Intel Machine preorder

[Valdahur]

Hi peeps

I'm looking at preordering a new machine and would like a little input.

Currently considering the intel 975 Bad Axe mobo.
Want to go with the Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.67GHz Dual Core CPU
OCZ DDR2 PC2-5400 Gold Dual Channel 2GB (2*1GB) RAM.
A 600+W power supply, not quite sure on make yet input would help.
Something along the lines of 320Gb HDD.
The big question is which graphics card to go with. the 3 options i can see are in order of preferance:
nVidia 7900GT 256 just to hold me over till the next evolution,
2x nVidia 7900GTX SLi to last a while or till i NEED something better.
ATI X1900 Crossfire card with the X1900XTX

On the monitor side i dunno... i want an LCD but with so much to choose from ill scan the boards and see what i can sus out.

Thanks in advance for input.

 

[LethalChicken]

drop E6700, go for E6600 ... almost no speed diffrence, and over R1000 cheaper. E6600 is currently best R/preformance ratio.

Power Supply - 600W migh not be enough for a a SLI / Crossfire setup. Recommend Enermax or Antec.

graphics: if you want future proof, actually any of the 3 will do as all 3 seem to be compatible with DX10 for Vista. There is little technology diffrence, mostly just performance.

I'd personally go for a 7600GT if u want to UG to a DX 10 later, or go big if u want to keeep the cards.

The diffrence between ATI & Nvidia, depends on use, in benchmarks they both win and lose some, so it's a personal preference. I have always stuck with Nvidia, but that's just me.

 

[etothex]

Where are you getting this from?

If you do need to bring the price down a bit, then you can always replace that E6700 with an E6600. L2 Cache is still 4MB, but it is a 2.4GHz processor.

I'd be careful about what revision the motherboard is because only the later revision will be able to support a Core 2 Duo without modding. If you are buying this from a reputable dealer than you could probably rest assured that it is the latest revision.

I'd go with the single nVidia 7900GT 256MB card(maybe something even cheaper) because the DX10 cards are coming out soon. Also, unless you get a really big monitor and play on a really high resolution, like 1600x1200 at full detail, then the single card is quite enough. You won't see any real difference between SLI and non-SLI at 1024x768 or 1152x864.

Also, at the moment, while I really like nVidia, I'd go with ATI for next generation cards.

Firstly, unless nVidia sorts this out in their next generation, ATI cards can do anti-aliasing and HDR rendering at the same time. nVidia one's can only do one at a time due to the design of their framebuffer.

Secondly, high-end nVidia cards will occasionally, very rarely, die on you even if you haven't OCed it all.

On the downside, high-end ATI cards produce a large amount of heat and you could need extra cooling for your computer.

How much is all of this, btw?

EDIT:

graphics: if you want future proof, actually any of the 3 will do as all 3 seem to be compatible with DX10 for Vista. There is little technology diffrence, mostly just performance.

Thats because DirectX uses a software reference device so that it can when programmers tell the graphics card to do something, they can do it without worrying about whether the card supports it or not. I haven't tried it yet, but it should be possible to run DX10 on a SavageIX S3 with 8MB of RAM. (I'm running DX9.0c on it right now) But I definitely won't be able to play HL2 on it without giving it a heartattack. Judging by the high quality of DX10 graphics, I'm guessing you definitely want to upgrade when DX10 comes out. (or maybe when a DX10 game comes out )

EDIT2:
600W is quite enough for a power supply.

 

[Valdahur]

BTW want to put it all into a Thermaltake Kandalf LCS.

Getting most, hopefully from prophecy and will put it all together myself. So far seems to be in the region of 20 if i got with the 6700 and the 256 7900GT prolly about 26-28 if i got with the ATi setup.

 

[werner]

975xbx must be rev0304...there are some 0302's floating around, they dont work with conroe.

2 x nvidia cards wont work in sli unless you use unofficial hacked drivers....blame nvidia for that...with the recent amd+ati merger there is a good chance of nvidia and intel making peace on this issue.

2 x ati x1900 cards sound horribly loud...no really...the coolers are massive and sound like vacuum cleaners, and now you want 2?

as previous poster said, lcd dont support the really high resolutions, so going wiht a dual gfx card setup will be a waste.

if, however, you want to spend the cash, then get a nvidia 7950gx2...cheaper than two 7900gtx...and will work with bad axe, and doesnt sound as wild as the x1900..and when the intel/nvidia sillyness ends, you can upgrade to another card for quad-sli, and still have a spare x16 slot available...(bad axe has 3 x16 physical slots)

bad axe only has one ide port, so max 2 opticals (until CHEAP sata opticals come around)

600watt psu is plenty enough. conroe only sips electricity it doesnt drink it in large quantities, just make sure it is a dual 12v rail psu with minimum 16amps per rail

 

[Valdahur]

the 7950gx2 seems like a very viable option thank you werner. They seem fairly prices and as you mentioned upgrading with another one at a later stage should be easy enough and i can throw in a phisX card then too.

Edit: Any particular company make reliable gfx cards I was thinking of Asus or gainward but dunno.

 

[etothex]

I'm going to be buying a Core 2 Duo system soon. I'm upgrading from a 'Willamette' P4 to the E6600. I've done quite a bit of research into what motherboard and I have to say that nVidia's nForce 590 motherboard is going to be incredible to say the least.

Dual on-board Gigabit LAN Ports
TCP/IP acceleration
Teaming capability(so you can get a combined bandwith of 2Gb)
Dual PCI-E 16X
6 SATA and 2 PATA slots

Definitely getting this at whatever price.

Unfortunately, they aren't out yet for Intel. Apparently, sometime next month is the magic date.

 

[ShockG]

Yah NV590 SLI chipset looks to be a winner once again.
If I am to go conroe I'll go NV590, but if I go AMD 4x4 I'll still go for NV 5series chipset

Firstly, unless nVidia sorts this out in their next generation, ATI cards can do anti-aliasing and HDR rendering at the same time. nVidia one's can only do one at a time due to the design of their framebuffer.

Hmm, HDR+AA is not a DirectX9.0c requirement.
Why GF can't do hardware AA+HDR is not a frame buffer issue but a fragment shader issue. On ATI cards fragment shader is de-coupled or seperate rather from texturing units. This is not the case with GF6/7 since texture units sit inside the fragment shaders. This in itself is not the problem, but implemantation of HDR under DX9 using FP16 tex blends makes this a problem.

This will never again be a problem with DX10+ class hardware

I would go for a 7950GX2 if I was buying Nvidia, but other than that X1900XTX with aftermarket cooler would be great

 

[Valdahur]

New scenario

Alienware P2 chassis and goodies including the nForce 4 SLi and 1Gb 7950GX2. The big question is, however, how is alienware UK's service. Noticed some issues on dot's website a while ago.
I have previously been able to get things from the US and had no prblems just wondering if anyone has feed back regarding the UK division.

Regards

Looking at this setup:


[1] Area-51™ 7500

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2
Warranty: AlienCare 2-Year Free Phone 24/7 and Collect & Return
Automated Support: AlienAutopsy: Automated Technical Support Request System
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Space Black
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling + AlienFX™ System Lighting + Alienware® High-Performance Liquid Cooling
Power Supply: Alienware® 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply with Active PFC
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce™ 4 SLI Motherboard
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB DDR2 PC-6400 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Video Card: 1024MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GX2 - DVI Dual Link Supported - NEW!
Video Optimiser: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance
System Drive: Dual Drive Configuration - 500 GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7,200 rpm with 16MB Cache - (2 x 250GB)
Optical Drive One: Premium 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Recorder
Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - Standard
Network Card: Integrated High Performance Intel Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (DSL-ready)
Removable Storage: Alienware® 28-in-1 Digital Media Reader / Writer
Floppy Drive: 1.44 MB Floppy Drive - Black
Monitor: (None)
Keyboard: Logitech® G15 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech® G7 Laser Cordless Mouse
Portable Storage: Alienware® USB 2.0 512MB Flash Drive
Security Software: Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Professional - English
AlienInspection: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - £50 Value - FREE!
AlienWiring: AlienWiring - Exclusive Internal Wire Management - £50 Value - FREE!
Free T-Shirt: Alienware® T-Shirt - Black - XL
Free Alienware Mousepad : Free Custom Alienware® fUnc Mousepad
Free Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager

EDIT:

Any idea on import duties from UK so far price is 2k pounds?

 

[hennievr]

And where do you take it for warranty? You probably going to pay for the import of this product what you could have paid for a good display card or a nice cpu. So it will be a lose lose situation. It will also be FOB which means that they will not pay you your money back should something happen on the shipping of the product.(breakage, plane crash, sinking ship, etc.)