A new rig...

[Rishy]

Hi all,

I had the system you see in my sig until recently there was a break in and it was taken...yeah..someone actually had the time and strength to carry away a Stacker 830W..

Sigh..

Anyways, im grieving for a month and then gonna start on getting a new rig...thing is, ive been so outta touch with hardware world since i started a new job..not sure whats hot and whats not...

Ill have a budget of about $2500 - $2800...Primarily a gaming machine...

I already have Vista Ultimate and Office Ultimate FPP's,...so thats takes a chunk off...

Anyways, anyone who could start recommending hardware would be great..then i can start reading up on the parts and start catching up on the latest

 

[Dangman]

Some questions that need to be answered:

• What is your budget? Are shipping and/or taxes included within that budget?
• Where do you live? Where are you (planning on) buying everything at?
• Which components do you need to get? Which components do you already have? Which components are you going to reuse (from older builds)?
• What are you going to use your computer for? Which games/programs are you going to use?
• Do you plan on overclocking? Are you going to use water (or some other form of "exotic") cooling?
• Which monitor are you using? What resolution do you use? Are you using multiple monitors? Do you plan on buying a new/multiple monitor(s) any time soon?
• Which features do you want on the motherboard?
• How long do you want this system to last? Are you (planning on) making any incremental upgrades during that time?

 

[Rishy]

oops...sorray...havent been to the forums in a long time as well

to answer the questions :

1. Budget is about USD 2800. No delivery charges as i pick it up myself.
2. I live in Malaysia...so local money budget is about 10k...which equates to about USD2800. I know prices arent a direct covert..but at least ill get an idea of the hardware and adjust accordingly.
3.Everything is new. Cant reuse anything...obviously
4. Primarily gaming machine. All the latest and future..of course, DX10.
5. OCing..some...initally just either passive or air cooled...upgrade later on.
6. Have no monitors..had the DELL2405FPW previously...would like something similar...and looking at dual display...
7. What common nowadays ?
8. Roughly...2 years ?

TIA

 

[engiNURD]

Will you be needing SLI? SLI is only needed for high resolution 3D rendering. So, if you have or plan on getting a 1920x1080 LCD or higher, and want to game on it at native resolution, then keeping SLI as an option is a good choice; however, there are single card solutions that can still handle that resolution. Otherwise, theres no need for SLI. SLI as an upgrade path isn't worth it unless, again, a large LCD is in the future plans. There should always be a better single card solution, and you could sell your old card to help offset the cost. Avoiding SLI would be ideal, if possible, since Intel chipsets run cooler, OC better, and are more stable/reliable than their nForce counterparts.

For SLI, check out the 750i SLI FTW. For a single card solution, the Abit IP35 Pro, Asus P5K-E, and Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 are the higher end P35 boards. The new P45 boards are out, too, so you might want to check those out -- not much info on them yet.. wait for more reviews (P5Q Deluxe, GA-EP45-DS3R, etc).

use links as reference...

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L Intel P35 Motherboard - $90
MSI P35 Neo2-FR Intel P35 Motherboard - $110
DFI BloodIron P35-T2RL Intel P35 Motherboard - $110
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Intel P35 Motherboard - $120
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS Intel P35 Motherboard - $130
Asus P5K-E Intel P35 Motherboard - $140
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Intel P35 Motherboard - $150
Asus P5K-E/Wifi-AP Intel P35 Motherboard - $150
Abit IP35 Pro Intel P35 Motherboard - $170
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35 Motherboard - $170
Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4 Intel X38 Motherboard - $207

Just to help you out: If you don't need RAID, more than 4 SATA ports and only need semi-decent overclocking, check out the DS3L. If you need 5 SATA ports, 2 eSATA ports, slightly better overclocking, and a second PCI-E x16 port, then get the Neo2-Fr. If you want heavy overclocking options and six SATA ports, check out the Blood Iron. If you like the BloodIron but want significantly better overclock stability and options, go for the LanParty. If you want 8 SATA ports, RAID, legacy ports and high overclocks and optional eSATA, than the DS3R is a good choice. If you want the DS3R but need Firewire and a second PCI-E x16 port, then go for the DS3P. If you like the DS3P but need 3 PCI slots instead of the DS3P's 2 PCI slots and like having non-optional eSATA, go for the Asus P5K-E. If you like the P5K-E but need wifi, then go for the P5K-E/Wifi-AP. If you want something that can overclock pretty damn high along with RAID, eSATA ports and firewire connections, than the IP35 Pro. If you like the DS3P but want better cooling for overclocking, then go for the DS4. Do note that the Asus website can be slow sometimes.

Q6600 has the best value right now due to pricing, but that may not apply in your case. Look at both the Q6600 and Q9450.

All you need is either DDR2-800 if you get the Q6600, or DDR2-1000/1066 if you get the Q9450. You won't notice the difference between CL4 and CL5, unless you're running benchmarks (and even then, its negligible), so don't pay a huge price premium for lower latency.

New vidcards are coming out, so wait for those.

Samsung F1 series and WD3200AAKS/WD6400AAKS drives are super fast, so get one of those.

Samsung optical drives are also very quiet and fast.

Case is up to you. PSU, since you have a nice budget, go for at least a Corsair 620W if you're not doing SLI. If you are doing SLI, the Corsair 1KW is modular and more than enough for SLI.

For a CPU cooler, I recommend whichever you can find from this list (again, use links as ref):
$35 - Scythe SCNJ-1100P Ninja Plus Rev.B CPU HSF (optional: $5 - Thermalright LGA775 Universal Bolt-Thru-Kit)
$37 - XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler (optional: $7 - XIGMATEK ACK-I7751 LGA775 Bolt-Thru-Kit)
$46 - Thermalright Ultima 90 CPU HS + FBA09A12M - Z ($3)
$50 - ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm CPU Cooler ($10 MIR)
$59 - Noctua NH-U12P Universal heatsink
$57 - Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme CPU HS + Scythe S-Flex Fan SFF21E ($15)

 

[Rishy]

sigh...how i missed these forums

Thanks a lot !

I am looking at SLi...maybe not now...but definitely in the near future..cos like i said i have the DELL 2405FPW running at 1920x1200 and am now looking at running 2 of those..

Will look through the recommendations..

Thanks

 

[AndonSage]

Anyways, anyone who could start recommending hardware would be great..then i can start reading up on the parts and start catching up on the latest

This thread here in this section has some good information for you to look through. It should give you an idea of the components you need for what you want to do.

The new nVidia GTX 280 and GTX 260 video cards were released today, and there are a lot of reviews for them. [H] has a link to their review on the front page of this web site. The new ATI cards are being released next week, so we'll see reviews for them then.

 

[Rishy]

thanks for the tip

So now...i can be more specific...im thinking of the following :

Core 2 Quad Q6600
ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W
GPU - looking at the GTX 260..is my mobo ok for it ?
LIAN LI PC-A10B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Samsung DVDRW
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm
DELL 2405FPW
Need a suggestion for speakers.
Seagate 32MB 500GB SATA2
Seagate 32MB 750GB SATA2
Windows Vista Ultimate (Planning on going 64bit thus the 4GB of RAM)
Microsoft Office Ultimate

Comments ?

edit : i dont really have plans to OC at this point...dont have as much time as i used to play around with machines

 

[Dangman]

Drop the PSU. I recommend this PSU since it's not that much more in price but offers significantly more power:
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU - $99

If you can't find it in Malaysia for that price, other good suggestions are:
Corsair 550VX 550W PSU - $89
Corsair 650TX 650W PSU - $98
Corsair 520HX 520W Modular PSU - $105

Your mobo is fine for the GTX 280. Also, get a better HSF since the AC7 Pro is well suited for the Q6600:
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle HSF - $37
Tuniq Tower 120 HSF - $50
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm HSF - $50
Thermalright Ultima-90 HSF - $46 & Panaflo FBA09A12M 92mm Fan - $3
Noctua NH-U12P HSF - $60
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme HSF - $57 & Scythe S-Flex SFF21E 120MM Case Fan - $14

 

[MrWizard6600]

Some questions that need to be answered:

hah, i love how you guys quote each other. Do you have some kinda deal signed with triades, you get his question list in exchange he gets your mobo list?

but yeah, with that kinda budget, two GTX 280s ...

and a nuclear power supply

yeah... that might not work... lol. two GTX280s requires an SLI chipset, and I wouldn't recomend 780i, so that leaves 790i, or 750i... 790i will bring you over $2500 very quickly.

hmm. I donno, give it a couple weeks if you can, the Radeon HD4870 and HD4850 are going to come out in the next week or so and even if they dont out perform they should bring the GTX200 prices down. $700 for something that performs a little better than two $250 cards isn't exactly a bargan.

 

[Dangman]

hah, i love how you guys quote each other. Do you have some kinda deal signed with triades, you get his question list in exchange he gets your mobo list?

LOL! No deals, just a simple sharing of information to better help the people here.

 

[XboxodX]

Well, before you buy the parts and stuff, I would recommend waiting a week to see what level of performance ATI's cards bring. But anyways, here's something to get you started:

Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
SILVERSTONE TJ09-BW
Western Digital Caviar 640GB Hard Drive - OEM
EVGA GeForce GTX 280
HT OMEGA STRIKER Sound Card
FSP Group Everest 1000W PSU
mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 Ram
EVGA 790i Ultra Mobo
Intel q6600 CPU
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 HSF

Subtotal comes to around $2400 USD.

That config is very interchangeable. If you don't want a SLI mobo now you can swap it out with a different one. If you don't want DDR3 ram, again, you can change it. This is just something to go off of.

 

[Rishy]

thanks for the suggestions..

im prolly only gonna get it next weekend sometime...still waiting a buyer for my kidney...

 

[engiNURD]

LOL! No deals, just a simple sharing of information to better help the people here.

For me, its just laziness, lol.

... Also, get a better HSF since the AC7 Pro is well suited for the Q6600...

Danny meant the AC7Pro is NOT well suited for the Q6600 -- at least not as good as the ones in the list he posted.

 

[AndonSage]

hah, i love how you guys quote each other. Do you have some kinda deal signed with triades, you get his question list in exchange he gets your mobo list?

I just hope there are no royalties involved, since I paste in info from enginurd and Danny Bui But I always give credit

 

[Dangman]

Danny meant the AC7Pro is NOT well suited for the Q6600 -- at least not as good as the ones in the list he posted.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant. Posted that at 1:48AM. Must've been sleepy then