Need help with a spec

Slyman2k4 · 12 Apr 2006 at 18:21

My current pc is near its end and im interested in building a pc for the first time. The only problem is, there is just too much for me to choose from

I was hoping someone on here with exp could spec me a gaming pc for around £2500-£3000 that i could use as a referal to building my new pc as im not too sure on compatibility issues between components etc.

These are what ive currently decided on what i am getting or have already got:

AMD FX57 changed to AMD Opteron UP 180 Dual Core San Diego
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard changed to LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D
Logitech G5 (Already Bought)
Icemat - Black 2nd Edition
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition
Thermaltake PurePower 680W changed to Seasonic S12 600W
Western Digital Raptor 74GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 500GB (already bought)
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB)
GX-113-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X
Any suggestions to improve on the current products i have selected are greatly appreciated and so are suggestions on accessories to this new gaming rig

Thanks for the help chaps.

Edit: Sorry forgot to add that i am not too keen on overclocking, but it would be nice to be possible if i take an interest in it in the future.

fenderbass86 · 12 Apr 2006 at 18:33

That's a lot of money to spend on a computer, best to make it as future proof as possible. Ditch the FX57 for either:
1) FX60
2) X2 4400+ or 4800+
3) Opteron 175 or 180

I'd go for either of these as my chosen PSU:
1) Enermax Liberty 620W
2) Seasonic S12 600W
3) Tagan Easycon 580W
4) FSP 700W/600W

The raptor is a good choice, but has that 500GB got 16MB cache? If not, should've gone with WD.

X1900XT-X or 7900 GTX (both 512MB).

Slyman2k4 · 12 Apr 2006 at 18:39

cheers for the input fender. Was actually considering the "Seasonic S12 600W" so i might change over to it now.

I was considering the FX60 a while ago but then i seen people saying that dual core wasnt best for gaming yet and seen a few comparison charts showing FX57 coming out on top. Since i dont know much about the processors it confused me a bit

.

Luckily it does have 16mb

, I dont think the WD 500gig was out when i got my hard drive or was out of stock.

I think i will be going with nvidia, is there any specific brand names (e.g. BFG, XFX) that i should stick to over the rest?

Explicit · 12 Apr 2006 at 18:49

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)
£485.19
DFI LanParty UT CFX3200-DR RD580 Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-019-DF)
£176.19
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£234.94
ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£375.94
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-059-PC) **this week only**
£352.44
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£109.86
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£86.89
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£30.49
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£18.74
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£82.19
FSP Sparkle FX700-GLN Epsilon 700W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-001-SK)
£113.92
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£57.52
Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard (KB-015-SK)
£29.32
Logitech G5 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse (KB-069-LG)
£37.54
Icemat - Black 2nd Edition (GS-001-IC)
£19.39
Logitech Z-5500 THX® Certified 5.1 505 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-021-LG)
£199.69
Acer AL2416Ws 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-013-AC) **this week only**
£563.94

Total inc VAT: £2,974.19

:eek:

Slyman2k4 · 12 Apr 2006 at 18:52

Just cutting the line finely there. Cheers for the input explicit. I am looking to gear towards nvidia, but i will be taking a look at the rest of your suggestions. Cheers for the help mate.

So dual core is good for gaming then? So ive been taking the wrong end of the stick XD.

Explicit · 12 Apr 2006 at 19:03

nVidia as requested:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)
£485.19
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£146.82
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£234.94
XFX GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT71F-YDLR) (GX-072-XF) (x2)
£763.64
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£109.86
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£30.49
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£18.74
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£82.19
FSP Sparkle FX700-GLN Epsilon 700W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-001-SK)
£113.92
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£57.52
Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard (KB-015-SK)
£29.32
Icemat - Black 2nd Edition (GS-001-IC)
£19.39
Logitech Z-5500 THX® Certified 5.1 505 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-021-LG)
£199.69
Acer AL2416Ws 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-013-AC)
£563.94

Total inc VAT: £2855.65

Dropped the G5 & WD 320GB as I just re-read your first post

Slyman2k4 · 12 Apr 2006 at 19:09

cheers mate, just edited my main post based on the suggestions from you two (which i am really greatful for) And extra <3 for changing your post to nvidia

.

That DFI lanparty board looks very interesting, will be adding it to my main post

cheers.

Hoping to get more suggestions on this, as i dont want to make any decisions before i get multiple view on it. Gotta make the first time perfect

Monstermunch · 12 Apr 2006 at 19:30

Opteron 180 or 4800X2 = Better

X1800XT = faster than a 7800gtx and a better card!

Slyman2k4 · 12 Apr 2006 at 19:36

hmmm, i think im swaying more towards dual core now. Should i get a FX60 over the Opteron 180 and 4800X2?

I still think i want to stick to nvidia. How does 1 7900GTX compare to the X1800XT? I would get two like explicit suggested, but i want to see how one runs first

then upgrade if needed.

Ender · 12 Apr 2006 at 19:41

get the x1900xtx as its the top card (open to debate

) atm, the fx-60 isnt really worth the massive increase in price for the 200mhz increase and unlocked multiplier, stick with the x2 4800+

Explicit · 12 Apr 2006 at 22:33

Slyman2k4 said:
hmmm, i think im swaying more towards dual core now. Should i get a FX60 over the Opteron 180 and 4800X2?

I still think i want to stick to nvidia. How does 1 7900GTX compare to the X1800XT? I would get two like explicit suggested, but i want to see how one runs first then upgrade if needed.

Get dual core, it's more future proof. The X2 4800+/Opty 180 will both overclock to FX60 speed and beyond. 2.8Ghz shouldn't be a problem.

7900GTX walks all over the X1800XT, they're both in two different leagues. The real comparison is between the X1900XT & 7900GTX and the X1800XT & 7900GT.

Monstermunch · 12 Apr 2006 at 23:21

Explicit said:
Get dual core, it's more future proof. The X2 4800+/Opty 180 will both overclock to FX60 speed and beyond. 2.8Ghz shouldn't be a problem.

7900GTX walks all over the X1800XT, they're both in two different leagues. The real comparison is between the X1900XT & 7900GTX and the X1800XT & 7900GT.

True but the X1900XTX is better than all of the above.

IMO stick with just 1 gfx card and avoid crossfire motherboards,they're bug ridden and a lot of people are having problems with them.

Personally I would get the following with your budget:

P-154-AM AMD Opteron UP 180 Dual Core San Diego 2.4GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-154-AM)
£449.95 £449.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95
GX-113-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-113-SP)
£319.95 £319.95
HD-002-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£56.50 £56.50
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-012-TT Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-012-TT)
£59.95 £59.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £1,218.10
VAT £213.17
Total £1,431.27

Cheap as Chips!

Slyman2k4 · 13 Apr 2006 at 00:19

Cheers for the input again explicit and cheers for the spec monster munch.

Im deffinately going to get that AMD Opteron UP 180 now, because it looks like dual core is the way to go =). And i also added the Artic cooling freezer pro since quite a few of you recommended it. I have still got a few questions though as i am still unsure about a few things.

I am still confused on the nvidia and ati issue. I seen that ati is said to be better for games etc, but what sways me towards the nvidia is that i can use SLi in the future if i get a nvidia card and a SLi DFi board. But then its the case if i dont want to upgrade i can just get the board and ATi card monster munch suggested. Its all too confusing XD. I am also interested in hooking up my current LCD screen and a new one when i get it to have dual monitors. Is it possible to go about that with just one gfx card?

Also another thing that has been confusing me (might make a post in the memory section tomorrow) is what kind of ram to get. All i know of what to get is to make sure its 2gig dual channel kit. But all this timings and HTT stuff is confusing

. not to mention how much choice of brands there is lol. Is OCZ the best brand out there?

Is that Tsunami Dream case a reliable/popular case? i had a dilemma over choosing a case ages ago when i was going to get a new case. It was between Coolermaster Stacker

I really dont mind spending my entire budget on the pc, and maybe pushing it over it by £500. It will be my first upgrade so i want everything to be perfect and hopefully do me for another few years before forcing me to upgrade again

And i better stop asking too many questions instead of reading section stickies before i annoy you lot off reading the topic

squiffy · 13 Apr 2006 at 00:48

Don't forget ATI have their own dual card setup (Crossfire) which in theory is better. Stacker is a good very large case, really deep and tall...plenty of space to work in and for airflow.

Explicit · 13 Apr 2006 at 00:51

Slyman2k4 said:
Im deffinately going to get that AMD Opteron UP 180 now, because it looks like dual core is the way to go =). And i also added the Artic cooling freezer pro since quite a few of you recommended it. I have still got a few questions though as i am still unsure about a few things.

Wise choice

Slyman2k4 said:
I am still confused on the nvidia and ati issue. I seen that ati is said to be better for games etc, but what sways me towards the nvidia is that i can use SLi in the future if i get a nvidia card and a SLi DFi board. But then its the case if i dont want to upgrade i can just get the board and ATi card monster munch suggested. Its all too confusing XD. I am also interested in hooking up my current LCD screen and a new one when i get it to have dual monitors. Is it possible to go about that with just one gfx card?

Well this is a debate that I don't wish to get into (nvidia vs ati). In some games, the nvidia cards are better than ati & in other games ati cards are better than nvidia (lots of benchmarks confirm this)

You can use one graphics card for now (ATI or nVidia) and then add one later on. With SLI you can use any card from any manufacturer as long as it is the same model (e.g. BFG 7900GTX and XFX 7900GTX). With Crossfire, AFAIK, you'll need to hunt down a "master card" when you want to add that second card in the future (but there have been some rumours that you can use two slave cards together??? I'm not sure) Whether or not one graphics card is enough for your current LCD depends on the resolution it runs at. One high-end graphics card should be ok for anything upto 1600 x 1200. Above that and you'll want to Crossfire/SLI to get decent gaming.

Slyman2k4 said:
Also another thing that has been confusing me (might make a post in the memory section tomorrow) is what kind of ram to get. All i know of what to get is to make sure its 2gig dual channel kit. But all this timings and HTT stuff is confusing . not to mention how much choice of brands there is lol. Is OCZ the best brand out there?

OCZ and Mushkin are some of the very best RAM manufacturers out there. The "HTT" business only comes into play when you're overclocking. To put it quite simply, it doesn't really matter whether you buy PC3200 or PC4000 RAM with AMD 64s. You can use a divider and it won't make any difference.

As for timings, just think of it as "delay" - the lower the timings, the better!

Slyman2k4 said:
Is that Tsunami Dream case a reliable/popular case? i had a dilemma over choosing a case ages ago when i was going to get a new case. It was between Coolermaster Stacker

It's all down to personal taste when it comes to cases. Some prefer elegant and smooth whilst others may prefer flashy/gaming type cases. Just choose a case that you like according to your own style and taste.

Slyman2k4 · 13 Apr 2006 at 02:35

Thanks for clearing that up explicit. So im going to have to think long and hard about the case and gfx card. I really like the look of the ocz and its 2.3.2.5 timings

. But see that "Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit" would i be able to use it on that DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT as it says it only supports up to pc3200/400mhz. And if i can, what you said in your last post, did that mean they would not make any difference?

Monstermunch · 13 Apr 2006 at 07:42

squiffy said:
Don't forget ATI have their own dual card setup (Crossfire) which in theory is better. Stacker is a good very large case, really deep and tall...plenty of space to work in and for airflow.

It's just a shame the crossfire motherboards are so unrealiable and bug ridden!

Monstermunch · 13 Apr 2006 at 07:48

As far as the graphics card issue goes, I would have to disagree slightly with explicit. IMO 1 gfx card is enough, even for a 20" widescreen running at 1600x1050res. The only thing you need to make sure of is that it has 512mb ram on the card.

IMO gfx cards are updated every 6-9 months these days and you'd be better off just selling your current card and buying the new chipset each time it's released. That way it doesn't cost you as much.

Look at it this way, if you'd already bought your setup and were running 2 x x1800xt's in crossfire, then a single x1900xtx would probably not be far behind to the extent that you wouldn't be able to notice at all in games, even at 1600x1050.

Explicit · 13 Apr 2006 at 10:58

Monstermunch said:
As far as the graphics card issue goes, I would have to disagree slightly with explicit. IMO 1 gfx card is enough, even for a 20" widescreen running at 1600x1050res. The only thing you need to make sure of is that it has 512mb ram on the card.

We pretty much said the same thing...

Explicit said:
Whether or not one graphics card is enough for your current LCD depends on the resolution it runs at. One high-end graphics card should be ok for anything upto 1600 x 1200. Above that and you'll want to Crossfire/SLI to get decent gaming.

Explicit · 13 Apr 2006 at 11:16

Slyman2k4 said:
Thanks for clearing that up explicit. So im going to have to think long and hard about the case and gfx card. I really like the look of the ocz and its 2.3.2.5 timings . But see that "Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit" would i be able to use it on that DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT as it says it only supports up to pc3200/400mhz. And if i can, what you said in your last post, did that mean they would not make any difference?

Most boards state support upto PC3200, but they are capable of higher speeds when you want to overclock. The DFI will certainly accept PC4000. The beauty of Mushkin Redlines is the flexibility. If you run them at PC3200 speed, they will do tight timings of 2-3-2-5. Or if you want to overclock, they will do really high speed (PC4000+) with good timings. The point is, when overclocking they will run 1:1 with your CPU overclock - that's all it is.

As I said before, running a divider makes virtually no difference if you can't afford PC4000 RAM. The OCZ PC3200 is very good if you're happy to use a divider when overclocking and it does equally great timings of 2-3-2-5.

So, both kits are good. It's down to the way you want to overclock. You can go the high speed Mushkin route (which will run 1:1 with your CPU overclock) or you can use a divider to keep you RAM at it's rated PC3200 speed whilst still overclocking your CPU (no longer 1:1).