Request for comments on spec + cooling & psu recommendations

metadaptive

metadaptive

metadaptive

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Joined
31 Mar 2006
Posts
6
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
 
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
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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