Spec Check

Adam_151 · 7 Nov 2006 at 18:49

Gamieing pc for approx £800: is this a decent use of money and a 'well rounded' spec?

MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£89.99 £89.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£139.99 £139.99
GX-124-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-124-SP)
£111.99 £111.99
CA-026-EN Enermax Liberty 400W ELT400AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-026-EN)
£41.99 £41.99
SW-022-MS Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition - OEM - 1Pk (ZAT-00054) (SW-022-MS)
£79.99 £79.99
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£62.99 £62.99
CD-062-LO Liteon DVD-8900 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM (CD-062-LO)
£15.99 £15.99
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£114.99 £114.99
CA-018-EN Enermax CS-527 Case Black No PSU (CA-018-EN)
£29.95 £29.95
Subtotal £687.87
VAT £120.38
Total £808.25

Thoughts?

P.S. wasn't sure whether to spec a 7900gs graphics card instead? thoughts on this?

1mm3 · 7 Nov 2006 at 18:57

1 - Will you be overclocking?
If yes, probably will need a more powerful PSU
Will also recommend a better CPU heatsink/fan

2 - What is your budget?
Would recommend going for x1900 xt instead of gt

3 - What games do you normally play on?
This could potentially affect your choice of graphics card

Apart from that everything looks good :rolleyes:

semi-pro waster · 7 Nov 2006 at 19:03

Aside from the comments above is there any particular reason for choosing XP64 Pro? I don't really know of any major benefits to it beyond the ability to address more than 4gb Ram and there may be some driver issues still(although the parts you have chosen are all pretty widely supported I believe).

Adam_151 · 7 Nov 2006 at 20:19

semi-pro waster said:
Aside from the comments above is there any particular reason for choosing XP64 Pro? I don't really know of any major benefits to it beyond the ability to address more than 4gb Ram and there may be some driver issues still(although the parts you have chosen are all pretty widely supported I believe).

Just seems that if building a 64bit system, you may as well get the proper 64bit version of xp, rather than saving £3 or so and getting the 32bit one, that would defeat the perpose of a 64bit cpu, I'd have guessed, or am I barking up the wrong trees?

Steve Watford · 7 Nov 2006 at 20:40

Unless the games your going to be playing are x64 optimised, then there is really no reason.

Tetras · 7 Nov 2006 at 21:35

If you wanna spend the same on the graphics go for the Sapphire X1950 Pro over the X1900 GT.

GlasgowTitan · 7 Nov 2006 at 23:20

Also isn't there still some software that isnt compatible with the x64 windows, or does that revert to 32 bit to run these programs?

semi-pro waster · 7 Nov 2006 at 23:48

Adam_151 said:
Just seems that if building a 64bit system, you may as well get the proper 64bit version of xp, rather than saving £3 or so and getting the 32bit one, that would defeat the perpose of a 64bit cpu, I'd have guessed, or am I barking up the wrong trees?

Well not really, it makes very little difference at present, the main issue as far as I can tell is that it allows you to access 4gb+ Ram. If XP64 Pro is anything like XP Pro the other main difference is that it offers improved networking code which isn't really necessary as XP Home is usually more than sufficient for most people. I'm just thinking of ways to free up the £30 or so that could be spent on a higher wattage PSU or better graphics card.