speccing a new system- tell me if its worth it?

[claypigeon101]

hi there, new to this forum and to 'extreme' PCs but i have recently found an offer on overclockers that offers this PC:

- AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz overclocked to 3.5GHz+!
- Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Corsair 4GB DDR3 DHX 1600C9DHX Twin3X (2x2GB)
- 2x XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI Crossfire
- LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
- 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache in RAID0
- Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant Power Supply
- OCZ HydroFlow HF-MK1 CPU Waterblock
- TFC Xchanger - Single Radiator 120
- XSPC Dual 750 Bay Reservoir & Pump - Clear
- TFC Compression Fittings
- Black Tubing & Fluid
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians
- 1yr Onsite Collect & Return Warranty
Windows Vista Home premium 32bit
antec 900 2 case

all for £1413.98 inc VAT

now im sure some of you guys know a lot more about these things than me
is it worth the money?
if any overclockers guys wanna give me an honest unbiased opinion please do
i have enough to spend on a new pc so dont worry about recommending budget parts.
but yeah, is it generally worth it? and if not can you recommend a better one, or upgrading parts, like for example is it worth paying a bit extra and scrapping 2 crossfire'd HD4870s for one HD4870x2??
i have about £1500 to spend


thanks for your help

 

[nikebee]

Just a note mate, that this really should be in the General Hardware section of the forum rather than the games area.

Welcome to the forums though

 

[cmndr_andi]

Here is my idea for a build:

No water cooling, but the total performance should be better than than the one you described.

 

[claypigeon101]

Just a note mate, that this really should be in the General Hardware section of the forum rather than the games area.

Welcome to the forums though

yeah thanks mate sorry i was reading gaming at the time!!

 

[claypigeon101]

Here is my idea for a build:

No water cooling, but the total performance should be better than than the one you described.

cool mate, is that quote from ocuk?

thanks

 

[cmndr_andi]

Certainly is

 

[claypigeon101]

Certainly is

...do you work for OC?

lol

basically the argument (on a few forums now cos ive posted around ) is that i wanna know if that AMD 3core 3.5ghz will last long enough and play top end games maxed out for a year or two at least. DEFINITELY a year cos really graphics cards are what u need to max games not SO much processors. obv u cant run crysis on a basic core2duo with a gt295 and expect it to be ace but that AMD chip isnt exactly slow. and this thing has 2 HD4870s which is more than enough to max out at 1080 res surely.

what you think?
thanks for your help

 

[Elfmeister.]

Looking at cmndr_andi build I would,

Scrap the Blu Ray unless you have a 32" + TV to watch films, Blu ray is wasted on anything smaller, so just get a decent DVD RW, get a Raptor or Cheeta HDD for more speed for your primary and then a normal one for storage.

Use Windows 7 for now then buy the full release of that when it arrives, Vista 64 is almost obsolete imo, if you can't get hold of 7 use what you have for the time being.

CPU, GPU, PSU, Mobo, Heatsink and Ram all look good and would envy the upgrade myself.

 

[Elfmeister.]

If you can afford Nvidia and an Intel setup go that route.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hehe, I don't work for OCUK, but I wouldn't pass on a "test stuff and keep it" job, but I digress.

I agree that its the graphics cards that really allow you top out games at the moment, and in most situations 2 cores is enough to play at the top level. That said, there are definite advantages to using the new intel tech. Clock-for-clock Intel Core I7 is faster than all the Phenom 2s. On top of that it has triple channel memory and hyperthreading which gives a total of 8 threads.

This means that most current games become GPU bound. However, in a few years this may not still be the case.

In one or two years the X3 will still be a very good chip, but if you have the funds the i7 920 will stand the test of time better.

Edit: I probably should mention that with the GPU power of a GTX 295 or 2 x 4870, the graphics bottleneck has been removed, reintroducing the CPU bottleneck. Therefore, with the X3 setup you described i think you are likely to be CPU bound. Here is a link of the same thing being found on the i7 920.