New System £2000 to Spend!!!!!!!

bluemoonmcfc · 6 Apr 2008 at 23:29

Hi am looking at buying a complete new system as mine is a bit long in the tooth.

I've got around £2000 to spend.

These are some of the components i have thought about getting.

CPU - Q9450 or Q6600 with CPU cooler - Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme

Motherboard - Asus P5E3 Premium or XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI or DDR2 boards - Asus Rampage Formula Intel X48

Memory - OCZ 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Platinum or OCZ 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz ReaperX or DDR2 - G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PK PC2-8500C5

Graphics Card - PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 CrossFireX with PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT Extreme or EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV X2 in Sli

Hard Drives - 1TB Seagate ST310005N1D1AS-RK Barracuda 7200.11, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ Reta x2

Monitor - BenQ G2400W 24" Widescreen HDMI/HDCP LCD HD or 24" Yuraku YV24WBH1 Widescreen LCD Monitor DVI

Case - Coolermaster RC-1100 Cosmos S

PSU - Coolermaster Real Power 850w or Coolermaster Real Power 1000w

Drive - LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blu-Ray Writer & HD-ROM

OS - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1* 64Bit 1Pk OEM or Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1* 32Bit 1Pk OEM

As you can see i keep swinging one way then the other.

Things to know:

I will attempt to overclock as much as i can.

System will be used for Games, HD film watching, Streaming, Editing pics & video, lots of burning

.

Am asking for help as this system will have to do me for a good few years so i need best performance i can get, if you can add any other components to my list then feel free.
The money side is important but if i can get that little bit more performance then i think it will be worth it.

Cheers for any input will be much appreciated

Blue.

shaffaaf27 · 7 Apr 2008 at 02:24

hows this?

Tombo · 7 Apr 2008 at 02:50

a GDDR3 and a GDDR4 3870 X2?

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 06:24

shaffaaf27 said:
hows this?

Thats a good system m8 cheers, do you think DDR3 will be much faster than the Best DDR2 mem is now in a couple of years?

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 06:25

Tombo said:
a GDDR3 and a GDDR4 3870 X2?

Can you not mix them?

Mr Jones · 7 Apr 2008 at 08:05

bluemoonmcfc said:
Can you not mix them?

You can mix them, I think Tombo had a late night and is confused.com

Graphics Memory is usually faster than the system RAM, it's dedicated to the GPU processor / card, doesn't affect the system compatibility in any way, even if matched with DDR2 or even DDR1.

A couple of years ago, when DDR2 was out, GPU RAM was at DDR3...

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 09:22

Dr Jones said:
You can mix them, I think Tombo had a late night and is confused.com

Graphics Memory is usually faster than the system RAM, it's dedicated to the GPU processor / card, doesn't affect the system compatibility in any way, even if matched with DDR2 or even DDR1.

A couple of years ago, when DDR2 was out, GPU RAM was at DDR3...

Ok cheers mate that clears that up then.

Another thought i've had is to stick with just the 3870 X2 and when the 4870XT or 4870 X2 come out get one of them instead, does anyone know if they will work together?

square_imp · 7 Apr 2008 at 11:00

personally I would spend money on getting a new quad, Q9450 etc instead on spending money on some of the rest of that spec.

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 11:16

square_imp said:
personally I would spend money on getting a new quad, Q9450 etc instead on spending money on some of the rest of that spec.

Only prob with the Q9450 is it does not overclock as well as the Q6600 and stock seems a bit short at the moment

.

shaffaaf27 · 7 Apr 2008 at 12:17

bluemoonmcfc said:
Thats a good system m8 cheers, do you think DDR3 will be much faster than the Best DDR2 mem is now in a couple of years?

yeah it will, but one will probably be using nehalam by then.

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 13:14

shaffaaf27 said:
yeah it will, but one will probably be using nehalam by then.

Only 1 big upgrade is aloud every few years

Strife212 · 7 Apr 2008 at 14:11

Dr Jones said:
You can mix them, I think Tombo had a late night and is confused.com

Graphics Memory is usually faster than the system RAM, it's dedicated to the GPU processor / card, doesn't affect the system compatibility in any way, even if matched with DDR2 or even DDR1.

A couple of years ago, when DDR2 was out, GPU RAM was at DDR3...

Thats not what he's talking about

He has two graphics cards in the build, one with GDDR3 and one with GDDR4, he was wondering if this would cause CrossFire problems presumably?

shaffaaf27 · 7 Apr 2008 at 14:41

no. it would run atthe slowest rated speed. thats all.

nicktay2605 · 7 Apr 2008 at 22:30

Looks like a good spec bluemoon. CPU is excellent, cooler is one of the best you can get, the x2 is a very good graphics card, hard drives are very fast and pretty quiet and the monitor is superb. Only thing I would consider changing is the case. For £150 you could get a Silverstone or a Lian-Li, especially considering they have just released a load of new cases that have been very well received.

bluemoonmcfc · 7 Apr 2008 at 23:04

nicktay2605 said:
Looks like a good spec bluemoon. CPU is excellent, cooler is one of the best you can get, the x2 is a very good graphics card, hard drives are very fast and pretty quiet and the monitor is superb. Only thing I would consider changing is the case. For £150 you could get a Silverstone or a Lian-Li, especially considering they have just released a load of new cases that have been very well received.

Cheers m8 do the Silverstone or Lian-Li cases have better cooling than the Coolermaster?

shaffaaf27 · 7 Apr 2008 at 23:38

DDR3 spec
i prefer it to the DDR2, IMO (and you could save £60 by going with the X38 Maximus Extreme and put it to the push and pull Noctua)

marc2003 · 8 Apr 2008 at 01:11

shaffaaf27 said:
DDR3 spec
i prefer it to the DDR2

500 sheets just for the motherboard and 4gb ram? **** that. :confused:

bluemoonmcfc · 8 Apr 2008 at 09:56

shaffaaf27 said:
DDR3 spec
i prefer it to the DDR2, IMO (and you could save £60 by going with the X38 Maximus Extreme and put it to the push and pull Noctua)

Cheers for the input mate

One question regards Gfx could i mix CrossFireX Manufactures?

psychas · 8 Apr 2008 at 10:06

dont buy powercolor it is super loud fan always 100% and you cant change it

bluemoonmcfc · 8 Apr 2008 at 11:27

psychas said:
dont buy powercolor it is super loud fan always 100% and you cant change it

OK cheers for that

Which ones have controllable fans?.