Whole new system

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Those two 22 inchers sound just fine. Decent resolution, and the video card shouldn't break a sweat giving you a good dual screen desktop. You could save a bunch of cash if you went down an inch or two, but you may lose the higher resolution in the process...

If you're going to be doing mostly web design, make sure you don't build sites that themselves require being displayed at a massive resolution. A website which can scale to 800, or 1024 pixels across (minus the scrollbar) ensures some compatibility for those with lower end screens (and there's plenty of them). Most 17-19" screens have a horizontal resolution of 1280 pixels, and that's just mint to display a web page which has been formatted to firt 1024 pixels across.

You don't mention exactly which screen model you're getting, but I would make sure you can rotate it 90 degrees. This way the horizontal resolution become 1200 pixels, and you'll be able to see large/long webpages more comfortably in a single sitting. So if you leave one screen on its side and the other as-is, you'll have a sweet setup for web development (i.e. use the vertically set screen to preview your work, and the horizontally set screen to edit your pages, zoom in on images, etc...).

Speaking of Alienwares, they may look nice, but they're over priced. I saw one such system on sale in a local shop, high end machine, selling for about £3500. Yet, I can build an arguable better machine for £1000 less. I still prefer to build my boxes myself and it's what I did with my latest machine a month ago (top end parts not cheap, but runs like a dream).

 

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Very bizarre... I wasn't able to post my message. It kept timing out. So I split it into 4 bits by posting the first paragraph, then editing my message and posting the second one, saving it, and so on for the third and 4th one as well and it worked.

hmmm... some kinda forum quirk. I've seen it happen on another site. My post must have contained a word interpreted incorrectly by the engine

 

Great reply cheers. btw what do you do for a job then (if you dont mind me asking )

That’s just what I needed, cheers. Yeh in my first list they were 2x 19” but the res was not going to be 100% what I needed so thought the little extra may as well be spent now.

Cheers for the heads up, luckily ive been taught to use the 800/1024 etc scale as most people (normal people – is that PC) don’t go over 20”

There were 2 – the LG one’s are the “LG Flatron W2261V”
And the other’s are “Samsung 22" T220 Rose Red 2ms DVI TFT”

Cant see anything about rotating 90 degrees???

Still waiting to see if any of my parts drop by the 18th September but the basic details for the system are below.

power---- OCZ 500W ModXStream Pro Modular Power Supply PSU
CPU---- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz (Retail 775) - overclocked to ?????
MOTHERBOARD---- Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3
MEMORY:---- OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz Gold Dual Channel (2x2GB)
fan---- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO (Socket LGA775)
CASE ----Antec Three Hundred Cool and Quiet Gaming Case
HDD:---- 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 SATA2 7200RPM 32MB cache
CD:---- LG GH22NP20 22x DVDRW Black OEM
VIDEO---- SAPPHIRE 4770 512MB DDR5
card reader ----52 in 1 Card Reader Black with USB
screen---- LG Flatron W2261V 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor
screen---- LG Flatron W2261V 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

 

If I am honest, looking at it now, I would start on an i7 pc instead as they are just coming into play right now, gives you a better shelf life. I have just build a majorly ****ing good i7 for 1400 so you could build one for considerably cheaper. Also, maybe get some more ram and run a 64bit OS. Just a thought. No point in building a PC to realise it is out dated in 6 months time or whatnot. Apart from that, it looks pretty damn good.

 

I would also go for the i7. With a T.R.U.E (Thermalright heatsink, the best there is), you could eaaasily overclock the 920 from the defaul 2.66ghz. Many have reported stable 4ghz speeds on decent motherboards.

Along with that, 3x2gb modules and a 64bit OS would give you 6gigs of usable ram, and the DDR3 modules are not that expensive anymore.

You might want to up the PSU however. That video card may burn up to 170watts of power and the i7 would eat 130watts (not OC'd). Then you throw in the rest of the components and your PSU will be running at beyond its sweet spot of 40-60% utilization. Many PSU's will start running their fans considerably faster when their usage goes beyond the sweet spot, which in turn generates more noise, heat and causes more wear and tear on the internal components of the PSU.

Overall, an i7 setup will cost about 30-40% more than the components you chose (a quick check gives about 500swiss francs for your cpu, mobo and ram, versus 800swiss francs for an i7 920, socket 1366 mobo and ddr3 ram), but you'll have a slightly more modern setup. That X58 motherboard is the one which hurts the most price wise...

In the end, it's your cash, don't ruin yourself over it.

To answer your question, I'm an architect in microsoft security.

 

As others have said, go for the i7 if at all possible a 920 D0 stepping will overclock to ridiculous levels.

If your going to stick with your current spec however I'd make one small change:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Scythe-Kama-Angle-Ultra-Quiet-CPU-Cooler-S775-478-754-939-AM2-AM2plus

The Freezer 7 was the best you can get, but its been outclassed since its release.

 

wow thanks for the indepth answers, I kinda already looked at the i7 and i was sooo wanting to do that but.... as you said add 30-40% - and due to thefact the wife is not pleased the amount went from 300 to 900 I have to put a stop somewhere. .

ill have a look at the cooler and the PSU cheers guys.

OMG ive still got around 14 days left to change my mind and be pushed in different directions "nooooooo" lol

Cheers - any other imput ??

edited --- the PSU was already at 600w my typo ---edited

 

You could always buy the i7 now but with just one screen.

Maybe you'll find that 1 screen is enough for all of your work. Buy the second screen as a Christmas present.

 

lol - the second screen is a x mas present - parents going to get me it early - oops

p.s already looking at i7 etc on diff sites - like i said still 14 days left - oh dear lol

 

If I might make a change to your rig?

The power supply is gonna be pushing it, I recommend a corsair TH650 or any seasonic model 650w or above. If your going to overclock this rig then you definetly need to get a better PSU.

Also I disagree with people saying get an i7 rig. DDR3 Ram is expensive and is still buggy and is still doesn't have the latencies that DDR2 has. Stick with the rig you have chosen but up the power supply.

 

I don't think DDR3 ram is that expensive... at least if you compare the prices to what you used to get 3-5 years ago. Yes, DDR2 is cheaper, but just to compare the OCZ memory he was pseaking of, I saw his memory for about 50quid for 4 gigs, and just short of 100quid for 6gigs of similar DDR3.

As far as latency goes, mine is currently 6.7.6.18 which is on the lower side of things, and I paid about 400quid for 12gigs, an absolute bargain considering how much higher I'll be able to push this ram. And as the X58 chipset takes the modules in chunks of three rows, the throughout is stunning!

I may not have looked in the right place, but as far as it being buggy, I don't really recall seeing anything too bad regarding that. Sure some mobo's may not be fully compatible with certain manufactured ram and the voltage needs to be kept low, followed by the fact that the i7 doesn't support ECC ram, but I've had a lab with Exchange, OCS, SCCM, VMM and more running under Hyper-V on this beast, and all I can say is "sweet" (nevermind the fact that I played through Crysis, Fear2 and FarCry2 on full settings and 1920x1200, without the PC ever crashing, not even once).

But of course, YMMV as they say (your mileage may vary).

 

I just can't see the value of an i7 rig or the ddr3 yet.

My system runs everything on high (in sig) and have never had an issue with at all and according to futuremark my righ beats some i7s. So I think my system or the one chose by the op apart from the psu is the best bang for the buck.

 

Agreed I don't think it's worth the money for the performance increase an I7/DDR3 memory might give me.

 

Like I said, YMMV

Not everyone configures a rig to run "right". I personally like to go back and optimise, get rid of everything that starts during bootup, close all services which are not needed, that kind of thing. And some will install their gear with the entire driver suit (control panels and all) plus a million other apps that all slow down their machine at the end of the day.

Either way, the OP should most definitely not bankrupt themselves over this.

 

wow I like it when people care about their answers - cheers guys. Plus a good descusion always goes down well


I dont know if the edit i put on an old reply was picked up? The PSU in the list was a typo the one i ended with is below: -

OCZ 600W ModXStream Pro Modular Power Supply PSU

is that enough or is my budget going up again - lol

Thanks for all the info. (btw I dont think the wife took the "i7 chat" to well so i think its a Q on the cards)

Cheers again

Torrix

 

Your graphics card requires 450 minimum to run, I always like to add 100 watts onto what they say as the minimum plus you need to take into account all the other pieces of hardware that you are going to be running plus take into account any future upgrades that you may do.

You said earlier that you would like to overclock, when you do this your cpu will require more power as in most cases the cpus voltage has to be changed.

I think you need atleast 650watts but would recommend 700w or more for your rig and I would like to point at that in my opinion a psu is the most important part of a rig and this item should never be skimped on. Corsair HX650 watt or seasonic m12 700watt should be more than enough for your rig and they are the best brands too.

 

Are you talking about the Radeon 4770 he mentioned? If so I think you have hugely overstated it's power requirements. It should draw less than 200watts under full load (based on previous reviews and analysis I have seen of it).

 

Oh - lol -

So please someone tell me that my budget can stay the same and I can go with the "OCZ 600W ModXStream Pro Modular Power Supply PSU"

Cheers

Torrix

 

I think what he meant was that when video card manufacturers nowadays mention that you need X watt PSU to run a video card, they're taking into account full system specs, CPU, mobo, ram, hdd's, and so on included.

For example, take the GTX295 from Nvidia, which at full load uses just short of 300 watts, but Nvidia's page/marketing material I think mentions that you need a minimum of 680 watt PSU. And this is a minimum.
The Radeon uses over a hundred watts less than the GTX295, so a minimum of 550 watts should be ok. But the deal is that going for a higher wattage PSU will result in less strain on this component. If the PSU is marked as 85+ (or similar), then you know that this particular PSU would be able to provide clean and reliable power up to 85% percent of its full stated capacity.

So a 600 watt PSU which is rated 85+ will give just over 500 watts 'reliably', and as far the OP's stated specs originally went, it would look like this:
Radeon at max = 170 watts
CPU at max = 130 watts
Motherboard, ram, harddisk, and other components = another 150 watts give or take 50 (depends on the number of disk, USB devices and more).

So the OP's system will run at between 400 and 500 watts depending on load (I may not be entirely right, just giving average numbers). A 600 watt PSU would run this setup, but it would be pushing it a little. PSU's between 600 and 750 watts these days do not have much difference in price if you don't go crazy on having the one with most features/cables/highest markings and so on...

I think the OP would not go wrong if he put another 10 bucks into the deal and got a 650 or 700 watt PSU from a good brand.

 

what he said ^

This is from the ATi forum: The 450W figure is a recommendation, from the cardmakers who are assuming you got a lot of other things in your systems drawing more power in addition to the 80 watts needed by the HD4770. The 450W figure is NOT a hard-and-fast requirement.

You need to look at what else is in your system and how much electrical power they are drawing off your PSU's +12V rail.

The HD4770 draws a maximum of 80 watts. 80 watts / 12 volts = 6.7 Amps. If the rest of your system is typical (a 100-watt CPU, 1HDD, 1ODD, mobo + ram), they will pull another 13 amps or so on the +12V under full load. So look at your PSU's label and see if it can deliver at least 20 Amps on the +12V. If it can, it should work

So I still believe you need a 650 watt or 700 watt model and you will need a good brand. OCZ produce reasonable PSUs but corsair and seasonic are the best.

Some you should steer clear of:- Antec (because they keep changing suppliers and have had questionable reliabilty lately).
Rosewill (because they are crap and when they die they tend to take the mobo with it)
Winpower (same as Rosewill)
CoolMax (because they are tryng to rip of coolermaster and suck at doing it)