New build

DigitalReaper

DigitalReaper

DigitalReaper

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Joined
5 Apr 2008
Posts
358
Finally upgrading (read: replacing everything bar my IDE DVDRW drive) my PC. It's gonna be quite a big leap from this old athlon XP 2600/1GB/7600GT :D

Budget is £800-£850 inc. shipping. Uses will include video encoding and gaming. I play TF2 and EVE-Online mainly. I run everything at 1280x960 but I like my AA/AF/etc, I also run 2 EVE clients at once sometimes (dual 1280x960 is the same number of pixels as 1920x1280 so I guess that counts as high-res)

How future proof is this setup and are there any improvements I could make?

basket.jpg


I'm a bit out of the loop these days so i've got a few things i'm not sure on:

  1. How will using 4x2GB sticks of RAM affect overclocking aside from needing to bump up the NB voltage a notch or two?
  2. Are there any cheaper but still decently overclockable motherboards I could use? Must have at least 2 usable PCI slots, preferably with gigabit LAN.
  3. Are all these components reasonably quiet?
  4. Is the PSU decent and is 750w overkill? Would the significantly cheaper (£88 vs. £55) 500w version suffice? (specs below)
    500w: http://www.xtremecomputing.co.uk/review.php?id=376&page=3
    750w: http://techgage.com/article/thermaltake_toughpower_modular_750w_psu/
  5. I have a belkin 550w/1000va UPS... will it be able to handle the new PC, a 19" TFT, a 19" CRT and some misc. low power devices?
  6. Will there be any clearance issues with such a big heatsink?
  7. I have some AS5 in my drawer but it's a few years old, will it still be ok? If I need to order some is arctic ceramique ok or will there be a large difference in temps compared to AS5?

Thats all I can think of for now :D
 
Will there be any clearance issues with such a big heatsink?
Click to expand...

You shouldn't have any problems, no. It's quite a big case and I've seen quite a few specs on here that have gone together on here with that case and that heatsink setup.

Oh and I made the mistake of getting some of those fan filters for my Antec 900 as well. Turns out they don't fit because there's virtually no clearance between the front of the fan and the grills on the case. So unless you mounted them on the inside somewhere (which I doubt would affect the amount of dust in the case much) I don't think you're gonna be able to fit them in there. Someone correct me if there's a way to do it though.
 
DigitalReaper said:
Is the PSU decent and is 750w overkill? Would the significantly cheaper (£88 vs. £55) 500w version suffice? (specs below)
Click to expand...
I'd go for the Corsair range. This will even do fine for that spec :)
I have a belkin 550w/1000va UPS... will it be able to handle the new PC, a 19" TFT, a 19" CRT and some misc. low power devices?
Click to expand...
With the CRT you might be pushing/asking to much from the UPS. I have a 400w/650va APC & with a single 19" CRT on a low power spec (i.e. 65nm AMD & no power hungry GFX) & it overloads if I try power on the monitor when no power :(
 
Thanks for the replies folks :)

hp7909 said:
I'd go for the Corsair range. This will even do fine for that spec :)
Click to expand...

Everyone seems to like that one. :) Unforunately my budget may be a little tighter than I thought at first. :mad: Are there any other decent but cheaper PSUs you could recommend? I don't know if i'll overclock the graphics card but i'll definately be overclocking the CPU.

hp7909 said:
With the CRT you might be pushing/asking to much from the UPS. I have a 400w/650va APC & with a single 19" CRT on a low power spec (i.e. 65nm AMD & no power hungry GFX) & it overloads if I try power on the monitor when no power :(
Click to expand...

I guess I don't really need the CRT on the UPS anyway as I can still see enough with the TFT to save/shutdown.
 
that psu will handle overclocking, and more importantly will also handle you're GTX, which are more power hungry than the new 8800GT/GTS's.
 
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