Considering doing an upgrade

[inactionman]

With all the new games coming out soon I'm thinking of upgrading my computer, as it's a bit of a dead-end now (socket 754, AGP etc.).

I'll be keeping my case (Lian-Li V1000B), Artic Freezer, DVD drives, X-Fi and my Raptor, but I'm thinking of getting:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
Asus A8N-SLi Premium NF4 S939
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit
BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB
650W Akasa AK-P650FF Quiet ATX12V/EPS12V v2.01 aPFC PSU
300Gb Maxtor MaxLine III 16MB Cache

All in all, it comes to about £1065 (with some other sundries) sourced from scan and ocuk. Any comments?

Hopefully this should be fairly quiet, although I guess I may have to silence the Raptor somehow though! Maybe with an enclosure.

 

[Dr_Weasel]

Sounds nice. The only thing I would possibly change is the PSU. Custom PC did a roundup of a load of PSUs this month. Some major brands had some shocking results. I cant remember how Akasa came out in it but the Seasonic ones were by far and away the best. I just bought one of these and it seems sweet. Its pretty damn quite too.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=256340

 

[inactionman]

Hmmm... Hexus did a round-up recently and the Akasa came top, but the Seasonic's weren't tested. I assume the Custom PC article isn't on the website yet?

I'd have to see what the testing criteria was, as the Hexus one was quite scientific (proper power testing with expensive equipment).

 

[Dommers]

What screen do you plan on using?

 

[Dr_Weasel]

The custom pc article did use about 25k's worth of equipment to test it. It seemed pretty in depth with checking it at 50, 75 and 100% load. They managed to blow 9 supplies up during the testing

I have no idea if its on their website, I never check it. I just read the mag when they post it to me. But it was in this months copy.

 

[inactionman]

For now my Sony HS-94P, but that may be the next upgrade I do, if the Aegia PPU doesn't come out this year.

 

[inactionman]

Sounds similar to the Hexus review! linky below:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359

I may pick up custom pc, see if there are any major differences. It's amazing the crap PSU's that some companies sell, isn't it!

 

[Cask]

That'll be a sweet system, 7800GT looks to have a lot of bang for the buck having looked at the benchmarks. Only thing I might consider upgrading is the memory because those GeiL value chips have pretty loose timings. A couple of these would have nice timings without getting into the ridiculous price range. Wouldn't be a huge difference but everything else is high-end so nicer memory would fit in.

 

[inactionman]

That'll be a sweet system, 7800GT looks to have a lot of bang for the buck having looked at the benchmarks.

Yeah, and it's going for ~£210 on OCUK, which is insane as 6800GT's (what I have at the moment) aren't going for much less than that!

I'll look at the memory, memory timings do make a difference, and that specific memory looks rather cheap for the performance!

 

[Cask]

I couldn't resist I got one too, 6600GT just doesn't cut it. It can't handle this years games at anything above average quality so don't think it'll do very well next year. Least this way I can still ebay it and get something for it.

 

[smurkin]

:worthy: very nice (deeply jealous)...personally I'd drop the maxtor in favour of a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 or 7200.9 (the 7200.9 16Mb will be my next purchase, when they become available, also they are supposed to be quiet). Not very into maxtor, they had a bad rep a while back.

 

[KevinUK]

inactionman - you just scared me with you price of £210 for the 3d card as I just bought it too. The price you said is before VAT in case you didnt notice.

I would comment on the card but im waiting on the other bits to arrive before I can play with it

 

[inactionman]

:worthy: very nice (deeply jealous)...personally I'd drop the maxtor in favour of a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 or 7200.9 (the 7200.9 16Mb will be my next purchase, when they become available, also they are supposed to be quiet). Not very into maxtor, they had a bad rep a while back.

Yeah, but they are a lot better now. The maxline is their server line of drives, so it comes with hefty reliability guarantees. If I was prepared to wait for a Seagate I'd wait for the .10's, but they aren't out yet. My prefered drives are Hitachi, but they're a little bit behind at the moment.

inactionman - you just scared me with you price of £210 for the 3d card as I just bought it too. The price you said is before VAT in case you didnt notice.

Err... Hate to break it to you but the OCUK website says £179.95+VAT...

Just waiting a tad to free up some funds for all this, should be a pretty fast machine!

 

[inactionman]

Whoops, meant the .9's.

 

[smurkin]

That IS a good price for a top card - you've done it to me...I've been bitten by the bug... I too am now thinking about upgrades

 

[SheepCow]

I've seen this article about PSUs, Akasa did quite well but didn't come top as you say.

Check Ebuyer and Dabs for prices, you may be able to find a better deal elsewhere if you look around too.

 

[inactionman]

I've seen this article about PSUs, Akasa did quite well but didn't come top as you say.

Check Ebuyer and Dabs for prices, you may be able to find a better deal elsewhere if you look around too.

I didn't say it did in the Custom PC article, just in the Hexus report, where the Seasonics weren't tested. I've just picked up the magazine, and it looks like the testing methodology was almost the same, so i'll probably be picking up a Seasonic (as they seem to be quieter, and very energy efficent, and cheaper!).

Mag seems ok, I still question the feasibility of tech magazines considering the existence of free articicles on the internet, and the timescales involved in print, but I'll have a nose through it.

I always check other vendors, it's just that sometimes the savings don't cover the extra postage costs! Plus ebuyer have always seemed a bit dodgy to me.

 

[Clown]

Ebuyer are great. Citylink aren't.

 

[Lazarus]

well, for me twas the other way round.

Ebuyer were ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING.

Citylink delivered the goods when they were meant to,.

 

[inactionman]

I may have ebuyer confused with someone else, but didn't they basically shut-off their telephone lines to go web only, and customer service was still shite. (I know OCUK also did this, but they fixed that, and I have lower expectations with them, seeing as they tend to have very good prices on specialist kit).

All delivery companies are shit, why we can't we have stuff delivered in the evenings, when we are in!

 

[SheepCow]

I believe recently they've been craptastic. A friend of mine has been waiting a week for some speakers from them. Everytime I've used them (> 6 months ago now) they've been good though.

 

[Cask]

Just a headsup but that cheapish patriot memory might be the reason that my 7800GT isn't breaking 7k 3dmark05 points. Got to run a few more tests before I'm sure though.

 

[Cask]

Meh nevermind, it's not RAM. I can break 7k by overclocking the CPU a bit though.

 

[inactionman]

Ok, it's all been ordered. In the end I got:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+
2Gb (2x1GB) Corsair, DDR400, 2-3-3-6 (the patriots would have cost me more after postage)
Asus A8N-SLi Premium NF4
BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB
250Gb Maxtor Maxline III 24x7 16MB Cache
600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready

All arrives monday, so i'll probably have a fun monday night building/installing.