new gaming rig

BART · 10 May 2009 at 06:51

My Alienware laptop has the up the will to live,so it time to build a new gaming desktop, any advice would be appreshated.
Many thanks paul

Allready have 2x SSD OCZ 64GB CORE SERIES2 hard drives out of laptop which i want to use in raid 0 mode.

Looking to buy the following ;

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3)
MSI 790FX-GD70 AMD 790FX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9DHX Twin3X (TW3X4G1600C9DHX)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply
Asus VH222H 22" Widescreen True HD LCD Monitor

not sure on which to get ;

BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX 1024MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Card - Retail
Core: 702MHz, Memory: 1024MB 2664MHz GDDR3, Stream Processors: 240, Shader Clock: 1584MHz, SLi Ready, PhysX/CUDA Enabled, 10 Year Warranty.

or

Gainward GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GW-GTX295-1792)
576MHz Core, 1242MHz Shader Clock, 1792MB 1998MHz GDDR3 Memory, 480 Stream Processors, SLi Ready, Geforce with CUDA

markiejt · 10 May 2009 at 07:05

wouldnt get 285 as waste of money... 295 is better £/perrformance but on that mobo i would maybe look at 4870 crossfire or even 4890 crossfire for better performance.

might want to look at 8gb of ram also. i found some games like crysis when run maxed out kept coming up with box say memory full so had to increase mine to 8

c0dec · 10 May 2009 at 07:42

285 and a Core i7! Why is it loads of people on here seem to love AMD's?

Glaucus · 10 May 2009 at 08:49

What's your budget, it seems like it would be high enough for an i7. Also any reason for a 22" monitor instead of a 24"?

BAMBI · 10 May 2009 at 09:26

c0dec said:
285 and a Core i7! Why is it loads of people on here seem to love AMD's?

The New Phenoms are pretty close to I7 performance but considerably cheaper so that is why (i think).

Since you are going to be gaming I would suggest a nice fast dual core overclocked to 4.2-4.4Ghz. Will beat I7 and AMD in most games and cheap! £150 for a E8400.

Glaucus · 10 May 2009 at 09:34

BAMBI said:
The New Phenoms are pretty close to I7 performance but considerably cheaper so that is why (i think).

Since you are going to be gaming I would suggest a nice fast dual core overclocked to 4.2-4.4Ghz. Will beat I7 and AMD in most games and cheap! £150 for a E8400.

phenoms aren't close to i7 they aren't even C2Q speed and overclocked i7 will be comparable to a c2d. and for only £70 more. If the budget is large enough it's insane to get anything other than i7. Seeing as most people seem to be able to get 4ghz.

phytal · 10 May 2009 at 09:40

i building a new gaming pc too
I going gor the i7 do stepping, Evga x58 sli classified, corsiar HX1000, carsair memory,NZXt tempest case

phytal · 10 May 2009 at 09:41

Are your SSD good
I like to try them out?

phytal · 10 May 2009 at 09:45

Not sure about the graphics the 285 in tri-sli will munch the 295 sli for sure... but the are a little pricey.. I think that 1 Vs 1 the 295 will win for sure but the 295 is a combination of 2 260's. I think for the money 295 is a better choice but for perfonmance in tri-sli the 285 will get the win

BART · 10 May 2009 at 11:45

budget is around £1000-£1300
i like the Asus VH222H 22" for the price and spec full hd Resolution: 1920x1080
always been an Amd fan

volt9291 · 10 May 2009 at 11:51

go for this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-032-DE its not hd but its such a nice lcd, got mine the other day really happy with it.

BART · 10 May 2009 at 11:58

glad you like you tft but the screen res is less and it £45 more.

my experence with the SSD drive in my Alienware laptop are, that i get the same performance with 1 ssd drive than 2 normal hdd in raid mode 0.
I've all so read the hard drive / ssd drives in laptops are bandwidth throttled not sure if 100% true , but having done some benchmarch test in the ssd drives they don't perform as good as people using them in desktop pc's.

mjones1 · 10 May 2009 at 12:06

6gb of ram will be enough, this monitor looks nice -Click for link.
phytal stop spamming there is a edit button.

Glaucus · 10 May 2009 at 13:23

BART said:
budget is around £1000-£1300
i like the Asus VH222H 22" for the price and spec full hd Resolution: 1920x1080
always been an Amd fan

For that price there really is only one way i7.

BART · 10 May 2009 at 13:43

so to all you i7 fan's spec me a pc that will be better than the 1 i have !

Glaucus · 10 May 2009 at 14:02

It's not about being a fan boy. the i7 is a vastly superior chip and does not cost a huge amount more.

markiejt · 10 May 2009 at 15:14

dont get 285 get 2x 260 or 2x4870 same price better performace

BAMBI · 10 May 2009 at 15:38

AcidHell2 said:
phenoms aren't close to i7 they aren't even C2Q speed and overclocked i7 will be comparable to a c2d. and for only £70 more. If the budget is large enough it's insane to get anything other than i7. Seeing as most people seem to be able to get 4ghz.

Aren't close? they seem pretty close to me... hope over to toms and anandtech for reviews. Note that all the gaming test are low/medium graphics so once ur gaming on max settings u wont notice too much of a difference between the two processors.

Not sure where you got £70 from... the 940 costs £160 and people on oc are hitting 4 Ghzs. The i7 920 costs £240 and you cant forget the huge difference in mobo costs between AM2/AM3s and the cheapest 1366 mobos. So in total its a saving of £150 minimum! Or at least thats how i see it.

Would i buy Phemon or i7? im not sure but im leaning towards phenom right now as its just so much cheaper. AMD are certainly back in the game for gaming.

As for graphics BART id go 2x260 or 2x4870 asmarkiejt suggests.

P.s. Jenson just nailed it! nice one

Glaucus · 10 May 2009 at 15:45

The phenom 2 is just below the C2Q perfomance. Not the I7, unless your look at the crysis benchmarks which are similar. But for most games the i7 out performs the phenom.

20% more perfomance for £150

BAMBI · 10 May 2009 at 16:02

AcidHell2 said:
Once you get to high res, cpu power becomes much more important not the other way around. The phenom 2 is just below the C2Q perfomance. Not the I7, unles syour look at teh crysis benchmarks which are similar. But for most games the i7 out performs the phenom.

Come on the graphics card will always be a bottleneck in latest games before the CPU is no? Perhaps there are some test of this ive missed?

Yeah the i7 is slightly faster no dispute there at all but a i7 CPU and cheapest mobo is £410 when the P 2 setup will cost £250 with a nice mobo. thats a huge difference way more then any performance difference between the two making the Phenom far more cost effective.