I Need Gaming System Advice Please

[Seminole]

I have found a gaming system that I like and at a price I can afford.

I see a couple of problems (correctable before shipping) with it though. Not enough to kill the deal ..yet.

Maybe you can spot and advise me on points that I have not picked up on.

Here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.00 GHz Quad Core Processor
EVGA 132-CK-NF78_A1 Motherboard
8192 MB (8GB) DDR II 800MHz PC6400 Memory
Dual 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA2 16MB Cache Hard Drives in a Raid 0 (Striped) Array
20X DVD±RW Burner Dual Layer Drive
Triple XFX nVidia 8800GTX 768MB Video Graphics Cards in SLI Configuration
8 Channel High Definition onboard sound
10/100/1000 Gigabit Network Interface
Thermaltake Armor Jr. Tower with 850Watt Power Supply
Logitech Keyboard and Optical Scroll Mouse
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition
Front Ports : (2) USB 2.0
Rear Ports : (6) USB 2.0,(2) PS2 Ports, (2) IEEE1394a (1 by header), (1) Serial header, Audio I/O Panel, (2) RJ45
Expansion Slots: (3) X16 PCI-E, (1) X1 PCI-E, (2) PCI


Thanks in advance for your attention..and please be brutally honest. You won't offend me.

[Aus_Karlos]

First thing, big mistake going Vista for gaming, past experience everything either crashed, didn't work or was slow.. And thats with the system ive got. lol
Stick with Xp Pro 64-bit.
PSU im a bit iffy with running 3x 8800GTX (correct me if im wrong) you will find the cards fighting for power and end up crashing your system or overheating due to low-voltage and high amp...
I have a 1000watt running an 8800GTS OCed, but i am getting a 9800GX2 soon

But im still jealous!! :P

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by Aus_Karlos

First thing, big mistake going Vista for gaming, past experience everything either crashed, didn't work or was slow.. And thats with the system ive got. lol
Stick with Xp Pro 64-bit.
PSU im a bit iffy with running 3x 8800GTX (correct me if im wrong) you will find the cards fighting for power and end up crashing your system or overheating due to low-voltage and high amp...
I have a 1000watt running an 8800GTS OCed, but i am getting a 9800GX2 soon

But im still jealous!! :P

Ok.. the power and the heat..my chief concerns too.

Thanks for that validation. I can add liquid cooling and a 1000 watt PS without breaking the bank.

[Aus_Karlos]

8800GTX have high torrence for heat they bottom out at 90c but try not to go over 75c-80c (Thermal shut off is 125c)

With my HDD banks, DVD banks 8800GTS Oc'ed, RAM oc'ed and CPU oc'ed my system sits at a comfortable 42c my GPU doesnt go over 62c.

Ive seen and tested Liquid cooling and its only for the extreme overclocker that want to get a Quad core past the 5ghz mark. lol

To be honest dont go with Liquid and just stick with fans. If it is running hot like CPU above 55c and GPU's at 80c then get it but you will find about a 5c drop in temp.

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by Aus_Karlos

8800GTX have high torrence for heat they bottom out at 90c but try not to go over 75c-80c (Thermal shut off is 125c)

With my HDD banks, DVD banks 8800GTS Oc'ed, RAM oc'ed and CPU oc'ed my system sits at a comfortable 42c my GPU doesnt go over 62c.

Ive seen and tested Liquid cooling and its only for the extreme overclocker that want to get a Quad core past the 5ghz mark. lol

To be honest dont go with Liquid and just stick with fans. If it is running hot like CPU above 55c and GPU's at 80c then get it but you will find about a 5c drop in temp.

Very good...I did not realize that about liguid cooling. I just automatically assumed it must be better. I have a 6800 ultra 512 mb now and if it gets the least bit "dirty" the temps soar out of sight. I had horror visions of what 3 8800's would do to the temps with only fans for cooling.
Then too, a similar machine from a different assembler uses liguid cooling and with only 2 sli configured 8800s. It was confusing. I didn't want to get stuck with a sytem that tried to burn itself up.


So what about the ram memory? I have the choice of 8Gbs of:

8192 MB (8GB) DDR II 800MHz PC6400

or

4GB2 Corsair Dominator DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz OC'd up to 1600MHz-4 DIMMs


The price is roughly the same but the 4Gb comes with only 2.66 processors compared to the 8 gb with 3.00s


Again thanks you are being most helpful in making this decision.

[Aus_Karlos]

I would go with the 8, but you probably wont need that much.
You will not notice any performance difference between 1333mhz and 800mhz.
Buy 4gb's first to save some money, and if you think you need more then get more..

I have 4gb's, unless im mapping and watching a HDTV channel with my Tv card i only use 3.2gb. Crysis doesn't seem to use more than 2gb..

[Seminole]

Super! Thanks again for all the advice. I'm ready to make a decision now.

[InfernalSolo]

I disagree about Vista. I have Vista x64 and all of my games run great; they don't crash and performance is awesome.

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by InfernalSolo

I disagree about Vista. I have Vista x64 and all of my games run great; they don't crash and performance is awesome.

I purposefully didn't comment on that recommendation

From what I have read there are two great schools of thought concerning Vista and gaming. Since I don't have it yet and have no experience with Vista, I can't really say either way. What is guiding me though, is experience. I've been gaming since MS-DOS and Windows 3.0 days. Everytime an new version comes out there is the same debate it seems. In the end though ,everyone,players and publishers alike, move on eventually. and history will most likely repeat itself, yet again. As soon as Vista is the accepted norm by the majority here will come something like Windows Early Millenium Edition and we will all get to start all over...yet again.

If I were but King of the World I would decree development of a gaming specific OS with improvements in patches as technology develops them ....but then what do I know...i'm only a gamer. We gamers seem to be the rich eccentric relative in the compter world. They seem to like our cash but really rather we wouldn't visit them at home.

[Aus_Karlos]

In time Vista will be the gaming OS but atm XP is. If you think back to when XP was first released it was crap for the gaming community, and every one stuck with 98 or 2000.
XP sales fell and guess what MS did, they stopped selling the older OS's and stopped suppling updates to make XP sell and to force people into buying XP as every new PC was only supplied with XP....
Its the same with Vista, they lost $6bill in sales on Vista so they stopped selling XP and made all the PC companies sell PC's with only Vista... I know only 2 companies that will install XP these days.

I benched marked both XP 64bit and Vista 64bit and i found 10fps increase on Crysis, 20-40fps on most Source games, 28% less resources used on XP, More hardware support, easier networking and Quicker Video encoding times all on XP 64-bit.

[Seminole]

I have not the slightest doubt that you are 100% correct but what's a gamer to do?

It is a bit like trying to swim against a tsunami when you try and stick with an out of date OS version. Eventually we hold our noses and go where the current takes us.

XP had all kinds of tweaking guides developed after it came out. Everyone was simply "horrified" at all those services that were unnecessary but still using resources. Are there such guides for Vista?

For Rowan's Battle of Britian pc game , the Bob Development group wrote (maybe borrowed) are small program that went through the XP services list and shut down every single XP service that was not absolutely necessary . Takes about 60 seconds. All services are restored upon system reboot. I removed the program from the game, put it on desktop, and use it before starting all my XP gaming.


Is there any such similar Vista program out there?

[InfernalSolo]

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

Click on the version for Vista.

[Seminole]

Thanks!

[Seminole]

Y'all ain't gonna believe this.

I ordered the system I described above with:

Triple XFX nVidia 8800GTX 768MB Video Graphics Cards in SLI Configuration .

OK...today I got a call from the "factory" where it is being assembled. They informed me the 8800 cards are no longer available. Before I could hit the roof( I had already paid cash upfront) I was asked if I would accept 9800 series GX2 cards instead.....at no added charge.

I managed to stutter something like: ah... sure ...why not..ok...



Course now...knowing my usual run of luck...I've been scanning the headlines for announcement of a looming E.L.E.

[koala]

Sounds like a good deal. Check the driver version on the CD before installing, or update if it's pre-installed. The latest one for the 9800 ( v175.16 - 16-May'08) is said to be more stable and gives better performance.