What to go with BFG GeForce 7900 GTX ?

gtabomber · 9 Apr 2006 at 23:56

Hi Guys! Long time buyer, first time poster!

Im looking for a bit of advice on what motherboard to get to go with a pair of BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-017-BG) .

Im looking for a pretty high-end board, any suggestions? It needs to feature SATA RAID.

Plus, I recently baught some of this Kingston HyperX - 400MHz, the new mobo is probably going to be DDR2 so looks like ill need some new'er RAM aswell.

Ive got a new Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS) so I think it should be able to take the weight of the GFX cards.

Ill need a CPU to go with all of the above, any suggestions also appreciated!

Obviously id prefer Overclockers to supply the hardware, but if they cant its not the end of the world.

Cheers guys.

meths · 9 Apr 2006 at 23:58

What processor are you using?

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 00:00

Meths said:
What processor are you using?

For the upgrade ill want a new one, but if you're wondering what ive got at the mo, its a Barton 3000+.

meths · 10 Apr 2006 at 00:00

DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-011-DF) £146.82.

That's about as high end as you'll get and is ripe for overclocking if you going AMD.

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 00:07

Cheers, looks like a good mobo according to the reviews ive seen.

While trying to not sound daft, do you know off the top of your head what the EXPERT mobo above it is all about?

Before anyone thinks this thread is pretty much closed, still looking to see what RAM i need, a suggested CPU and if my PSU will take the strain!

My ref: £1016.20 so far.

Traducer · 10 Apr 2006 at 00:20

Your PSU will be more then enough, so don't even worry about that.

Kamakazie! · 10 Apr 2006 at 01:17

FX-60?
Opteron 170/175 and overclock?
X2-4800?

depends on your budget although i presume its quite high based on what else you are speccing.
As for ram.. id go for PC3200 with tight timings on the new AMDs.. not sure if you can get faster ram with good, tight timings.

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:21

Thanks Kamakazie.

The FX-60 is over £200 more than the 4800+. In my opinion thats allot of money for 0.2ghz difference. Ill probs be going for the X2-4800 then.

The Kingston HyperX ive got, im pretty sure i baught the DDR 400MHz (PC3200) so that should do fine.

This is what im currently looking at, if anyone see's any incompatibilities, let me know!!

£434.69 - BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-017-BG)
£434.69 - BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-017-BG)
£146.82 - DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£109.86 - Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£109.86 - Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£109.86 - Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£109.86 - Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£458.19 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)
£000.00 - DDR 400MHz (PC3200) - Currently own it anyway!
£1913.83

frisp · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:27

£434.69 - BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-017-BG)
£434.69 - BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-017-BG)
£152.69 - DFI LanParty UT CFX3200-DR RD580 Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-019-DF)

Crossfire board?

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:28

frisp said:
Crossfire board?

lol, i copied the wrong one, changed!

Noni · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:30

Hi there

Wow, big setup!

To be honest, I would not go for SLI, its not really worth it in my opinion. But if you must then the cards you chose are fine.

I would go for a Nforce 4 SLI board instead of a crossfire one. The ASUS a8n 32 Deluxe is great.

The ram, is it DDR2? If so, this will not work with the socket 939.

The Hardrives, I think there was a SAMSUNG SPINPIONT than performed the same as raptor for half the price. Ill look up on that later. But get the 150GB instead? It should be safer as you wont have to worry about 2 drives (and cooler).

So, for me, a spec would be-

ASUS A8N 32 Deluxe

7900GTX x2

AMD 4400X2

Muskin Redline PC4000 RAM

Raptor 150GB

Samsung Spinpiont 250GB

With the money saved, go for a big monitor. Theres no piont of a great system if your looking at it through a tiny monitor.

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:39

Noni said:
Hi there
I would not go for SLI, its not really worth it in my opinion. With the money saved, go for a big monitor.

The reason im going for SLi is i run everything at 1680 x 1050 with my Dell 20.1" monitor. (If anyone is looking to buy a new monitor, i very highly reccomend these!)

The ram, is it DDR2?

Nope.

I would go for a Nforce 4 SLI board instead of a crossfire one

That post was there for about 11 seconds and the whole world has noticed! Its changed now!

I think there was a SAMSUNG SPINPIONT than performed the same as raptor for half the price

Hmm.. interesting... I clicked striaght on the Western Digital drives because ive allways liked them (raptor sounds nice too

). Ive allways associated Samsung with washing machines, thats why ive never been a fan of their PC gear. Ill see what else is on the market. Oh, im planning on running RAID 0+1 if anyone is interested.

Thanks for the feedback!

Noni · 10 Apr 2006 at 14:56

This is the HD-

Samsung SpinPoint SP2504C SATA-II

I hate you! I want a 20.1 inch monitor! my 17inch is becoming small!

Explicit · 10 Apr 2006 at 15:09

What about this?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)
£458.19
DFI LanParty UT CFX3200-DR RD580 Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-019-DF)
£152.69
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£234.94
ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£375.94
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-059-PC) **this week only**
£352.44
Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache RAID Bundle (BU-001-WD)
£408.78

Total inc VAT: £1982.98

Mikey1280 · 10 Apr 2006 at 15:16

I wouldn't get four raptors especially the smaller ones, you could get maybe two 74gbs along with some nice big hitachi deskstars for general storage.

Noni · 10 Apr 2006 at 15:18

bottom one here,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Samsung_sata.html

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 15:40

Thanks Explicit for the suggested setup. however im pretty set on an nvidia system. Im not going to get into the arguement on why, we would be here for a while!

Hard drive wise, im fine for storage, ive 300GB of storage on an IBM eServer full of my bits and bobs.

Ive got a thing about hard drives - they perform extremely bad. Its the year 2006 and we can get multi-core hyperthreading processors and other extremely high performace parts, yet we still rely on non-solid state mechanical hard drives - glorified vinyl really. </rant>

Hard drives have allways been the bottleneck on everything I do, thats why im after a RAID 0+1 config with 10kRPM drives. Not sure on how im going to fit all them hard drives in my PC-61 but ill find a way!

Ive also got to find out if my Reserator 1 Plus will work with a Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+. Not sure if ive still got the manual....

Oh, the BU-001-WD RAID bundle, whats that all about? Do you get a few hard drives? It doesnt say, or im being blind!

gtabomber · 10 Apr 2006 at 16:32

Noni said:
I hate you! I want a 20.1 inch monitor! my 17inch is becoming small!

I paid over £800 when it first come out. I was waiting for a widescreen TFT for sooo long and i couldnt be arsed with any apple mac ones. now you can get them for £400 so do yourself a favour and buy one! Sell your body on the street if you have to!!

Getting off topic now so ill shush!

Explicit · 10 Apr 2006 at 19:17

gtabomber said:
Hard drives have allways been the bottleneck on everything I do, thats why im after a RAID 0+1 config with 10kRPM drives. Not sure on how im going to fit all them hard drives in my PC-61 but ill find a way!

Oh, the BU-001-WD RAID bundle, whats that all about? Do you get a few hard drives? It doesnt say, or im being blind!

You must appreciate that 4 x 74GB Raptors are going to be extremely loud. I wouldn't do it, but if you can concentrate/work with all that racket then that's fine.

The Raid bunle basically gives you 2 x 150GB Raptors as far as I know. Personally I would be happy with just one 150GB Raptor (performance for not too much noise) and standard 7,200rpm hard drives for storage.

Kamakazie! · 10 Apr 2006 at 21:49

Yeah i agree with whats been said above.

If you want the sapce and need the speed then you are much better off with 2x150GB raptors than 4x74GB but then many people say they rarely notice the difference between 2x150 and a single one on its own. THe 150s are much better than the 74s and 36s.

If you like the speed but want it a bit quieter and probably more reliable, then i have heard that sticking 2 x Hitachi deskstars in a Raid0 is very quick (and much much cheaper at about £65 for 2x80gigs.