New machine, worried about power and graphics problems...

Zulu

Hi Folks, I'm getting a new machine from komplett, and this is what I'm looking at:

Box: Antec Nine Hundred black miditower,
Power: Corsair Powersupply 550W Bulk, black,
Main board: XFX nForce 780i SLI, nForce-780i SLI,
Processer: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Memory: Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 4096MB CL5,
Graphics: SLI: 2 x XFX GeForce 8800GTX 575M 768MB GDDR3,
Storage: Western Digital Raptor 150GB SATA & Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA2
Drive: NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7200A, IDE,
Soundcard: Creative SB X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty, PCI,
Speakers: Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX, DTS.

It's coming in at 2500 so you can understand why I'm cautious. I want a top end games machine.
My worries are:
1) I read that the graphics cards need a lot of power - will I have enough?
I'm finding it difficult to find a review of the selected graphics card in dual mode with SLI.
2) Will I have problems running it?
3) Will I have power issues?
4) Heat issues?
5) Is it OTT or good future proofing?

What do you think? Any help/advice would be appricated!

Many thanks.

Virgil°

In answer to:
1)Corsair power supplies are probably the best out there but id have reservations about a 550watt powering 2 8800gtx's.Someone else will probably confirm this for you.
2)If the above is true then yes.
3)Yet again yes if 1 is true.
4)Hmmmm well 2 gtx's that close will build up a fair amount of heat but these cards are capable of running fine even when hot and your case is a good one for air circulation.
5)There really is no such thing as future proof, if i were you id scrap Sli altogether its not worth the extra dosh IMO. But if you are absolutely set on Sli get yourself a pair of G92 8800gts'. They work out a fair amount cheaper, go toe to toe with the gtx's in most games and consume less power.

Zulu

forget sli altogether? How come? (Sorry I'm not good on hardware - trying to learn quick)

Virgil°

Well considering it costs you double the dosh on the most expensive component in your system for only 30% increase in most cases and no increase where games dont support it, its just a waste of money IMO.Alot of people make the mistake of thinking 2 cards= double performance.
I personally would rather stick with one strong card.That also means you wont need that expensive sli motherboard and can opt for a cheaper one. AND you wont need to upgrade the PSU in the case that its not enough for the 2 gfx cards.

sebastianlieken

hey zulu, ill try answer ur questions in order aswell

1) that power supply aint gonna give you enough juice no, ur talkin about supplyin 2 grafix cards, a processor, a motherboard, hard-drives, disk drives, and other micelaneous things like fans and ur sound card. id step it up to this

2) should run fine as long as you have the power

3).....eh

4) the two gtx's, again will produce alot of heat, and ur quad core and north-bridge are gonna put out alot of heat aswell, the antec 900 has very good airflow though and will deal with it nicely. (also, get a aftermarket cooler for the proc if you intend to overclock)

5) futerproofing...not really tbh, ur buying the q6600 and gtx's towards the end of their marketing highlife. itl still kick ass, dont get me wrong. but intels new line up of procs are on the way, and nvidia are spittin out their latest grafixs cards (the 9800 series) in a month or so aswell.

id think about waiting to build until the new stuff is out, or if u rely wanna build now, reconsider ur build

Zulu

Cheers Virgil!
So you reckon that system with only one of them graphics cards would run games fast for me then?

(I was one of those that assumed 2 cards was 2X performance )

Sqaull20

That is an excellent power supply as Virgil has said.The voltage regulation is great, the single 12v rail is another nice feature too.It has enough power to run even high-end gaming parts like quadcore with SLI'd 8800GTX's etc they should run on this, but to be on the safe safe side maybe get the 620watt Corsair...

Also do not but 2 8800gtx's, Nvidia's new range is coming in the middle of March (9800gx2,9800gtx) they should both outperform the 8800gtx quite easily...

What size/res monitor are you playing on?

I'd say a single 512mb 8800gts should do until the new cards come...

Zulu

interesting on the new cards coming out - thanks a million for the heads up folks! Humm, thats kinda wrecked it - I was hoping to be sooner, but it'd madness not to wait until next month so

Virgil°

Sqaull20 wrote: »

I'd say a single 512mb 8800gts should do until the new cards come...

Yep thats my advice to you aswell, its utterly frustrating trying to stay up with the newest games because graphics cards go out of date faster than any other component.
So you just have to learn to economise and plan for the future rather than going all out at once in an attempt to stay at the top for years to come.

savemejebus

Zulu, seeing as how you are currently unsure about a few things I figure it's worth asking are you going to overclock etc. cos if you're not then you can simplify things and save money. The 780i boards are new and not necessarily beginner friendly. A raptor hdd is nice in theory but unless you're raiding it the only thing you'll probably notice about it is how noisy it is.

How big is/will your monitor. Sli will be overkill for anything under 24" in size and even at that sli tech ain't that great at the moment so you'd want to be really sure before investing in it. As squall20 said, as single 8800 card is a good choice at the moment though personally i'd go for the GT before the GTS as the performance vs price ratio doesn't work out too well for the GTS

sebastianlieken

ye absolutly wait, or u will be kickin urself in a months time.

wait for the Q9300 from intel and the 9800gtx from nvidia, throw them on a good x38 mobo and u have a winner

also, scrap the raptor n 750 gig F1, jus get the single 1000Gig F1

Sqaull20

Also have a look at hardwareversand

Komplett can be expensive at high end...

Below is built and shipped for €1700, includes a class psu, blu rau drive, better case etc

http://i26.tinypic.com/jjtfl4.jpg

sebastianlieken

Sqaull20 wrote: »

Also have a look at hardwareversand

Komplett can be expensive at high end...

Below is built and shipped for €1700, includes a class psu, blu rau drive, better case etc

http://i26.tinypic.com/jjtfl4.jpg

were advising him to wait for the new lin-ups

also, 780i....totally unneccesary, hes not doin sli, and that board is OTT
the 4 gigs of ram could easily be stepped up to pc-8000 for an extra 20 quid
power supply is OTT power wise
blu-ray....?....seriousyl?

savemejebus

Blu-Ray won today remember?

Also psu wise I'd go with the corsair HX-620. Should tick all the boxes power wise.

Sqaull20

sebastianlieken wrote: »

were advising him to wait for the new lin-ups

also, 780i....totally unneccesary, hes not doin sli, and that board is OTT
the 4 gigs of ram could easily be stepped up to pc-8000 for an extra 20 quid
power supply is OTT power wise
blu-ray....?....seriousyl?

Its was just to compare Komplett to Hardwareversand, not what I would recommend

sebastianlieken

BAH, thats a marketing ploy....and i seem to recall that HD-DVD actually won...i may be mistaken tho

BUT WHEN are u gonna go get a blu-ray movie ta watch

Antec Nine Hundred 88,38 €
Samsung SH-S203D 26,99 €
Jetway 8800GT, NVIDIA 8800GT 187,52 €
2 * Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 239,98 €
ASUS Maximus Formula, Sockel 775, ATX 189,78 €
4096MB-Kit OCZ PC2-8000 ReaperX 115,33 €
ATX-Netzteil Corsair 520W 80,54 €
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 boxed, 202,37 €

id go for that if i were you, its only 1.130,89 €, so u have lots of money left over for the next gen nvidia card when it comes out, also, ya dnt need a soundcard with these mobos, their on board sound is perfect

all the above is from hardwareversand.de by the way

and at 1130 quid, u can even buy 2!!!.....and send the other to me :D:D:D

Virgil°

sebastianlieken wrote: »

BAH, thats a marketing ploy....and i seem to recall that HD-DVD actually won...i may be mistaken tho

BUT WHEN are u gonna go get a blu-ray movie ta watch

Antec Nine Hundred 88,38 €
Samsung SH-S203D 26,99 €
Jetway 8800GT, NVIDIA 8800GT 187,52 €
2 * Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 239,98 €
ASUS Maximus Formula, Sockel 775, ATX 189,78 €
4096MB-Kit OCZ PC2-8000 ReaperX 115,33 €
ATX-Netzteil Corsair 520W 80,54 €
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 boxed, 202,37 €

id go for that if i were you, its only 1.130,89 €, so u have lots of money left over for the next gen nvidia card when it comes out, also, ya dnt need a soundcard with these mobos, their on board sound is perfect

Thats a good build, id go with something along this line just to clarify things for you for you zulu. As said, leaves you plenty of dosh for upgrading later and will still play games like the beez-neez for the moment. The only thing id change there would be to up the psu to the 620w one. Thats it really

Sqaull20

Virgil° wrote: »

Thats a good build, id go with something along this line just to clarify things for you for you zulu. As said, leaves you plenty of dosh for upgrading later and will still play games like the beez-neez for the moment. The only thing id change there would be to up the psu to the 620w one. Thats it really

Agree...

sebastianlieken

Virgil° wrote: »

Thats a good build, id go with something along this line just to clarify things for you for you zulu. As said, leaves you plenty of dosh for upgrading later and will still play games like the beez-neez for the moment. The only thing id change there would be to up the psu to the 620w one. Thats it really

yup, couldnt hurt

Shiminay

+1 to all that. 620W PSU for sure, you might wanna SLi in the future etc. otherwise, that's a great build in the making right there!

Zulu

savemejebus wrote: »

Zulu, seeing as how you are currently unsure about a few things I figure it's worth asking are you going to overclock etc.

Nope, to be honest, I don't understand enough about it to attempt it.

A raptor hdd is nice in theory but unless you're raiding it the only thing you'll probably notice about it is how noisy it is.

I figured it'd be a lot quicker. If not then I'm not too pushed.

How big is/will your monitor

I've a 24 inch monitor. Cheers for the advice on the card.

sebastianlieken wrote: »

id go for that if i were you, its only 1.130,89 €, so u have lots of money left over for the next gen nvidia card when it comes out, also, ya dnt need a soundcard with these mobos, their on board sound is perfect

all the above is from hardwareversand.de by the way

Cheers for that. I built my last pc, but was going to get komplett to build this one for me. I was getting the sound card as I wanted to get 5.1 surrond sound speakers - will the on board card support the speakers?

jonny72

Hardwareversand build the PC for you for 20 euros


Remember .. for the monitor.. get as low ms response time as possible.. the lower the better for gaming..

You also don't want an ultra noisy machine, it can become very annoying

Zulu

I have a 2ms 24inch monitor already - so I'll be using that one.

Virgil°

Zulu wrote: »

Cheers for that. I built my last pc, but was going to get komplett to build this one for me. I was getting the sound card as I wanted to get 5.1 surrond sound speakers - will the on board card support the speakers?

Yep almost all new mobos come with an integrated soundcard which are just fine and do support 5.1 surround.
As for komplett building your pc. Unless you truly are terrified,not bothered or dont have the time to ,id say just build it yourself,its quite enjoyable and satisfying when it first boots up properly after having done it.Itll also shave a few days off waiting for your pc bits as komplett ive found to be a bit slow putting them together.

requiem1

I know everyones going to push you towards nvidia and i'm a fan aswell but the 3870 X2 is faster than anything going right now and crossfire x has had better performance results than current sli setups and thats on the first driver releases.

There's a ton of reviews and the only reason i'm suggesting it is because some of the better intel mobo chipsets support crossfire x and pci 2.0 which will matter eventually for gaming. But in saying this 3870x2 is set to rival the 9 series nvidia cards so maybe waiting is the best choice

Virgil°

requiem1 wrote: »

I know everyones going to push you towards nvidia and i'm a fan aswell but the 3870 X2 is faster than anything going right now and crossfire x has had better performance results than current sli setups and thats on the first driver releases.

There's a ton of reviews and the only reason i'm suggesting it is because some of the better intel mobo chipsets support crossfire x and pci 2.0 which will matter eventually for gaming. But in saying this 3870x2 is set to rival the 9 series nvidia cards so maybe waiting is the best choice

Was always a fan of ati till the nv8800 series. But for the moment the 3870x2 rivals the 8800ultra, beating it slightly. Which to my mind is slightly pointless as its a card thats been on the market for like, a year. But as you say waiting is the best choice and the 8800gt is the best bang for buck at the moment until the new 98 series arrives.

Zulu

I'd rather get it built for me to be honest. (For all three reasons!)
I'm looking at that setup you suggested on hardwareversand - can you recommend a cpu fan?

savemejebus

Freezer 7 pro - quiet as a mouse and easy to install/reinstall if you upgrade cpu

Zulu

thanks a million folks.

And you are all happy that I woulnd't need a sound card to support 5.1?

Virgil°

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=8059&agid=669

One of the most highly rated coolers out there. Itll look really pretty too in that case with its blue lighting.
It will generally tell you in the motherboards specs that it supports 5.1 or not, so check before you buy.A few come with 7.1 aswell afaik.

Zulu

Ok so I've had a look at the german site - so this is what you recommend? (Thanks a million for your help folks)


Antec Nine Hundred, ATX, ohne Netzteil 88,38 €
ATX-Netzteil Corsair 620W 620 Watt 106,38 €
4096MB-Kit OCZ PC2-8000 ReaperX HPC, CL5 115,33 €
Rechner - Zusammenbau 19,99 €
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Tray, 8192Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Kentsfield 190,45 €
Jetway 8800GT, NVIDIA 8800GT, 512MB, PCI-Express 187,52 €
Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Sockel 775 3,67 €
MS Windows Vista home premium 32bit Englisch 84,23 €
Samsung SH-S203D bulk schwarz 26,99 €
Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 119,99 €
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 System 259,94 €
Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 119,99 €
ASUS Maximus Formula, Sockel 775, ATX, DDR2 189,78 €
Sum: 1.522,64 € 1)