New PC

[G UK]

OK, so I'm looking at building myself a new system and thought I would ask a few opinions (Zing ). It's main use is quite light but that isn't that important as I just enjoy tinkering and mucking around with both hardware and software, it must be capable of some occasional Heavy Gaming however.

First my current rig which is coming up on three years old.

Asus P5N SLI Deluxe Gaming
Intel Core2Duo E6600 (Overclocked to 2.7GHz)
Stock Cooling
2GB OCZ DDR2 667MHz (Overclocked to 700MHz)
1GB Kingston DDR2 667MHz (Overclocked to 700MHz)
2xSparkle Calibre Nvidia 7950GT 512MB cards in SLI
2x80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HD's in RAID0
500GB External USB Hard Disk
Samsung DVD-RW
Haupauge HVR1300 TV Capture Card
2x 120mm Case Fans (Cant remember the manufacture)
Cheap Case
Vista 32bit Home Premium

This Rig will be kept but dont know what for at the moment?

Right well now onto the new rig, I initially spec'ed this the other month but didn't get a chance to build it so I thought I would have another look at the prices and it seems Scan undercuts most of the others for most of the bits.

Motherboard - Asus P6T Deluxe V2 - Scan - £204.90
Processor - Intel i7 920 - Scan - £208.35
Heatsink & Fan - Akasa NeroAK967 - Scan - £23.98
Memory 1 - 6GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 - Scan - £81.79
Memory 2 - 6GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 - Scan - £81.79
Graphics 1 - XFX GTX260 Black 869MB 216 Cores - Scan - £142.90
Graphics 2 - XFX GTX260 Black 869MB 216 Cores - Scan - £142.90
Solid State Disc - 60GB OCZ SATA2 Apex Series 230MB/s Read 160MB/s Write - Aria - £143.75
Hard Disc - 1TB Maxtor DiamondMax 22, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5 ms - Scan - £62.08
Optical Drive - Pioneer BDC-202BK 5x Blu-Ray Reader Combo DVD±DL Writer - Dabs - £70.59
Case - Xclio 3060 PLUS Black Silver Midi Tower Case 36CM Side Fan - Scan - £32.14
Case Fan 1 - TR FDB-2000 Thermalright 120mm - Scan - £11.49
Case Fan 2 - TR FDB-2000 Thermalright 120mm - Scan - £11.49
Power Supply - EZcool PS1000 800w Infinity - Scan - £48.29

Total Cost: £1,266.44

The OS will be Windows 7
The monitor is my 32" HDTV (A projector is very tempting at some point though.
Speakers are Creative Inspire T7900 7.1's
I may also nick the Haupauge HVR1300 TV capture card out of my old system.

One thing I certainly want opinions on is using an SSD for the OS. Is this viable? I would like to go SSD's for games as well but I dont think this is viable cost wise as of yet so a HD will have to do although I'm tempted to get a pair of discs and Raid0 again.

Anyway I'm now rambling so, all opinions greatfully recieved

[Druchii]

Spending all that, then skimping on the PSU?

Ok first and formost do not build this system until Win7 is released if you intend to use SSD. SSD does not work correctly with any version of windows at this point. Windows 7 fixes this.

I woudl say 4870x2 over sli any day of the week but thats me power supply seems cheap but im looking at the price .

In all fairness I would say wait and see what core i5 brings leave it a few months but its upto you

[G UK]

I'm open to suggestions, I would have thought 800W would be enough and I was sure looking at the spec that it supported everything else. If there are others out there with a similar bang for my buck then I'm more than happy to listen.

The holes in my hardware knowledge are cases, cooling and PSU's so I had to simply go on the specs for those.

The case you have chosen is cheap and nasty too mate . If you want a sweet case have a look at the lian lis but I feel you need to address the sli issue my system when playing games looks spot on the games look great and I just got one card a 4870 do you really need to add another card and all its related problems ie heat proximity to everything and just why lol

[G UK]

Originally Posted by zing

Ok first and formost do not build this system until Win7 is released if you intend to use SSD. SSD does not work correctly with any version of windows at this point. Windows 7 fixes this.

I woudl say 4870x2 over sli any day of the week but thats me power supply seems cheap but im looking at the price .

In all fairness I would say wait and see what core i5 brings leave it a few months but its upto you

Thanks Zing,

I was looking at using the Windows 7.0 RC if I built prior to release anyway so thats no big deal, plus this may not be built for the next month or two anyway.

I used to like ATI's but prefer Nvidias of late but thats just me, any recommendations of the PSU?

I am always conscious that there is always another big thing around the corner so tend to bite the bullet anyway and go for it as I did with my last rig and 7950's when DX10 was just around the corner, still she has served me well. I'm not sure what benefits core i5 would give me but I've not read much about it.

it might be the 920 drops in price

[G UK]

Originally Posted by zing

The case you have chosen is cheap and nasty too mate . If you want a sweet case have a look at the lian lis but I feel you need to address the sli issue my system when playing games looks spot on the games look great and I just got one card a 4870 do you really need to add another card and all its related problems ie heat proximity to everything and just why lol

Is the case really that bad? I'm not fussed about looks and with decent cooling flow I would have thought one would be much the same as another I'll have a look at the Lis but just how do you pick a good case?

Edit: Those Lian Li's look quite good and get good reviews.

As I said I prefer Nvidias over ATI, with my current rig there is a noticeable difference when running single GPU as opposed to SLI and I have never had a problem with heat between the GPU's. I know its being awkward but the cards are one thing which I like the look of (I'm just like that sometimes )

---------- Post added at 23:36 ---------- Previous post was at 23:36 ----------

Originally Posted by zing

it might be the 920 drops in price

I get you .

[Axegrinder]

Ive known Ezcool psus to go kaboom alot, maybe try an OCZ GameXstream 850w £89 on ebuyer at the mo.

[djmagnifique]

ok, 1st don't bother with i7 unless you are going to be doing alot of graphic/video editing, its not that good for gaming. go for a top end quad core. i5 is going to be a cut back version of the i7 ( a bit like a celeron was to a pentium)

2nd don't bother with an sli setup, go for a single card solution that is towards the higher end of the market (it will give a performance just below or equal to the gtx260 sli setup), also sli can cause problems in some games. Also this will free up some extra cash for the motherboard ( or see if you can reuse your old motherboard, might need a bios flash though)

DON't touch EZcool psu's with someone elses 10 foot barge pole, they are about as good as what you use andrex toilet tissue for. go for something like a corsair. what you need to look for in a psu is what it can handle on the 12v rail(s), the corsiar TX650 can handle 25 amps on it single 12v rail. single rail psu's are more stable but multi rail psu's can usually provide mor ampage. ezcool psu's have a poor 12v rail ampage

optical drive- do you really need a blu-ray reader? do you have a stand alone blu-ray reader? if so just go for a dvdrw for now (cheaper and blu-ray burners will coe down in price in the future)

operating system. Do you already have a retail o/s? (xp/vista) if so you don't really need windows7 as xp can do all the important stuff that vista/windows7 can, it just doesn't have the fancy interface. windows7 is what vista was ment to be on release, if you have all the latest patches/service packs you should be ok.

The core i7 prices are close enough to that of the Q9 cpus now and gaming performance is not a huge quantity lower and with DDR3 prices falling the only thing really against i7 is mobo prices. I would buy i7 over Q9 in todays market

[G UK]

ok, 1st don't bother with i7 unless you are going to be doing alot of graphic/video editing, its not that good for gaming. go for a top end quad core. i5 is going to be a cut back version of the i7 ( a bit like a celeron was to a pentium)

No point upgrading then. Care to link to where it says i7 is not as good as a top end core2quad, from what I read its rather a step change?

Thats what I understood of the i5 but thats not what I am after.

2nd don't bother with an sli setup, go for a single card solution that is towards the higher end of the market (it will give a performance just below or equal to the gtx260 sli setup), also sli can cause problems in some games. Also this will free up some extra cash for the motherboard ( or see if you can reuse your old motherboard, might need a bios flash though)

I've been running SLI with no problems for 3 years so I know what I'm going for there. What would you recommend for a single card? With the prices of 280 and 290 GT's, it seems to make sense to go with a pair of 260 blacks.

I dont know much about ATI's but as Zing suggested one I may have to brush up on them.

DON't touch EZcool psu's with someone elses 10 foot barge pole, they are about as good as what you use andrex toilet tissue for. go for something like a corsair. what you need to look for in a psu is what it can handle on the 12v rail(s), the corsiar TX650 can handle 25 amps on it single 12v rail. single rail psu's are more stable but multi rail psu's can usually provide mor ampage. ezcool psu's have a poor 12v rail ampage

Noted, you're not the first to mention this so I'll look at other PSU's, thanks.

optical drive- do you really need a blu-ray reader? do you have a stand alone blu-ray reader? if so just go for a dvdrw for now (cheaper and blu-ray burners will coe down in price in the future)

I'm not interested in Blue-ray burners and this will be my first and only Blue-ray player. As the computer is connected to my TV I can use it as my Blue-ray player.

operating system. Do you already have a retail o/s? (xp/vista) if so you don't really need windows7 as xp can do all the important stuff that vista/windows7 can, it just doesn't have the fancy interface. windows7 is what vista was ment to be on release, if you have all the latest patches/service packs you should be ok.

Yes, I have 32 bit Vista which has caused no problems on my current rig, I have never understood all the poo poo'ing it has recieved, as long as you have 2GB of RAM it runs perfectly but all that is useless on my new machine as I require 64bit. XP64 is not an option as not only is it a generation behind but it was never upto scratch.

---------- Post added at 00:35 ---------- Previous post was at 00:17 ----------

Zing,
How does this sound as you're worrying about heat across the SLI set-up, I'm still not sure what else I am looking at in a case other than airflow?

2x 180mm blowing across the cards
2x 120mm Fans, 1xFront and 1xRear
2x 80mm Top Exhaust
Quick Release bays all round

Around the same price as the Lian Li's but appears to have more cooling (both intake and exhaust)

I dunno and neither will you till its built lol . I have a problem with the while sli design and thats the cards are always to close the top card will be sucking hot air off the bottom card its just something I do not thinks a good idea. I can not offer support for sli so its worth waiting for boroboi or someone to offer help in that direction

[G UK]

Originally Posted by zing

I dunno and neither will you till its built lol . I have a problem with the while sli design and thats the cards are always to close the top card will be sucking hot air off the bottom card its just something I do not thinks a good idea. I can not offer support for sli so its worth waiting for boroboi or someone to offer help in that direction

No problem, like I said I've been running with SLI for a few years now and not come across any temp problems. Its just one of those things I like, no doubt there are other solutions as you have suggested but sometimes ogic takes a back seat especielly with a toy like this

Still yours and the others help has been much appreciated, Thank You. I will take another look at the case and PSU although I think I have found a better case.

[Druchii]

Good PSU manufacturers for you to look through (These will NOT go boom easily):
OCZ
Zippy
Corsair
Thermaltake
PCP&P
Seasonic
Antec
Tagan

Good cases with regards to cable management + cooling + looks + build quality:
Coolermaster HAF932
Antec 900/902/1200

Just in case you needed any more help.