Stolen comp, £3k to spend

[this_is_gav]

The Hitachis are slightly better drives

Personally I wouldn't touch the Hitachi's with an extendable barge-pole.

Seagate's and Western Digital's for me. Seagate's generally quieter, though in this case there's no Western Digital 500gb drive.

 

[Eliminos]

Opinion aside, the Hitachi is the better drives. For reliability, I'd go WD. As for Seagate, their 7200.9s are a disappointment thus letting most other companies pass them.

Like I said, splitting hairs. But if you are going to buy an expensive computer, it might aswell be composed of the best parts.

 

[Paa`]

Dont get a xtx if your going crossfire?

And i would keep the 700watt psu if you can afford it, better to have a 700 watt psu running at 60% than a 500watt psu running nearly 100% etc

 

[Tarty]

Dont get a xtx if your going crossfire?

Why? tbh I've almost always used Nvidia cards so i'm pretty much an ati noob, yet I can see they're ahead atm...

And how about :
Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)


Instead of the FSP 700w psu

Also which will run queiter 2x WD 250 hds or 2x 250 spinpoints?

 

[fenderbass86]

I'm not sure on the motherboard you've chosen, I know the Gruper has been out for a while but i've never heard anything decent about it. How about the other Sapphire motherboard? Don't bother with the 4800+, it's only 200MHz faster than the 4400+ and it's much more expensive.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Dont get a xtx if your going crossfire?

I believe he said this because the X1900XTX runs at slightly higher clocks than the X1900 crossfire edition (which runs at same clocks as X1900XT). As such he probably assumed that getting an X1900XTX would be wasted if going crossfire with the mistaken belief that the X1900XTX would downclock to the same speed of the crossfire card. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Unlike SLI where both cards must run at the same speed, this is not the case in crossfire. With crossfire different clocked cards still run at the same speeds as always, but the faster clocked card does a little more work & so you actually would get a slightly faster performance with a X1900XTX & crossfire master card than an X1900XT & crossfire master card. So by all means get the X1900XTX, there is no downside. For proof go to http://www.ati.com/technology/crossfire/faq.html.
Quote " 7. What happens when your CrossFire Edition card and and a compatible standard Radeon (CrossFire Ready) graphics card have different clock speeds? A. Both cards will continue to operate at their individual clock speeds."

The Sapphire PURE Innovation Gruper Radeon Xpress 200P is decent enough, but i beleive the MSI RD480 Neo2 Crossfire (Socket 939) is better.

 

[this_is_gav]

Opinion aside, the Hitachi is the better drives. For reliability, I'd go WD. As for Seagate, their 7200.9s are a disappointment thus letting most other companies pass them.

Like I said, splitting hairs. But if you are going to buy an expensive computer, it might aswell be composed of the best parts.

I wouldn't class "the best" as a company which 2 or 3 years back had to do a mass replacement on their drives. Fastest perhaps, yes, but to this day their failure rate is still higher than that of both WD and Seagate. Maxtor seem to have gone downhill very quickly.

 

[Eliminos]

I wouldn't class "the best" as a company which 2 or 3 years back had to do a mass replacement on their drives. Fastest perhaps, yes, but to this day their failure rate is still higher than that of both WD and Seagate. Maxtor seem to have gone downhill very quickly.

So you're judging current hard drive performances on something that happened 3 years ago? Surely by that token Hitachi would be one of the best as they will hopefully have learned from their mistakes? I'll take it you will not touch any Crucial memory with an 'extentable barge-pole' just because their top-end 1GB Ballistix modules have finally fallen over.

As for failure rate, I'd say Hitachi would be second best, behind WD. I've gone off Seagate and I think they fail more than Hitachis now.

 

[Paa`]

Samsung spintpoints or western digital's

I have a 200gig maxtor 10 already on it's way out after 1 years usage

the 10 raptor has been in use constantly sicne the day they came out and it's still going strong, along with all my really old 80gig wd drives.

thought i read somewhere about crossfire that the cards dont reduce speed but they still share everything equally and the composite chips does something, not sure what. Read it on xs forums.

 

[Amps]

Segate are widely known to be one of the most reliable harddrive manufacturers and there drives are also very quiete.

 

[this_is_gav]

So you're judging current hard drive performances on something that happened 3 years ago? Surely by that token Hitachi would be one of the best as they will hopefully have learned from their mistakes? I'll take it you will not touch any Crucial memory with an 'extentable barge-pole' just because their top-end 1GB Ballistix modules have finally fallen over.

I judge on fact. If any device fails on me more often than another, or is proven to happen to others more frequently than another, I will stay away from it until that proves not to be the case.

I was giving an example as to why I believe Hitachi cannot be "the best" for a £3,000 system. In our business I could have earned a small fortune replacing IBM/Hitachi and Maxtor drives, both after their well publicised failures in the past 5 or 6 years. I'm still replacing recent Hitachi's at work under warrenty.

I go on what I know.

And of course I wouldn't buy a Crucial Ballistix kit at the moment. It would be madness. But as far as I know, the rest of their stuff seems fine and uneffected, and if their future products are OK, then I'd have no problem grabbing them either. It's the same with Hitachi. But as things stand, from what I replace with my own hands, they're not as reliable as Seagate or WD.

 

[Tarty]

Just rememberred, that there's absolutely no use in going under budget as I won't actually get the cash difference, it'll be "lost" so going as close to or slightly over is best bet..

So from what you've all been saying:

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
GX-045-CO ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£379.95 £379.95
GX-113-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-113-SP)
£339.95 £339.95
MY-002-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£214.95 £214.95
CA-007-TT Thermaltake VA8000BWS Armour Super Tower - Black (CA-007-TT)
£76.95 £76.95
CP-146-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core FX60 (Socket 939) - Retail (ADAFX60DAA6CDBOX) (CP-146-AM)
£649.95 £649.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
CA-024-EN Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)
£89.95 £89.95
SC-034-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£77.50 £77.50
CD-016-AS Asus DRW-1608P2 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-016-AS)
£26.95 £26.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£61.95 £123.90
HS-015-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA)
£31.95 £31.95
HS-019-ZA Zalman FS-V7 Fatal1ty Copper VGA Cooler (HS-019-ZA)
£24.95 £24.95
MO-002-DE Dell Ultrasharp 2001FP 20.1" Performance LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey (359) (MO-002-DE)
£369.95 £369.95
Subtotal £2,476.85
VAT £433.45
Total £2,910.30

 

[fenderbass86]

Whoa! That's an absolute beast, Xfired XT-X's, FX60. Someone might bash the motherboard, apparently it's a bit buggy. Does anyone know what the Sapphire Crossfire board is like?

 

[Eliminos]

Thats pretty much it. An NEC ND4551 (in the Labelscribe section) is a slightly better DVD Drive. If you want to spend the full £3k you could put in a 500GB Hitachi SATA drive instead, I think that would put the price to just above £3k.

 

[Spammeh]

Complete waste of time spending £700ish quid on crossfire gfx on a tiny 20" monitor imo. Save on the FX60, go 4800+ x2, and get urself a dell 24". There really isnt anything else in the same league tbh

 

[Tarty]

Complete waste of time spending £700ish quid on crossfire gfx on a tiny 20" monitor imo. Save on the FX60, go 4800+ x2, and get urself a dell 24". There really isnt anything else in the same league tbh

the Apple 30"? or the Dell 30"? Also I think that 24" won't fit in the space i need it too on my desk.

Also i'd rather have spinpoints over hetachi's had good experiences with them...

 

[fenderbass86]

If you're happy with the stuff you've chosen after everyone's input, then go for it man! *thumb up*

 

[Monstermunch]

I'll have another go, slightly different angle this time:

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
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£84.95 £84.95
MY-002-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£214.95 £214.95
GX-087-AS Asus ATI Radeon EAX-X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-087-AS)
£424.95 £424.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£93.95 £93.95
HD-058-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 250GB ST3250824AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-058-SE)
£65.95 £131.90
CD-032-PL Plextor PX-750A 16x16 Dual Layer DVD±RW ReWriter - (Black/Beige) Retail (CD-032-PL)
£42.95 £42.95
HS-008-VP VapoChill Micro Ultra Low Noise (Socket 754/939/940) (06-L-0018) (HS-008-VP)
£29.95 £29.95
SC-032-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition - Retail (SC-032-CL)
£128.95 £128.95
CA-006-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Silver (No PSU) (CA-006-SV)
£69.50 £69.50
CA-024-EN Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)
£89.95 £89.95
MO-013-AC Acer AL2416Ws 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-013-AC)
£519.95 £519.95
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 £2,189.80
VAT £383.22
Total £2,573.02

Laves you spare change , and possibly with the option of upgrading to an extra x1900xtx and the dfi xfrire mobo which is currently out of stock.

 

[Tarty]

Oki all done, thx for help all

Just hoping all insurance money comes though ok now