Semi-decent gaming system?

Warwizard

Warwizard

Warwizard

Associate
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Posts
6
Thinking of building my own system, looking at gaming but not bothered about overclocking:

2 x OCZ 2GB DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Platinum (2x1GB) Dual Channel DDR3 (OCZ3P13332GK) £89.99

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case (Gun Metal Black) / Antec Quattro 1000W PSU £188.98

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £199.99

2 x Asus DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black/Silver) - Retail £19.99

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £84.99

Asus P5E3 Deluxe Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £131.99

OcUK GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £283.99

I have just bought Monitor/KB/Mouse/Vista64Ultimate so don't need to add them. I would like to add a decent soundcard/speakers but as my PC is downstairs I play with the volume only just about audible anyway so it would be a waste to spend a lot of cash on them :(

Does this look reasonable?
 
Slightly more than semi decent i'd say.

I've had most of the upper range cards and the GX2 is one sweet card.

Everything should work well together although i'd personally save a few pennies and get DDR2. Half of my OCZ PC8000 cost just over £60 delivered so you save around £100 immediately. Also, could plump for the e8400 as the extra .15ghz won't make a massive difference.

gt
 
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Welcome to the forums. I'd agree with gt_junkie's advice and say you could consider getting yourself a set of headphones if you want good quality sound but can't raise the level with external speakers.
 
Thanks for the speedy replies and thanks for the welcome semi-pro :)

Is that mobo ok or would a

XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £204.99

be better as it has SLI support? I don't think I need SLI support with a single 9800gx2 although a mate has told me that I do as it's actually 2 cards bolted together or something?

I have a headset that I rarely use but as it's USB I assume that I get the sound quality from it's inbuilt sound processer rather than the onboard sound or SoundBlaster card (If I end up buying one), is that right? If so then a SB card with the front panel (Direct headphone socket) might be very tempting....but then I might have to cut back on something else, esp. if I need an SLI mobo (Although I'm 100% convinced that I don't but you know how it is when somebody plants a seed of doubt in your mind...)
 
DDR3 + x38 mobo, 1000 watt PSU and you telling me that u're not OCing this ?
Save yourself some pennies and get this:

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Thermaltake ToughPower 750W Power Supply £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Samsung SH-S203PRSMN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (PCI) (30SB079200000) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
OcUK GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £283.99
(£333.69) £283.99
(£333.69)
Creative Inspire T6100 5.1 Speakers - OEM £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz SLI-Ready Edition Low Latency Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2N800SR4GK) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset + Call Of Juarez Bundle £23.99
(£28.19) £23.99
(£28.19)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £78.99
(£92.81) £78.99
(£92.81)
Sub Total : £890.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.19
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £160.14
Total : £1,075.22


All good speakers that I know are out of stock tho, so you will have to wait for those or choose somethin' else.
Apart from that everything's fine :).
 
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Oops, seem to have melted my credit card....

Couldn't resist spalshing out on

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz Processor £165.21
XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI Skt775 DDR3 MB-N790-IUL9 £194.99
Asus GeForce 9800GX2 1GB HDMI PCI-E 2.0 Company of Heros £309.23
2 x Corsair Memory DDR3 2GB (2 x 1024MB) 1333MHz £60.82
Antec P182 £78.99
Enermax Galaxy 1000 £144.99
Samsung 1tb SATA2 7200rpm 32mb cache Hard Drive £84.99
Soundblaster Fatal1ty Champion £95.66
2 x Asus DRW-2014L1T DVD±RW 20x S-ATA 2Bezels Black/Silver Lightscribe £16.53

All ex-stock and should be delivered tomorrow *fingers crossed*

*whispers* Not all from OCUK though, some were cheaper elsewhere and some were in stock elsewhere but not at OCUK
 
You wont use that mobo and PSU at its best so I guess this is kinda waste of about 150 quid for nothing ;-). Also i'm not sure about this ram...
 
How can you buy components such as that mobo, and not be bothered about overclocking.... crazy talk. When my new components arrive tommorow (hopefully, looking at you OcUK), gotta bench 3dmark 05 and 06, before and after OC'ing.
 
Equin0x said:
How can you buy components such as that mobo, and not be bothered about overclocking.... crazy talk. When my new components arrive tommorow (hopefully, looking at you OcUK), gotta bench 3dmark 05 and 06, before and after OC'ing.
Click to expand...

Overclocking isn't a priority at the moment but I wouldn't rule it out completely. I wanted that mobo for the SLI and DDR3 support, so that I can upgrade to an OC'd SLI system at some point in the future but still get benefit from it today. Main reason for no overclocking at the moment is the fact my current setup is P4 Dual Core @ 3.8ghz with 2g of 667mhz RAM and a 256m GeForce 6800 card - so out of the box and with no overclocking this one should blow it out of the water! Later on, when I can afford water-cooling and maybe some better memory I will probably overclock but I want to have this system for at least 4 or 5 years if I can so I have 'over specced' parts today so they will still be usable in a few years...
 
You wont benefit from it now since you won't use it, cheap DDR3 is a waste and you would get better performance from OCed DDR2 for the half price. You can OC just as well with half cheaper mobo. Also you don't need 100watt PSU unless you run 3 or 4 graphic cards which you wont for sure.

Moreover, the times when PCs, even if you spend on them 4000quid lasted for 4-5years ended up at least 2-3years ago. Now if you want to keep up you gotta upgrade your PC every max 2years, and it doesnt matter if you just bought QXextreme for 800, 8gig of DDR3 and mobo for 500, it will be probably close to running on minimum settings in 2years, max 2,5.

So next time save your money, get a rig that will run perfectly for 2years and then think of ugprading it.

Later on you probably will need to change the mobo, ram and CPU anyways and buying 2nd or even 3rd card for SLI won't give you the required boost when there will be singe GPU thats better than 4 old in SLI.

You could get urself nice big 24-26" monitor instead
 
PhoenixUK said:
You wont benefit from it now since you won't use it, cheap DDR3 is a waste and you would get better performance from OCed DDR2 for the half price. You can OC just as well with half cheaper mobo. Also you don't need 100watt PSU unless you run 3 or 4 graphic cards which you wont for sure.

Moreover, the times when PCs, even if you spend on them 4000quid lasted for 4-5years ended up at least 2-3years ago. Now if you want to keep up you gotta upgrade your PC every max 2years, and it doesnt matter if you just bought QXextreme for 800, 8gig of DDR3 and mobo for 500, it will be probably close to running on minimum settings in 2years, max 2,5.

So next time save your money, get a rig that will run perfectly for 2years and then think of ugprading it.

Later on you probably will need to change the mobo, ram and CPU anyways and buying 2nd or even 3rd card for SLI won't give you the required boost when there will be singe GPU thats better than 4 old in SLI.

You could get urself nice big 24-26" monitor instead
Click to expand...

Actually, I will use it all the time - the PC is my work PC that I happen to play the odd game on in the evening so as long as it runs Vista64/Office2007 then it does what I *need*, yes I could do that with a far cheaper system but I *want* to be able to play some games on it, specifically games that are out now and have far lower specs than I am purchasing - LOTRO for example, I appreciate that they will update it but the basic specification more than likely remain static. Maybe it's an age thing but a DDR2 system OC'd to within an inch of it's life makes me think of buying a cheap car and adding wide wheels, loud stereo, custom exhaust etc. I would have done that years ago but these days I prefer to simply buy a better car.
 
Fair enough Warwizard but DDR3 isn't actually that much better performing at the moment from what I can tell than DDR2, it has the potential to be quicker but right now it isn't or at least not so significantly as to offset the double premium (double cost on Ram itself and the extra on the motherboard that supports it).

However since you appear to want a system that will remain basically unchanged for a couple of years except perhaps with the addition of another graphics card you have reasons to do as you suggest.
 
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