Hi folks, It's bonus time and I've squirrelled £1500 away from the wife to replace my aging games machine (Athlon 1900XP, 512MB, Geforce3 ti500). As you can see from the spec it won't take much to beat what I currently have. So here are the parameters. Budget £1500 inc vat & del. - No monitor needed - No speakers/mouse/keyboard needed - Don't really care about DVI output on gfx card (currently use CRT and no intention to upgrade) - No dual output or TV shennanigans required on gfx card - Need to budget for a copy of XP Home - No CPU preference - DVD Burner This machine will be for general gaming purposes, mainly FPS and MMORPG. Recent titles to pass through the system are Doom3, HL2, City of Heroes, Prince of Persia:WW, NFSU2 (that sort of thing). Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. This is a unique experience for me, normally come the tiem for an upgrade I have a whole system mapped out in my head but I'm too long out of the game.
1500 quid eh Code: XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT45GUDF7) (GX-025-XF) 2 £264.95 £529.90 AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-101-AM) 1 £164.95 £164.95 DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF) 1 £109.95 £109.95 LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter - OEM (CD-040-LO) 1 £36.80 £36.80 OCZ PowerStream 600w ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-015-OC) 1 £129.95 £129.95 Subtotal £971.55 VAT £170.03 Total £1,141.58 (above from overclockers.co.uk) G.Skill 1Gb PC4400/PC3200 TCCD Dual Channel kit £199.75 (inc VAT) £170.00(ex VAT) Above from cpucity.co.uk Just add a decent case and a cooler, XP90/120 and a decent fan. Total inc postage just a shade under 1500. Damn fine system too...
"OCZ PowerStream 600w ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-015-OC) 1 £129.95 £129.95" Seems a bit like overkill to me. I've got a similar system running on a 480W powersupply (see sig) and I've never had any problems at all, and it was about half the price.
highlander's given gargoyle of having a SLI setup,u may have a similar spec but i doubt u have twin 6800gt's in SLI mode..... thats why he needs a 600w psu.even if the machine dont really gets pushed to the max at least it would have a clean stable power source.
There's my effort, don't forget all the "other" bits like hard drives, coolers, case etc which can get pricy. Also I don't really think SLI is worth it when you consider the number of games that don't actually support the technology and nVidia's reluctance to update for the enormous PC back catalogue. You can probably get quite a bit cheaper than the above if you shop around, and I would swap out the 3200XL for some GSkill.
If you don't need 400gb space you could save a lot of cash by going for a 200/250gb and spend it on upgrading elsewhere. IE, going for a 3500+
tbh, I'd get a CMStacker, room enough for a second psu if it requires it. And possibly only one pci-e gfx card (6800GT) paired with an Athlon64. You're going to see an amazing jump in framerates as it is with that. Plus, when games come out that require sli setups, you'll be ready with the space for a second psu for an extra bit of oomph for a second gfx card and the fact that the CMStacker can be converted to BTX if needs be. Plus there's the added bonus that you get a sturdy platform to rest a bit of wood on and tadaa! instant coffee table.
Thanks for the ideas. Didn't expect such a fast and thorough response but I should have known better I must admit to being a little gunshy about SLI, admittedly I am out of the loop a bit on the technology front but I've not heard of any games that are really going to take advantage of SLI and I am always a bit cautious with gfx cards (says the man who bought a Voodoo Rush card at great expense when they came out). I tend to agree with kenco_uk, go for a single card and potentially SLI later if it becomes needed. Any point going for 2GB RAM for gaiming or is that RAM for RAM's sake?
