PC Upgrade

adamr

adamr

Executive Member
Joined
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Location
Fourways, Johannesburg
Looking to "MAYBE" upgrade my current machine ...

I7 990X (heard its coming out real soon) ... or is there an AMD equivalent thats better?
how much RAM? 8gig or 12 ... or is 6 GIG good enough ... make brand????
X58 Mobo ... which brand? i really dont need bluetooth and 10 million usb ports or the ability to connect 1 million HDD's ....
1.5 TB HDD
GTX580 x 2 for SLI (for the 26" monitor SLI is needed????)
CD/DVD/Blu Ray recommendations?


Coolermaster cosmos 1000 chasis...

I will use my T260 monitor i currently have (will only upgrade is there is a similar sized LED monitor on the market)
X-FI Elite sound card as well ill keep
Logiteh Z5500 speaker also gonna keep
Logitech Dinovo Edge keyboard im keeping and MX Revolution mouse ...

so recommend a spec for me ... like i said im just thinking of the idea for now ... not sure if i should ...
 
machine used for gaming ... really need a recommendation on the hardware for the best gaming experience ... in terms of budget ... im not sure (look if its R50k, then id say pass) ... so assuming budget aint an issue ... whats the best? (where best is not necessarily most expensive)

might have contacts in this regard to source the components abroad ... esp with the currency it would be worth my while (maybe) ...
 
Personally, for GFX, I'd go the Ati way - they're cheaper, draw less power & perform better on the same price point as an nVidia card.
 
k look you really don't need such an expensive setup to have a good gaming experience.
An i7 930/950 would more than serve your purpose. Gaming relies more on the cards than anything else..
AMD has a cheap 6 core (same price as the above 2) but for gaming doesn't perform as well, only by a small margin.


I'd go with this:
CPU: i7 950 R2581.99 <-quadcore but you can substitute it with a 6 of your choice.
MOBO: ASUS Rampage III Formula R3298.38
RAM: Corsair 3x2GB 1600MHz CL7 R1754.35 (6GB is more than enough for gaming, but if you want 12 then well go for it :) )
GPU: 2x580 (pricing seems to be unstable still. There are new ATI cards coming out mid December I think? I think 580 sli is overkill for that screen. Do you want to go 3D later on or multiple displays?)
PSU: Corsair AX850w (I wouldn't go lower than a 850w) R2,077.93

The case is fine and you should look at getting an SSD for sure!! Something like this Corsair (look for sandforce based drives preferably). Then buy a 2TB drive for media storage etc.
 
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SSD id assume for speed?

6 core a lil more future proof? should i even look at AMD???? or stick with intel?
current machine has 8gig and have not realised or seen a benefit ... so i guess you right with the 6gig .... unless someone can show me there is a benefit in having 12 gig of ram id appreciate it

think i have a zeus silverstone 850W PSU already .... (must make sure, maybe its 750W)

dont want to go 3D ... just game at max settings 1920x1200 .... so i thought SLI would be beneficial to game at this res .... ? well the 580 is the latest ... but would wait to see what ATI is gonna release in December ...

is there a huge price diff between a 1.5TB and 2 TB HDD???? i aint a movie and p2p buff to load my hard disks :)
 
adamr said:
SSD id assume for speed?

6 core a lil more future proof? should i even look at AMD???? or stick with intel?
current machine has 8gig and have not realised or seen a benefit ... so i guess you right with the 6gig .... unless someone can show me there is a benefit in having 12 gig of ram id appreciate it

think i have a zeus silverstone 850W PSU already .... (must make sure, maybe its 750W)

dont want to go 3D ... just game at max settings 1920x1200 .... so i thought SLI would be beneficial to game at this res .... ? well the 580 is the latest ... but would wait to see what ATI is gonna release in December ...

is there a huge price diff between a 1.5TB and 2 TB HDD???? i aint a movie and p2p buff to load my hard disks :)
Click to expand...

How long do you want it to last? 2, 5, 10 years?
The Intel 6 cores are all like over 9K just for the chip. You could upgrade every 2 years with that cash rather... I feel it's a waste for gaming.

I'd take Intel over AMD at this point but you really won't see much of a difference... Like I said if you want 6 cores I'd rather go with AMD 1090T, but you do lose about ~<5% fps in games over the 950. But heavily multi-threaded apps will favour the 1090T of course. Most games don't require more than 2 cores, but in they future they most certainly will benefit allot more from the extra cores, but that maybe in 6 months time or 3 years time... I dunno.

I'd just stay with Intel and 6GB RAM.

You should have a look at all the bench marks at 1920x1200 and see if it really is worth it? I'd rather take a 5970 (if you want single card) or 6870 crossfire. That will allow you to play all games maxed.. The 6870 are actually only the mid range cards, the 69xx are the high range coming out in Dec. They will pack some real punch especially if in crossfire. I'm still happy with my little 5850 in all game titles, on a T240.

So options:
1x 580 then if you feel you need more buy another.
2x 6870 cheaper than 580 and out performs it, and use less power and give out less heat. But then you got 2 cards instead of one.
2 x 580 well this will last you no doubt! Just to pricey and overkill if you ask me. But if you want power this is the route to take.
1x 5970 essentially two 5870 chips on one card (same performance as 6870 crossfire)
nice review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/nvidias-geforce-gtx-580/1

price difference is quite small between the 1.5 and 2TB :) you can never have too much space :)

Wonder where archer n pada are they usually got some good insight aswell...
 
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Edit: Nvm, I misread thought it was 1333mhz ram at really expensive price :o

I agree with Nakedpeanut, wouldn't worry too much about CPU even a slower CPU like Core i5 750 wouldn't ruin the gaming experience. Dual GPU is a bit overkill in my opinion but I'm not a hardcore gamer (still I'm playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 at max settings with AA enabled on my 27" screen and it seems fine to me and I have a much less powerful GPU).
 
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I would say that the i7 6 core CPU are a total waste of money, unless you're a hardcore overclocker that want the absolute best for benchmarking.
You could rather spend the R6.5k difference on a nice water cooling system + RAID SSD configuration. * I don't know about water cooling parts (including a nice case for that), so someone else should advise you here.

The 2x NVidia GTX 460 in SLI or 2x AMD HD 6870 will outperform 1x GTX 580, but 2x GTX 580's are just way overboard unless you have like 3x 24" Full HD screens in portrait mode with a small bezel.
You can get 2x HD 6870's for R2500 in SA already, but the MSI Hawks would be quieter and most likely give you better performance as well, but they will draw more power at full load.

If you're not too concerned about application startup speed, then you can drop the 1x 120GB SSD, but I would REALLY recommend that you keep at least 1x 120GB !

The rig that I'll go for if I had R30k+, without going absolutely overboard would be:
1x Asus ROG Rampage III Formula LGA1366 Triple-Channel DDR3 3-Way SLI/CrossFire R3298.38 * There's a Asus ROG competition running till 30 Dec 2010!
1x Intel Core i7 950 Quad Core 3.06GHz LGA1366 8MB Cache CPU R2581.99
1x Corsair CMT6GX3M3A2000C8 Dominator GT DHX 3x2GB DDR3-2000 1.65v CL8 R2153.12
2x MSI N460GTX HAWK GeForce GTX460 1GB GDDR5 256-bit PCI-E 2.0 R2506.75 each = R5013.50
1x WesternDigital WD15EARS Caviar Green 1.5TB SATA2 5400-7200rpm R820.15
1x Corsair AX850W 850W 24Pin Modular Power Supply R2249.61
1x LG BH10LS30 Dual-Layer Blu-Ray Writer with Lightscribe - Black R1298.30
1x Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000-KWN1 Case with Window Panel, No PSU R2727.86
Prophecy Shop sub-total: R20 142.91

2x G.Skill FM-25S2S-120GBP2 Phoenix Pro 120GB SSD R2139.00 each = R4278.00 (for use in RAID 0)* Currently out of stock with WootWare

Now you still have to get a nice custom WC loop

Total (excl WC loop): R24 420.91

EveTech has a couple of insane gaming PC's, but they don't have any that include the GTX 580 yet, and I think their balance is a bit off. http://www.evetech.co.za/Extreme-Gaming-Pcs.aspx
 
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If you purely want the highest possible framerate and don't care about the other stuff, then you could get an i7 PC with 2x GTX 580's for ~ R20k.
This PC should give you better framerates than the one I suggested above, but overall the experience would be much better with the other one.

i7 950 @ R2500
Motherboard @ R2100
3x 2GB DDR3 1333MHz @ R1300
2x GTX 580 @ R5300 each -> R10600
Antec True Power Quattro 850W @ R1800
1TB HDD @ R500
DVD Drive @ R200
CoolerMaster HAF 922 @ R1300
Total: R20 300

I'm not sure if the i7 950 at stock speed would be bottlenecked by the 2x GTX 580's...
 
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Yeah, for an insane budget, and 580's in SLI, you should definitely look towards a 30" Dell monitor.

Otherwise, get
*one GPU (GTX580),
*an AMD 6 core or an i7 9x0 CPU
*ONE large SSD rather than two smaller ones, as SSDs still has problems with TRIM in RAID 0. (And before I start getting flamed, SSDs does support TRIM in RAID mode, but only if you're RAID'ing normal HDDs and still want an SSD as well, not with two SSDs)
*6GB RAM
 
For those that do not yet know, the actual TDP of the GTX580 has been found - 350W. Remember how Nvidia forces the GTX580 to throttle itself in furmark and similar GPU stress testers? Well that has now been disabled. So whereas initial reviews could only get the GTX580 to draw 200W at load on furmark, it now draws a whopping 350W. Now consider that you can easily beat that performance with less than 300W with SLI or crossfire configs that also cost less money...
 
Thanks Archer. I didn't know that.

Hmm, I thought 300W was the maximum that should be allowed for PCI-e cards. 350W means that it's slightly more than 2x GTX 460's in SLI as well, since they're 160W each.
 
Pada said:
Thanks Archer. I didn't know that.

Hmm, I thought 300W was the maximum that should be allowed for PCI-e cards. 350W means that it's slightly more than 2x GTX 460's in SLI as well, since they're 160W each.
Click to expand...

Well thats probably why they put the throttling in place, so that they could meet the spec. Using 2 6870s give you 302W, so thats also under (and a decent amount more FPS too).
 
I would still wait for the new ati cards though.. I got a feeling looking at the 68xx they going to be amazing bang for buck with low temps and power compared to that 580... possibly even beat it
 
nakedpeanut said:
I would still wait for the new ati cards though.. I got a feeling looking at the 68xx they going to be amazing bang for buck with low temps and power compared to that 580... possibly even beat it
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think the HD6970 is going to trade blows with the GTX580.
 
Thanks for the advice ...

So this is what I'm looking at i7 950
6 gigs ram ddr3 2000
1 tb hdd and an ssd drive
1 geforece gtx 580
Asus rampage 3 mb
Coolermaster cosmos 1000
850w psu
 
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