New beast

Postby **jof** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:27 am

These are tentative specs for my new PC. I'll be gaming at 1920x1200 on a 24inch LCD for now, but I would like to have flexibility in this system so that in a year or so I could swap the 8800GTX for a 9800GTX (or whatever the next gen equivalent is) and add a 32inch LCD and game at 2560 x 1600 without having to upgrade the mobo, cpu or anything else... never seems to work out that way though!

Pretty much a whole new system. Spending about $450 odd on the 5.1 speaker system. I've read some really of it and reckon it's worth the coin. Not 100% sure about the X-Fi, still need to read some more about it.

So far quad core seems to get lower fps in most games for an equivalently priced dual core but I guess I'll bank on more and more games being optimised for multicore in the future. Again, I don't want to have to buy a new CPU for at least 2 years.

So, any thoughts, especially about future upgradability of the mobo/PSU? I was gonna go 4Gb RAM but read that there are issues with 32 bit OS's going past 3Gb. I think if and when I do switch to Vista I'll go the 64 bit version when it's a lot more finished and add more RAM then.

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Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz Processor, Quad core (Kentsfield) LGA775 95w 2x 4mb cache
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 LGA775 M/B, 1333FSB, PCI-E x16, PCI-E x1, 3x PCI/PCI-E x1, 6x SATA, GigaLAN, Audio
Corsair Twin2X 2048MB 240-pin DDR2 XMS2-6400 Twin Pack (2x 1024mb sticks) w/heat spreader, 4-4-4-12
Leadtek nVidia 8800GTX 768mb PCI-E x16 video card, 2x DVI, video out
Coolermaster Realpower 1000w Modular 24-pin PSU, 13.5cm fan, 8-pin EPS, 4x PCI-Express video, 8x SATA, 6x IDE
Gigabyte Aurora 570 Silver Aluminium Case
74Gb Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM SerialATA Hard Drive, 16mb cache
2x 500Gb Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm SATA-II hard disk, 16mb cache
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer - 7.1Ch, 24-Bit Crystallizer/SoundFont, EAX5.0, 3D MIDI, CMSS 3D
Logitech Z5500D THX 5.1 speaker system w/remote, 500w
MS WindowsXP Professional, OEM
Pioneer DVR-212D Black OEM SATA DVD-RW

..ME.. · Postby **..ME..** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:34 pm

my mate at uni has that same speaker system, turns out once u go past the max value there are 8 (i think, cant remember right) jumps past "max" they are so awesome and the quality is amazing, once u get them make sure u listen to bass test by chemical brothers: its insane

as for 4 gig of ram.. a couple of mates have that much.. everything runs fine and registers as 4 gig but im not sure if it will actually use the whole lot

Postby **GURU** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:08 pm

as with me.... said u should have no probs running 4 gig of ram just that windows wont use it it all cos it is a limitation of the OS ! it will use approx 3.2gb ! u need to use 64 bit to get around that! but ther are issues with that as well! also ther r issues with the virtual memory addressing more than 2gb! i read an article on supreme commander and it was all about this virtual memory prob ! the game at ultra high settings maxs out the virtual memory and causes it to crash! mind u 4gb would NOT hurt !

the speakers totally ROCK . i actually have them myself! Just GET EM !

as u say dunno bout x-fi ? supposedly the best available!

well equivalent or not in FPS, quad core is the WAY of THe FUTUrE 4 gaming!

i aint checked all the other stuff but it looks like what u need! u have got the right odea 4 sure!

i read an article somewhere the other day about Lost Planet and how it gets like 55fps on a single core and 75fps on dual core and like 115fps on quad core ! say no more!

u want more frames per second then over clock the Q6600! u should be able to get 3ghz out of it on std everything! ie stock core voltage etc just by raising the front side bus!

just a note to manually check your ram settings cos the gigabyte baords a re very conservative with ther settings! they usually dont run then as lower latencies as they are capable of!
just remember when u r in the bios to push control / F2 to access the extra memory part!

which = the uber wanky $1500 cpu Q6850 ! all 4 $350 Q6600 @ 2.4ghz and some know how!

they say that uber wanky Mega $$$ runs the 1333fsb, well so does the Q6600 @ 3.0GHZ !

i guess it depends on how soon u want this beast to be built ? cos in the next month or so AMD will be back in the picture with BARCELONA CORE ! big time or so they say!

..ME.. · Postby **..ME..** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:36 pm

Postby **GURU** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:28 pm

..ME.. · Postby **..ME..** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:32 pm

Postby **GURU** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:35 pm

Postby **jof** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:47 pm

Postby **spud** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:07 pm

X-Fi is your only choice from Creative for Vista (lets face it, you'll be upgrading to Vista sooner or later, so with a 2 year min to upgrade you may as well spec for it), since they claim they will not be releasing drivers for any model before X-Fi. You may want to investigate alternative cards, there are decent ones out there, but I have not had cause to look into it myself.

Quad core, good choice, you can bank on future games using multi-threaded engines to take advantage of xbox360 if for no ther reason. This will ogically pass on to PC. Games are already starting to use it (SupCom, Bioshock) and Unreal Engine 3 is multi-threaded and will be a big 3rd party engine I rekon.

4GB RAM? You will need a 64-bit OS for it to be any use, due to reserved addresses and legacy memory holes and such, and especially with a 8800GTX chewing up 768MB of addressable memory (you are already down to around 2GB of Windows usable memory). goes into considerable detail.

Unless you desperately need the bling, look into the Coolmaster Stacker (CM Stacker 831). It's a fucking giant of a case, plenty of room for a upgrade path, and plenty of space for air-flow. Fantastic case (around $100 more than the GB, but I don't reckon cost is a big issue for ya)

That should give ya something to think about

Postby **jof** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:39 pm

Ha I must be the only person in the world to find the CM Stackers fugly as sin. I just don't like all those big ass grills all over it. I think for my purposes the GB is plenty big enough. I didn't think it was a bling case though... it's got that holograph thing but I'll probably dissable it anyway.

The only thing I'm still really considering is whether or not to get a SLI mobo just in case I want to go SLI in the future. At this stage I don't think I will, but for a little bit of extra cash now at least I'd have the option available if I did want to rather than kick myself I didn't. One thing I notice though looking through the SLI mobos at AusPC is all these borads have this disclaimer attached to them; "Not recommended to use with 4gb and quad-core CPUs". Although elsewhere on the same page it says "nVidia 650i SLI chipset supports P4/Core2Duo LGA775 CPUs incl quad-core". What the?

Postby **spud** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:28 pm

if you get the GB and disable the hologram thingie, then you sir, are a cunt

If you are going to go SLI then you should get a 680i chipset. They come in a "light" version now *fucking wish it was around when I was buying), it's the only "native" 16x/16x SLI chipset, and the boards are very nice. You may as well, as you said, you don't want to be cursing yourself in 12 months when you decide that 2 GTXs are the in thing.

As I understand it, the SLI chipset are a bit touchy with what RAM you dump in them, and I think that only applies to 4x1GB modules, but it may also be due to the 1.5GB of onboard RAM for 2xGTX cards? There was definitely big problems with people not being able to OC quadcore chips on SLI chipsets (specifically 680i), but since I wasn't fronting for quad I didn't check into the issues.

Problem is, if you listen to the fuckers whinging about unstable setups and shit then you'll never buy anything since there will alwaysbe a %age of people who get a dud board/card/cpu/whatever. As long as your components aren't guaranteed paperweights you rolls the dice and takes your chances

Postby **jof** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:06 pm

Ok I'll make a custom one that states "spud lubs the cawk" instead.

Ah thanks for the info, I'll have to do some more reading about those issues before making a decision.

Postby **jof** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:56 pm

Ok the bitch is ordered.

Decided against the SLI mobo... The amount of power two GTXs chew through is getting a bit ridiculous at close to 500 watts. I couldn't end up getting the GB case in black as AusPC don't stock it anymore so I decided to go with the Coolermaster Stacker 832... not overly wrapped with the side grills but at least it doesn't have that ugly ass octagonal grill on the front like the 831.

Postby **GURU** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 4:02 pm

sweet ! ther JOf ! here comes some GAMING NIRVANA ! hehe

Postby **spud** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:29 pm

nice one! Your e-cock is now bigger than bandits, and, by the transitive property, also bigger than Leo's

The Stacker keeps everything nice and cool. All through winter my cpu was never above 25, and thats with a heating duct pointing right at it (yep, poor planning, but what can I do? At least it keeps my balls warm while I'm wackin off to internet sluts)

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