Request for comments on spec + cooling & psu recommendations

[metadaptive]

afternoon all,

Would really appreciate comments on the spec below. will mostly be using her for fairly intense web dev related multitasking during the day & a bit of gaming of an evening etc - nothing too demanding on the gaming front though as I royally suck at FPS's. will probably have a crack at overclocking but am not a proper tweaker...

Probably worth mentioning that this is also something of an interim spec as I need a new system now (my venerable 1.8GHz P4 is gradually grinding to a halt after 4 years of good service) but my budget is limited to 800 quid or so.

Hence I plan to add more storage, ram and poss another GFX card in a few months.

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail - £179.95
RAM - Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) - £109.95
MOBO - Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express - £99.95
GFX - Gainward BLISS GeForce 6800 GS "Goes Like Hell" 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI - £139.95
HD - Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM - £56.50
PSU - Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU - £61.95

subtotal = £648.25
+ evil mr VAT man's slice = £113.45
total = £761.70

all this will be sitting in a custom coolermaster that I already have, and will be using opticals from my old system for now to maintain cheapness in the short term.

should I maybe be looking at a tagan PSU instead of the enermax? I know they're popular here but have heard mix things elsewhere...

would also be grateful for any suggestions as to whether I should bother improving on stock cooling for the CPU, and if so what you'd suggest.

many thanks in advance

meta

 

[Monstermunch]

You do realise that with only one gfx card you DON'T need an SLI motherboard. Get the std nF4-Ultra model and save yourself £25. Try looking at either the MSI Neo4 or the BFG Ultra

 

[Monstermunch]

Cheaper and better than what you were thinking of:

CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£169.95 £169.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
MB-046-MS MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-079-CS Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
£109.95 £109.95
HD-002-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£56.50 £56.50
GX-042-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-042-HT)
£159.95 £159.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
Subtotal £637.20
VAT £111.51
Total £748.71

In fact you may even be able to sneak an x1800xt in there for £765

 

[semi-pro waster]

Welcome to the forums, I'd probably suggest changing the 6800gs for a 7800gt as although it has less memory it is a much faster graphics card and worth the extra money or alternatively an X1800XT 256mb which is faster still. Other than that it looks basically fine, maybe a minor change like getting a motherboard with a single PCI-E slot unless you really want that particularly motherboard is all I'd really be suggesting.

Stock cooling is fine unless you are going to be overclocking more than a little bit.

 

[metadaptive]

cheers for the quick reply

reason for the SLi board was so that i can add a second card in a month or two when cashflow allows... esp as in an ideal world I'll be running a silly number of monitors.

 

[metadaptive]

i did want to go for the XFX 7800GT as it seems a bargain at that price but it's out of stock at the mo.. will look around for it elsewhere but haven't found it for comparable money.

 

[ACESHIGH]

If getting a 2nd card months down the track it may be wiser to get a standard type card. ie stock 6800GS or better stock 7600GT. As in a few months time it may be very hard to find the 6800GS GLH (due to their limited nubmers).

Still for not much more than the single 6800GS a X1800XT 256MB will perform like 2x 6800GS cards.

 

[metadaptive]

thanks for all your responses, after thinking about it abit i'll decided to take Monstermunch's advice & go for a single slot msi board and splash out on an x1800xt.

cheers again for the help

meta