What do you think?

[--- Z ---]

I'm looking to upgrade - for 2 reasons -

1) i want to start playing Crysis and Bioshock games etc with decent settings - been too long on low stuff.

2) i am also a wedding photographer and my system is slowing down soooo much when editing 10MP+ photos, or having 3 or more open at once.

Current spec is Athlon 64 3700+
Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe
2x512MB Corsair LLPT ram
ATi X800XL

looking at a monitor as well - but here is the catch - i currently have a Samgsung 22" monitor - blueish glare from bottom left corner of screen that bleeds on a white background. Games are currently run in 1600X1200 res.

I cant decide what to go for on the monitor front - or what card will best power it? Hoping you lot can help.

So far i have this:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £49.98
(£58.72)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
Lian Li PC-A10B Aluminium Full-Tower - Black £135.99
(£159.79) £135.99
(£159.79)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Asus Maximus Formula Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £359.99
(£422.99) £359.99
(£422.99)
Sub Total : £1,187.89

Total : £1,422.16

If anyone can tell me how to post the pic easily then pls do - as i way prefer that method of showing spec's.

I have alway built my systems and love Asus as a MoBo manufacturer - the only thing i really want to keep on this list is the case - i really like it - so change anything ele BUT NOT the case


Hoping you can help me out here, is that all ok? will the gfx card power games at 1920x1200 res? would i be better with a 22" WS monitor? if so what one?

Im at the max on costing on my attempt there people so less if possible.


Many thanks and Merry Christmas

 

[C64]

Asus Maximus Formula Intel X38
I'd swap that for the Abit IP35 Pro just as good for clocking a quad and cheaper.

 

[shaffaaf27]

read his post... he dont want to.

also i suggest going for a 3870, because you go image editing, and they provide superior image quality, but a little less performance in games.

 

[semi-pro waster]

read his post... he dont want to.

Are you sure you've read it correctly yourself? --- Z --- stated that anything could be changed other than the case, C64 didn't suggest changing the case but merely a motherboard change that would be cheaper and as effective albeit without DDR3 or PCI-E 2.0 support (given that neither is needed at the moment).

--- Z --- if you want to post a picture then you need somewhere to host it (Imageshack and Photobucket both offer free accounts if you don't have your own webspace). You then need to put in the HTML tags like so but without the spaces in them [IMG ]www.yourpicturehere.com/picture1.jpg[/IMG ]. You can get it to display quite a few different image types, shaffaaf27 used PNG but jpeg and bmp also work, I'd normally suggest jpg because it is small and the image quality doesn't matter hugely but it is up to you.

 

[Edinho]

I would try 8 GB RAM if your heavy in photo editing (4x2GB)

 

[--- Z ---]

Ok, how doe sthis look?

Think i have covered everthing - i have changed the monitor as i didn't think a 8800 GTS would be able to runn full res on the Dell 24" monitor - where as this one it will.

 

[semi-pro waster]

The new GTS doesn't appear to be all that much slower than the GTX was but if you are happier with a 22" monitor then that is fair enough.

The rest is fine although the PSU is still slightly overkill when the 520w version would do equally well and you should also be aware that you cannot upgrade your Ram any further since all Ram slots will be used, a 4gb kit such as schaffaaf27 suggests would give you more options in the future but at a slightly greater cost.

 

[shaffaaf27]

and i put 2 4GB kits, therefore 8GB, caus it would help a lot in your photo editing. also once agian i would suggest the 3870 because of image quality. or you could xfire them for more game performance.