Check my spec please

[soundwave]

Hey all,

Well my parents are upgrading at home to a new laptop which means I can steal their old ATX size case, Monitor, HDD, Mouse & keyboard
Now I've asked recently about some gaming rigs & never got round to buying them
So have changed my mind slightly because I can get at their old stuff to keep my expense down slightly.

So now I just need to change all the insides & have been thinking about the following for a possibly nice new gaming setup...

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA_P35_DS3R £82.24

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33Ghz £111.61

GFX - OCUK GeForce 880GTS 320MB £178.59

PSU - OCZ GameXstream 700W PSU £82.24

Ram - GeIL 2GB PC6400C4 DDR2 £46.99 (This week only offer)

Is that all I need??

Only question I do have is that the M/Board is still compatible with IDE HDD's?
The one in the old rig is a generic 160GB IDE based one which I'd like to keep if I can.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Neil

 

[stickroad]

Looks good only thing i would consider changing would the power supply to the Corsair 520 and then with the money you saved from that up the GPU to the 8800GTS 640 version.

As to your questions, that motherboard only has 1 IDE port. Your hard drive should be fine along with one other IDE DVD Drive.

 

[mattyj1085]

I would get a cheaper CPU either a E2140/E2160 as both these will clock to 3ghz+, as above power supply youve spec'ed seems a bit overkill

 

[Teaf]

Ram - GeIL 2GB PC6400C4 DDR2 £46.99

Phenominal price that!

Your system looks great, and stickroads advise is sound. If you can afford it however you can upgrade the E6550 to the E6750 for about another £15 which is a better chip and the only worthy top end dual core chip at the moment for Core 2's (E6850 = rubbish).

 

[soundwave]

Phenominal price that!

Your system looks great, and stickroads advise is sound. If you can afford it however you can upgrade the E6550 to the E6750 for about another £15 which is a better chip and the only worthy top end dual core chip at the moment for Core 2's (E6850 = rubbish).

I know which is why I've just ordered the Ram so I dont miss out on the Offer price

As for the CPU I can happily stretch to the extra £14 if I drop the PSU down to the Corsair 520W
Only reason I specced the 700w one was because in the spec box for the 8800GTS it recommended 500w min but 600w+ was better so just thought too much was better

I will look into the 640MB card as well.
Would this BFG model be ok??
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-095-LT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=927

It's actually cheaper than the OCUK version

Thanks for the input guys.

Neil

 

[stickroad]

Yes that card will be fine.

Coresair 520 will be easily enough power. They are very high quality PSUs. You could run a 8800 GTX, Quad Core, 4GB of Memory of one. Fantastic PSUs.

 

[Teaf]

Only reason I specced the 700w one was because in the spec box for the 8800GTS it recommended 500w min but 600w+ was better so just thought too much was better

Yeah I think that came in with all the hype surrounding large power PSU's and everyone was going a bit crazy with the wattage on PSUs. Corsair however just said it's all lies, released "low" wattage PSUs and provded everyone that they were pretty much correct

I will look into the 640MB card as well.
Would this BFG model be ok??
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-095-LT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=927

I'd rather take the OcUK 2900 XT, comes with a free game, same price near enough (£1 difference) and is arguably a better card. Your Corsair HX520W would compliment it nicely also, as it's the same card and PSU I have and works wonders.

 

[soundwave]

Yes that card will be fine.

Coresair 520 will be easily enough power. They are very high quality PSUs. You could run a 8800 GTX, Quad Core, 4GB of Memory of one. Fantastic PSUs.

Thanks for that, Well I will add one of those PSU's instead then.

I'd rather take the OcUK 2900 XT, comes with a free game, same price near enough (£1 difference) and is arguably a better card. Your Corsair HX520W would compliment it nicely also, as it's the same card and PSU I have and works wonders.

Hmmm now there's food for thought, hadnt even considered the Nvidia cards will deffinitley look into the 2900 now then.
Is there a big difference in perfomance between the two?

Thanks again guys.

Neil

 

[Teaf]

Is there a big difference in perfomance between the two?

Nothing really huge, but enough to take it over a GTS in my opinion. Especially with the newest drivers. Although I would point out that (as other people will) the 2900 XT uses quite a bit more power than the GTS, but it's perfectly fine on the HX520W. These pics were from a 2-3 month old review at Tweaktown that compared a 2900 XT to an 8800 Ultra, 2900 XT was using Catalyst 7.5 (outdated now, we're up to 7.9) and Ultra was using 158.22 (also outdated, onto about 163.69 I think). Some sites a more biased than others however, so I wouldn't expect the numbers to be dead on but they won't be far off.

The problem with the 2900 XT is it's AA performance. It doesn't do AA as well as the 8800 GTS 640MB that's for sure, sucks more power and is noiser when the card is being used in games. But it's also a bit faster, and you get a free game. So I guess it's 50/50 in most cases and if you can put up with the extra power usage and hope that AA is sorted in future driver released for ATI or games start making use of ATI's method of shader based AA then you'll be golden with a 2900 XT, if not then you'll also be golden with a 8800 GTS 640MB. Either way it's win / win, it's just a case of weighing up the two cards and picking which one you feel more comfortable with.

 

[soundwave]

Thanks for the review snippet Flibby much appreciated.

There is a fair difference in performance between the two cards in most applications thinking I may lean towards the 2900 now only down side is that extra power consumption but if you think it's ok with the 520w PSU then I think I'll live with it.

Oh other thing is with the AA performance, does it make a huge difference to how the games look??
Will I notice anything considering I'll be moving up from a 9800SE AIW??

Thanks again

Neil

 

[Schizophonic]

Thanks for the review snippet Flibby much appreciated.

There is a fair difference in performance between the two cards in most applications thinking I may lean towards the 2900 now only down side is that extra power consumption but if you think it's ok with the 520w PSU then I think I'll live with it.

Oh other thing is with the AA performance, does it make a huge difference to how the games look??
Will I notice anything considering I'll be moving up from a 9800SE AIW??

Thanks again

Neil

Hell yeah!

AA with looks so much better and much cleaner.

But i want to know, if i'm using 1650 x 1200 or whatever it is for my Dell Widescreen, will i see much different from 2 x AA or 4 x AA?

 

[Teaf]

There is a fair difference in performance between the two cards in most applications thinking I may lean towards the 2900 now only down side is that extra power consumption but if you think it's ok with the 520w PSU then I think I'll live with it.

Aye you'll find be on a HX520W, same as what I run and it's perfectly fine.

Oh other thing is with the AA performance, does it make a huge difference to how the games look??

It is a concern, for quite a few people, but I rarely notice a problem and to be honest 4x AA is enough for me, anything higher is just luxury and when not concentrating on the edges of objects 4xAA makes it look smooth

Will I notice anything considering I'll be moving up from a 9800SE AIW??

MASSIVE upgrade. I upgraded from a 7600 GT and even I was stunned at the performance increase, so you coming from a 9800SE (which I actually owned once upon a time) is just going to be such a huge increase in graphical power.

 

[soundwave]

Aye you'll find be on a HX520W, same as what I run and it's perfectly fine.

Consider it bought then...there's one in the MM which I'm quite tempted by at the moment

It is a concern, for quite a few people, but I rarely notice a problem and to be honest 4x AA is enough for me, anything higher is just luxury and when not concentrating on the edges of objects 4xAA makes it look smooth

Well tbh I havent gamed on a PC in about 2 years now so to me I dont think it will be a huge loss really & I dont honestly think my TFT will be upto really high res's anyway so as long as everything is fine at about 1280 x 768 then I think I'll be happy anyway

MASSIVE upgrade. I upgraded from a 7600 GT and even I was stunned at the performance increase, so you coming from a 9800SE (which I actually owned once upon a time) is just going to be such a huge increase in graphical power.

Show's you the last time I really played anything doesnt it??
HL2, Doom 3 & Unreal Tournament were all prefectly happy running on that & they were the last games I bought for the PC

But lately there has been more & more appearing that I'd like to play so thought it was about time I did something about that & got back into my PC gaming

Thanks for all this it's really been appreciated.

Neil