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plumbjet

plumbjet

plumbjet

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29 May 2009
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28
Hi All

First time posting on this forum, and first to buiding a high-end PC would be happy if you could look over the parts iam going to order. should i go for the the 2x BFG GTX285 or should i 1xBFG GTX295. Also the ram would i better of with 12gb of 1600mhz of ram. Please look over the list and tell me if the system is good or not,

The system will be cooled by water too

1 x Western Digital WD3000HLFS VelociRaptor 300GB Hard Drive SATAII 16MB Cache 10000rpm - OEM 149435 £149.33 £149.33

3 x Belkin Pro Series DVI-D To DVI-D Single Link 3m 31424 £7.07 £21.21

1 x Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound Thermal paste 3.5gram 126410 £5.18 £5.18

1 x LiteOn 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer & Ram + Lightscribe IDE Black Bare Drive - OEM 126226 £13.29 £13.29

1 x Corsair 1000W HX PSU - 6x PCI-E, 10x SATA - Modular Design with 5 Year Warranty 143019 £159.72 £159.72

2 x BFG GTX285 1024MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PhysX and Cuda ready PCI-E Graphics Card 158322 £257.60 £515.20

1 x ASUS Rampage II Extreme iX58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 160932 £247.72 £247.72

3 x Dell S2409 24" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 1000:1 300cd/m2 5ms Black DVI/VGA 3 years Manufacturer Warranty 149662 £176.16 £528.48

1 x Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 2000MHz Dominator GT Triple Channel i7 Kit With Fan CL8 1.65V 164765 £243.47 £243.47

1 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM 143288 £58.97 £58.97

1 x Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000 Full Tower Case 132077 £122.67 £122.67

1 x Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz Socket 1366 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 151477 £199.93 £199.93

thank you Graham
 
Yeah the spec looks fine spening lot of money into the pc. bout the GTX 2 way sli 285's are better than he 295 but cost more too!!!!!!!!
 
Hey. A lot of a system build is preference, there's nothing like researching it yourself.

That said, what is your intended purpose and will you be overclocking? If not, that ram is an expensive mistake. 12gb of ram is unlikely to be a good idea, but again depends on use. Board is pretty but not so hot for overclocking.

Raptor is gash at that budget, look at ssds. OCZ vertex recommended.

Corsair psu is good. Three 530 quid screens makes me suspect you're taking the ****, I take it you didn't realise sli'd 285's will only drive two screens?

Needless to say you can do rather better at that budget. Dropping one screen which you can't run and doing water cooling properly with overclocking would be the obvious choice.
 
Drop the raptor and get an SSD also 12GB RAM is pointless IMO.

EDIT: Wow three 24" monitors! How bigs your desk??? I have two and that fills it, 3 is overkill unless for some reaon you need 3 then go for one 24 and two smaller 19-20's. Also you will need dual cards to run more than two monitors.
 
3 screens is just one them thinking i would love to have so going for it, I have 2 video cards on the list, yes iam looking to overclock it.

is the 6gb 2000mhz of ram over the top

i have looked very hard to find the best stuff but not to sure about the motherboard what would be the best?
 
Here's my 2 pence worth:

1. The monitors will probably come with DVI cables, best to check before you spend £20 on extra ones.
2. Make sure you order the D0 Stepping version of the i7 920.
3. If you are spending this much then you should probably get a Blu-Ray writer instead of just a DVD writer.
4. Stick with 6GB of RAM
5. Get an SSD (or 2) instead of the Velociraptor for your OS and important Apps
6. Buy another 1TB Spinpoint to have a RAID set-up (either RAID0 for extra speed, or RAID1 for extra security)
7. You can't set-up 3 monitors on a single GTX295, so 2x GTX285 it is - or probably better still would be 2x ATI 4890, value-wise at least??

Other than that, good stuff!
 
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1 x Western Digital WD3000HLFS VelociRaptor 300GB Hard Drive SATAII 16MB Cache 10000rpm - OEM 149435 £149.33 £149.33 - Nope. Get an SSD, OCZ Vertex or Samsung PB22-J preferred.

3 x Belkin Pro Series DVI-D To DVI-D Single Link 3m 31424 £7.07 £21.21 - You won't need these, you should get cables with the monitors.

1 x Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound Thermal paste 3.5gram 126410 £5.18 £5.18 - Scrap this and get an NH-U12P 1366, it comes with it's own paste.

1 x LiteOn 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer & Ram + Lightscribe IDE Black Bare Drive - OEM 126226 £13.29 £13.29

1 x Corsair 1000W HX PSU - 6x PCI-E, 10x SATA - Modular Design with 5 Year Warranty 143019 £159.72 £159.72 - OK.

2 x BFG GTX285 1024MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PhysX and Cuda ready PCI-E Graphics Card 158322 £257.60 £515.20 - Personally, I would get one or two 4890's, 260's or a 285 right now, and put the rest towards DX11 cards.

1 x ASUS Rampage II Extreme iX58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 160932 £247.72 £247.72 - Overkill, and from what I've heard, quite a lot of people say these are crap. Get a P6T or UD5.

3 x Dell S2409 24" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 1000:1 300cd/m2 5ms Black DVI/VGA 3 years Manufacturer Warranty 149662 £176.16 £528.48 - If triple screen is what you want, triple screen is what you get. I would go for a single better quality 24", but it's up to you. Note that you'll either need dual cards, a 295 with 3 outputs, or a TH2GO to link them all up.

1 x Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 2000MHz Dominator GT Triple Channel i7 Kit With Fan CL8 1.65V 164765 £243.47 £243.47 - NO. Get some £100 1600MHz RAM, and spend the extra £150 on an SSD or two.

1 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM 143288 £58.97 £58.97 - Yep, fine.

1 x Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000 Full Tower Case 132077 £122.67 £122.67 - Personal preference, do what you want here.

1 x Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz Socket 1366 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 151477 £199.93 £199.93 - Get a D0 stepping version, and buy a Noctua NH-U12P if you want to overclock.

Here's what I'd do. Better performance with RAID-0 SSD's, More overclocking potential, and about £100-£150 saved, which could be used for either a DX11 card (when they come out) or to get your 295 or 285's (or dual 4890's - best bang for buck!).

2urxw0m.png
 
He said he is going to watercool, so no need for the Noctua. Although saying that, it might be a good idea to have a backup.

Isn't the Titan Fenrir meant to be the new 'King of Coolers'?
 
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spitzoid said:
He said he is going to watercool, so no need for the Noctua. Although saying that, it might be a good idea to have a backup.

Isn't the Titan Fenrir meant to be the new 'King of Coolers'?
Click to expand...

Ah yes. Well in that case, you can knock £60 off that build. And for the backup, he could just go for retail CPU have the stock cooler as backup. I know I have.

Dunno about titan fenrir. a lot of people say it's loud, although I suppose that could be fixed by simply buying a better fan.
 
what iam looking for is the best of the best not best for price overkill is good to me. if you ? 3 grand what would you go for 3 screens is a must
 
Three 24" screens really does seem like a waste, especially if your buying them just because you think it will be cool. They will take up around 2.5 meters of space and unless you have eyes in the side of your head they will really strain your eyes and have you looking from side to side. Just get two 24's or one larger monitor with two smaller either side (if you MUST get three). You can only run games on one so having 3 large is pointless. The only reason I have a second is so I can run dreamweaver and photoshop at the same time.
 
plumbjet said:
what iam looking for is the best of the best not best for price overkill is good to me. if you ? 3 grand what would you go for 3 screens is a must
Click to expand...

At 3 grand you're still limited to price, and £250 on RAM is wasted. £150 elsewhere, such as in GPU's, would yeild more benefit. Overkill isn't always good, in the wrong places. Also, WHY exactly do you need 3 screens? If it's for gaming, remember, you're gonna need a TH2GO as well, so you'll have to spend about £1000 on triple screening (even with the cheapest 24" screens), which leaves you with £2000 for the system. £300-£400 for W/C, and you have £1700 for a system, so now it can't be as overkill as it was before. I would go for 2 top quality 24" screens, personally.

Now that the budget is 3 grand rather than 2, I would do this (reserving £350 for W/C):

e0lf5u.png


2 top quality monitors. If you definitely want triple screens, you can swap these out for 3 cheap screens, but you won't get the same image quality, and you'll have to buy a TH2GO for gaming.

D0 stepping i7, retail so you have a backup heatsink (might as well for £6 or whatever).

Gigabyte X58 UD5, because it has a PCI-E slot ABOVE the PCI-E x16 slot, so you can have crossfire 3 way and a sound card.

Three 4890s - more power than two 285's, and about the same price.

The case you wanted.

2 SSD's for your OS, apps and some games.

Good RAM, not too expensive, but better than "regular" stuff.

1TB Storage.

A sound card. No point buying a top end system and getting poor sound out of it.

Blu-ray drive, for hi-def movies. If you don't have or plan on getting any blu-rays, you can cut this out and save £35.
 
Hi all
Ok why 3 screens, Well i have had 2 screens for a long time and would love to have the extra desktop space, I like playing around with 3d software and playing game too.

Three 4890s - more power than two 285's, and about the same price, would i get more power from 3 285,s if i was to upgrade later with one more 285

ASUS Rampage II Extreme iX58 Socket 1366 is it that bad every thing i has seen about this board is it is a overclocking board. I do like gigabyte boards but would like asus.

I understand about the SSD drives would be better then the raptor harddrive

Is 2000mhz ram not better the 1600mhz can the 2000mhz ram not be overclock to more or does ram speed not matter
 
plumbjet said:
Hi all
Ok why 3 screens, Well i have had 2 screens for a long time and would love to have the extra desktop space, I like playing around with 3d software and playing game too.

Three 4890s - more power than two 285's, and about the same price, would i get more power from 3 285,s if i was to upgrade later with one more 285

ASUS Rampage II Extreme iX58 Socket 1366 is it that bad every thing i has seen about this board is it is a overclocking board. I do like gigabyte boards but would like asus.

I understand about the SSD drives would be better then the raptor harddrive

Is 2000mhz ram not better the 1600mhz can the 2000mhz ram not be overclock to more or does ram speed not matter
Click to expand...

OK, fair enough, I see why you want 3 screens now. Go for it. Remember the Triple-Head-2-Go though.

Good point about the 285's. Yes, three 285's would be better than three 4890's, I hadn't thought about that. Actually, it'd be a good idea to get one or two now, then wait until these "monster powerful" DX11 cards come around, and use your old card as a PhysX card, if you want. Or get another 285. Whatever.

I don't personally know about the Rampage. Besides the sound card built in, which I've specced anyway, it doesn't seem to offer much more than anything else, despite what it costs. The main reason I suggested the UD5 was because you could have 3 GPU's and still fit a sound card in the slots above. Although I suppose with the Rampage you don't need that.

From what I've seen, the Rampage Extreme doesn't seem to be *that* amazing at overclocking. If you're truly looking for high clocks, you'd be looking at the Biostar T-Power board. That said though, I'm pretty sure every board should be able to get a chip to 4GHz (provided the chip is capable). There is very little in it with X58 boards, almost all of them are premium quality, so they're all decent overclockers. Some might get you a couple of hundred MHz higher, but it's really not worth it. Heck, the Gene is a very good clocker, but it isn't worth crippling your expandability with an mATX motherboard. You could spend an extra £300 on the mobo and RAM, then the CPU could be a crap one that won't clock past 3.4GHz no matter what board.

So by all means, go for the Rampage. The UD5 + sound card comes to the same price anyway, so I guess it's whichever you prefer. Since that's Asus - it's the Rampage Extreme.

Yes, 2000MHz RAM IS better than 1600MHz, in theory. But for the extra £200, the Corsair Dominator GT is not worth it. I added some 2000Mhz RAM for you, but you won't need any more than that, trust me. £150 for slightly tighter timings is useless. You'll get a couple of more points in benchmarks, that's it. Unless you're trying for world records (get the liquid helium out), don't bother.

I believe I read somewhere that 1333MHz RAM is fine up until 4GHz on the CPU, so 1600MHz is a good sweet spot.
 
Ha yeah, no competitors. Also nothing which looks like a competitor. And no hotlinks. Aside from that, all good.

I've read that the rampage sound card is on the motherboard, but it has the extra card with the contacts on. The slot it fits into can only be used with the supplied card. Rampage is still a pretty motherboard though.

SSD's tend to walk all over raptors. Vertex is the standard buy at the cheaper end, intel's offerings for the very high end. It takes roughly 3 vertex drives to saturate the intel southbridge, so if using raid 0 you probably don't want more than 3 drives.
If however you go down the dedicated raid card route, you can spend properly scary amounts of money on storage. It might be worth trying to find out how fast the storage has to be for the i7 to be the bottleneck.
 
plumbjet said:
asus rampage does come with a soundcard but no as in the motherboard but as a extra card http://www.******.com/product/160932

ok i understand about the ram now so iam going to look for a good corsair 1600mhz ram

also going to drop the raptor HD for may 2 or 3 SSD drives for os
Click to expand...

Can't link to competitors here ;)

RAM sounds good, doesn't have to be Corsair though. I know that Patriot stuff is supposed to be really good at clocking.

SSD's, definitely. The access times are such a huge boost in "snappiness", and the fast transfer rates compliment them.
 
Looks like a good build i like it but havnt looked at it too hard

One main thing i would say last time i check you cant run 3 screens when your in SLI you def cant run 3 screens in Xfire no matter what cards so you will need a tripple head go Digital in your case its about £260ish i think so you will need to budget for that.
 
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