Spec Check before I order :)

[payingattention]

I'm looking to build a new system in the next few weeks, and now seems like a good time to start buying, after the recent Core2 Duo price drops.

This is what my basket looks like now:

This will be going in my Cooler Master Mystique 631 case, with an Antec Phantom 500W PSU. My budget is around the £1000 mark, and I'm going to be using this system for everything, from gaming (mostly Source games at the moment, hence the DX9 card) through encoding and compiling to running development web servers (in the background while I game, hence why I want lots of RAM). I'll also be migrating my RAID 5 array and hope to run that using the Intel storage matrix drivers. (3 seagate 7200.10 drives).

If you have a few minutes, please let me know of any compatibility issues you can see, and any changes you'd make to squeeze some more performance out of the budget.

Thanks

 

[Jay123]

Whats your budget, I wont go for the ATi x1950, Go for the nvidia 8800 series.

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'd probably change the motherboard for either one based on the 965P chipset such as the DS3P or the nForce 650 chipset such as the Asus P5N-E SLi as both are cheaper to the tune of about £30.

I'd probably drop the Raptor as it is very expensive for the additional performance when a Seagate 7200.10 or Western Digital AAKS drive won't be far behind but much cheaper and with hugely more storage.

Then with the cash saved I'd go for an 8800GTS, ignore the DX10 part and it is still the fastest DX9 card out (aside from the 8800GTX if course).

 

[payingattention]

Thanks for the feedback,

I've decided to go for an 8800GTS instead of the X1950 Pro. At first I was loath to spend an extra £100 on graphics, and assumed that the 8800 cards would be power-hungry, hot and noisy, whereas I love a quiet computer. Having read some reviews though, it seems that the 8800GTS is actually a quiet, cool card, which reassured me a lot.

It's hard for me not to want a Raptor, since I've been used to having one for over 3 years now. When I bought my first Raptor I was really surprised at the difference it made to loading times in games. The number of times I loaded into multiplayer games before anybody else and got first dibs on vehicles made it well worth it. I know that new drives like the Seagate 7200.10 have impressive data transfer speeds (I have three of them, so I'm not worried about capacity either), but it seems to me that it's low seek time that really matters in gaming performance. Correct me if I'm wrong...

As for the motherboard, I'm still undecided, thanks for the suggestions though, I'll definitely consider those.

 

[Barghest]

Ditch the Vista for the moment...

 

[electric ant]

Ask yourself if you really need the Ulitmate version of Vista, could save nearly £60 and get the Premium version instead.