Overkill?

G

gn0me

[H]ard|Gawd
2FA
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
1,162
I plan on building a new system. I'm mainly going to be playing Free Cell and sometimes Solitare. I'll also surf the net a bit. I put together the following system; let me know what you think!


AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Processor Socket 939 Retail
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Silver Thermal Compound
Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI
Antec Performance One P180 Advanced Super Mid Tower Case
Antec TruePower 2.0 TP-II 550 550W Power Supply
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card
2 X Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 250GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer
2 X PNY Verto Geforce 7800 GTX PCI Express 256MB DDR3 Video Card w/Dual DVI & VIVO
2 X Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cooler
Zalman CNPS9500 LED CPU Cooler
2 X Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Dual-Channel Memory w/Heat Spreader

Seriously though, I'm building this for serious gaming. I also want to be ready for Quake 4, FEAR and other new games coming out soon.

I'm also curious if I did go overboard on the Zalman coolers? It’s going to put a lot of extra weight on my motherboard with 3 copper heat sinks on there. Should I look into getting some type of support for the 2 video cards? I have built quite a few computers, but this is the first time I have put aftermarket coolers on video cards or gone SLI.

Any comments are welcome and appreciated.

Thanks!
 
The HSFs, GPU Coolers, and 2nd Graphics card are overkill.

Unless you are planning to do major overclocking (which you won't have to do in a system already that fast, and if you are, you should go with a slower CPU, an X2 3800+ or 4200+ since they will likely OC to the same level, for a lot less money) you are just fine with the stock heatsink. OCing a 7800gtx is pointless, it is already CPU limited.

Ditto why you don't need to go SLI right now. The 7800 can play any game out there at max settings with that CPU, and most likely the next wave as well. By the time it can't keep up there will be an even greater graphics card on the market that will kill what SLI 7800s could do. Save your money, double the price for a 5% performance gain (if that) isn't worth it.

Everything else looks reasonable for a top end gaming system (though I'd personally wait the month for the ATI 1800XT so I didn't have to buy an nVidia card).
 
I'm not so sure about the PNY gfx cards, I've heard bad things about their cards and support. Someone else might want to chime in on this.

Other than that I think you will be happy for many years to come. :)
 
HAHA I was fooled... I wrote this message before I read the entire post that you're a serious gamer... and said it was overkill for Solitare and Freecell.

Don't I feel silly! :D
 
I wouldn't go all out with the Zalman coolers. Maybe a XP-120 or a Big Typhoon for the CPU, but the GPU's don't need it. I'd only get SLI if you have a couple of 2405's and you wan't to game at full resolution. Otherwise one GTX should be plenty fast. I agree about what D3v01D said about PNY though. Something like a BFG or eVGA would be much better.
 
I have a 2405 on the way and yeah, I want to be able to play any game I throw at it with max resolution, AA, AF and not worry about it lagging out on me due to video lag. I have read good things about PNY and I already own a PNY 6800GT in my older system and have never had a problem with it.

So the Zalman coolers are overkill on this then? I do not plan on overclocking, but at the same time, I don't want to have cooling problems with this system when its built. My main goals when I configured this system were speed, stability and system longevity. By system longevity, I'm talking about being able to buy this computer and not have to worry about upgrading for at least 3 years or so. I realize the thought of not having to upgrade a computer for 3 years is pretty much laughable, but I'm hoping this system might be able to do so.
 
Well then, SLI isn't such a waste. That's pretty much what it's good for. The stock coolers of the GPU's should keep it cool enough without problem. The CPU..I dunno. I'm assuming the X2 stock coolers are pretty much the same as the 64 coolers. If that's the case, and you're not overclocking, stock would probably be ok. But if you look at the overall expense of the system an extra $60 for a good cooler and some Arctic Silver isn't that much.
 
sc00ter said:
I wouldn't go all out with the Zalman coolers. Maybe a XP-120 or a Big Typhoon for the CPU, but the GPU's don't need it. I'd only get SLI if you have a couple of 2405's and you wan't to game at full resolution. Otherwise one GTX should be plenty fast. I agree about what D3v01D said about PNY though. Something like a BFG or eVGA would be much better.
Click to expand...
sli doesnt support multiple monitors.
 
1. Drop the 2nd GTX, and switch the first one to an eVGA.
2. Drop the VF-700's. You won't need em.
3. Great choices otherwise :)
 
PNY cards are just as good as any other make, better than most actually. PNY has a history of high performance graphics cards and memory, they just don't get all the hype and publicity they deserve.

EDIT:

And stock cooling will still be fine. Stock coolers are designed for longevity and stability. As long as you aren't running the hardware beyond spec, there is no reason to go through the trouble and expense of aftermarket cooling solutions.
 
BFG's come stock overclocked and have a lifetime guarantee.

And as long as you're gonna spend a beeeellion dollars, you might as well upgrade to a PCP&C 810w PS.
 
upriverpaddler said:
And as long as you're gonna spend a beeeellion dollars, you might as well upgrade to a PCP&C 810w PS.
Click to expand...

Now THAT I would consider overkill. :D
 
upriverpaddler said:
BFG's come stock overclocked and have a lifetime guarantee.

And as long as you're gonna spend a beeeellion dollars, you might as well upgrade to a PCP&C 810w PS.
Click to expand...
Well.. the price for all the stuff I listed came out to just under 2500 bucks. All of it was bought through ZipZoomFly. I got Free 2nd Day Air for all of it except for the case. Thanks for all the replies everybody. I'm feeling pretty confident I made good choices. I will probably return the VGA coolers after reading a couple of the posts. I'm going to stick with the PNY cards and SLI though. I'm sure the extra power from the SLI will come in handy when I'm running in some 40 man raids in World of Warcraft with my resolution set to 1920 X 1200 with maxxed out AA and AF settings. :D
 
This has always been the wrong forum to get an opinon of overkill on.

In fact, when it comes to PC hardware, there is no such thing. The better stuff you get, the longer you'll have a reason to keep it. If you have the cash to drop on the [H]ardware, there's no good reason (in my mind) not to.
 
TheAcorn said:
This has always been the wrong forum to get an opinon of overkill on.

In fact, when it comes to PC hardware, there is no such thing. The better stuff you get, the longer you'll have a reason to keep it. If you have the cash to drop on the [H]ardware, there's no good reason (in my mind) not to.
Click to expand...

It's a matter of getting the most for your money. You could spend 3000 on a system right now, keep it for three years, have it be super overkill today, and still be decent 3 years from now, or you could spend 1500 today, still have it be able to play all of the current games at max res, then spend another 1500 1.5 years from now, and have a better system at the end of 3 years.
 
good!
however the standard coolers are quite loud.
the best cooler out there (where reviewers have stabely oveclocked to 520mhz in sli) is the leadtek version, which uses the quadofx4500 cooler, which is big and very very quiet.

also good cpu cooler as it is quiet.

also, if you want high aa and af then you do have to have sli 7800gtx.

get the stuff! also, raptors?
f
 
hm whether those VF700 are overkill or not i don think they would fit in an sli config would they? is there really that much room between the gfx cards on the asus mobo? but either way id go with arctic cooling over the zalman, with sli blowing 2x ~60c air back into the case cant be too healthy esp if u want to oc the cpu w/o water cooling

as for the hardware, i say go for it if u have the $ :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top