could not bare to lose 500GB of data.

I might go for the E6300 though as they are more overclockable ain't they?

Supercow · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:03

NathanE said:
I might go for the E6300 though as they are more overclockable ain't they?

Supposedly yea, I have heard them go up to 3ghz relatively easily, but I cant say from personal experience, as mine is running at stock.
Personally I think it's pointless getting the 6400, coz at stock, i sincerely doubt you'll see any performance difference.

semi-pro waster · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:06

It is just as well you aren't planning to SLi them, the motherboard only supports Crossfire as a dual graphics card linkage system although two separate cards should be fine.

The E6300 isn't really any better at overclocking as far as I was aware, it has a lower multiplier than the 6400 (7x v 8x), both tend to overclock to around the same levels providing you have decent Ram however this is where we come to a problem, I don't know if it is still the case but OCZ Ram other than very select stuff used to have issues with the DS3/DS4. You may want to check out the long DS"X" thread in the Motherboard sub-forum. If you are determined to go for that motherboard then you could get OcUK PC6400 which will do the same job or change to the Asus P5N-E 650 SLi which should work with everything.

NathanE · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:20

I didn't realise the Gigabyte problems were so severe, I thought it was just people who were OC'ing past the recommended limits?

How about the Asus P5B-E Plus? Does this have RAID like the DS4? I think it has 2x PCI-E graphics card slots as well?

Definate no-no to Nvidia-based motherboard.

semi-pro waster · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:25

Sorry, just rechecked and I'm probably being a numpty, there seemed to be more problems with the GSkill Ram to begin with and I was getting confused but I still don't know if OCZ works ok.

NathanE · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:38

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

How about these?

joeyjojo · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:41

NathanE said:
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

How about these?

tinners · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:42

NathanE said:
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

How about these?

I decided against these in the end with my DS4 as I had read a fair few reports of bad chips floating around.
I went with the OCZ in the end as I read this worked with the DS3&4 OK.
I also decided I couldnt resist the 620W Corsair PSU after so many great reports floating around.

kbc · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:45

tinners said:
I decided against these in the end with my DS4 as I had read a fair few reports of bad chips floating around.

Just to say I, too had to RMA a set of these, because 1 stick reported no less than 30,000 errors in Memtest. But I could've just been unlucky, and when I did get a new set back - it still refused to run in the yellow slots on the S3.

Minstadave · 17 Feb 2007 at 13:51

Looks like a good spec, might opt for a beefier PSU myself. The RAM is a great buy, but I'd stick with the E6400, the higher multi makes clocking easier and you can pick one up for almost the same price as the E6300.

The DS4 isn't a cheap board, and if you don't need 8xSata ports then the DS3 or Asus P5N-E is better value.

NathanE · 17 Feb 2007 at 14:03

Thanks for the input guys. Guess I'll stick with the OCZ sticks then as people are reporting success with them.

I don't need 8 SATA ports, but I do need the DS4's two PCI-E 16x slots. Also the DS4 has Intel RAID whereas AFAIK the DS3 has some taiwanese RAID chipset?

I'm sure the P5N is a great board but I really need to run Vista on the day. Can't be waiting months for Nvidia to get their act together. I also prefer Intel chipsets as you just know they could survive several nuclear wars unscathed

I might bump the PSU up to a 500W Liberty Modular. Apparently the two 7600GS's will draw about 200W when idle and around 250W at a load. So add 65W for the Conroe and another 50W for everything else and I suppose you're right that 400W PSU is going to running a bit close to its limit for comfort.

Minstadave · 17 Feb 2007 at 14:16

NathanE said:
I might bump the PSU up to a 500W Liberty Modular. Apparently the two 7600GS's will draw about 200W when idle and around 250W at a load. So add 65W for the Conroe and another 50W for everything else and I suppose you're right that 400W PSU is going to running a bit close to its limit for comfort.

I really doubt those power figures, do the 7600GS even have an extra power connector, as you can only provide a maximum of 75Ws over the PCI-E slot.