Top of the range system build

Personally I'd get a Intel 80GB SSD, and two 1TB SATA hard disks (if you need more just get some NAS). I'd get a Phenom II (perhaps the new 3.4GHz model) and couple that with 12GB of DDRIII. I'd stay away from dual monitors and get a nice 30" monitor. I wouldn't bother with a GTX285, I get a GTX260 and save a little of that money for a good upgrade in 8-10 months time.

Get some decent addons. A nice speaker set, laser printer, decent keyboard mouse combo - you'd be surprised how these little addons can make a system so much more useful.

On BluRay - meh :/ Personally I'd get more use out of dual DVD-+RW drives - but I guess if you have a load of BluRays already then suppose it's a decent addon.
 
Thanks for all your posts! :D:D:D

I am leaning towards the Intel SSD. Again, I don't care about the capacity too much as I just want SPEED! Good choice the Intel?

Maybe I should rather get the Corsair 850 PSU, sounds like 1000W is over the top from what everyones said so far?

@cmndr_andi - I have never done water cooling so the Zalman unit was just an idea. I will definitely look into your suggestions. Thank you!

I do many things with my machine currently but it includes the odd game here and there, DVDs/Blu Ray, encryption and anything else really. I work in IT so I am always tinkering with new stuff. Oh, I also run VMWare/Virtual Box so being able to run multiple VMs well is a must (hence the 12GB RAM).

I would prefer to get two 24" monitors instead of one 30" as I have been to clients where they have two monitors and the difference is worth every penny!!! In fact 3 monitors would be my ultimate! From what I read the 30" Dells didn't sound too good...

I have many nice add ons at the moment. Great Logitech speakers, earphones, external drivers etc. I have been using a laptop for the last 6 years now due to all the travelling I have done and I finally want to get around to running a powerful desktop again...:cool:
 
Asus Rampage II Extreme Intel X58 £247.99
Dell G2410 24" Widescreen LED Monitor x2 £459.98
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £201.99
Crucial M225 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M225) £199.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate E - Retail £164.99
Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card x2 £299.98
LG BH08LS20 8x Blu-Ray-RW/DVD±RW Dual Layer SATA Drive - Black (OEM) £139.99
Zalman ZM850-HP Heatpipe Cooled 850W Modular Power Supply £139.99
OCZ Blade Series 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000 Triple Channel (OCZ3B2000C9LV6GK) OCZ Blade Series 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000 Triple Channel (OCZ3B2000x2 £207.98
Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD154UI) x2 £153.98
Scythe S-FLEX 800RPM Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3/4 pin x14 167.86
(£146.02)
Sub Total : £2,073.73
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £17.60
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £313.70
Total : £2,405.03

Leaves 600 for a dual koolance 120.3 dual loop water cooling setup and case.
Not sure if the case you want supports dual 120.3 rads
 
Nice spec Acid, but nah. You paying stupid monly for 24" monitors that aren't that better than cheaper models. The crucial is worse than Intel's for the same money, don't get Windows 7 for that price, get a pre-order. Do NOT get a GTX275, get the GTX260. Don't get the LG dual drive, get a single Bluray reader for now (£50) and a combo DVD+_RW. 4GB is pretty much the accepted amount of RAM right now, so double it and future proof yourself.
 
For the sake of £20-30 the gtx275 is worth the extra. The price gap has shrunk loads in the last few weeks
He's running several VM hence the ram You can't get 8GB it's either 6 or 12GB for an I7 system. As he will be using several VM the 12GB is worth it.
he will need windows7 pro. I'm not sure how much pro is going for on other sites, but again ultimate is £10 more than pro on OcUK so worth it over pro.
With a blu-ray reader and dvd rw, you can not burn blu-ray discs, again at this price that extra £70 is well worth it for being able to back up huge amounts of data to disc. Or just for burning blu-rays.
The crosaire is far cheaper than the intel. 128GB for £200 is pretty darn good.
Monitors I kind of agree with you. Down to personal opinion. IMo monitors spend the most you can, without sacrificing the rest of the system.
 
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Fair enough. Actually, sorry for hijacking the thread a little but i have a question. You know how nVidia cards are supposedly better with Linux? What about the GTX series? Because everywhere recommends a GeForce card...
 
nvidia drivers and linux has always worked really well for me

pretty much just posting to laugh at the idea of a quiet system with a raptor in

If you want quiet and will fund it, water is excellent. Its pretty close to the last word in stopping a computer making lots of noise. Good luck finding a quiet kw psu
 
xy16644 said:
I'd prefer to stick with an Nvidia based card...:D

Where I stay electricity is really expensive. Its almost doubled in cost in the last year or so...
Click to expand...

High end system and being green doesn't mix :p
Any high end system will draw electricity like there is no tomorrow, unless you sacrifice performance a little and by installing fewer components.
 
I know I can buy less powerful components but I also don't want the machine to be obsolete tomorrow :D

Hows this new spec sound:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME motherboard (The reviews I read seem to like this mobo...usually I like Asus but I am drawn to the GB)
Intel Nehalem i7 920 S1366 2.66GHz
Corsair Memory Corsair 6GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL8 x2 (12GB RAM in total)
BFG GeForce GTX 275 OC 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (is the difference in price between the mainstream and the extreme worth it?!)
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB 7200RPM S300 32MB (two of these)
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
LG CH08LS10 8x Blu-Ray Reader/16x DVD±RW (I only need a Blu Ray reader!)
Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor (two of these)
Lian Li PC-V1110A/B (I love this case!!)

I'm not *too* worried about the water cooling right now to be honest. It would be a nice mini project to tackle after the machine is up and running successfully. I'm also not looking for a "green" machine. Was just keeping my eye on the amount of electricity is uses here. But if the machine is awesome I may not mind paying a few more £££ per month to run it...;-)
 
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Buying high end is just going to depreciate faster. These components are designed to be the best of the best today, but most people who get the best of the best are going to upgrade when it's not the best any more. Mid-high end products are built to last.

And can i just point out that you really don't' need 12GB RAM, you barely need 4GB so 6GB is more than enough. Since you're not going to be running your entire game collection at once and video editing at the same time, stick with just the 6GB. If i was you i would just get the cheapest SSD and use it as a boot device, then use the WD drives as storage. Don't quite see how you would need 4TB, 1 would be enough then you could upgrade when you wanted more.
 
Superewza said:
And can i just point out that you really don't' need 12GB RAM, you barely need 4GB so 6GB is more than enough. Since you're not going to be running your entire game collection at once and video editing at the same time, stick with just the 6GB. If i was you i would just get the cheapest SSD and use it as a boot device, then use the WD drives as storage. Don't quite see how you would need 4TB, 1 would be enough then you could upgrade when you wanted more.
Click to expand...

He's going to be running multiple VM so it may wll be worth 12GB.

Sopec looks fine, although if you are water cooling I would get asus or evga mobo as there are more specific watercooling blocks to choose from.

also 1.5TB drives are considerably cheaper than 2TB drives.

As for ssd how big is you windows drive at the moment. See how much space you use. You might well need more than 80Gb.
 
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