For the past week or two I've been doing the obligatory research for buying a new pc and am fairly confident about what I want.
I was unsure about a 9800gx2 or 2x8800gts g92's in Sli
After a lengthy debate with myself I came to the conclusion with myself the 88's in Sli would be the better option.
However after having spent some time this evening the only Sli option I could find was the ASUS Striker II Extreme which is DDR3 and as such eats a large chunk of my cash pie up, especialy as I wanted 2x2gb sticks (only option for this on DDR3 board is OCZ DDr3-1600 @ £270 compared to the DDR2-8500 2x2 @ £90 )
Its this the only Sli board avail to choose or did I miss something ?
Or do you think a single Gx2 on an x48 board would be the better option ?
This is pretty much the build I was toying with
Case: none selected ( Hoping for new Lian Li PC-A77 to be added to list )
Cooling: Antarctic Cooling 3-5 Fans digital controlled+VGA/HD Cooling ( a little concerned about exactly what I would be getting for my money on this option as is a little vague )
Fans type: Non-LED fans
PSU: Coolermaster Real Power M700W Modular PSU
Motherboard: none selected ( ????? )
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Retail (2x3.16GHz 1333FSB 6Mb) ( or Q9450, as this is a gaming machine I thought the E8500 would be the better option )
CPU Cooling: Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120 Heatpipe Heatsink (All CPU)
Memory: OCZ DDR2-1066 2x2048MB Reaper HPC 4GB Dual Channel Kit
Graphics: (2x) BFG Nvidia 8800GTS New OC 512Mb PCIe HDCP
Hard Drive: 1Tb Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 7200 32mb Cache SATA II
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203N SATA 18x DL DVDRW
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit DVD OEM
Building: Saver Build (10-20 working days)
Overclocking: Safe Stable Overclocking (5-40% - CPU/VGA)
a single Gx2 on an x48 board would be the better option ?
This is what I would go for...sadly if you had the money I would water cool it too.
But if you do go for two 8800GTS 512s then the "Safe Stable Overclocking" you asked for might be impracticable..under air
I would get two hard drives as you want your OS on one and your programs and games on the other...but thats just me .
..Also the Samsung SpinPoint F1 is a great drive.
In 32 bit you only see 3 gig of your memory ...but I lived with it
And I think your right about the CPU...E8500 over the Q9450...but wait until someone else can clarify that
First of all if you are sure you want sli the you do have the option of the striker 2 formula which uses ddr2 and the 780i chipset. I personally would go for a single GX2 on the X48 though. Also if you could stretch to watercooling you would really see the benefit using that setup.
Welcome....
Plus if you see the latest custom pc tests...they show that 2x 8800gt or gts are not that good but the 9800gx2 was excellent!
I would go for wolfs choice tbh...
If you must have SLI, I'd definitely take Wolf's advice and go with the x48 board and a GX2.
anrkyuk wrote:
Cooling: Antarctic Cooling 3-5 Fans digital controlled+VGA/HD Cooling ( a little concerned about exactly what I would be getting for my money on this option as is a little vague )
As well as the temperature sensors (so fans automatically spin up or down depending on internal temperatures), Vadim will add additional air cooling (if possible in your chosen case), GPU cooling to keep that GX2 (or whatever you choose) running cooler and quieter than with the stock heatsink, and swap out the system fans for quieter ones. I believe they add hard drive cooling as well, but I can't confirm that... IMO, the third party graphics cooling they install alone is worth the extra cost over Premium cooling.
I'd also agree with dmc about the hard drive setup, considering the cost per gigabyte these days I'd always choose two separate drives over a single one.
Edit
And if you're looking to save a bit of money, and don't want or expect a really huge processor overclock (which more or less calls for watercooling anyway), the E8400 is a less expensive, slightly less fast (at stock) CPU than the E8500.
Firstly many thanks to all for the welcome, most kind
With regards to the GPU, I'll go with the popular concensus of the gx2 with an x48 motherboard and hope an aftermarket air cooler comes out soon ish.
( x48 best choice or save money and get an x38 ? )
With regards the HDD situation, I only selected the single 1tb as I have Many drives in my current machine some of which were going to find their way into my new machine ( current one has 2x74gb raptors and 4x500gb )
With regards the air / water cooling. My current machine was a pre built overclocked machine running on air with a Q6600@ 3.2Ghz with Load temps of 55c. Sadly the G80 core 8800Gtx even with after market cooling would not go above 590mhz even though it was only 57c under load ( however the memory went all the way to 2200 Mhz @ 46c under load ).
I like the idea of water cooling but I usualy keep a machine for 2-3 years, usualy after 12-16 months upgrade the GPU and after 3 years sell and buy a new machine. My fear is that If I have the GPU watercooled it would be beyond my ability to replace the cooling for a new GPU.
If it were possible to just have the CPU / Chipset watercooled this is something I would defanatly consider.
With regards the Overclocking TBH I would only want the CPU/Memory overlocking as I would rather put an aftermarket air cooler on the GPU and overclock myself.
On a side note do Vadim allow collection ?, I only live 15 miles away from them and would save on postage costs and remove the fear of leaving it in the hands of a courier.
I've had a tinker with the build and thus far come back with this
Case: none selected
Cooling: Antarctic Cooling (3-5 Fans digital controlled+VGA/HD Cooling)
Fans type: Non-LED fans
PSU: Coolermaster Real Power M700W Modular PSU
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Formula (Intel X48 - 1600/1333 FSB)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Retail (2x3.16GHz 1333FSB 6Mb)
CPU Cooling: Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120 Heatpipe Heatsink (All CPU)
Memory: OCZ DDR2-1066 2x2048MB Reaper HPC 4GB Dual Channel Kit
Graphics: BFG Nvidia 9800GX2 1024Mb PCIe2 HDCP
Hard Drive: 1Tb Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 7200 32mb Cache SATA II
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203N SATA 18x DL DVDRW Black
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit DVD OEM
OS Extras: Support CD (Genesis CD)
Building: Saver Build (10-20 working days)
Overclocking: Safe Stable Overclocking (5-40% - CPU/VGA)
On a side note do Vadim allow collection ?, I only live 15 miles away from them and would save on postage costs and remove the fear of leaving it in the hands of a courier.
Seems so, there's a "Local Pickup" option under shipping method (which obviously costs nothing).
Cooling: Antarctic Cooling 3-5 Fans digital controlled+VGA/HD Cooling ( a little concerned about exactly what I would be getting for my money on this option as is a little vague )
You will get a digital controller T-Ballancer and some programming to get the machine going cool without being at full pelt all the time efficiency and noice taken care off :Wink:
anrkyuk wrote:
Motherboard: none selected ( ????? )
Well, I guess that there was a misunderstanding before...
Fearless Hero wrote:
If you must have SLI, I'd definitely take Wolf's advice and go with the x48 board and a GX2.
The X38 and X48 are Intel chipsets and won't do SLi. If you don't have to do SLi then I would say one of these two and a GX2...
If you want to go for SLi I would advise you to go for a 790i chipset even if to fork out for the DDR3. I have a 780i which uses DDR2 but the design of the board (less PCI slots for example) and other issues makes it a less attractive proposition...
anrkyuk wrote:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Retail (2x3.16GHz 1333FSB 6Mb) ( or Q9450, as this is a gaming machine I thought the E8500 would be the better option )
Graphics: (2x) BFG Nvidia 8800GTS New OC 512Mb PCIe HDCP
Again depends on motherboard but I would say it also depends on watercooling versus air cooling as some models are terrific value for money and performers with watercooling and some will be good either way...
anrkyuk wrote:
Hard Drive: 1Tb Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 7200 32mb Cache SATA II
A 750Gb is a lot cheaper and not so much smaller... I would rather have two of those than one 1Tb
anrkyuk wrote:
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203N SATA 18x DL DVDRW
No comments on optical drives from me each to its own.
anrkyuk wrote:
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit DVD OEM
As most people will know what I think about OSes... 32bit... stick with XP as there is nothing to e gained by moving Vista... for 64 bit move to Vista as XP is useless... only now I ordered my Vista 64bit Ultimate... I am still unsure about Vista.
Very nice replies guys, thank you all for being so kind and helpful. I'd give out some rates but there are too many good replies on here to rate, so i'll just say kudos to the lot of you
anrkyuk
I recommend that you go for a single 9800 GX2 with an Intel chipset motherboard, preferably x38 or x48, like most of the other guys have suggested.
If you are dead set on SLi then the 790i chipset is much more stable than the 780i, but no matter what; stay well clear of quad sli (2 GX2s). The performance increase is incredibly small and the heat the system will produce will require a £1000 water cooling package just to stop the system overheating.
Wolf, why? would two in sli not make much difference? ( serious question )
I am going with all the reviews and benchmarks I have read concerning the GX2, and the in the majority of cases two of these under perform a single card (according to Custom PC by as much as 51% slower with a RTS).
Wolf I am tempted to agree with you but don't yet, because all the tests were done with Skulltrail platform and with unstable drivers... I wish they could do a proper test with other platforms.
Same question Andy, do you think sli is a waste of time?
We have performed a few tests on quad SLi with 2 GX2s and found it to produce erratic results in most benchmarking suites, quite often performing much worse than a single GX2 and offering barely any performance increase in most games.
Unfortunately these tests have been carried out ad-hoc, so we haven't been in a position to put then into an article and publish them. Due to the results being fairly conclusive from the word go, the fact that they instantly coincided with the results other websites and magazines turned up and the final fact that the next generation of graphics cards are so close you can practically smell the framerates, we decided not to bother looking into it any further and concentrate our efforts on more worthwhile pursuits
.
...but I lived with it
anrkyuk 
