mephistophilus

hi all

every sinse i have been building my own computers i have ALWAYS gone with AMD/Nvidia lately though i have been hearing that Intel/ATI are the way to go?

the way Intel and ATI have always labeled there cards it always confuses me as to which are good or not which is why i need your help

all i need is a base unit i have a keyboard mouse and monitor already my budget is £800 can possibly go to £1000 if the performance boost is worth the extra

i would prefer to order from www.ebuyer.co.uk but if you can find better prices or items from a different site I'll go with that

the pc is just for gaming pref high end as i wont be able to afford build another for atleast 3 years

I'll try to put a pc together my self and I'll post it here to see what you all think but i am not familure with Intel or ATI. actaully out of the 4 (AMD ATI Nvidia Intel) which is the best combo at the moment?

thank you so much for any help

mephistophilus

would 2 mid range cards out perform a single high end card?

HawMan

Hey, Take a look at this. This is a rig im thinking of building soon. Its £1080 though

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Thermaltake VA8003BWS Armour Super Tower - Black

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.33GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail

Corsair HX 1000W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-1000HXUK)

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)


Its a beast, And the 4870X2 Is the Fastest card from ATI.

All parts are from www.overclockers.co.uk


You could drop down to a 3870X2 for under £1000.

One High end card is faster than 2 slower cards in SLI / Crossfire.

mephistophilus

thanks for the reply! looks like a fine system but i wont buy from overclockers. i will however looking for those components on other sites

wrench97

I would want a faster cpu then the Q8200 > http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/d...x1050,820.html
Except for the bench marks and Premiere Pro CS3 HDTV the Quads are not the fastest ones.

mephistophilus

http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/revie...I-motherboard/


would i be able to fit 2 9800gx2's. the heat pipes look like they might get in the way

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0000,418440000

can a 260gtx 896 run in SLI?

wrench97

Yes the cards will fit over the heat pipes but that board puts them awful close to the memory slots heat rises off the video card to the memory.

And yes GTX260's run SLI.

mephistophilus

i have decided on a 260 now rathr than the 9800 gx2 so I'll be getting a different board

thanks for the fast reply

mephistophilus

ok here is the system build i have at the moment

case
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...000%2c44070000

HDD
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...97K&PageMode=1

memory (x2)
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...145&PageMode=1

graphics card
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...000,4294963789

mother board
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4XJ5

CPU
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4YCX

dvd burner
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0


i am planning on buying a second 260 some time in the future so this is going to be a SLI machine. now all i need to finish this is a PSU that will be able to powers two 260's but to be honest i am not sure what PSU i need and i would be very grateful if anyone can go to www.dabs.com and pick one that will be good enough for my pc

linderman

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0



nothing less than ........ or you will be a sorry dude when you add the 2nd GPU

mephistophilus

thank you very much!

total cost for that pc in £960. £190 over what i wanted to spend but worth the extra investment i think. ill order this on monday


thank you again for all your help

ssj4Gogeta

You'll love Intel. Their processors overclock like dream. The Core ones, not the older Prescott I'm running. lol

mephistophilus

the last time i had an intel chip with when i got a second hand P2. sinse then i have been a AMD fanboi

mephistophilus

system arrived yesterday and its all assembled...but i have no sound! and i think i am only using 2.75 of the 4gig ram i have! also i cant install the sound drivers

all these problems can be seen in the screen grab attached to this plee for help

(the windows update icon you can see by my clock is just sp3 all other windows updates are downloaded and installed)

Attached Images

errors.JPG (194.7 KB, 8 views)

ssj4Gogeta

You can't use full 4 GB with a 32-bit OS because of it's addressing limitations. You'll need a 64-bit OS for that (like Vista 64-bit). I don't know about the sound issue. Wait for others' replies.

mephistophilus

ah ok i didnt know that. I'll get a 64 bit OS next week. thanks for the info :)

linderman

even with a 64bit OS its very hard to use over 3 gigs of ram ....... programs just dont run that fast .......

for example

if you wanted to pay me to do a job for you; and you want to see more than 3 gigs of ram used ........ I would have to assemble several things

A) 64 bit OS and a system with quad core and more than 4 gigs of ram

B) run a very intensive programs ........ like auto cad during rendering AND another program ........ say encoding a video


for the most part ....... you are chasing your tail trying to get use of more than 3 gigs of ram >>>>>> today's software is wayyyyyyyy behind todays hardware!!

ssj4Gogeta

Yes, you'll hardly use 2 GB RAM even while running latest games. But with 64-bit OS, all the RAM is at least available for use, should you ever need it. On a 32-bit OS, the rest of the RAM is unavailable. But not all software can run on 64-bit (all new games do, but you might have trouble with other software). So I think you should keep both OS's.

mephistophilus

very usefull information thank you all

any idea on the sound issues?

wrench97

Try downloading the driver from the XFX web site for you OS on the outside chance the one on the motherboard disk is bad,