The evil waiting game >.<

stevenazari1

stevenazari1

stevenazari1

Permabanned
Joined
21 Oct 2007
Posts
1,518
ok student loan has just come through and I have saved a fair bit of money to go with it (total £1900) I know I dont need to spend that sort of money but I need a whole new power pc as this one is a good 4 years old now lol.

The problem isnt getting the hardware, its the hardware thats available thats the problem. Here is what Im currently looking at in my basket:

1x LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Retail Kit
£153.99 (£180.94)

1x Asus P5E3 Premium/Wifi@N Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£219.99 (£258.49)

1x Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
£141.99 (£166.84)

1x OCZ 2GB DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Platinum (2x1GB) Dual Channel DDR3 (OCZ3P13332GK)
£159.99 (£187.99)

1x Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK)
£68.99 (£81.06)

1x Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838)
£101.99 (£119.84)

2x Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS)
£55.99 (£65.79) £111.98 (£131.58)

1x Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos Silent Full Tower Case
£99.99 (£117.49)

1x Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive - Black
£19.99 (£23.49)

1x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
£14.99 (£17.61)

2x PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£144.99 (£170.36) £289.98 (£340.72)

Sub Total : £1,383.87
Shipping : FREE
VAT : £242.18
Total : £1,626.05


I understand I wont need a 850watt psu. so Im looking at a replacement for that - any suggestions? I will be going sli when the new 9x range comes out.

I got 2 500gb's for raid 0.

I bought 2gb's of ddr3 ram because ddr3 is really expensive at the moment so when its cheaper I will buy 4x1 2gb's of it which will prob be september time.

I havent bought very good cooling because I'll be watercooling it all by the end of the month.

-----------------------------

all that set aside, whats stopping me from buying is the fact that the new quads will be coming out feb time as well as the new 9xrange end feb/march. so I really dont know if it would be a waste of money to upgrade now rather than wait until the new processors come out and intel drop the price on the q6600's and nvidia drop the price on their cards... any advice on that would be a bonus too....
 
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(iam sure) the x48 will not do sli btw..

and as you want to upgrade when the new 9x comes out, instead of getting the GTX, why not get either the GT or the GTS (512). that would save you abit of cash..

a problem with the 2 500gbs, is that, i take it all your data is going to be on that raid system? personally I would rather say have a 80gb for windows (and important data perhaps), and then say 2x 500 for your games and the like..

and remember to make sure your insurance covers it - if it got nicked! perticualy in a student house..

sorry, i keep editing..
the question is do you really need to get DDR3? - for the cost, there isnt a huge amount of proformance increase. i could see as.. a year ish down the line, when ddr3 is more at ddr2 prices it could be a bugger, but still..

just questions for you to think about really
 
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blu ray why?
just get 4gb DDR2 for now, and then upgrade to DDR3 when the prices plummet
vista home premium is near identical to ultimate, and £50 cheaper
if you're going SLI when the 9 series is out, why not get a GT or a cheap GTS instead of a GTX? Or do you really badly need high res with lots of AA and AF now? (is that board even an sli board?)
get an arctic freezer 7 pro, it's a good cooler, and it's about half the price of the cooler you have listed there, and as it's being replaced it doesn't really matter anyway.

I've heard there's a firmware problem with that western digital 500gb drive, so if i were you i'd replace it with a barracuda.
 
Its a crossfire board - tbh Im not so clued up on that as my current pc has an agp card..... :( so I really dont know if it will do 2 nvidia cards.

I got the blueray drive because this machine is hooked up to a 40inch samsung 1080p (if you care) tv which is acting as my monitor also. and when the price of blueray discs drop I would like to have the re/write available instead of having to buy another drive.

I dont think the x48 supports ddr2 memory.

I looked at the home version but as a multimedia designer I do need the extra features. Im a student also so I think I may go elsewhere as I know I can get a student version from microsoft.... ok I dont know that for sure but heard about it somewhere >.<

updating top thread with arctic freezer 7 ^.^

what about the psu? Im pretty sure I wont need such a high wattage but I will be overclocking and will have a rad (possibly 120.3)
 
What watercooling are you thinking of?

If its an external solution like the reserator you will be fine.

If your having dreams of fitting at pa120.2 and such custom in that case forget it now lol

I had them as well. Unless your willing to really hack the case up its not really doable.

An external reserator or such will be fine though as the case has tube cut outs on the back.

By the way the case is very nice, and quiet.
 
well I'll be cooling cpu and gpu initially, then Im going to look at doing sli (or crossfire w/e) I will look at cooling the ram also.

I was thinking of hacking out the bottom of it (leaving the frame that holds the bays etc) and sticking the rad on the bottom. I made a thread on it in the overclocking & cooling forum. its a bit old now but I will bring it back to life when the time comes to watercool. I dont mind using an external reserator but tbh its just going to add more bulk to an already bulky case lol

yeah I chose the case for its quietness, I like the idea of a heavy solid case. burglers will think twice! :)

ben m: my idea was to get another gtx and have them in crossfire/sli/whatevertherightwordisshouldgoherecosIhavenoideaaboutit as I'd prob get as good as performance but with 2 cards and I wouldnt have to throw 1 away :p :) but would 2 nvidia cards work in a crossfire mobo?
 
crossfire is having more than one ATI card
SLI is having more than one nvidia card

you can't SLI on a crossfire board, and vica verca AFAIK.
 
*SIGH* well Im really not interested in any ati cards atm :( they simply arent good compared to the nvidia cards imo :( I guess Im going to have to put the purchase on hold until a better mobo comes out. This is so annoying. got the money to spend but nothing good enough to spend it on
 
If it makes you feel any better, sli is over-rated.

If i were you I'd get a single nvidia card now and upgrade it when the 9 series cards come out.

As for mobo, you really can't go wrong with an abit IP35 pro.
 
I think Im going to take a gamble and stick with this mobo and the 1 nvidia card and hope 5 or 6 months down the line ati can make a gpu that can actually rival what nvidia have.... Im not sure if its a good or bad idea....
 
stevenazari1 said:
I think Im going to take a gamble and stick with this mobo and the 1 nvidia card and hope 5 or 6 months down the line ati can make a gpu that can actually rival what nvidia have.... Im not sure if its a good or bad idea....
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan, the new HD3870x2 or 3890 or whatever they're calling it seems to be a rather clever 2 chips on 1 card design and if it gets anything like the recent crossfire drivers it should be very, very good. The new nvidia card is 2 cards glued together. Current speculation puts the 9800 series, being just a refresh of the current cards rather than a whole new design, at around 30% faster than the current gen cards and no down they'll cost a lot more.
 
Hi stevenazari1

If you want to cool the CPU only then it might be useful if you read this thread for further information. the Swiftech extreme version as discussed and tested in the link below. Would be worth investigating imo.

This extreme version will cool a quad core. cooling the North Bridge is not neccessary

Swiftech H20 220 extreme compact kit

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17821116&highlight=swiftech+cooler

Intending to water cool GCx2, memory and CPU on the same loop even using a PA120.3 would be a considerable amount of heat, especially if you intend to OC. You would require two WC loops to handle the heat.
 
Unless you are using *the* top end graphics card, SLI or Xfire will do you no good whatsoever as 1 top end card will always be better than 2 lesser cards. Bear in mind that said top end card will always be in the £250 - £350 price bracket are you really likely to do it ?

Your DDR3 ram will give no performance increase either, in fact more likely a decrease over the best DDR2. DDR3 doesn't edge past DDR2 until it's running at PC14400 speeds.

If you're going for the best components you can get within your spec you can do better with your psu - Corsair HX range is highly recommended.
 
You need to wait for nv 780i (or even 790i) chipset if you are planning on using nv 9800 cards in SLI. If you must by now, get a Striker Extreme, but this won't support 45nm penryns. I wouldn't recommend being the guinea pig for the X48 board you have selected at the moment either - at least wait for some reviews. You're going to be spending £260 on a mobo with a brand new chipset and you are almost certain to have some issues until the firmware matures. Also, I doubt ATI will catch nVidia in the near future so chances are top end SLI > top end Crossfire.

edit: just noticed the Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780i mobo is out now, don't know anything about it but you might want to check it out. Supports SLI and 45nm penryns, it is DDR2 but DDR3 is so expensive and offers virtually no benefit atm.
 
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mr miles nice to see you on here lol and a little surprised to see you posting lol - hope all is well and I'll serve you in tesco soon I hope ;) :D

yeah I was just taking a look in the graphics card forums and they seen the benchmarks with the top 4 etc being ati cards, so I just changed to x2 PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 :) is that good or should I just stick with 1 card and wait for a better card to come out? currently 2 3870xt cards are only a few bob more expensive than the 1 nvidia card :p harsh.

also just changed the psu to a smaller one, dont think I need 850 watts :p
 
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