Should I?

[DaGaffer]

Thoughts?


Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos Silent Gaming Tower Case w/ 420 Watts Power Supply
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6850 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit
Motherboard: (3-Way SLI & QX9650 Support) Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780i SLI Mainboard FSB1333 DDR2 3 x PCIe x16 SATA RAID w/ USB2.0, IEEE1394, & 7.1Audio
Memory: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (OCZ Nvidia SLI Ready Edition w/ Heat spreader)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB 16X PCI Express
Hard Drive 1: 160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
Hard Drive 2: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive: SONY DUAL FORMAT 18X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (SILVER COLOR)
Sound: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

 

[Deebs]

Why the 2 different size harddrives with differing caches? What's the point?

Ruby just bought an Intel chip but his had 6mb or 8mb cache. Might be worth checking with him. He basically spent some wedge on a new case, mb, memory, cpu and powersupply along with a graphics card. He is extremely happy.

 

[inactionman]

The PSU is a bit underpowered isn't it?

Go quad core, q6600, it's more future proof.

Replace the 9800GTX with a 8800GTS, they are basically the same but there's quite a price difference.

I've had big problems with OCZ memory on my nvidia mobo, I'm recommend crucial or corsair instead, or G.Skill do good Ram.

Get a 750i motherboard instead of a 780i one, you aren't going to get the benefits of it, Tri-Sli is pants anyway, not that you will be able to run it with that PSU.

Get a single drive, say a Terabyte one with 32Mb of cache, it will perform better.

 

[Deebs]

Actually at the moment if you are after max performance for systems then don't go quad cores go dual core. The cost of CPU's is next to nothing. At this moment in time your money is better invested in a dual core than a quad core.

 

[DaGaffer]

That was what I'd been told. As for the hard disks, good point, I'd missed that one. The PSU is underpowered but tbh I'd replace it with a more powerful one (this PC is a pre-built put it's quite a good deal). I figured the mobo was fairly future-proofed as well. Its also why it has to use the OCZ RAM, they don't have Corsair as an option.

(NB. I've tried to price this as separate parts - I used Scan - and I couldn't get it cheaper, in fact it was about £75 more.)

 

[throdgrain]

NO DONT DO IT THERES SOMETHING NEW COMING OUT IN SIX MONTHS!!!


Lol. Yeah looks great, though I agree with the bit about dual core, I still got my dual core and Ive had it like 18 months at least now!

 

[inactionman]

Up to you. If you are going dual core get the newer 45nm cpu's, they run cooler, faster and cheaper.

 

[Jupitus]

I saw this yesterday:

Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer

Looks tome to be a decent deal. If I were building a machine I'd be tempted to get 2 of those and raid them....

 

[Reza]

Cache size isn't usually the limiting variable (bottleneck) when it comes to drive performance these days. It's more likely to be the platter density at the moment. The 2 drives selected could work great, but probably a bit more info on them would be needed to see exactly how much value for money you were getting on them.

The drive that Jupitus links to is actually a good example of the new top range platter tech. That 1TB drive uses 3 platters off 334MB per platter. Samsung also have a few other 334mb per plat drives coming or just about already out. They are 320 and 640ish mb iirc. Their 250 500 750 drives use their older tech. Western Digital are the other main competitor with some very good 320mb per platter drives (WD3200AAKS & WD6400AAK), and I think seagate have some 320 per platter coming also.

The one thing that did stick out for me on you system was the MB.

With the 780i you are paying a significant premium for access to SLI proprietary technology, and at the same time you also pay a price in terms of performance and reliability relative to Intel chipsets (Intel purposely don't give Nvidia enough information to make chipsets that work as efficiently as their own, and of course Nvidia dont let Intel make SLI chipsets themselves).

My personal opinion is that the net result is that the nvidia chipset is only worth it if you are going SLI straight away. As oppossed to having SLI as a nice future proof option, which you never know for sure if you will exercise, and yet meanwhile you pay for having that option all along in the extra costs, headaches and perfomance issues of the nvidia chipset. That doesnt sound like a good trade off to me.

So in short unless I had some monster monitor (27" minimum, probably 30") running at 2560x1600 and felt I needed SLI to run my apps on now, then I would stick to a single GFX card and get a P35/P45 or X38/X48 mobo.

 

[Embattle]

I saw this yesterday:

Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer

Looks tome to be a decent deal. If I were building a machine I'd be tempted to get 2 of those and raid them....

They are very nice drives, review here.

To be utterly honest dual core still has massive real world usability issues, while quad core could be considered even more future proof the reality is this real world usability issue is exercebated to an even greater degree.....CPUs will be about raw GHz again soon enough

I do have an nVidia 680i based motherboard at the moment but if I went for a new one it would be built around the newer Intel chipsets, part of this comes down to my feeling of the unfinished nature of nvidia mobos which often have pants raid performance, iffy memory issues and the epeen nature of Sli which I've stated recently its rather iffy performance/reliability.

As for graphics cards, my previous feelings about nvidia's new 9800 series being little more than lukewarm revisions of its 8800 series seems to of been borne out.

Well now since we know it is a complete system and you've done your homework regarding price I would say there is nothing massively wrong with the system and is fine as a system that you can upgrade in the future. Those who believe it is always cheaper to self build are incorrect, the reality in most cases it enables a person to pick and choose what they want but it rarely ends up cheaper.

 

[inactionman]

Those who believe it is always cheaper to self build are incorrect, the reality in most cases it enables a person to pick and choose what they want but it rarely ends up cheaper.

True. However I always say that you generally don't get a cheaper system if you self-build, you just generally get a better one, where it's more upgradeable and you at least know what corners have been cut (normally the cooling, the memory and the power supply)!