Looking to get a new PC pretty soon which is mainly for gaming & porn, this is version 1.08 of my shopping list for the computer. Any recommendations, comments, reasons on why I should use "this" instead of "that", then post away

(Updated)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit (Own)

MotherBoard A: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58+ICH10R QPI 6.4GT/s DDR3 2000
or
MotherBoard B: ASUS S1366 P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Processor LGA1366 2.66GHz 8MB Cache CPU
CPU Fan: Zalman Intel CNPS9900LED
Graphics Card: Gigabyte nVidia GTX295 PCI-E 2.0 1792MB DDR3
RAM: OCZ 6G(3x2G) DDR3 10666 Platinum CL-7-7-7-20
System Hard Disk: OCZ 60G Vertex Series SSD
SSD Bracket: OCZ Solid State Drive 3.5 Adaptor Bracket
Games Hard Disk: Seagate SATAII NCQ 1.5TB 7200RPM 32mb Cache
DVD RW Drive: Samsung 22X DVDRW Black SATA

Sound Card A: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro
or
Sound Card B: PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro
or
Sound Card C : None & use onboard sound?

Headset: Zalman ZM-RS6F+M
Power Supply: Corsair HX-620 ATX Power Supply 120mm fan Dual PCI-E Graphics Card Connector 8 SATA Connectors
Case: CoolerMaster CM Stacker 810 ATX (Own)
Mouse: Logitech G9 Laser Gaming Mouse USB (Own)
Keyboard: Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard (Own)

Make my epenis GROW!

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0697/14.jpg

That should live up to expectations I think....

Have you replaced that massive CRT yet?

well you dont have a monitor listed, so i assume you have one. if so then get a second one - unless your strapped for cash then i think it'd be pretty useful

How much is this costing you?

is it just seagate 1tb or the 1.5tb aswell that had the problems?

how many fps in Q3a ? :P

If you're running 1680x1050 or less, just get the GTX275.

If you're not overclocking, I don't think you need the cpu fan - the standard fan is good enough.

asus

get better ram.

nevermind.


sweet setup, looks good.

So much wank factor... just get a dell 30" :P

They're true 24-bit IPS panels in those Dells = image bliss ^_^

Most LCDs these days are s***ty TN panels with only 18-bit color.

What Mr Hardware said: ASUS (P6T Deluxe v2)

Also, don't get the old PCI version of Xfi, get the PCI-E version

While that seems a decent PSU, I'd up it to at least a 750w to leave you some headroom.

get an ssd for operating system disk

Re: Sound Card

Yea looked at fancy new PCI_E one, bit of a price jump from the old one, & the old one can do 6 channels & that's what I really want mainly out of my sound so & can hear whats behind me etc. With "that" said, maybe the the following part will suffice for that?...

Re : Asus P6T Deluxe V2

Little but more pricey, but I shall research that, thanks. Note I'm not looking to overclock anything just yet.

Re : SSD System Hard disk

Alot more pricey, is SSD worth "that" much over 10000rpm in speed?


Thanks for the input guys, keep it up :)

on the epenis scale I'd say thats about 10 inches

Speaking from experience, Xfi PCI version was designed for XP. PCI-E was designed for Vista

Driver support and Entertainment/Game etc mode style software is much more apparent. My old XFi Fatality Platinum didn't have the same level of capabilty (software wise) in Vista that my new Titanium does.

FYI:
If anyone wants my old Xfi Fatality Champion rig, $100
Also have an Auzentech Xfi Forte 7.1 (5 weeks old) for $200

The only thing I'd question is the need for a dedicated sound card. Last time I had one was when the SB Live! 128 was all the rage. Since then I've been more than happy with onboard chips.

Raven, I agree with you to a point if your listening to games etc through cheap headphones or s***ty speakers.
After using having a decent speakers (& headphones for that matter) and trying both onboard and dedicated, dedicated wins hands down. Once upon a time, people used to validate dedicated cards by way of freeing up resources. With the sheer grunt of modern computing, this is now negligible.

For me, it's all about the quality of sound. I notice the difference and so do my neighbours :P

Alot more pricey, is SSD worth "that" much over 10000rpm in speed?

A good one, yes.

Nice one

That's identical to my rig, well the top specs anyway. Although I got one of those 120gig SSD drives for my main.

I'm sure you'll have fun with it!

8-)

Had a quick read of a couple of comparisons while Googling SSD Vs 10000rpm, though the SSDs are definitely better, they are to pricey for me at the moment to warrant a purchase for me.

And fracture yes, I still have the 120hz beast that is my massive CRT monitor :) The monitor purchase is further down the track, if they are worth it (another thread for a later date me thinks)

Speaking of old school, do you still run the Coles Cutting Pad?

What's the specs for Porn Hard Disk?

Speaking of old school, do you still run the Coles Cutting Pad?

sadly no, it warped on the heat. Plus meat juice stains didn't come out.

http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v184/230/61/663561415/n663561415_904348_7915.jpg

last edited by The GuVna at 09:09:17 09/Jun/09

Guv, http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3531

IMO, buying a decent ssd over a velociraptor will benefit you much more than a gtx 295 over a gtx 285

Mr eXemplar, you have changed my opinion, I gotta learn to google better :(
Evidence & fact goes along way :)

Upon wiser thinking, 60gig should suffice for Vista... right?

These Appear to be the main ones available in Brissy at the moment:
OCZ Core Series V2 SATA II 2.5 60gig SSD

I take I'll need one of these also?:
OCZ Solid State Drive 3.5 Adaptor Bracket

guvna, based on that anandtech article (nice find exemplar), you should look at the OCZ Vertex range. I don't know if the Core Series suffers from the stuttering issues of the older OCZ drives - definitely find out before buying one.

At the moment the only decent mainstream accessible drives are the OCZ Vertex and to a lesser extent the IBM X25/Samsung range (lesser extent being more $). This is due to a lot of the cheaper, more common drives using the crappier JMicron controller which is where your googling would have picked up on issues/slowness etc (which is explained in the article i linked). The Vertex range use an Indilinx controller which runs rings around almost everything else for boot drive purposes you'll see not using this controller.

To be quite honest, unless you really have the budget to spend on a 360+ Vertex or a 450+ Samsung/Intel drive, buy the 300gb velociraptor right now to use as boot and keep an eye out 3-6 months down the track and move to an ssd as boot and raptor as games. The ssd will basically dick all over any mechanical disk but you're right on the price issues.

I run an intel x25-m which I got from the states for ~450 AUD inc shipping (atm theyre selling for 290 usd which would be about 400-450 shipped). You really can't explain how much of a difference it makes for everything running a top performing ssd, it's just a huge desktop and gaming system performance.

EDIT: Answering your question on the size for vista, 60gb is quite adequate for vista. A quote (again from that article, heh it's really quite a good one):

SSDs make Vista usable.

I can vouch for the performance gain using an ssd in windows 7 rc vs using standard 7200rpm drives, vista should be in the same ballpark.

last edited by eXemplar at 14:59:52 09/Jun/09

For performance you'd be better off with a good SSD and dropping the i7 back to a normal quad core (if price is an issue). There are no super performance benefits that an i7 will give you (yes a few seconds here and there off programs performance etc). But a good SSD will more than halve your boot time, and carve the program access time. i7 can't do that.

Alternatively, keep the i7, drop to a GTX275 (the 275 has almost the same performance as the 285 at resolutions 1680x1050 and under) and get the Vertex 60GB SSD.

ok, so 30 gig should suffice for vista & program files... right?

You might be struggling with 30GB. I think an average install for vista ultimate is somewhere around the 10GB mark, add on top of that anywhere from 4-6gb approx for page file and you're looking at somewhere between 15-20GB. Adding extra program files on top of that (office and day to day stuff) and you're probably looking at at least 20-25GB.

SSDs operate best with a bit of free space available, so for vista+ you might need the 60GB whereas xp the 30GB may just be ok.

k, thanks again eXe

Yes - although not if you include games installs. My Steam folder is 25GB and that's with only GRID, Portal, TF2 and L4D installed. And I assume your aim is to get games to load quickly? If so, get the 60GB at least.

So:

MotherBoard A: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58+ICH10R QPI 6.4GT/s DDR3 2000 $394 (Umart) $409 (Computer Alliance)
or
MotherBoard B: ASUS S1366 P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard $445 (Computer Alliance)

I take it the Asus is the better choice for the Over clocking abilities? Or is there something glaringly obvious in their specs I cant see (I'm not a computer head, feel free to mock & point out the main differences)

Spend the extra $100 for the 60gb Vertex imo

I am, I'll update that now, ta reso :)

motherboard b:

i like asus products, ive bought exclusively asus mobos for donkeys and had limited issues;

Or is there something glaringly obvious in their specs I cant see (I'm not a computer head, feel free to mock & point out the main differences)

The ASUS board has Express Gate, which lets you boot into an embedded version of Linux (called Splashtop) in about 5 seconds.

k, won't be using linux for anything, thanks for the input though. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting the Asus, just want to make sure Im not spending the extra money on something I wont be using, like that.

Ta dude :)


last edited by The GuVna at 15:27:21 11/Jun/09

I have almost the exact same machine, but with better Ram, still OCZ tho. and a 23" samsung widescreen monitor. Trust me Buddy, do yourself a favour and get a nice new big monitor to compliment the Video card. I paid under $250 for mine. Playing Crysis/warhead with everything Set to MAximum and 1920x1080 Resolution, getting 30FPS, still very playable. looks farqn Amazing! DO IT!!

Get the gigabyte mobo.

Forgot to keep updating :P

Yea decided to get the Gigabyte one in the end, as The Asus one is the s*** for overclocking, but I don't plan to overclock

Also I can't get GTX 295 as they're out of stock, so I'll be getting the 285 version instead. All other 295 types around the places In Bris were $870+, 285 should suffice. Will probably look to trade that in about 6 months time if there's some new graphics card standard by then, which there probably will be :)



last edited by The GuVna at 18:15:32 17/Jun/09

Why not a 4890 for a lot less money. or a 4870x2

Tell me why not, no one suggested otherwise & the GTX's appeared standard...

I think I'll be happy never the less, I just have to learn to upgrade, trade in etc after X amount of months, instead of waiting for my computer to go bust & getting a whole new one. This will be my second "new computer" :)