My New System Design

[srg5150]

Here's what I've spent the last several weeks compiling. Let me know what you think and suggestions to putting it all together. I listed the best street price I could find from the last couple of days so if you know of anything cheaper send me a link. I'll be laying the smackdown on the Visa card this week.

Let the comments and flaming begin!


CASE - Chenbro Gaming Bomb II - $211.49

MOBO ? DFI Lanparty nForce4 SLI-DR - $196.00

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 FX55 San Diego $834
OR
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 Toledo - $1,139

RAM ? OCZ EL Platinum DFI nF4 Special 1GB - $298.98

GPU ? (x2 SLI) eVGA 6800GT PCI-Express - $345

Water Cooling ?
- CPU Block = DangerDen TDX ? $54.45
- GPU Block = (x2) Koolance VID-NV2-L06 ? $78.20
- Chipset Block= Koolance CHC-A05 - $24
- Radiator = Black Ice Extreme II - $51.84
- Fan = (x2) Panaflo 120mm ? $16.95
- Misc. = Non-Conductive fluid, blue UV dye, Tygon tubing, Fillport, Arctic Silver 5

Hard Drives ? (x2 in Raid 0) Western Digital Raptor 74GB - $179

Sound Card ?Audigy2 ZS Gamer - $109.00

DVD R/W - Plextor PX-716A/SW - $116

CD R/W ? Plextor 52x32x52 CD - $83.25

Power Supply ? PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI - $239

Speakers - Logitech Z-5500 - $269.00


Approx. Total Cost = $3,725 YIKES!!



Thanks in advance for any input!

Steve

 

[SrGuapo]

GOd $3500 for a gaming machine? I could think of about 100 other places to put half that money (kids college fund, stock market, retirement fund, etc.). I will go part by part:

Case: $200 for a case? I gues if you like it, but jeez...

Mobo: Good choice (I assume you are OCing?)

CPU: If you are Ocing, just get either the 3700 SD or the 4400+. They will both OC past your super high-end procs for much cheaper.

RAM: $300 for RAM?? Pick up some OCZ VX gold or value. Excellent performance (2-2-2 up to 250 MHz) for over $100 less...

GPU: Why buy $800 in graphics cards when the 7800gtxs are shipping now? Pick up one of those instead. Performance is a little less than 2 6800gts, but it is a bit cheaper (I think they are gouging $650). You can always SLI them later.

cooling: OK, i guess if water is your thing

HDD: Still extremely expensive. Why not pick up a controller and a couple 15000 PM SCSI drives? They will be faster, though still more expensive. Or jus get a 250 GB 16MB buffer drive for the same price. You wont notice a difference (except windows will take 1 second longer to load).

Sopund: The DFI board has a very good onboard chip. Maybe you should try that out first...

DVDRW/CDRW: Are you f-ing serious? Just get 2 NEC 3520As. They will perform the same as that overpriced plextor crap for half the price. Are you serious, $80 for a CDRW?

Speakers: i guess, don't know much about sound... Are headsets out of the question?

 

[joshw10]

if you're going to spend $3500+!! for a PC you might as well spend a little more and get 2GB RAM

 

[DavidoFoo]

CASE - Chenbro Gaming Bomb II - $211.49

MOBO ? DFI Lanparty nForce4 SLI-DR - $196.00

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 FX55 San Diego $834 - unneeded. try a 3700+ San Diego
OR
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 Toledo - $1,139 - unneeded. try a 4400+ Toledo

RAM ? OCZ EL Platinum DFI nF4 Special 1GB - $298.98 - this stuff is PC-5000 and at EOL. try some OCZ Value VX or VX Gold

GPU ? (x2 SLI) eVGA 6800GT PCI-Express - $345 - the 7 series are right around the corner

Water Cooling ?
- CPU Block = DangerDen TDX ? $54.45
- GPU Block = (x2) Koolance VID-NV2-L06 ? $78.20
- Chipset Block= Koolance CHC-A05 - $24
- Radiator = Black Ice Extreme II - $51.84
- Fan = (x2) Panaflo 120mm ? $16.95
- Misc. = Non-Conductive fluid, blue UV dye, Tygon tubing, Fillport, Arctic Silver 5

I can't comment as I know nothing about watercooling

Hard Drives ? (x2 in Raid 0) Western Digital Raptor 74GB - $179
Striping offers almost nill in desktop performance
You can stick with a Raptor or try the new SATA-II drives

Sound Card ?Audigy2 ZS Gamer - $109.00

DVD R/W - Plextor PX-716A/SW - $116
You can spend 50 dollars on a different drive that performs as well if not better than the drive mentioned above. Try an NEC 3520A/3540A or Pioneer DVR-109

CD R/W ? Plextor 52x32x52 CD - $83.25
Why do you even need a cd r/w when you have a perfectly fine dvd r/w? Maybe you should replace this with a DVD-ROM, such as the Toshiba M1912

Power Supply ? PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI - $239

Speakers - Logitech Z-5500 - $269.00

Approx. Total Cost = $3,725 YIKES!!
Do you really need to spend so much on a computer?

 

[Some1ne]

Personally I would recommend against going the SLI route (and the whole bleeding edge rought as well...you can do a lot better in terms of price/performance by getting affordable middle-end parts that are reported to overclock well and just overclocking the hell out of them instead of getting all top of the line parts...I think the soonest it will be reasonable to go the X2 route will be around November/December of this year), thought it looks like you're aiming for a top of the line rig, with price not being too much of an issue, and this is the one case in which I consider an SLI solution to be acceptable.

For the CPU, I'd say go with the X2, though if your *only* concern is gaming, the FX-55 is probably the better choice.

On the RAM, OCZ makes some special series of RAM designed to operate at the very high voltages that the DFI board makes available, I believe it's called the "VX" series: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227205 . It may be a better choice, though I'm not precisely sure what "OCZ EL Platinum DFI nF4 Special" is...it's costlier than the one I linked to, so maybe it's better.

Finally, on the cooling, since it is such an expensive build anyways, why not splurge on a Vapochill unit? You can get the top of the line Lightspeed LS unit on ebay for ~$600, with the older units available for ~$400...this is only about $200 to $400 more than your watercooling setup, and it will perform substantially better (even the older units). It may require switching to a case designed to work with the vapochill unit (or case-modding if you're into that), but with those parts cooled and overclocked with a Vapochill unit, the system should perform better than just about anything out there for quite awhile.

 

[Juno]

you don't really need a cd burner. dvd burner has cd-rw speeds so you can burn cd's in dvd drive.

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: SrGuapo
CPU: If you are Ocing, just get either the 3700 SD or the 4400+. They will both OC past your super high-end procs for much cheaper.

I'd go the 4400+ and overclock, especially since your getting water-cooling.

Originally posted by: SrGuapo
GPU: Why buy $800 in graphics cards when the 7800gtxs are shipping now? Pick up one of those instead. Performance is a little less than 2 6800gts, but it is a bit cheaper (I think they are gouging $650). You can always SLI them later.

Get one 7800GTX now, and another later on.

Originally posted by: joshw10
if you're going to spend $3500+!! for a PC you might as well spend a little more and get 2GB RAM

What he said.

Originally posted by: jewno
you don't really need a cd burner. dvd burner has cd-rw speeds so you can burn cd's in dvd drive.

Get a DVD+/-RW DL, and a DVD-ROM. Why would you bother with a CD-RW in a machine this costly?! Get the Pioneer DVR-109/DVR-A09 as the burner.

RoD

 

[nick1985]

you can get comparable performance for about $1000 less

 

[srg5150]

Looks like that RAM has been discontinued recently anyway. Time to crawl back under my rock and do some more research. Any suggestions for a starting point?

I'll be looking at more HDD space shortly but I figured the Raptors would get me going for the short term.

Any preliminary results on OC'ing the dual-core X2 procs?



thanks

Steve

 

[bluedeviltron]

I think the guy just loves to spend money.

 

[Dough1397]

eh its his money guys...

 

[Stokes]

Originally posted by: Dough1397
eh its his money guys...

Doesn't mean we can't help him make the best decision for the best price.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

that rig so so wrong in so many levels..

 

[dmw16]

It looks like you just bought the most expensive of everything. People have already covered pretty much everything. Raid'ing 2 raptors is a waste of money and a risk to your data. A CD-RW drive and a DVD burner is dumb. The SLI thing is a waste, get a 7800gtx. Also, how do you spend like a mad man, but yet go cheap on the ram?

I think you just posted all this crap to brag. It doesnt seem like very much thought was put into this computer setup. You just picked the most expensive of everything. If that is what you were after this is the best setup I've seen.

 

[Taejin]

Your planned rig is a total waste of money.

You don't need that for games.

 

[joshw10]

I don't see an operating system on your list...Linux?

 

[srg5150]

Yeah, that was productive. You don't like it or agree with something, fine. I don't come to where you work and slap the dick out of your mouth.

The 7800's weren't released until the last couple of days so excuse me for not seeing anything in my crystal ball. But you'd probably see getting a new one as wasting money.

As evidence by my follow up posts I'm completely open to changes to my RAM choice, and if you want to declare victory on dumping the CDRW then go ahead. If you care to see the lists and bookmarks I've compiled over the last several weeks just to "brag" I'll be happy to send them to you.

Originally posted by: dmw16
It looks like you just bought the most expensive of everything. People have already covered pretty much everything. Raid'ing 2 raptors is a waste of money and a risk to your data. A CD-RW drive and a DVD burner is dumb. The SLI thing is a waste, get a 7800gtx. Also, how do you spend like a mad man, but yet go cheap on the ram?

I think you just posted all this crap to brag. It doesnt seem like very much thought was put into this computer setup. You just picked the most expensive of everything. If that is what you were after this is the best setup I've seen.