Novocaine

Hi, im hopefully going to be purchasing an all new PC in maybe a month or so...well almost all new.

So far ive been looking at bulding it from this site >>Here<< as its UK based and i think it seems to be decent value..

I wanted to aim for a budget of £1,200 as an absolute maximum, but unfortunately ive realised i cant stretch that much and its going to have to be more like £800-£900, which has rather dampened my dreams of what i wanted.

My main problems are that i have leterally no clue what motherboard is good, what PSU is good and roughly what wattage i should be looking to get, (the website reccommends a minimum of 500w for anything above the nVidia 7900). Also what to do about RAM, i know i want 2GB but theres different options of the makers of it. But my main concern is the graphics card, i really want the best i can get for my budget. im thinking right now either between 2x nVidia 7950 GT's in SLi or 1 8800 GTX giving the the possibility of maybe converting that to SLi in quite a while due to its price.
Obviously the 8800 on its own costs more than the dual 7950's but it will give that option of being able to upgrade more effectively.

This PC will be intended for gaming mainly so i cant really hold back on anything. apart form maybe the HDD i currently have only 160GB and that does me fine for the moment, som im not looking for a huge one for the new PC, i cud even steal one HDD from my current PC if i needed as it has 2 80GB.

A few other things i was thinking of taking form the current PC would be the monitor, the RAM, hell maybe even the CD drive lol, but the rest is rubbish.

Can anyone help me out with the patchy areas
Thanks

koala

Forget about a 500W PSU if you're planning on using SLI or the power-hungry 8800, especially if you want to upgrade again at a later date. As you're still undecided on what you will be buying, use this power calculator (add 30% to the total to allow for PSU inefficiency) to see what PSU you will need. It's really not worth going cheap on this as it is the heart of your new gaming system.

Alos, make sure your RAM will work on your new motherboard, and check to see if it's fast enough to match the rest of your system, otherwise you'll be left with a bottleneck and your expensive new components will not be operating at their best.

Novocaine

Thanks for the PSU info, i entered roughly what i think i wil be using in the power calculator and using the 8800 it said 496watts and using 2 7950 GT's in SLI is gave me 516watts, i used the 30% to the capacitor ageing field or am i just meant to add another 30% of 496watts or the 516watts to get the total?

Can you give any advice on motherboards and how ill be able to tell whether my current RAM sticks will fit in the new motherboard without looking at it :D

and also what would anyone reccomend with the video cards, im primarily planning to have this built so that ill be able to be playing todays games with as close to if not highest settings avaliable, for instance one game i want it to perform particularly well on is Unreal Tournament 3 and i know this will have a pretty high spec list for high detail settings

koala

I hadn't noticed the Capacitor Aging box, it must be a new addition that does the same thing as manually adding 30% to the total.

If you're looking at the 8800 or dual 7950s you will need to start with a quality 650W PSU or higher depending on what other components you add. You can use the calculator to check before buying any parts.

To see what your current RAM is, download CPU-Z.

Either the 7950SLIs or the 8800 will easily be able to handle games like UT3 on high settings (as long as they're getting enough power )

Silverstone 750W $180
Thermaltake Toughpower 750W $145
Antec True Power Trio 650W $110

Novocaine

Ah ok thats good then, so with the cards its really just about price.

Looking at the PSU's avaliable from the website im thinking of using looking at around the 650w range i can see these;

>>OCZ GameXStream 700W SLI Ready Power Supply
>> " " 600W " " "

>>Tagan 700W TG700-U25 Dual Engine SLI Ready Power Supply

>>Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA 24P (ALL IN ONE) SLI Supports 600Watt Power Supply

These are all within £22 of each other the OCZ GameXStream 600w one being the cheapest and the 700w Tagan being the most expensive.

i'd give specific links to them but the site doesnt work like that :P



Ive downloaded CPU-Z, so now how can i tell whats going to fit in the new motherboard? on the website the options of motherboards are;


>>(Quad-Core Supports) ECS P965T-A P965 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394&7.1Audio((Quad-Core Supports) ECS P965T-A P965 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394&7.1Audio)[+0]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) Intel DP965LT P965 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394&7.1Audio()[+15]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) MSI P6N SLI-FI nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard((Quad-Core Supports) MSI P6N SLI-FI nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard)[+14]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) EVGA nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard((Quad-Core Supports) EVGA nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard)[+84]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) Asus P5N-E nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard()[+18]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) Asus P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard((Quad-Core Supports) Asus P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard)[+79]More ...

>>(Quad-Core Supports) Asus Striker Extreme nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard()[+145]


the [+£££] is refeering to how much more it will cost than having the very first listed board selected

1 g0t 0wn3d

GEt the antec trio it has great proformance to price ratio

TheMatt

I would look at the Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4. It is a solid board and is a great value. The MSI P6N SLI Platinum is also a good choice.

Novocaine

ok thanks for the help,
do the PSU's i listed earlier seem to be ok, as in are they bad quality ones?
thanks

koala

The ones you listed are fine, depending on the rest of your specs. You'll have a better idea which one to go for after you've decided exactly what you're going to be building. Good luck.

Novocaine

Ok thanks a lot every1 thats helped me with the areas i needed it...all thats left is to pray i have enough money to get what i want when it comes around to it :D