Tax time - new gaming build ~$2500Aus

[Knytestorme]

PC will be used for
* XBLA & Windows development using Visual Studio
* Light graphics work using PS
* Audio work using Ableton, Reason, Sonar, Guitar Rig
* 5-boxing Warcraft
* X-Plane & Flight Sim
* Upcoming games such as SC2, Rage, etc

Budget is max $3k Aus but will be reusing monitors and periphs from current pc that will become vnc'd fileserver.

My main concern is videocard options. I am looking for feedback on replacing the listed ones with either a 5970 or a 480 GTX with the limitation that I'm only playing at max 1920x1080 and that I have to be able to run 5 WoW clients at one time at a decent graphics level and framerate

Antec Dark Fleet DF-30 Case $128.00
Antec TriCool Fan 120 $19.00
Intel Core i7 930 $365.00
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8T-6GBRM (3x2GB) DDR3 x 2 $450.00
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB WD1002FAEX x 2 $250.00
XFX ATI Radeon HD5850 BLACK EDITION x 2 $798.00
ASRock X58 Extreme3 Motherboard $239.00
TP-Link TL-WN851N 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter $35.00
LG BH10LS30 10x Internal Blu-ray Disc Rewriter $205.00
Scythe Bay Rafter 3.5 Scythe Bay Rafter 3.5 x 2 $18.00
Antec TruePower 750W Blue $155.00

Sub-Total: $2662.00

 

[Sp12]

I think that blu-ray rewriter looks overpriced, but besides that, Wow is very much a CPU-intensive game. I would consider an AMD hexacore for 5-boxing.

Also, if at all possible more monitors=better. Which monitors do you have?

Also, nice choice on the mobo.

The RAM and CPU are both overpriced despite conversion rates. The ram is actually 70$ USD more than what's listed on Newegg, what locations can you purchase from in Australia?

These questions:


4. IF YOU have a brand preference.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with. Are you interesting in multimonitor use?

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Edit: I just looked up multiboxing and I'll quote from the wiki article on it: There is to the best of my knowledge no way to do this (well) for under two or three thousand US dollars.

 

[Knytestorme]

I think that blu-ray rewriter looks overpriced, but besides that, Wow is very much a CPU-intensive game. I would consider a hexacore for 5-boxing.

Also, if at all possible more monitors=better. Which monitors do you have?

Also, nice choice on the mobo.

The RAM and CPU are both overpriced despite conversion rates. The ram is actually 70$ USD more than what's listed on Newegg, what locations can you purchase from in Australia?

These questions:


4. IF YOU have a brand preference.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with. Are you interesting in multimonitor use?

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Agree about the prices but sadly that is the world we live in over here. I do all my initial pricing/planning from http://www.pccasegear.com.au as they are around the same price as I will pay at the computer markets I buy from. I'd rather buy from tiger or newegg given the price differential but they won't ship over here.

At the moment I am boxing on a Q6600 with 8Gb and sli 9800GT (using processor affinity to run main client one 1 core, 2 clients on 1 core, 2 clients on 1 core and hopefully then having Win7 using the final core for most of it's processes) but running into framerate issues that I think will be fixed by a combination of all upgrades.

I'm sure I'd see massive improvements from just upgrading CPU + RAM in WoW but I'm also looking forward at other games on the horizon, DX11 possibilities and what I work on at home so GPU upgrades also seem worthwhile...the question is is the cf solution worthwhile given it's about the same price in total as a single 5970 or 480 here.


4. No brand loyalty apart from a slight weighting towards intel over amd for cpu
6. I have done some searchs but the aditional requirements I have have made finding appropriate threads difficult even with the ones on the first page.
7. Default speeds
8. I run 2 x Benq G2420HD's at 1920x1080. When multiboxing WoW I have one client fullscreen on one monitor and 4 rendering fullscreen but reduced to 1/4 screen on the other. For other things such as flight sim or development work multiscreen is a massive requirement as well.
9. In the next few weeks once tax refund arrives.

[EDIT]
In response to your edit, I've been 5-boxing the last 3 years and a member over at dual-boxing.com since before then and that quote is wrong from experience. As said, my first single box system was a Q6600 with 4Gb and a 9600GT then to a Q6600, 8Gb, 9800GT SLI and neither gave me issues. I'm starting to just get annoyed with lower framerates in Northrend and raids and see it getting worse for cataclysm so may as well get ready before then.

[EDIT 2]
I was just thinking that a point in favour of going with an ATI solution is being able to add a 3rd monitor fairly easily for if I need to be able to do general multi-tasking while the other 2 screens are occupied.

 

[Sp12]

If you already have two monitors and are interested in flight sims, and could also benefit from another monitor for PS/coding, I have a tough time not recommending you grab a third Benq and try eyefinity (or 3D surround if Nvidia can get their 460 to perform).

I personally grabbed a third monitor and a 5850 (already had two monitors and needed a video card ugprade anyways) and have to say it's the biggest step up in my game experience since hardware acceleration.

Unfortunately, there's not been a whole lot of improvement in game performance between lastgen and current CPUs, I'm still running a Q6600 myself. You'll see some improvement, but nothing beyond 20% per clock at most. AMD currently has a hexacore for 235AUD, which would help in PS and multiboxing significantly, and would also be more future-proof as games start to scale past 4 cores.

However, 5-boxing is one of the few situations an Intel X58 platform's triple channel memory might be relevant. Also, Intel HT does work pretty well for juggling more than 4 concurrent apps (not as well as more physical cores obviously, but still).

Here are a few considerations:

1. No current DX11 card will be powerful enough to push DX11 features once they start getting used to good effect.
2. There is always something better around the corner, hence, if you need it, get it.
3. Despite that, if you don't need it and concretely know of something better coming out soon, I would wait.
4. Multi-GPU setups will never be as nice as single-GPU. They have more heat/energy, game-dependant scaling, and microstutter.
5. An SSD is the single most noticable upgrade you can get. All major SSD players are slated to release their nextgen Q3 this year.
6. ATI's Southern Islands refresh is slated for Q3/4 this year, but it's too early to know if it'll be worth waiting for.

 

[Knytestorme]

Yes, I've just been looking at the X6 1055T + the Asrock extreme combo and it looks like it could be useful (having a single client per core might help a lot) but seems that all the mb's only have 4 DIMM slots so I'm effectively going to be stuck at 8Gb RAM still and not sure what benefit the extra 4Gb of triple channel would be.

Again though, if I went that way I could cut back on build cost too buy using RAM I have laying around atm.

 

[Sp12]

Yes, I've just been looking at the X6 1055T + the Asrock extreme combo and it looks like it could be useful (having a single client per core might help a lot) but seems that all the mb's only have 4 DIMM slots so I'm effectively going to be stuck at 8Gb RAM still and not sure what benefit the extra 4Gb of triple channel would be.

Again though, if I went that way I could cut back on build cost too buy using RAM I have laying around atm.

Well, you could run more expensive 4GB DIMMS for 16GB, but of course that's more expensive. You could start with 2x4GB DIMMs, which would leave you with an upgrade path to 16.

X58's triple channel has a bit more throughput (not relevant in most applications), but also allows you to get to 12GB on 2 GB DIMMS.

And just another thought, a third monitor would allow you to multibox with a main client at Full res, and the other clients at 1080*960 (a half screen split with a vertical line), give you more workspace in photoshop/coding, and allow you to run a SLS setup in other games.

Edit:

I just spec'd out an almost identical system, but with an X6, 8GB of ram, and this mobo, a PCIe wireless nic, and a third Benq for 2515 AUD. I also switched the Caviar blacks for Samsung F3 spinpoints.

 

[Knytestorme]

Well tax return has finally arrived and I have totally changed up the spec of the machine so will look for final comments before grabbing the components this weekend.

I have left out monitors, keyboard and mouse on this so far as I'll be using the ones on my current system along with a 1Tb drive I have currently sitting in a caddy but will be adding extra 24" monitors in a few weeks when backpay comes in to take advantage of Nv Surroud

Intel Core i7 930 $349
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard Rev2.0 $265
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8T-6GBRM (3x2GB) DDR3 x 2 $398
LG BH10LS30 10x Blu-ray Disc Rewriter $179
Leadtek Winfast PxDTV1300 T PCIe $39
TP-Link TL-WN851N 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter $35
G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD $199
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 1GB Overclocked x 2 $598
CoolerMaster GX 750W PSU $129
CoolerMaster HAF 922 RED Limited Edition $179
CoolerMaster V6GT CPU Cooler $79
CoolerMaster MegaFlow 200 Red $35
CoolerMaster Silent Red LED Fan 120mm x2 $30

Sub-Total: $2470.00

 

[mfenn]

Prices in AUD, I presume?

Anyway, you could easily save $100 by not getting those extra fans. The case comes with quite enough air cooling. I would normally not recommend SLI, but since you want to do surround, you pretty much have to. Also, don't use wireless for gaming it at all possible.

 

[Knytestorme]

Sorry for delay, been caught up with work.

Yes, prices are in AUD and main reason for the extra fans is to replace the non-led ones in the case with led and add some extra to deal with the ambients in the low 40's here come summer if I decide to OC the CPU...figure it's better to spend a little more to be safe now then have to spend more to replace things that fry in the future

As for the comment about not using wireless for gaming, why is that? I switch between using wireless and wired atm depending on if I'm saturating the link and figured that going to wireless-n at 300Mps would be less congestion and issues than only 100Mps wired....is that not the case?

 

[mfenn]

As for the comment about not using wireless for gaming, why is that? I switch between using wireless and wired atm depending on if I'm saturating the link and figured that going to wireless-n at 300Mps would be less congestion and issues than only 100Mps wired....is that not the case?

No, that's not the case. First, you'll never get the full 802.11n speeds from your wireless. Second, the total throughput available doesn't matter very much anyway.

Low latency, low packet loss, and low jitter are much more important. Packets essentially never get dropped on a home Ethernet connection. Random bursts of EM, be they from a microwave, GSM phone, etc.) can cause wireless to have to retransmit (at Layer 2) a few times, thus increasing latency and jitter.