Spec a 2k gaming rig, would be great !

[Apatche64]

gte the bigger monitor mate, you will regret it in the end if not, your moniotr is the only thing your likely to keep at the end when you upgrade next. the 1900xt should be fine for a year or so...

 

[saboy]

You can have 2 nvidia cards with sli mobo which is sli or 2 ati cards with crossfire mobo which is cross fire or have one card on anymobo

I know what they mean , im just not sure whats best for me to go for ,, wether I should get the 2405 is also another hard choice to make purely for gaming, some people say there is some ghosting, others dont, then somesay under 12ms refresh rate for gaming monitors, this machine is gonna be used purely for gaming.


The main things that are hard choices to make, are the gfx card/s, wether i should go with crossfire, or just one card on its own. in a non crossfire board.


help !! lol

 

[p4radox]

So ill informed.. the Asus is a fine board and GREAT for gaming. I am just about to install my second one and they are very good. The issues with them are centered primarally around higher voltages used by extreme overclockers. OCuK also use the Asus in their mega overclocked rig they sell.. if OCuK think it's good enough.. then it ought to be good enough for anyone.

The Asus is the best Crossfire board around and the biggest thing going for them is the sound, second biggest thing is the fact that they run at a bargain price. You do not need an additional board until your VERY heavily into music.

Fair enough. I just remember reading through various reviews and threads about them, and finding a number of issues with stability etc. Maybe these have been ironed out with firmware/Bios/driver updates.
Personally I also wouldn't go anywhere near SLI/Crossfire at all, not just for the financial reasons I outlined above, but also because quite a few people seem to have issues setting it up. I'm sure when someone knows what they're doing then things are fine, but maybe it's not the right option for saboy. A simple machine with high quality parts would do nicely.

Bigdom - how is the Asus? what's your max stable overclock?

 

[BigDom]

I'm not pushing for a high overclock but I've got 2.2ghz out of my 3800 without any problems ( think it's still at default voltage ) and she's rock solid.

 

[kinggost]

I know what they mean , im just not sure whats best for me to go for ,, wether I should get the 2405 is also another hard choice to make purely for gaming, some people say there is some ghosting, others dont, then somesay under 12ms refresh rate for gaming monitors, this machine is gonna be used purely for gaming.


The main things that are hard choices to make, are the gfx card/s, wether i should go with crossfire, or just one card on its own. in a non crossfire board.


help !! lol

I play bf2 all days long on it amazing

 

[saboy]

Fair enough. I just remember reading through various reviews and threads about them, and finding a number of issues with stability etc. Maybe these have been ironed out with firmware/Bios/driver updates.
Personally I also wouldn't go anywhere near SLI/Crossfire at all, not just for the financial reasons I outlined above, but also because quite a few people seem to have issues setting it up. I'm sure when someone knows what they're doing then things are fine, but maybe it's not the right option for saboy. A simple machine with high quality parts would do nicely.

Bigdom - how is the Asus? what's your max stable overclock?

so its not that sli/crossfire has problems its the problems that could arise from someone that doesnt know how to set it up correctly ?

well ive done a normal setup before, and would love to try a sli/crossfire system , atm im more interested in a crossfire system, but not sure to first get one really good card, then later on upgrade to a second one or get 2 identical ones.

 

[Monstermunch]

CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£299.95 £299.95
MY-008-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ) (MY-008-GS)
£129.95 £129.95
GX-112-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£299.95 £599.90
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
BU-000-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache RAID Bundle (BU-000-WD)
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 2
£197.90 £197.90
HD-070-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£79.95 £79.95
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE)
£25.50 £25.50
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
CA-006-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Silver (No PSU) (CA-006-SV)
£69.50 £69.50
CA-005-HP Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.95 £54.95
MO-045-VS Viewsonic VP930 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-045-VS)
£299.95 £299.95
KB-069-LG Logitech G5 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse (KB-069-LG)
£37.95 £37.95
KB-000-SL SpeedLink Ultra SL-6465 Flat Metal Keyboard (KB-000-SL)
£19.95 £19.95
Subtotal £1,900.35
VAT £332.57
Total £2,232.92


A little over budget but basically the nuts!

 

[Eliminos]

CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£299.95 £299.95
MY-008-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ) (MY-008-GS)
£129.95 £129.95
GX-112-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£299.95 £599.90
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
BU-000-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache RAID Bundle (BU-000-WD)
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 2
£197.90 £197.90
HD-070-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£79.95 £79.95
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE)
£25.50 £25.50
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
CA-006-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Silver (No PSU) (CA-006-SV)
£69.50 £69.50
CA-005-HP Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.95 £54.95
MO-045-VS Viewsonic VP930 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-045-VS)
£299.95 £299.95
KB-069-LG Logitech G5 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse (KB-069-LG)
£37.95 £37.95
KB-000-SL SpeedLink Ultra SL-6465 Flat Metal Keyboard (KB-000-SL)
£19.95 £19.95
Subtotal £1,900.35
VAT £332.57
Total £2,232.92


A little over budget but basically the nuts!

Why put two raptors in? Raided performance is a negligable increase. If you really want a raptor get a 36GB one and just put windows and games on it, and buy a 200/250 hitachi for everything else.

Secondly, why that RAM. I have it, its fair but I wouldn't say its amazing. Especially with £2k to spend: I'd really consider Redline or EB.

Thirdly, in my experience I have found Tagan PSUs to be generally more satisying than Hipers. The 580W Easycon is a little on the expensive side at £91 but for £70 you can get the 530W which I reckon will power that system fine.

 

[semi-pro waster]

GX-112-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£299.95 £599.90
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE)
£25.50 £25.50

Aside from the Hiper which has been picked up on, doesn't have dual 12v rails either so not ideal for SLi I don't think

You need a master card to use Crossfire so you would have to put one of them in.

The DVDRW has been superceded by the NEC 4551(in the Lightscribe/Lightflash bit of the website), although the 4550 is still a fine drive.

Since up until now I've only been looking over others specifications I feel I should actually contribute. I don't know about the mouse and keyboard so I've left you some change in the budget to get whatever you want with, that is totally an issue of personal choice.

MO-013-AC Acer AL2416Ws 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-013-AC)
£529.95 £529.95
GX-045-CO ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£379.95 £379.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£289.95 £289.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-048-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-048-WD)
£54.95 £54.95
CA-024-EN Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)
£89.95 £89.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£154.95 £154.95
Subtotal £1,667.55
VAT £291.83
Total £1,959.38

 

[Eliminos]

^ Finally, someone with enough sense not to be obsessed with raiding raptors, current stepping dual-core opterons and pointlessly SLIing 512gtxs

 

[ACESHIGH]

Aside from the Hiper which has been picked up on, doesn't have dual 12v rails either so not ideal for SLi I don't think

You need a master card to use Crossfire so you would have to put one of them in.

The DVDRW has been superceded by the NEC 4551(in the Lightscribe/Lightflash bit of the website), although the 4550 is still a fine drive.

Since up until now I've only been looking over others specifications I feel I should actually contribute. I don't know about the mouse and keyboard so I've left you some change in the budget to get whatever you want with, that is totally an issue of personal choice.

MO-013-AC Acer AL2416Ws 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-013-AC)
£529.95 £529.95
GX-045-CO ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£379.95 £379.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£289.95 £289.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-048-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-048-WD)
£54.95 £54.95
CA-024-EN Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)
£89.95 £89.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£154.95 £154.95
Subtotal £1,667.55
VAT £291.83
Total £1,959.38

Looks good.

Definitely go X1900XT (Nvidia cards are too overpriced for slower performance at present)

 

[BigDom]

Do you plan on crossfireing in the future. If so then getting the Master card is ok, if not then I've read that the XT and XT-X slave ones have better overclocking potential.

 

[saboy]

Thanks everyone for all your replys, i am pretty set on the components, but ive been looking at monitors and reviews in the monitor section, and ive seen the phillips 20 inch widescreen one ? and was thinking about getting it rather than spending the 822 on the dell one, which i think is too much for a monitor for myself, how is the acer one that was specced above like in gaming, or should i go look in the monitor section ?

 

[Monstermunch]

Why put two raptors in? Raided performance is a negligable increase. If you really want a raptor get a 36GB one and just put windows and games on it, and buy a 200/250 hitachi for everything else.

Secondly, why that RAM. I have it, its fair but I wouldn't say its amazing. Especially with £2k to spend: I'd really consider Redline or EB.

Thirdly, in my experience I have found Tagan PSUs to be generally more satisying than Hipers. The 580W Easycon is a little on the expensive side at £91 but for £70 you can get the 530W which I reckon will power that system fine.

Firstly i've heard that ram isn't so important with the opti's, as for the raptors then its his choice, I know that raid is as much of a cop out as SLI is IMO I would buy neither. Personally I would have 1 raptor & 1 gfx card.

As far as the PSU goes I would have to disagree. I have been reading various things recently to suggest up to 600w for sli. I have also just recieved an email response from Sapphire directly stating that their reccomendation for the new x1900xtx is 500w single card and 600w for dual.

 

[Eliminos]

You're always going to need good RAM if you're going to overclock. And with a system like that you just have to. So the G.Skill wouldn't be a choice when you could spend £70 more and get Redline. Like someone else said [forgot who] the Hiper doesn't have split 12V rails. I suggested 530W for a single card [your] system and if we was tight on budget. 580W is what I suggested for dual cards [my suggestion]. Also the Hiper gets very hot (or at least my old Type-R did), and my current Tagan only pushes luke warm air.


edit: I have my G.Skill running at 3-4-3-8. Thats it, that is as tight as it will go at 250MHz. Considering the Redline is rated for 3-3-2-8, I'd go for that.

 

[saboy]

I dont really want to overclock, if it does come to it, i would only overclock in the far future or just buy a better cpu, ram , etc,.

 

[saboy]

Ive decieded to make a spec myself here it is, tell me what u think


REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
MO-009-NE NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-009-NE)
£349.95 £349.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£93.95 £93.95
CA-002-SS Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS)
£87.95 £87.95
GX-045-CO ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£379.95 £379.95
CD-002-HP HP dvd840i Dual Layer 16x LightScribe DVD±RW ReWriter - Retail (Black) (CD-002-HP)
£37.95 £37.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£289.95 £289.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£139.95 £139.95
CA-089-CM CoolerMaster Ammo 533 Aluminum (No PSU) - Silver (CA-089-CM)
£46.80 £46.80
KB-024-LG Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse & Steelpad S&S Bundle - Retail (KB-024-LG)
£24.95 £24.95
KB-066-LG Logitech Media Keyboard Elite - Retail (KB-066-LG)
£16.95 £16.95
SC-034-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£77.50 £77.50
SP-006-LG Logitech Z-680 THX® Certified 5.1 450 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-006-LG)
£148.00 £148.00
Subtotal £1,763.80
VAT £308.67
Total £2,072.47


I thought i would throw in a speaker system as well, but not sure if i should be getting another gfx card or not, tell me what you think

 

[semi-pro waster]

Looks basically fine although the HP drives are overpriced when NEC does the same function cheaper and at least as well.

Seasonic do make some of the best PSUs so good choice, it isn't modular however although I don't know if that is important to you.

74gb isn't a huge amount of space, I've got 600gb spread across 3 drives and I'm using well over half but maybe you won't need all that much.

The soundcard isn't strictly necessary as onboard sound is pretty good now but if you are going to buy fairly expensive speakers I guess you might as well

 

[BigDom]

Agree with Semi on the sound. Pointless when your using a mobo with the HD sound system ( which is ALMOST as good as an X-Fi ) which is by far the best mobo sound around.

Unless your planning on going Crossfire in *** future go for the XT or the XT-X slave cards and save even more cash .

I'd also go modular on the PSU - makes it a LOT easy to keep routing inside the case neat.

 

[saboy]

im a newbie when it comes to psu, but i no the basics, what is modular ???