Spec games machine £2000

homerio · 1 Apr 2006 at 20:47

My mate is getting a new computer for his birthday. He's put the following together based on reviews and recommendations of people he knows. This is all well and good, but he doesn't know you lot,a nd you guys tend to know more. Here is his proposed setup:

Anything you would swap and why?

Cheers

BigDom · 1 Apr 2006 at 20:54

doesn't need the SATA cables, the ones that come with the board are fine.

I'm not sure how good the monitor is, I use a Hyundai B90A (well two of them) and they are excellent. Personally I'd use a Tagan PSU, solid, reliable and quiet. I think Enermax are ok but they don't tend to be first choice around here.

Personally the Raptor is 1) noisy. 2) overpriced. - Leave it out, ESPECIALLY as your going watercooling and number 1 reason these days for watercooling it quietness. Raptor is NOT quiet and it's benefits are minimal.

He doesn't need a SLI board, save a bit with a non-SLI one or go for a Crossfire one to give the option of a second card.

JoeBoi · 1 Apr 2006 at 21:42

homerio said:
My mate is getting a new computer for his birthday. He's put the following together based on reviews and recommendations of people he knows. This is all well and good, but he doesn't know you lot,a nd you guys tend to know more. Here is his proposed setup:

Anything you would swap and why?

Cheers

Just a question I'd ask how comes your buying some Thermal Compound with a retail CPU?

BigDom · 1 Apr 2006 at 21:44

JoeBoi said:
Just a question I'd ask how comes your buying some Thermal Compound with a retail CPU?

Watercooling....

meghatronic · 1 Apr 2006 at 22:13

BigDom said:
Watercooling....

Therefore save money and buy the OEM version?

p4radox · 1 Apr 2006 at 23:43

I'd get GSkill ZX over the HZ - tight timings are better than high HTT on RAM when it comes to Athlon 64 and gaming.

WatchTower · 2 Apr 2006 at 00:25

A £2000 PC for his birthday. I couldn't even get a PSP.

Is he a spoilt begger?

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 00:30

This is basically what i'd reccommend. There is a lot of stuff in your spec that you don't really need and is eating up the precious budget. IMO ditch the water cooling and go for a 4800+ or an opty 180 instead.

IMO this is better:

CP-153-AM AMD Opteron UP 175 Dual Core San Diego 2.2GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-153-AM)
£319.95 £319.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95
GX-047-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£304.95 £304.95
HD-000-HI Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI)
£31.95 £63.90
HD-002-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£56.50 £56.50
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-007-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Black (No PSU) (CA-007-SV)
£63.50 £63.50
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
MO-009-NE NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-009-NE)
£359.95 £359.95
Subtotal £1,603.50
VAT £280.62
Total £1,884.12

And with some cash over for speakers, kb, mouse etc!

In spec you will notice I removed the raptor and replaced with deskstars. 2 x deskstars in raid0 is faster, quieter, cheaper and better than an overpriced and overhyped raptor!

PS. I don't know anything about water cooling kits, so I don't know how good that one is!

BigDom · 2 Apr 2006 at 00:51

4800 isn't worth the extra over the 4400. the watercooling make I believe is a good one.

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 00:55

BigDom said:
4800 isn't worth the extra over the 4400. the watercooling make I believe is a good one.

SORRY. I meant to put OPTY 180, but yes I agree the 175 or the 4400+ are definitely better VFM.

Simonl85 · 2 Apr 2006 at 01:22

Hi guys, the spec homerio kindly posted was for me, i've taken into consideration several of the points raised in this thread and come up with this revised spec - which includes 2 19" monitors and makes me very happy!

I have no need for KB, mouse or sound since i already have these in place.

Any further advice would be appreciated - i hear the x1900xt is really loud and have kept in mind the possibility of adding a waterblock to this too, your thoughts on that would be appreciated:

MY-007-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS)
£129.95 £129.95
GX-047-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£304.95 £304.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£279.95 £279.95
HD-000-HI Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI)
£31.95 £63.90
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£53.95 £161.85
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
CA-007-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Black (No PSU) (CA-007-SV)
£63.50 £63.50
FG-024-AK Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK)
£8.95 £35.80
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
AC-000-AC Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£5.50 £5.50
MO-027-HY Hyundai ImageQuest B90A 19" LCD Monitor (MO-027-HY)
£184.95 £369.90
Subtotal £1,710.10
VAT £299.27
Total £2,009.37

Cheers

BigDom · 2 Apr 2006 at 01:43

Really isn't much point to your hard drive combination. Just stick to a single Spinpoint ( or Hitachi of same capacity ) or if your after some data protection 1 in RAID 1...

RAID 0 isn't THAT much of a benefit and if/when a HD fails leaves you a load of hassle.

Energize · 2 Apr 2006 at 02:36

Perhaps he's doing raid 5? If not redundancy though getting many hard drives is just increasing the risk of 1 failing and losing some of your data. I would consider getting rid of some stuff or downgrading to an x2 3800 and going crossfire 2 x1900s. If your getting watercooling, all the silent fans are a bit of a waste as well just connect the watercooling to all the components. Im still not quite sure what that 80gb hard drive is doing there.

Simonl85 · 2 Apr 2006 at 04:54

OK i thought i should have clarified before, sorry.

2*80gb deskstars in raid0. As suggested as cheaper, faster, quieter than a raptor.

Not worried about failing because i have many other drives for backup on a seperate server anyway. There won't be any critical data on the 80gb drives, only games and OS.

3*250gb spinpoints (or whatever) without raid, just for mass storage

My fault entirely for not making this clearer, sorry.

The silent fans are to replace those on the water cooler radiator (which are reasonably louder) and the two on the case (if needs be), but i don't mind having 2 120mm fans kicking around anyway, i can always find a use.

Energize · 2 Apr 2006 at 05:07

The 80b hdds raided wont beat a raptor, raid 0 hardly makes a difference in gaming.

BigDom · 2 Apr 2006 at 05:53

Energize said:
The 80b hdds raided wont beat a raptor, raid 0 hardly makes a difference in gaming.

Not true, not true at all.. HOWEVER Raptors will make not much difference either. These solutions are REALLY over hyped.

Energize · 2 Apr 2006 at 07:03

Why isnt it true? Game benchmarks seem to prove so, raid 0 made no difference. the raptors were faster than normal hdds and two raptors in raid 0 didnt even beat a single raptor so 2 normal sata hdds arent going to beat it are they?

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10

Even in the none gaming benchmarks raid 0 offers little improvement over the raptors and if the raided drives werent raptors I think they certainly would have performed worse than the single raptor.

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 10:48

Energize said:
Why isnt it true? Game benchmarks seem to prove so, raid 0 made no difference. the raptors were faster than normal hdds and two raptors in raid 0 didnt even beat a single raptor so 2 normal sata hdds arent going to beat it are they?

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10

Even in the none gaming benchmarks raid 0 offers little improvement over the raptors and if the raided drives werent raptors I think they certainly would have performed worse than the single raptor.

Sorry but you are wrong. The 3gb/s transfer rates specced in SATA2 are unobtainable without raid.

It has been proved that raid0 or raid0+1 is faster, cheaper, quieter and more reliable than raptors.

BigDom · 2 Apr 2006 at 12:46

Monstermunch said:
Sorry but you are wrong. The 3gb/s transfer rates specced in SATA2 are unobtainable without raid.

It has been proved that raid0 or raid0+1 is faster, cheaper, quieter and more reliable than raptors.

Not to Mention benchmarks are IRRELEVANT... What matters is perception and you won't notice much of a difference with perception ESPECIALLY as the games won't be on RAID anyway... They'll be on the data disks (so there save games, config files etc. are safe ).

It's like a X1900XT and a 7900GTX.. Let's be honest here you WILL NOT notice the difference between them in terms of gameplay performance. Benchmark wise the 7900GTX is probably a touch ahead but in real world terms they are the same.

Simonl85 · 2 Apr 2006 at 15:48

I had read that anandtech article before posting the first spec and decided against two raptors.
To be honest i am enclined to agree that i would never notice the difference in the real world. Really i guess it's going to come down to how i feel on the day, i think i'm willing to put up with a higher probability of losing my data just to have a fiddle with a raid set up!