Scoutsifer

Hey all, new here.
This is the second pc I'm building. It's going to be used for some serious gaming! Here are the proposed parts:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...xe-i7-S021592-

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...66GHz-S021624-

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...ntel-i7-Triple

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...DR5-PCI-E-Dual

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148685
(Sexy case)

Anyways, how's this set up? What kind of benchmarks am I looking at?
Also, what PSU do you reccomend I use? Wattage? Make?

Thanks, any other tips would be appreciated!

wrench97

The HD4890 will pull over 310w peak i7 3-4 drives, fans, couple of usb devices at least a 850w Quality power supply Seasonic, PC Power & Cooling, Corsair, Thermaltake Toughpower one along those lines.

What do you have in mind for drives and an OS?

Scoutsifer

Well I already have a 500gb HDD spare (Maxtor 500GB Diamondmax2 SATA2 Hard Disk Drive 7200rpm 32M). I will probably put Vista 64 bit on it, as it's what I currently use. Is it worth it even though I'm only using 3gb ram?

wrench97

64 bit will work with 3Gig I'm using 2 gig on a test rig with Win7 works well. plus it gives you room to upgrade if need down the road.

Zealex

Lol that case that you have is the case want, discovered it long ago and will use it in my build also.I didn't see any newegg links...maybe wanna try there see if it is cheaper?

KharnakIHazWoW

Why buy an I7? theres absolutely no need to, instead buy a e8400 and clock it to, like 4+ ghz, and buy more/better graphics cards.. silly I7, theres no gain over a e8400 in gaming, or even a quad..

Scoutsifer

Well, according to the following benchmarks, the i7 blows away the e8400 in terms of performance.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

I know that's not the overclocked specs, but still. The i7 could be overclocked to be even better, am I wrong?

Also I was looking up some RAM... There's the exact same RAM but with 400mhz difference with a 30 pounds difference... is that extra mhz worth the 30 quid?

KharnakIHazWoW

theres no performance gain for an I7, cos simply, no games need that much (yet?),
I7 is overkill, you will honestly not gain any frames over an E8400 @ 4ghz with the same graphics card.. but if you wanted something good you should go for amds' new AM3, cheaper and as good. and you could throw in 2x 4890's and play Crysis in 1920x1200 with everything on max and still except more than 60 frames, even with 4x aa. I7 is a silly thing to go for gaming wise.. and in the future, you could add 2 more 4890's.

KharnakIHazWoW

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...4969_13_0.html just read this, i just found it :p

KharnakIHazWoW

first things to go for is the case and the psu, you wont be replacing those 2 at the same speed as graphics cards or ram, i recommend Corsair, really, anything they give above 750w will power anything.. and case, i went for a full size case as they usually have the best air flow, and nice room to work in :)
ps. its nearly always better to have ram alot faster than what you need, cos that would allow a bigger overclock on the cpu, so in terms you underclock the ram and overclock the cpu so both match = better stability than both overclocked. if you game, you should of course focus on what will give you the best graphics cards, and that is am3

Scoutsifer

I see what ya mean, however I think I'll stay futureproof with the i7. Not to mention it'll improve multitasking performance such as tabbing out of the game when needed, and will be useful for video editing software etc.

So, next step.. Would it be wiser getting the Nvidea cards then over the ATI?
Thanks

wrench97

It's a toss up some games are better on Nvidia cards others on the ATI most are pretty close to being the same, I like the HDMI features(Audio) on the ATI cards better then the Nvidia patch cord setup.