Potential Gaming Rig

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Hi all

I was going to buy a ready built Gaming PC but have decided that to gain more experience in the hardware aspect of things, i'm going to build my own rig

Below is the system i plan to build. If anyone would like to look over it and add any comments/recommendations its would be much appreciated. I think everything I have is compatible...

Case - Antec Nine Hundred 900 - Gaming Case with 200mm Top Fan [/URL]
Motherboard - MSI X48 Platinum iX48 Socket 775 DDR3 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 12MB L2 Cache (2x6MB)
Memory - Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2
Graphics - ASUS 8800GTS 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sound - Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express - OEM
Hard drive - Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM
CD/DVD drive - Sony DRU-190S 20X DVD±RW DL & DVD-RAM Serial ATA - Retail Multi Bezel & Nero
PSU - Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail

Thanks in advance

 

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Ooh what a luverly can of worms you've opened !

You'll get loads of recommendations and opinions I'm sure.

Ok, here's my 5p's worth !

MSI = good motherboards but if you look at their diamond series you'll find you can get the creative sound in an onboard version which *may* save some money.

I love ASUS stuff and have resold their kit for the last 10 yrs so great choice on graphics as far as I'm concerned. You could possibly consider an ASUS m/b to go with it maybe ?

DVD - not a big fan of the SONY stuff tbh. Always had problems with them and they tend to supply their own software rather than something like Nero which is pretty much a standard these days.

Memory - Corsair is fine tho' I prefer Kingston (each to their own).

I would suggest having a look at reviews on www.tomshardware.com which have always been an excellent source of reference.

My problem with most people who build is that they don't stick to the same component manufacturer and so don't build up experience of all the tweaks etc that can be done. As yours is a one-off tho' this is less relevant.

Cases/psu's - well you can pretty much pick and choose tbh.

RAM - remember that Xp won't access all of that but Vista will.

Hard drives - always been a Seagate man myself.

Hope some of this helps - just off out so not much time to comment but feel free to pm me for anything

 

Thanks very much for your comments.

I was torn on the MB front. I was looking at the MSI board as it gave the option DDR3 RAM in the future, however the over MB i was considering was

Asus Striker II Formula 780i SLI Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

With the above board i have the option of going to SLI (credit card permitting ) in the future. As you have mentioned this would also then mean I have a ASUS Graphics card and MB

Infact even as I am typing this i'm leaning towards the ASUS board....

 

MSi board with the Creative in on-board mode :

http://www.msicomputer.co.uk/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1372&maincat_no=1

 

Looks good to me. I also agree on matching the mobo and graphics card manufacturers where possible as pointed out already.

If you go the Asus mobo way then there are some that provide "onboard" sound cards.

 

I've got an ASUS Striker in my current build, along with an ASUS 8800GT, not had any problems with it at all. Good little system you've got there though. I'd also echo UKDarkstar on the Sony DVD, I've had a few problems in the past aswell.
What operating system are you going to be running?

Fair play aswell on building your own system to gain experience, it's exactly what I did when I first started out. Great way to learn.

 

Im just putting a little parts list together, obviously its only my opinion, just one question, what size is your current monitor and what resolution do you already play at, does it have a DVI port?

Also are you aware that the motherboard you have selected is a Crossfire one for ATI cards?



Now obviously you can chop and change to suit your budget

 

Thanks for all your posts

Ok here is the updated planned rig

Case - Antec Nine Hundred 900 - Gaming Case with 200mm Top Fan [/url]
Motherboard - Asus Striker II Formula 780i SLI Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 12MB L2 Cache (2x6MB)
Memory - Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2
Graphics - ASUS 8800GTS 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sound - supplied with MB
Hard drive - Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM
CD/DVD drive - LG GH20NS10 20X SATA DVD±RW/DL/RAM - Retail Black Inc Nero
PSU - Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail

Thanks, just realised my mistake with my original MB selection - going to go with and Asus board. Currently using a 19inch monitor at a resolution of 1280 x 1024. Ideally would like to get a new monitor although not sure if I can strecth to it just yet...

I'm going with Vista Home Premium OS

 

Thanks for the parts list. I'm just going to host a BBQ and will then have a look through it later today

Rachael

 

Sounds like a good rig, the only concern I would have is the PSU. Look at getting a higher wattage one especially if you intend to add further hardware components in the future. Go for a 700 or 750 watt one atleast.

 

The 620w can run SLI 8800GTXs, Multiple drives and a overclocked Quad and it's also Modular

Unless you really need something higher, that should be more than enough

Gaming at 1280x1024 is fine, however ideally you want to be playing at 1680x1050 for the GT/GTS cards or ATI if you decide to go that route.

 

Nice rig. My only suggestion would be to get a second harddrive purely for extra storage. On average PC game are chewing up >8GB of space - then there is storage for all the other stuff that you'll be storing on there.

 

Personally I wouldn't go for a mobo with an Nvidia chipset unless you were going to go with an SLI right away. A mobo with a P35 (if you want DDR2 RAM) or X38 (if you want DDR3 RAM) chipset will help get the most from your CPU and will be benefiting you everyday. You may never get around to going SLI, upgrading single graphics cards every now and then will be able to keep up with your gaming habits well enough, unless you go crossfire on two ATI cards, most Intel based boards support this.

The hard drive is usually a bottle neck for performance, I would go with Mathematix's suggestion and get two drives, but RAID0 them for maximum performance.

 

I think the onboard Nvidia chip can be a concern other wise get the SLI, as I recently rebuilt my wife's PC and got a Gigabyte S-series motherboard, GA-M57SLI-S4 and so far no problems with a AM2 socket processor Athlon AMD 64 bit.

The PSU I'd get slightly higher wattage otherwise bang on nice system.

 

Thanks guys. Ok so my nearly final set up is as follows

Case - Antec Nine Hundred 900 - Gaming Case with 200mm Top Fan [/url]
Motherboard - Asus Striker II Formula 780i SLI Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 12MB L2 Cache (2x6MB)
Memory - Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2
Graphics - ASUS 8800GTS 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sound - supplied with MB
Hard drive - Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM x2
CD/DVD drive - LG GH20NS10 20X SATA DVD±RW/DL/RAM - Retail Black Inc Nero
PSU - Coolermaster RealPower 700W Modular PSU - SLI Ready

I'm still not sure about the MB. As a couple of you mentioned getting an Intel chipset rather than Nvidia I thought about the

ASUS Maximus Formula Republic of Gamers iX38 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX

Theres just something i'm not quite sure on - This MB supports Crossfire for ATI cards, but will it support just 1 NVIDIA card? Apologies if the answer to this is obvious

 

Yep, thats right.

 

The maximus formula is a better mobo and yes it will only spport one Nvida card or two ATi cards. Better choice of PSU imo.

 

I wouldn't personally recommend using Raid 0 with 2 drives as already mentioned. I have seen a few different roundups recently that compared raid 0 performance using on board raid controllers vs high speed single drives. There was very little difference in real world tests (synthetic tests came out better though) and there are obvious disadvantages also (if one drive fails, data from both is lost). You would be better off buying a Samsung 1TB F1 drive (which is an amazing performer) or possibly the latest WD 300GB Raptor (pricey) if you were particularly after high HD performance.

 

I very strongly recommend against a raid config for a gaming rig for the reason that Modey mentioned. Games are CPU, memory and GPU intensive, so I can't see any reason for it. Secondly, I'd only invest in RAID if I very regularly backed up my drives.

 

I just bought a 1TB hard drive for under £100 from Maxtor. It's 7200rpm. Don't bother going for RAID!