New game rig

D

Deonlr

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Hi,

I'm putting together a new mid range game rig, this is what I am considering atm:

MSI Intel X58 Pro, 8CH Audio, GB Lan, 1394a, No VGA - CF - 6.4GT/s - 16X PCI-e x3, 2xPCI, 2xPCI-e 1x, 6x DDR3 1600, SATAIIx7 Raid (R2295)

Intel® Boxed CoreT i7 920 Processor - 2.66GHz Quad Core, Socket 1366 (R3230)

OCZ PC3-12800 Plat Low-Voltage Triple Channel 3x1GB Kit - CL 7-7-7-24, 1.65 Volts, Platinum Z3 XTC Heatspreader (R995)

2 x WD CAVIAR Black 32 500GB - 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache, SATAII (R808ea)

Corsair TX850W PSU (R2065)

Samsung T240 24 WIDE TFT, 1920 X 1200, 5 Millisecond, 20000:1 Contrast Ratio (R3335)

Gigabyte® ATI® Radeon HD4770, 512MB 128Bit GDDR3 (R1470)

Antec 300 (Three Hundred) Case (R951)

The prices are from http://www.comx.co.za/ and are the best I can find online.

I would appreciate any comments on the system or if anyone know of a better price online.

Thanks
Deon.
 
Looks good, but at that screen res I would be more comfortable getting a graphics card with a bit more memory, like a 4870 1gb. This will obviously mess around with your budget quite a bit, but I'm sure someone else can suggest some other components to compensate for the cost of the card.

Just out of interest, what is your budget?
 
Regarding the graphics card i agree. Even the 4850 is a better option for high res gaming over the 4770. I'd suggest you have a look at prophecy though. They have a 4870 512 for R2400 that is awesome value for money.
 
The 4770 is very oc friendly, and it kills the 4850 if you oc it. So if your budget is really tight, then stick with the 4770 And oc it!
 
I know the graphics card is the weak point, but I plan to put another one in Crossfire as soon as I have more money to spend on it.

Tom's Hardware 4770 Crossfire review

I don't see any these prices going down much in the next 2 months, am I naive?

Has anyone dealt with ComX in the past?
 
a R2300 motherboard with 3 PCI Express X16 slots, an i7 CPU, and then a R2000 Power Supply?! - but then you go and get a 4770..........

my cheap mobo with Ancient Q6600 will kill that system just because I have a better 3D Card...

you don't need 3 PCI Expess slots, and you don't need so much power (Trust me, that 850W is a crapload of power, I got a big corsair PSU too) - just get a better 3D Card atleast man....

DDR3 is over rated.
 
The graphics card is fine just one with 1gb of mem.

HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI-I / TVO Toxic R 2,050 excl. R 2,337 incl. seems a good deal.

Check www.pcint.co.za rather, far better pricing. Also you should look at the amd 940 cpu, the mobo would be cheaper the cpu is 700 bucks cheaper and there is no difference between intel and amd in games so you could get a better vga card as well. does the 940 amd use ddr2? as well because that would also bring your costs down a lot and enable a much more powerful card.
 
Deonlr said:
I know the graphics card is the weak point, but I plan to put another one in Crossfire as soon as I have more money to spend on it.
Click to expand...

Xfire is over rated too.

If you save a little bit here and there (Like, get a 23", a little cheaper mobo, a bit smaller PSU or whatever you want) and use that money to get a 4870X2 - it's R5000 IIRC. then you would have a beast of a system with 1 inch smaller screen, and still enough power if you get a 750W)
 
Actually if you go the amd route, cheaper mobo, cheaper cpu and if it uses ddr 2 much cheaper memory you may be able to afford the fastest vga card on the market the 295 nvidia.
 
I think he wants an Intel and ATI system though...

he doesn't need to get an AMD, a smaller CPU etc - he just has way too much power and a Tri-sli mobo which he doesn't need. (and he could, if he *needed* to, get a 1 inch smaller screen, if he needed a few more bucks for the GFX card)

also, if you have to get an expensive mobo, rather spend it on asus or gigabyte - they make much better mobo's.
 
Get a faster HD for the OS. Raptor or SSD.

HD is your biggest bottle neck.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

The motherboard is the cheapest x58 board with all solid caps I could find, the tri SLI is not the point.

I know the chip/mobo is totally overpowered for the moment, but I am going for the new architecture to try and get a few years more out of the system, I don't want to start with 775 now.

The reason for the 24" is to be able to go 1920x1200, again getting a good base system going and be able to upgrade the graphics as more money becomes available.

The 4770 in crossfire seems to be very potent if you look at the linked review.

My basic philosophy was to go with the best items I can afford that are expensive to upgrade later ie the bigger screen and the new processor architecture. Am I trying too hard to convince myself? :confused:
 
Deonlr said:
The reason for the 24" is to be able to go 1920x1200, again getting a good base system going and be able to upgrade the graphics as more money becomes available.

The 4770 in crossfire seems to be very potent if you look at the linked review.

My basic philosophy was to go with the best items I can afford that are expensive to upgrade later ie the bigger screen and the new processor architecture. Am I trying too hard to convince myself? :confused:
Click to expand...

For full hd I'd say get an ATI HD 4870 1gig verison. The extra memory really comes in handy at the higher reasolutions. Crossfire is highly driver dependant. Some games show 0% improvement so it's not always worth it. Also the PSU is overkill, most companies overate their products power need. With a good brand you could go up to 100 watts below the 'required' amount.
 
Deonlr said:
Hi,

I'm putting together a new mid range game rig, this is what I am considering atm:

MSI Intel X58 Pro, 8CH Audio, GB Lan, 1394a, No VGA - CF - 6.4GT/s - 16X PCI-e x3, 2xPCI, 2xPCI-e 1x, 6x DDR3 1600, SATAIIx7 Raid (R2295)

Intel® Boxed CoreT i7 920 Processor - 2.66GHz Quad Core, Socket 1366 (R3230)

OCZ PC3-12800 Plat Low-Voltage Triple Channel 3x1GB Kit - CL 7-7-7-24, 1.65 Volts, Platinum Z3 XTC Heatspreader (R995)
Click to expand...
i7 is, frankly, a waste if you're only gaming. If you're doing movie stuff, photoshop etc too, then rock on, it's great. Fact is, though, as far as I know there isn't a single game that's CPU bound on a C2D. Well, there are CPU bound games, but they get bound at like 60+ FPS, so it doesn't matter. Games just aren't good at using multiple cores.

Get 6GB RAM though, 3GB is already becoming a little paltry, and it'll only get worse in time. There's no price premium on 6GB either.
2 x WD CAVIAR Black 32 500GB - 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache, SATAII (R808ea)

Corsair TX850W PSU (R2065)
Click to expand...
The only time I can imagine high quality 800+ PSUs actually being useful is with really beefy video card setups. Like 3x GTX280. The 4770 isn't very power hungry, even two of them don't nearly warrant such a PSU.

As for future proofing, power use is likely to go down if anything. 40nm, and a bigger emphasis these days on power use.
Samsung T240 24 WIDE TFT, 1920 X 1200, 5 Millisecond, 20000:1 Contrast Ratio (R3335)

Gigabyte® ATI® Radeon HD4770, 512MB 128Bit GDDR3 (R1470)

Antec 300 (Three Hundred) Case (R951)
Click to expand...
Xfired 4770 works well....but only when it works. Some games just don't handle multiple GPUs well. Most are fine with just 2 cards, but make sure whatever game you want to play doesn't have issues with it.

You'll probably want to upgrade when the next gen comes out, but that's the case no matter what you get now.
The prices are from http://www.comx.co.za/ and are the best I can find online.

I would appreciate any comments on the system or if anyone know of a better price online.

Thanks
Deon.
Click to expand...
Can definitely improve on some things, like the processor, but I'm too lazy to search too much :D
 
Velaux said:
i7 is, frankly, a waste if you're only gaming. If you're doing movie stuff, photoshop etc too, then rock on, it's great. Fact is, though, as far as I know there isn't a single game that's CPU bound on a C2D. Well, there are CPU bound games, but they get bound at like 60+ FPS, so it doesn't matter. Games just aren't good at using multiple cores.

Get 6GB RAM though, 3GB is already becoming a little paltry, and it'll only get worse in time. There's no price premium on 6GB either.

The only time I can imagine high quality 800+ PSUs actually being useful is with really beefy video card setups. Like 3x GTX280. The 4770 isn't very power hungry, even two of them don't nearly warrant such a PSU.

As for future proofing, power use is likely to go down if anything. 40nm, and a bigger emphasis these days on power use.

Xfired 4770 works well....but only when it works. Some games just don't handle multiple GPUs well. Most are fine with just 2 cards, but make sure whatever game you want to play doesn't have issues with it.

You'll probably want to upgrade when the next gen comes out, but that's the case no matter what you get now.

Can definitely improve on some things, like the processor, but I'm too lazy to search too much :D
Click to expand...

+1...

@Deonlr: Consider the Corsair HX620 for a good quality modular PSU. Although that would probably be a little overkill too. :D
 
cr@zydude said:
For full hd I'd say get an ATI HD 4870 1gig verison. The extra memory really comes in handy at the higher reasolutions. Crossfire is highly driver dependant. Some games show 0% improvement so it's not always worth it. Also the PSU is overkill, most companies overate their products power need. With a good brand you could go up to 100 watts below the 'required' amount.
Click to expand...

+10000

Corsairs do this especially - when they say it's a 600W, it's more like a 750 lol....

I'd rather go for a better, single card solution than Xfire/SLI - even if it has 2 GPU's, as long as it's on one card.

Gaming at 1920x1200 isn't gonna be that great on a 4770, even if you have a huge PSU, and even an i7 - 3D Card is MOST Important, ok, i'll say it again - 3D Card is MOST Important!

Don't think that buying another 4770 or even 3 is gonna save you, Crossfire and SLI is a moneymaker for the GFX Companies, riding on the fact that 15% of gamers will buy them whether it works or not (e-penis)

mostly, it doesn't warrant the price - rather get 1 single, solid performing card.


It's simple really - rather get one R3000 card than two R1500 cards that only work okayish half of the time.
 
Why is no one recommending the:
Samsung 2494HS

Its also HD, and R1000 cheaper?
 
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