High-end Gaming machine

[Bob_the_lost]

It'll do the job but it's not what i'd have built by a long way, if you can i'd cancel the order, the only thing that really matters in a gaming computer is the graphics card and unless you found a steal on the 7900GTX...

Motherboard = Meh. CPU = Meh. Monitor = Small. PSU = Crap (useable crap but still crap) GPU = Overpriced for performance. Thinking about it you don't need that much graphics card for that screen anyway. You'd be much better off with a 7900GT/7950GT/X1900XT (256)/X1900XT (512).

 

[The Pious Pawn]

I order mine friday !! roll on the gf's pay day

 

[Sunray]

I've just ordered my new PC. Yay.

I went for the spec below for just over £1,000.

ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
AMD64 Athlon X2 4600+ 1Mb cache AM2
2.0GB DDR2 533mhz (2 x 1GB)

Hard Disk Drive: 300GB S-ATA2 3.0Gb/s 16MB buffer
Second Hard Disk Drive: 300GB S-ATA2 3.0Gb/s 16MB buffer
Optical Drive: 16x Double-Layer DVD+/-RW
Second Optical Drive: 16x/48x DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo
Graphics card: NVidia GeForce 7900GTX PCI-E 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI/TV
Monitor: 19’’ Widescreen TFT Monitor
PSU: 600W Thermaltake Toughpower PSU

I'm going to grab my Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX from my current machine.

Should arrive in the next few days. Having stopped mid-week drinking I needed a new machine to pass away the long winter nights.

Thats a decent spec machine.

With only a 19" screen a GTO version of the Graphics card would have been a better option simply because unless you go to more than 1280x1024 (1440x900 for w/s) most games will not tax that GTX and that is the max your gonna get on that monitor. Would have looked at a nice 21" WS LCD that can do 1900x1200 as thats HighDef and a HD-DVD. Your PC is going to be the 1st thing capable of playing HD in the house.

Aero will work well, I've the RC1 of vista if your interested.

 

[TonkaToy]

Thats for the +wealthy/-sense amongst us.

Who the fuck is desperate for 4 GPU's in their machine.

* looks in mirror.

I'm not desperate for 4 GPUs, but I could do with a second thankyouverymuch!

 

[miss minnie]

Guild mates playing EQ2 gave up on Vista RC1 due to problems but are reporting that RC2 has fixed it.

Found myself pressing 'Confirm Order' this morning (I blame last night's vodka), hope I've not done anything stupid...

Abit AW9D MAX SKT 775 7.1 Channel Audio PCI-E
Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 4mb Cache Boxed In
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB GDDR4 256bit ViVO PCI-E
Corsair (TWIN2X2048-6400) XMS2-6400 2048MB 5-5-5-12 2X240 DIMM Black XMS2 Heat Spreader
Speeze (EE512S7) QuadroFlow V Socket 775 Cooling fan
Antec P180 Black SPCR Advanced Super Mid Tower - No PSU
Antec NEO HE550GB 550W Modular PSU With 80mm Low Speed/noise Fan 18db

Drives will come from current box until I can get a certain Raptor I want, new monitor I hope before xmas. Room for 2nd ATI, more RAM, sound etc. as and when I can afford it, but this setup should be good enough for my game.

 

[sleaterkinney]

LD, Why didn't you go for a Core 2 Duo?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

miss minnie: Gorgeous computer but unless you overclock you did splurge a fair bit on the RAM and i doubt you do The rest is nitpicking, which i can do till the cows come home. I wouldn't bother with the raptor, unless you play BF2 it's not worth it.

 

[TonkaToy]

LD, Why didn't you go for a Core 2 Duo?

Intel investing billions into Israel is good enough a reason for me to stick to AMD!

 

[Loki]

^ My understanding is that it's US government (ie. taxpayers') money in a roundabout deal. Another thread really.

 

[LDR]

Right, I'm going to cancel the monitor on my order and look for a 21". I'll also see if I can change the power supply.
My current monitor is a tiny 14" so it's a big jump.

Cheers for the advice guys. Buying desktops for work is very different than buying a home machine for games.

 

[LDR]

Actually, I've decided to keep the 19" for my old PC so my Good Lady Wife can surf the net while I'm saving the world on my new one.

Now to do some research on monitors.

 

[miss minnie]

miss minnie: Gorgeous computer but unless you overclock you did splurge a fair bit on the RAM and i doubt you do The rest is nitpicking, which i can do till the cows come home. I wouldn't bother with the raptor, unless you play BF2 it's not worth it.

eqII - would really like to speed up the instance and texture loading. will return the current HDD to the current machine at some point anyway and get a new one for vista on the core2 box so i may as well get one with fast i/o as the new box is gonna be for gaming. but no hurry. quite like the sims too and raptor benchmarks waaay higher than any other hdd for that.

yeah, the ram is a wee bit ott, it was all a blurry-eyed impulse buy i'm afraid (still a bit drunk from night before ). i tend to alternate box upgrades between very cheap and best i can afford, this current box has served me very well and cost £300 2 years ago from ebuyer blowout deals.

i was originally going to save some dosh by getting a pentium d for the new rig and overclocking it but then the core2 came down in price so got it on a whim. i was like... well, i'm spending this much whats another £100...

 

[Rikbikboo]

decent for a grand...
4800x2 cpu
msi mother board (sli or ati crossfire compatible)
2 gig ram 4 if poss
2 video cards (x1800xt 512)
or 2 1900xt 256.s
decentpower suppply
a box u like
400gb hard drive

should all be attainable on a grand seeing as socket 939 has fallen so much in price. even socket m2 is reasonably cheap.

me.. i just got a luvverly 160gb western digital raptor drive to go into my comp. just too lazy to fit it right now.

"amd x2 4800cpu
4gb ocuk ram cas 2
2x x1950xtx (still selling my old x1800xt 512's cheep
4gb iram ram drive from gigabyte
asus xfire mobo
1x 120 gb sata drive
1x 200gb sata drive
1x 160gb raptor drive
shiney box
dvdrw dvd etc
water cooled.

its faaaaaaaaast.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Actually, I've decided to keep the 19" for my old PC so my Good Lady Wife can surf the net while I'm saving the world on my new one.

Now to do some research on monitors.

If you can wait and be bothered to find someone who'll ship it from the US then that's where to buy. Example:

UK 24" Dell 2407WFP = £630
US 24" Dell 2407WFP = $680 ie £366

Add in 17.5% import tax and say $50 for shipping and you're still looking at a bargain compared to the UK's pricing. For the price we'd pay in the UK for the 24" you can almost get a 30" in the US

The same sorts of ratios are around for other monitors, £240 for a 20" LCD that sells for $280.

It'd take a fair bit of research to find a US retailer that has what you want and will ship to the UK but it's doable. he margins are there on other parts, RAM, Graphics cards, CPUs and motherboards are a bit cheaper but not buy that much but the monitors are stupidly overpriced in the UK and the rest of europe.

 

[Sunray]

If you want a good one then be prepared to pay money.

The viewsonics are probably the best out there. It might be worth getting one which has HDCP support so it can display protected content from Vista. If it does not have this, all you will see is a black box/screen.

I saw an article on the inquirer the other day that said that Dell were about to ship a 20" with this feature very soon for a reasonable price.

 

[lobster]

Intel investing billions into Israel is good enough a reason for me to stick to AMD!

any links ?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

any links ?

The team that developed Conroe (i think they also did the pentium M as well) were israel based.

 

[lobster]

The team that developed Conroe (i think they also did the pentium M as well) were israel based.

does that inherently mean that the team is supported by the israeli goverment?
otherwise its irrational boycott

I would doubt AMD are an ethical company??
Its interesting that apple admitted sweatshop labour to make there products, i wonder if thats effected their sales...

 

[Bob_the_lost]

HDCP is not a major worry at the moment, most of the motion picture groups have said they won't be implementing it in the near future on the discs (as it'd really piss of those who've bought non HDCP 32" screens). Also I think that you don't get a blank screen, it's a lower resolution signal instead. Not fatal on a 20" screen.

 

[LDR]

Well, it arrived about an hour ago without the monitor or keyboard and mouse.

Fuck me, the box is heavy. I got one of those flash cooler cases and it really weighs it down. Looks cool as fuck too.

Just as well I'm working from home today.

 

[Sunray]

Well, it arrived about an hour ago without the monitor or keyboard and mouse.

Fuck me, the box is heavy. I got one of those flash cooler cases and it really weighs it down. Looks cool as fuck too.

Just as well I'm working from home today.

What monitor did you order?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Well, it arrived about an hour ago without the monitor or keyboard and mouse.

Fuck me, the box is heavy. I got one of those flash cooler cases and it really weighs it down. Looks cool as fuck too.

Just as well I'm working from home today.

Some companies like ebuyer ship seperate packages from seperate warehouses. I got three different boxes when i got my last machine.