New rig advice

[Herbal]

Well it's been 3 years since i had my current rig built so time for a new one

I've specced up a pc that should run current/future stuff ok for a few years, but i wanted to make sure i've not got anything wrong before i hit the order button.

So any advice welcome.

LN17245
Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600, S775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache, Retail £147.21 £172.97
LN16492
EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 NF680i SLI, S775, PCI-E(x16), DDR2 533/667/800/1200, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £131.25 £154.22
LN18970
768Mb ScanFX 8800GTX PCI-E (x16), Mem 1800MHz, GPU 575MHz, Dual-Link DVI-I OEM £264.89 £311.25
LN14277
2x 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, EPP £57.64 £135.45
LN13080
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual Core / Core2Duo Ready £13.49 £15.85
LN16718
Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case w/o PSU £58.89 £69.20
LN15443
850W Enermax EGA850EWL Galaxy Modular PSU 85% Eff' EPS12v Triple Quad +24 Rails Silent x2 Fan £134.89 £158.50
LN16783
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional * New Version * £74.89 £88.00
LN18865
22" Samsung SM-226BW Black Widescreen LCD, 1680x1050, 3000:1, 300 cd/m2, 2 ms, VESA £204.99 £240.86
LN12802
150 Gb Western Digital WD1500ADFD Raptor Enterprise, SATA150, 10000 rpm, 16MB Cache, 4.6 ms, NCQ £115.49 £135.70
LN13841
Akasa AK-460 Revolutionary Silicone Thermal compound, 3.5G with Spreader card £3.89 £4.57

total cost 1509£

Oh and i already have the dvd burner for it.

 

[Mazling]

What i thought was windows vista being useless, turns out to be my hardware. I'm fairly sure the hardware is not defective in itself, but that it is the Nvidia n680/8800 drivers that are useless. I wouldn't reccomend any card other than an 8800gtx, so try to do without the n680 board else read around and see what problems people are having. My board is the Gigabyte GA-n680sli-dq6 (awesome functionality, but it doesn't function yet!) and I have a gainward 8800gtx.

 

[Herbal]

I won't be running vista for atleast 6 months i think by which time driver issues should be sorted. Thanks for the advice though.

 

[Mazling]

I won't be running vista for atleast 6 months i think by which time driver issues should be sorted. Thanks for the advice though.

I failed to mention that I moved back to XP a week ago, and the problems remain. I may well be my hardware, but nothing other than 3d accel crashes after random amounts of time (10mins-1hour).

 

[Herbal]

Think that's your hardware i have freinds who have 680 mobos and run vista with little to no problems, even one with the same mobo. Still as i said i won't be running vista for a while (unless i can't resist crysis ;o .)

 

[Jonty]

Hi Herbal

Those specs seem nice and I'm sure it will last quite a while I think everyone has minor changes they would make depending on their personal preferences, but you seem to be along the right lines.

However, if you can wait another few months, then the next technology refresh will be released. Intel will unleash it's next-generation 45nm 'Penryn' processors in November and the beginning of next year (increased performance, new SSE instructions, lower power usage, lower thermal requirements). New DDR3-based motherboards should also become more common by then (although the DDR3 memory itself will still be expensive). Also nVidia's 9800 series graphics cards will be released around November or the beginning of next year, and it promises a big performance jump if the rumoured specifications are true.

Some of these things are already available, but its the combination of all these things together that will provide the best performance and longevity (albeit with a increased dent in your bank balance).

Personally, I don't really advocate waiting for new technology, because there is always something new around the corner. But that said, if you really want the best and you're not in a rush, then perhaps it's worth holding off a few more months. That said, your specications above seem nice and you shouldn't be in any way disappointed with the performance.

Kind regards

Jonty

 

[Ch3tan]

Drop the soundblaster, most onboard will sound just as good and have less compatibility/driver problems.

The only other thing I would say is consider a 360 or ps3 as a better investment. The best games are now coming out for the consoles as well as the pc, and it's a lot cheaper than upgrading your pc every year.

 

[gunner440]

It's shit Herbal.

You didn't buy any neon cables.

Whitey.

 

[Alan]

Id wait on the monitor TBH - the 226BW is a nice screen but there have been many different versions, the A being best - but hard to find now.

There is a 226CW due out next week which apparently has a better backlight system and they are using the same supplier for the components to avoid the lucky dip of the 226bw

 

[Herbal]

Id wait on the monitor TBH - the 226BW is a nice screen but there have been many different versions, the A being best - but hard to find now.

There is a 226CW due out next week which apparently has a better backlight system and they are using the same supplier for the components to avoid the lucky dip of the 226bw

Thanks for that info seems they dont have the screen in atm anyway so might as well wait for the newer model.

PS

Gunner you're more white than colonel sanders, twinky!

 

[Herbal]

Edit after being shouted at by quite a few people that sli and the 680 chipset arn't worth it i've decided to go down the p35 chipset road. Also buying a copy of vista 64 bit as my current xp is 32 bit and wont support all my ram ;s

I've also gone for a less powerfull psu as the previous 850w enermax was overkill for the system i'm buying (or so i've been informed.)

Current set up now

2x 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, EPP £56.64 £133.10

1x Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case w/o PSU £58.89 £69.20

1x 150 Gb Western Digital WD1500ADFD Raptor Enterprise, SATA150, 10000 rpm, 16MB Cache, 4.6 ms, NCQ £115.49 £135.70

1x Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 G0 SLACR, 95W, S775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache, Retail £149.99 £176.24

1x 22" Samsung SM-226BW Black Widescreen LCD, 1680x1050, 3000:1, 300 cd/m2, 2 ms, VESA £199.99 £234.99

1x 5pcs Akasa Black Hook & Loop Re-Usable Cable Ties £1.99 £2.34

1x Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series Retail £98.79 £116.08

1x 768Mb BFG Technology 8800GTX OC2, PCI-E (x16), Mem 2000MHz, GPU 626MHz 128Streams HDTV/2 x DVI-I £304.89 £358.25

1x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound for CPU and Chipset Coolers £3.79 £4.45

1x Scythe Miné Quiet Heatpipe CPU Cooler S478, S775, S754, S939, S940 compatible £20.57 £24.17

1x 620W Corsair HX Series Modular SLi PSU, ATX, EPS 12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty £73.99 £86.94

1x Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD) £97.89 £115.02

1x Abit IP-35 Pro, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £101.99 £119.84


Total cost £1580

Ordering this all from scan as it's local to me and i've never had any issues with them.

So a few questions is the psu ok for q6600 GO chips website doesn't say anything about it being ok for quad core chips..... it just says ok for duel core.

Can anyone recommend another better p35 mobo available from scan or is my current choice of an abit ip35 pro a good one?

Also i'm going to keep the x-fi because it supports eax in games that i will be playing etc, and i like the break out front panel to connect all my stuff to. Will change the monitor to the the newer model if scan stock it in the next few weeks and it's not to big a jump price wise.

 

[Kryten]

Christ that's a lot of money

Nothing really more to say on it, it's gonna be a decent setup either way.
Just bear in mind you won't have 100% functionality out of that X-Fi - Creative's software so far has been a little more than "shoddy" but it *is* improving - atm you'll have no hardware accelerated sound other than games supporting openAL or supported with ALchemy (EAX>OPENAL wrapper), 7.1 sound and some dvd hardware sound decoding thingies. And despite using 64bit windows, it's still gonna go "oh no, 4gb of ram!" and may blue screen at you randomly.
EAX is now entirely dead technology and if it returns at all, it'll be a renaming of OpenAL.

That motherboard is a gooden, but seems about £30 overpriced there, unless the "Pro" is a different version that what I'm thinking of.

Theres nothing else I can pick holes out of. If it was me in your shoes, I'd probably have changed the Raptor for some more serious storage as the performance differences have narrowed seriously, however access times are still fairly unbeatable - this of course will depend on whether you're a hoarder like me or only have a couple of things installed at once, and a small/no porn collection

Either way, it's a good time to buy - the prices for those quad core cpu's and RAM makes it very tempting. Assuming you're gonna use whatever optical drives you've got now - if not, they're still only around 20 quid for dual layer burners

 

[Jonty]

Great advice Kryten I have nothing to add except to echo the situation about Creative's driver support for Vista (i.e. really not great, but certainly improving). As for Vista 64-bit, if your only reason to upgrade is to use all 4GB of RAM then you may want to consider that Vista 32-bit will still recognise around 3GB-3.5GB, which many people view as an acceptable trade-off.

Anyway, as Kryten says, it's a very cool system (it should be for that kind of money!). We can all offer variations on a theme, but as a whole it seems like it should provide good performance for quite a long time. Good luck!

Kind regards

Jonty

P.S. Kryten, you make so many good posts! I try to spread enough reputation around so I can keep bumping you, but alas I can't keep quite up

 

[Herbal]

I have a 500gb from this rig i'll be adding and i plan to add on another 500gb drive or two at a later date, the raptor will just be for os + installed games.

Thanks for all your help guys now i just have to wait for it all to be in stock at the same time.

Ps don't worry jonty i repped kryten for you and everyone else who helped :worthy:

 

[Jonty]

Ps don't worry jonty i repped kryten for you and everyone else who helped :worthy:

Thanks Herbal

As for waiting for stock, sometimes you can actually get a better deal by using multiple companies to get the best prices (even after taking into account the multiple delivery charges). Some businesses also offer free delivery if spend over a certain amount, and/or special time-limited promotions, so it may be worth considering. That said, if you're happy with the Scan's price and if you want to keep life simple, then by all means carry on

Kind regards

 

[Ch3tan]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record. Save the £100 you are wasting on the x-fi, onboard sound will do you just fine.

Oh and as for ram, this geil stuff will overclock a lot better and actually perform at the stated speeds. GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

 

[Hawkwind]

Id wait on the monitor TBH - the 226BW is a nice screen but there have been many different versions, the A being best - but hard to find now.

There is a 226CW due out next week which apparently has a better backlight system and they are using the same supplier for the components to avoid the lucky dip of the 226bw

I have a 226BW and the quality is excellent, I even took it into work and tested it (Work for Panasonic). It scored very high, the luminicity excellent. Can't tell you what version is as I'm in UK at the moment. I paid just under 1100 DHS for it in Dubai which equates to less than 160 GBP. A bargain considering the rest of the monitors in that price range.

 

[Kryten]

Cheers for the rep : I'm just glad to be of help - I can be an opinionated sod at the best of times but I like to make sure people are getting fair deals - the most bang for the buck etc. Best thing about forums like these - lots of opinions and a lot of expertise - and in this case more so than the trolls

My boss used to work for Panasonic Not sure what he was doing, but probably warehouse orientated :>

Whatever happens, when you're up and running with that lot let us know how it performs, will serve as a great comparison for people in the near future shopping for that sort of grade hardware.

 

[Herbal]

Will do about to order now, decided to drop the xfi soundcard if on board sounds crap i'm blaming ch3tan:kissit:

 

[Kryten]

It won't sound crap by any means, you'll probably just be missing some of the nicer features you'd have had otherwise.
But at least you don't have to actually buy a replacement - which means a little while down the line when things settle, some decent drivers are available and probably even Vista SP1, you'll be able to add one should you feel the need.

 

[Herbal]

Yeah i knew it wouldn't sound crap and that i could always add one or what ever replaces it at a later date. I was just joking

 

[thergador]

why not get 1066 memory instead of creating a bottleneck ?

the ocz 1066 reaper hpc ram is very nice bit more than you had down but its got a life time warranty and the warranty is vallid even for over clocks wich means you could get your memory up to 1333 and if you got a better cpu cooler you could get your cpu running @ 3.4ghz (have done it allready on this other halfs machine)

you might want to think about bigger PSU if you plan on going for SLI in future but for single GPU wouk its a crate PSU

the sound card i cant say for defo but the x-fi elite pro is vvvv good


noticed your getting vista, you might want you think about dual booting with xp 64 to i did because at mo vista still has some problems with drivers (the X-fi sound card for defo) with dual boot you can get the best of both worlds

system specs in sig

 

[Herbal]

Well had the system just over a week and all i can say is wow.

Took me five hours to put it together and it was snug, 8800 cards are vast i thought i would have to build an extension just to fit it in.

Surprisingly i've not had a single issue with vista every programme has run fine 0 issues even the 32 bit ones.

As for performance it nails every game out there and then some css runs at 1680x1050 all settings maxed out 16 mqsaa etc between 70-250fps.

World in conflict looks simply stunning.

Getting oblivion next week been wanting to play it but old rig couldn't handle it should look amazing i hope

Now i just have to wait for crysis to come out and i can die a happy man.

Planning on overclocking it to 3ghz or so and it's done barring a few tweeks like an x-fi around xmas time.

 

[Kryten]

good show, nice to have an update

I've recently gone over to Vista primarily and happy with everything with exception to Tiger Woods 08 - but thats a 100% EA issue (i.e. EA couldn't code a game if their lives depended on it) - otherwise performance and reliability - excellent, so far.

Shouldn't have a problem with Oblivion