Need for speed (Advice)

Terry31 · 14 May 2007 at 19:54

Hi.

This is my very first post and after waiting for many days the account is activated today and i would like to have some expert opinion on my question.

the title of the post is i know, sounds gamish, well gamish for the hardware section. but thats the question i have to ask you guys and i hope to get some serious advice. do apologies for my lack of "education" and "experience" and i hope you guys will help me out here. thanks in advance.

I'm thinking of building me a new PC, which corresponds to need for speed. i have done a little bit of my research and i have come up with a few options and have narrowed down a few things but not able to decide which ones to actually go for, and thats where you lot comes in. here are the things that i have in my mind.

CASE

I've looked at almost all the major on line stores selling the cases and as well as the manufacturer's sites and most of them i have found them to be a bit cheesy for my taste. no offence meant here by saying that. i am looking for some thing sleek and more presentable. one is, NVIDIA®-branded Cooler Master Stacker 830 Evolution. which is only available from Nvidia's site. I've not seen the plain version of the case which is on cool master's site so may be if some body here own one they can have a better opinion on this.

PSU

again, same with PSU as there are 1000's of them and i have no idea which one to go for. one on Nvidia's site is Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W and i think in my own opinion, goes well with the case. SLI ready and i think decent watts and what not. your opinion on this as well. if this PSU goes with the above mentioned Case or there are any compatibility issues. like i said people who own that cool master case hold first hand experience.

MOTHERBOARD

most tricky for me. so many good names and which one to pick. i have evga in my mind with SLI support and the latest chip-set from Nvidia, 680 some thing. Asus's striker extreme is also good and Xfx is on my list. what i am looking for in a board is dual lan support a must. and dual video support, quad even better if there is any. and FSB i think they all have over 1333 or whatever the standard is at the moment. have to be fast. its need for speed so the faster the better. i don't know if any new ones are coming out soon and i shell wait or not. and socket 775. your thoughts please.

PROCESSOR

not to offend any body here but i like Intel. good or bad but i am sticking with it. never used AMD and no plans at all. i have Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX6800 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.93GHz (1066FSB) 8MB L2 cache in my mind. over clocking is not actually here either on motherboard or in the processor. but if it is at hand then why not! not sure if the motherboard i have in my mind which is evga supports over clocking or not. but the processor sure does. so it has to be the right mix or it of no use.
the cooling goes here as well, i am not sure about the fancy pipes going in and out of the CPU but don't mind them either. some look really cool and some just spoils the looks of it. not sure if the dual lan supported motherboard will fit in that case or not. so the cooling has to stay inside the case. water or whatever, and do prefer pipes and all that to stay in. but push come to shove, whatever.

MEMORY

this is easy i reckon. Corsair DDR3 XMS3-1066C7 TwinX and max the memory slots. 8GB if i am not wrong is supported.

GRAPHICS

the most confusing i think. as its a gaming PC so it has to be the best in the market, overall specs i mean. again i have evga in my mind and EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS3 SILENT 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) there is one on XFX site as well and its for Europe and if i am not wrong its xxx something. BFG sound very promising too, BFG GeForce 8800 GTX Extreme Water Cooled 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) and BFG GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express). as i am not an expert in this matter and would like to have two of any of these, which ever is the best in real life performance and not just good specs. not even thinking of Asus or whatever. they are not even on option list. your first hand experience is appreciated.

HARD DRIVE

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 16 MB cache. two of these are enough i think. Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 NCQ 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache looks good too but i think the seek time is more and i am not sure of the reliability and performance of it. i don't know which is the best choice either SATA or SATA II. please shed some light on this as well as i think it does adds to the over all speed and performance of the PC.

OPTICAL DRIVE

Blu Ray from Pioneer and DVD RW as well from Pioneer.

SOUND CARD

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 Sound card. enough said.

now, i am not sure if i would need any extra card for connecting various connectors, such as, hard drives and sound and all that or there are enough ports and connectors on the evga motherboard to support all this. thats a big question too! please share your thoughts on this and i am on the right track and have chosen the right hardware. most things are available on ocuk and only the case i will get from Nvidia as its only available from their US site. i am not a very tech person but i try my best to understand the term which you guys use here. so basically i don't speak French. another thought of mine, is there any motherboard which supports Intel extreme processor? i mean two of those processors and not just one. that'll be wicked! hope to hear some nice expert advice. have a nice evening mates. cheers!

supernova9 · 14 May 2007 at 20:09

Post your budget and what you want to use it for, and people will give you a spec. For starters you've specified DDR3 memory and a DDR2 motherboard, and DDR3 just isn't worth it yet.

Jaffa_Cake · 14 May 2007 at 20:13

Hi Terry, and welcome to the forums.

Wow, what a post :eek:

Looking through your ideas you have a lot of good ideas but you have certain parts which would not be needed or are over the top for your spec.

I will try to get this simple and educate you at the same time

Right first of the case. I appreciate that your looking for a nice looking case here but.. I hope no offence is taken by this. Those generally buying £160 cases have more money than sense. There is some very nice cases for less than £70. The one that seems very 'hot' at the moment is the Lian-Li PC-7 I've never actually bought one of these but everyone who has says its a very decent case, high quality aluminium. When I bought my case i thought 'lets uber up my case' put lights in it and now its like a disco. 2 weeks later I turn off the lights because they give me a headache, point being here. Case makes very little difference aslong as its a high quality build to keep airflow and temperatures down.

Secondly PSU.
Theres several things you should consider, the wattage as a start, secondly is the number of rails, thirdly is the voltage of the rails. Im sure someone can explain what these actually mean because I have no idea but, more rails = better. Higher voltage allowed per rail is better also. Wattage is important but it doesn't need to be stupidly high. Current systems will not need more than 600W unless you have 5 harddrives.

For a PSU may I suggest a corsair one ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-004-CS )
This power supply has triple 12v rails, and 620W of power which is more than you will need. The fan on it is very very quiet indeed which I think is quite important, seeing as my PSU is a powered by petrol

I will add more to this soon, I need a break from writing lol.

My msn is on profile if you want some more info :-)

Terry31 · 14 May 2007 at 20:39

Thanks for the replies so far. supernova9 there is no budget and no i didn't win the lottery. thats the point in asking from experts like you guys as i've chosen the wrong memory and somehow the right motherboard.
Jaffa_cake thanks for the quick lesson, much appreciated. i am sure i can learn a lot from you guys here. the case that you mentioned is sure very decent and looks very presentable. i am a little fussed about the whole case thing because i have a dell xps which i brought i think last year :confused:

not sure actually. but the one that i had before was NEC something and i have a habit of not turning off my PC and after a year and half being switched on the poor thing couldn't take no more and died on me and then i took dell xps and i think I've had enough of it and at a price tag of 2000+ pounds it was okay and top of the line at that time. and rather then getting another xps h2o or whatever they have now, i am thinking of building one of mine and with things that i like in it and not what they like to sell to me and to others. i think i am thinking straight lol. jaffa (if you don't mind me calling you that) you do have a point and thats why i am not bothered about the lights and stuff as it looks.. can i say childish? come on gamers don't have to be cheesy and strange looking people. but if it has to be then i prefer it to be covered so it serves the purpose of it and cool the PC and not give headache out. another things is, lets say i take that case, but can it fit all those cards and things in it? i have two of those graphics cards in my mind. and a sound card will occupy one slot as well. and can that case take the motherboard with dual lan? its very important because i want to kick some back side of my brother

rest of the module.. ready when you are. and have a nice evening mates. cheers and thank you for a warm welcome.

squiffy · 14 May 2007 at 20:49

Quick reply

Case- the Stacker 830 in fact look cheap and tacky. What do you think of the older Stacker and Stacker 810?

PSU- you don't need 1KW PSU unless you plan to have 88xx series SLI.

CPU- currently the C2D offer best performance. Current AMD's aren't as fast, however a while ago the AMD A64 outperformed the P4's. Sig rig is my first AMD, I have used AMD in the past and they were terrible. I am satisfied with A64 as they're stable (using another A64 as HTPC) I have been a loyal Intel owner going from 4.7mhz XT, 286, 386, 486, Pentium P90, Pentium III 933mhz.

HD- if you need performance go for Raptor, but use a couple of standard 7200rpm in non raid for mass storage. Raptor isn't enough for OS, games, music, photos, video.

Sound card- For gaming, CL are the best, but look at the models. Do you need break out box/controller? If not the cheaper models will suffice. X-Ram is a gimmick. For music only soundcard I would go for M-Audio Audiophile 2496 or 192.

Terry31 · 14 May 2007 at 21:04

squiffy, i do plan to use 8800 SLi. thats the whole plan. and if i am not wrong SLi is two graphic cards, right? i mean the ones which do support the dual thing or whatever SLi makes them to be. and that answers the question of PSU as well as i do plan to have two cards and i think evga which i have short listed is SLi so two of those i have in my mind. i have always used Intel and as far as 286 i have been with them. not sure about my XT one which had a blazing speed of 7 Ghz and 9 Ghz in turbo mode lol. but i am not sure if i have made the right choice in regards of graphic card. is evga one is better over BFG and XFX. the evga is more clock speed and all that i think. but then if its thick then i cant have two of those in that case, now can i? mm.. this is getting interesting. nice talking to you all. cheers.

P.S. it says Thug under my name. how can i get rid of that?

Jaffa_Cake · 14 May 2007 at 21:55

Terry31 said:
squiffy, i do plan to use 8800 SLi. thats the whole plan. and if i am not wrong SLi is two graphic cards, right? i mean the ones which do support the dual thing or whatever SLi makes them to be. and that answers the question of PSU as well as i do plan to have two cards and i think evga which i have short listed is SLi so two of those i have in my mind. i have always used Intel and as far as 286 i have been with them. not sure about my XT one which had a blazing speed of 7 Ghz and 9 Ghz in turbo mode lol. but i am not sure if i have made the right choice in regards of graphic card. is evga one is better over BFG and XFX. the evga is more clock speed and all that i think. but then if its thick then i cant have two of those in that case, now can i? mm.. this is getting interesting. nice talking to you all. cheers.

P.S. it says Thug under my name. how can i get rid of that?

Thug is your forum category, it gets nicer as you get more posts hehe.

With regard to your idea. 8800 SLI is stupidly powerfull. Any game in existence will run on maximum detail with a single 8800 GTX, buying another one is a waste of £300 in my opinion.

Within the next few months then the whole computer industry will be taking a step up, DDR3 will become mainstream and the new P35 chipset can be utilized properly, the new ATI cards will be coming out and there will be a massive price cut in the CPU's within the next few days.

Seeing as you have a massive budget I would suggest waiting for a few months until you can blow it all on something which no one else will have

Slinky1989 · 14 May 2007 at 22:03

I thought that ddr3 ram isn't supported by the 680 chipset only the p35? :confused:

So if that's the case then your motherboard that you've chosen isn't compatible and so you'll need to find one with a p35 chipset.

But someone correct me if I'm wrong please

Terry31 · 14 May 2007 at 22:42

Jaffa_cake you reckon i should wait a few months and see whats coming out and prices go down a bit so i can spend the saving on the new technology. which i think is a very brilliant idea! about the DD3 thing, i also thought it was faster but i don't know if its compatible with evga 680 motherboard. and the P35 chip set? what is that?! i thought i covered it all but where did that come from?
graphics card is sorted as well as you mentioned that any game in the market at present will work smoothly on max settings. so i guess there is no point in doing that as your advice do make sense and that money i can spend on something else which comes out later on. let it be a new motherboard or the memory. but one question. why do a lot of people use two of these cards? such as nvidia 8800 in question. do they play some games which are like exclusive or something and need two of those and one is just not sufficient? i mean i thought SLi is having two of those cards along with each other and making the game go insane.
justinwalkin, you are not the only one confused mate. if i have to chose another motherboard then it means i have to spend hours searching sites and reading reviews and then by the time i am done with that some new motherboard will be out with a better chip set. and i really thought evga 680 nvidia SLi motherboard had it all and that includes DD3 memory type support as well. i do hope that someone will clarify this confusion for all of us.
thanks for your advice and Jaffa_cake thanks for that brilliant advice of yours. nice evening all. cheers.

Jaffa_Cake · 14 May 2007 at 23:01

Terry your better off just getting advice from here rather than reading reviews. a lot of reviews are biased as we found out when a certain company reviewed the core 2 duos.

The P35 chipset is the brand new set of motherboards which just came out ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701 ). As you can see, only one of them is DDR3 compatible which is why I am saying give it a few months. Until all of the new hardware standards are out then you can buy a new system, rather than a system that will be out of date in 2 months.

Anyone with SLI 8800 GTX's is just trying to get stupidly high benchmarks, you don't need that sort of thing.

I wouldn't suggest an EVGA motherboard, ASUS or Abit are the best choices really. This is all very general information.

Repost your thread in a few months and we will see what we can do

Terry31 · 14 May 2007 at 23:47

Thanks Jaffa_cake for the useful info. you are right that i should wait and give it a rest and when the new technology is out and the support is more widespread too then build the PC. alt east that way it will be up to date for a few weeks or so, if not months. i am not bothered about benchmarks or whatever. the only thing that i was looking for is the directx 10 support and if a single does the job then no worries. lol reading reviews is funny, i was just on SLi zone and having a look at certified products there and reading about them and trying to gulp as much as possible. but my own batteries are almost gone and i am running on low power. thanks for your excellent advice and i will keep checking out the forum and ocuk site for news and information and when to start building my PC. cheers.

Abyss · 15 May 2007 at 02:57

There will always be the latest and greatest hardware on the horizon in the next few months. If you want a pc now, buy one now.

Substance · 15 May 2007 at 03:06

gotta agree with abyss to be honest, i was thinking of holding back for the r600's just to see how they performed and what will happen to prices, then the other day i ran stalker on my 7800gtx and thought sod it, i need an 8800

if you wait for 1 thing then by the time that comes out there will always be a new model around the corner

Cyber-Mav · 15 May 2007 at 03:47

i thought this thread was gonna be about the car game need for speed

hp7909 · 15 May 2007 at 06:09

Lol, the waiting game! Suggest you build with what's out now, & something reasonable.

From your op, I see you must have a seriously high budget? I'd build with slightly less than that, then maybe put the rest aside for an upgrade. Believe me whether its now or then whatever you build, they'll always be something round the corner

Most here would not recommend the 830, in fact older 810 gets more thumbs up.

Just to tempt you...

Best components around!

Blu-ray now would not be a wise choice. Prices are ridiculous & they've been some claims of (PC) drive, disc/title incompatibility with what's considered first generation parts!

Terry31 said:
{snip}which had a blazing speed of 7 Ghz and 9 Ghz in turbo mode lol{snip}

7000 & 9000 Mhz :eek: