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Havent Built A Half Decent Gaming System In A While


nightsider

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ive been plotting to do this for some time now and i think i need to ask you all for some help in choosing the components for this new system that i want to build.

i need the system to be future proof and yes i will be running vista on this machine.

 

since ive been hovering around the budget are of the market ive looked at my old amd system and thought about a new rig that can handle crisis alot more smoothly than my 4200+ system did.

 

ive done some recherche and made a list of 4 possible builds and one with a different mother board.

 

Build 1# (ATI) AMD

[*]Motherbard# MSI K9A2 Platinum, AMD 790FX, AM2+

[*]CPU# AMD Phenom

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I assume that your going to spending a lot of money on this rig $2,000-$3,000.

 

I wouldn't go with choice #1 or #3 because most of the Core 2 cpus are much faster then the X2s and most of Intels core 2 quads are faster then the Phenoms.

 

I wouldn't go with choice #3 because 2 9800 GTX2 would probably beat 2 HD3870 X2 performance wise but some people argue and dispute that so that decision is up to you.

 

Choice #4 looks ok but I would probably get a EVGA 790i instead of a XFX one but thats up to you what brand you get it from. If your going into overclocking I'm not sure weather you would want to get a 790I because I know the 780I gets poor overclocks but I'm not sure if that holds true with the 790I too its worth checking into.

 

I like choice #5 the best I'd probably get a GIGABYTE GA-X48T-DQ6 instead of the Asus P5E3 Premium WiFi but thats just my preference that decision is up to you in the end. The only probably I see is that you wouldn't be able to SLI 2 9800GTX2 together because the X48 only supports crossfire.

 

With cooling I'd go with the Tuniq tower which uses a quite 120mm fan or the Thermalright Ultra-120 which uses 120mm fans but one is not included with the heatsink.

 

You should probably get an 800 watt ps to power this rig. OCZ, Muskin, Corsair make some very good power supplies.

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thank you fire_storm your input is helpful i should have put (2X) 1GB Sapphire HD3870 X2 PCI-E (x16), Mem 1800MHz, GDDR3, GPU 825MHz, 640 Streams, Dual DVI/HDTV instead of the 9800gtx for number 5 my apologys

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instead of the x fi soundblaster card try the Asus Xonar sound card, it is far better because of driver support/update. This is non existent in vista for the x fi and you will run into to problems.

 

Also the 1 TB samsung F1 (32 mb) hard drives are excellent, fast and quiet, nearly as fast as raptors without the noise issues,

I have 2 in raid = very fast

Edited by x keo21

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ive done some fine tuning on option 5 below is what i have come up with

  • EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1, NF790i Ultra SLI, 3-way SLI, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1066/1333/2000
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.83 GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB L2 Cache, Retail
  • (2X) 1GB XFX 9800 GX2, PCI-E 2.0, Mem 2000MHz, GDDR3, GPU 600MHz, Stream 256, 2x DL DVI-I/HDMI
  • 4GB (2x2GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 7-7-7-20, XMP
  • (2X) 1000 GB Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ
  • Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card
  • 1000W Enermax EG1000EWLDXX V2 Galaxy Modular PSU 85% Eff' EPS12v Triple Quad +24 Rails Silent x2 Fan
  • Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speaker System Dolby EX DTS ES Directsound Ready
  • Razer BARRACUDA HP-1 - 8 Channel Gaming Headset
  • Thermaltake Armor LCS VE2000BWS Black Aluminum Case Window w/o PSU
  • 24" HyundaiIT W241D, Black Widscreen, 1920x1200, 3000:1, 500cd/m2, 6ms, HDMI/DVI/Component PVA Panel
  • Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Retail

 

which comes to a whopping

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The Thermaltake built in water cooling generally isn't good, for the money you could get a better air cooler afaik or maybe a good start on a good water cooling system

 

Some of that might be overkill, such as Vista Ultimate, do you need to few extra things over premium?

 

Do you need 2TB of storage?

 

Do you need 1000W?

 

It's upto you and either way it'll be an amazing rig

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The Thermaltake built in water cooling generally isn't good, for the money you could get a better air cooler afaik or maybe a good start on a good water cooling system

 

Some of that might be overkill, such as Vista Ultimate, do you need to few extra things over premium?

 

Do you need 2TB of storage?

 

Do you need 1000W?

 

It's upto you and either way it'll be an amazing rig

 

i dont need vista ultimate but i do like the dream scapes, 2tb of storage is pretty essential since i have filled 250 gb pretty quickly i could always buy 1tb and add a second drive if i needed to.

 

when i came to the PSU i wondered why i was having issues with my 4200+ when over clocking and thats a 650w pure power i really want to be safe than sorry

 

the monitor is kinda overkill since ive never actualy had anything over 19" to game on but while im spending the money i really want something that will last for years in the monitor department

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Only two GX2's? Are you sure that's gonna be enough? :rolleyes:

 

This whole build screams overkill. If you're looking for something that costs a lot and looks quite impressive on paper, you've certainly listed it here. On the other hand, if you're looking for a build with great performance without spending money unnecessarily, you should really drop one of the video cards and the DDR3.

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thanks verran i was hoping you would post do you know what the advantage if any that ddr3 has over ddr2 because if there is none than i shall drop the ddr3

There is no benefit for DDR3 at the moment. Sure it runs faster, but it runs way faster than any current chip really needs. The only way you'll even see the difference is if you run a positive memory divider, and even that doesn't really show much benefit at all. Other than that, you'll just end up running DDR2 speeds at DDR3 timings (which means slower).

 

A lot of people think that if they buy fast ram, it's going to run faster. That's not always the case. Your ram is only going to run as fast as your OC will go, and I haven't seen ANY Core2 chips that are clocking higher than DDR2 will go. Plus DDR3 is like stupid expensive and DDR2 is stupid cheap. Easy decision.

 

Also, like I said, running 4 GPUs is just overkill. If you're doing it for bragging rights.... then well done. But if you're even slightly interested in getting value from your money, you should really just go with one dual GPU card.

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