Custom Build or Buy ??

BobRuth

Hi

Just looking for a bit of advice. I am looking for a high spec gaming machine and even though I have some knowledge am a bit scared of a full system build. I am looking for the following minimum spec :

Intel® Core™ i7 975 Extreme
Dual 1.8GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 or dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Crossfire.
Liquid cooled
1000W PSU
6-12GB Ram
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium

I have looked at DigitalStorm and even Dell but was wondering if anyone knew of a company that would build and supply / support in Ireland or UK?

Any recommendations would be welcome.

Ta

meepins

The processor and PSU are overkill. You can get a building company (if that's your preferred route) to overclock a cheaper one for a few quid and save a bundle, particularly with your spec including liquid cooling.
I know Overclockers UK can build a system for you
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-064-OE if you want to contact them about introducing other custom specs.

5uspect

+1, the i7 extreme is pure overkill. I've a 920 that barely breaks a sweat with games.
A C2D is enough for most of todays games.

Building it is easy, it's like lego.

Farcear

1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Crossfire... Just out of curiousity; what kinda of screen wall do you have that you could possibly need the 5870 in crossfire???

If you want support, Dell have what you are looking for "on sale" at about €3,500 -- down from €4,500: http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iedhs1&kc=DRS730X4&l=en&m_30=147353&oc=D007X04&rbc=D007X04&s=dhs

Though I don't see anything about a liquid -- or even better than average -- cooling option there, so I'd be kinda wary of actually getting this beast from Dell.

On the other hand, you could just build this yourself, hardwareversand price comes to about €2,500 and everything is sold under warranty anyway. Worst case scenario, if something does break, you just buy a new one with the €1,000 you save doing it yourself.

meepins

4.5k for that.. obscene.

5uspect

Also, what possible reason would you want a machine like that for?
You'll end up paying 100% extra for maybe 10 15% extra perfomramce gain?

jonny72

BobRuth wrote: »

Hi

Just looking for a bit of advice. I am looking for a high spec gaming machine and even though I have some knowledge am a bit scared of a full system build. I am looking for the following minimum spec :

Intel® Core™ i7 975 Extreme
Dual 1.8GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 or dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Crossfire.
Liquid cooled
1000W PSU
6-12GB Ram
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium

I have looked at DigitalStorm and even Dell but was wondering if anyone knew of a company that would build and supply / support in Ireland or UK?

Any recommendations would be welcome.

Ta

New icore 860, 6 gig ram, ati 5870, maybe an ssd and have to presume you will be using a big screen.. should cost maybe 1500 max

Dell of course will charge you 3500 for the same machine

U can spend 16,000 euros on a machine that is literally 15% faster than a 1,600 euro machine.

Farcear

What is your budget for this machine and what will you be using it for?

Solitaire

Farcear wrote: »

What is your budget for this machine and what will you be using it for?

Amen. This is lunacy; let's start from the beginning.

Off the bat: i7 is overkill for gaming by dint of the fact that you're paying for HyperThreading, an enterprise-level feature. HT has negligible or even negative effect on games so there's no reason for getting anything over a i5-750 if you're not going to have heavy-duty applications work on the same rig. Try sticking a solid mid-range CPU like the i5-750 on liquid and OCing that; far more rewarding getting 1-2GHz extra out of that than spending €300-3000 more on a fancy CPU with far less OC headroom and end up with nearly the same figures at the end of the OC as with the €200 chip!

And if you're getting a HD58*0 don't expect mad OCing for a while; stability seems driver-limited at the moment. If you really want to attack a GPU with liquid for "mad speedz" the HD4890 is better; its purpose-built for high-speed operation and has software-adjustable Volterra voltage regulators so the cards are highly moddable. Either stick a couple of them in CF on liquid and have fun or grab a single HD5870 for now and expect a rough ride until drivers mature!

BobRuth

Hi I have gone through some of the responses and can expand with the following :

The type of screen I was thinking of getting was SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 23". But I was also planning to try and run games on a 42" Sony X3500 screen.
I was going to be doing some video editng and digital photo editing as well ( not all at the same time !!).
I know that it is a lot of spec but don't think I will be upgradding for some time and want to get as much bang as I can.

I dont know if new technology is coming down the line so would welcome thoughts as to should I wait for the next best thing to hit the shops ?

Ta

fergalr

BobRuth wrote: »

Hi I have gone through some of the responses and can expand with the following :

The type of screen I was thinking of getting was SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 23". But I was also planning to try and run games on a 42" Sony X3500 screen.
I was going to be doing some video editng and digital photo editing as well ( not all at the same time !!).
I know that it is a lot of spec but don't think I will be upgradding for some time and want to get as much bang as I can.

I dont know if new technology is coming down the line so would welcome thoughts as to should I wait for the next best thing to hit the shops ?

Ta

For the last 20 or 30 years, new technology has always being coming down the line. The amount of performance you get for your buck has been doing something vaguely like doubling every 2 years.
While its a matter of debate whether this can continue indefinitely, that trend is unlikely to stop imminently.

So:
Only buy as fast a machine as you will see yourself needing over the next few months / year.

I know that it is a lot of spec but don't think I will be upgradding for some time and want to get as much bang as I can.

This is almost always the wrong way to think about computer hardware from an economic point of view.

The money you save by buying the midrange machine now, instead of the high end one, will buy you a high end machine that's twice as good as the current high end one, in about 18months or 2 years.

It's almost always vastly better to buy at the best price/performance ratio now, and buy again later, rather than spend the money up front.

The only exception to this is if there are games or other use cases that you need that much grunt for in the next few months.

Effluo

fergalr wrote: »

This is almost always the wrong way to think about computer hardware from an economic point of view.

The money you save by buying the midrange machine now, instead of the high end one, will buy you a high end machine that's twice as good as the current high end one, in about 18months or 2 years.

It's almost always vastly better to buy at the best price/performance ratio now, and buy again later, rather than spend the money up front.

The only exception to this is if there are games or other use cases that you need that much grunt for in the next few months.

Ya! totally...

The only part of a €1200 system you could possibly need to change within the next couple of years is the Graphics card and with the 5870, a second one of them in xfire would even do the trick i'm sure!

The build i put up needs all the cooling stuffs, the board is xfire and the psu would handle two 5870's fine too! On second thoughts.... With the watercooling... Someone else will have to clarify that!

The case is preference. Just occurred to my not sure if the one i put in has water cooling holes put into it :P
The Coolermaster Haf does, it's pretty sweet too!

My thoughts on your gpu is that not to get the 4890's. You sound like someone who wants performance and that really means the 5870! Even if i do think they are overpriced there...
hardwareversand.de build it for you too for €20. Though you would have to do the watercooling yourself

5uspect

Is watercooling really worth it though?
Unless you plan on seriously OCing its a messy waste of time.

As a technology it is no where as efficient as it should be and is often used just for epenis kicks.

Slutmonkey57b

Yep - a good air cooler like the TRUE or Noctua will give you comparable results to liquid. Don't forget that liquid cooling just shunts the heat off to a radiator, which needs fans blowing over it anyway so it's not that much quieter.

BobRuth

Hi Guys

I take on board what your saying about and am now in contact with Overclockers and others to see if they would build and support a system ..

Just a couple of additional questions :

Whats the feeling about 32Bit Vs 64Bit .. I was going to go for 64 Bit so I could get a lot of Ram 6GB+ but am worried about compatibility issues.

Is is worth while having the min operating system on a SSD so that access and boot is faster.

Whats the best Gaming monitor around ?

Ta

5uspect

If we're going with your OTT build philosophy you should get a 120Hz screen that you can use stereoscopic 3D with.

I use 64 bit Windows 7. I've had no compatability issues that I haven't seen reported with the 32 bit version which mainly seem to be vendor support for a prerelease OS (logitech for example).

Effluo

You should really get a 64 bit. Windows 7 is really nice too!

Don't really get what you mean by "support a system" There really isn't that much that could go wrong(well a lot could go wrong but prob won't), especially when you're gonna be getting more top of the range products! OCUK charge Irish VAT prices and there have been mixed reports on their customer service too. Just get everything from hardwareversand.de, they'll build it for you for only €20!

You'll save a bundle

leninbenjamin

OP, just to put what the others are saying about the i7 into perspective.

I built one this summer, most of the games I've run so far max out at about 30-40% capacity. They simply can't make use of the hyper-threading. Aside from benchmarks, the only App i've ran on my i7 that maxed it out was one i developed myself. From my point of view the i7 was great as it greatly assisted software development, but now my masters is over it's just going to be sitting there idle.

As for the monitor, dare I say it, some of the best performing monitors out there are from Dell, and from time to time can be gotten for pretty good value. I run a Dell SW23xx along side a Syncmaster, and the colours are much more vivid on the similarly priced Dell. It doesn't have HDMI, or many additional slots so if you plan running a console on it, a Dell wouldn't be best.

as for GPU, again I've a GTX285. Complete overkill, i could have saved myself a packet if I went for ATI, but at the time i wanted the possibility of developing for CUDA. I'd say get a 4890 to bide you over til the DX11 drivers stabilise.

Sidenote: don't EVGA offer trade ins? i.e. buy now, trade it in later and get a discount off the new card 6-12months down the line? maybe something the OP should think of...

The other thing I'll mention is case. Effluo mentioned the HAF. They are great cases, i have one myself, but with you're budget you might want to get something with a bit more sound proofing. Overall they are pretty quiet, but the large openings mean a noisy GFX card can still cause headaches. Maybe something like the Cosmos or P183?

Farcear

64-bit: Hardware compatibility is only a problem if you are installing a 64-bit OS on a much older machine. Any machine that you build today should support 64-bit no problem.

SSD: You will notice a big in boot times and file access; especially for larger files. However, the technology is definately not good value for money at the moment. Only go for this option if you have the money to spare.

Solitaire

Farcear wrote: »

64-bit: Hardware compatibility is only a problem if you are installing a 64-bit OS on a much older machine.

.. Or installing an older 64-bit OS on a newer machine *cough*XP64*cough* :P

Win7 64 is savage - I'm running it myself

BobRuth

Hi All

Thanks for the advice , it has got me thinking..

I have come across (www.custompc.ie) does any one have any experiance of them.

Jonathan

Solitaire wrote: »

Win7 64 is savage - I'm running it myself

Another Win7 64bit user here. No problems what so ever.

jonny72

BobRuth wrote: »

Hi All

Thanks for the advice , it has got me thinking..

I have come across (www.custompc.ie) does any one have any experiance of them.

Quite possibly the most expensive computer shop I have ever seen. Choose the i7 gaming machine and try to upgrade it.. when you hit the graphics cards they are literally double the freakin price of anywhere else

jonny72

Can't edit above - noticed the prices are for sli I believe..

Still damn expensive site

5uspect

BobRuth wrote: »

Hi All

Thanks for the advice , it has got me thinking..

I have come across (www.custompc.ie) does any one have any experiance of them.

Yup, very over priced.

hardwareversand.de is probably your best bet.

CustomPC.ie

CustomPC.ie ,

Our Video Card Prices shown in our system build menus are not the actaul prices to buy a video card . Our Formula inside this menu is based on the following Motherboard + Video Card + Memory. Example - Basic Option allows for Onboard Video with most models , obvioulsy if you need a high end video card the motherboard can increase in price by up to €150. We can understand this can be confusing and this is why we dont go on about this on the site and try to make the selections as easy as possible for the novice. * Video Card Options Have Also Been Updated for Windows 7 October 2009

Our prices are based on a formula that puts them as the most competitive in Ireland & close to Uk & European prices when you take into account €210.50 of every €1000 you spend on our site is Tax.

If you have any suggestions on how to imprvce our site please email us with your suggestions.

Again Thank You for Your opinion and we will look into any suggestions you may have in the future.

CustomPC.ie Irelands Online Custom Gaming Store

Slutmonkey57b

Ehhh.. you're charging €25 for a 2 gig USB stick on that i7 build.
Does that include motherboard costs too?

Jonathan

CustomPC.ie wrote: »

Our prices are based on a formula that puts them as the most competitive in Ireland & close to Uk & European prices when you take into account €210.50 of every €1000 you spend on our site is Tax.

That only accounts for a price difference of €60 compared to a country with a VAT rate of 15%

marco_polo

CustomPC.ie wrote: »

obvioulsy if you need a high end video card the motherboard can increase in price by up to €150.

LOL. That BS is not going to fly around these parts I'm afraid.

Do the 'basic' motherboards not have a bog standard PCIe slot?

marco_polo

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Ehhh.. you're charging €25 for a 2 gig USB stick on that i7 build.
Does that include motherboard costs too?

Regular usb maybe, but you must understand this is it is super usb , technology that could make any old regular motherboard blow up.

CustomPC.ie

Thank You for bringing this to our attention. Price for this option will be reviewed within 24 Hours as it is clearly out of date.

This option does not add to the build cost as it is an accessory upgrade , however this does not excuse the fact that the price is clearly wrong.

CustomPC.ie

swirlser

Ahhh, this was the thread you were referring to in my similar thread? (@the OP)

Curious to know who/what you went with, update if you can XD

1 thing Id like to add (which may shock some!), you dont need to stack high performance gpu's if your going with a mid sized screen. Running games at kinda 1680x1050 on a ~24inch can be done just fine with 1 pretty high card.

If you are going ahead with a bleeding edge build, I strongly recommend you get a 30'' monitor (you can get bigger, but I use some 30 inches and frankly with them 2 feet from my face I wouldnt know what to do with any bigger!), not hard to pick a good one as few manufacturers even make them. One thing I would advise against is Apple's current line up, they are still selling the same ones I bought *years* ago o.O and frankly everyone else can top them on response time, candles etc...

jonny72

CustomPC.ie wrote: »

CustomPC.ie ,

Our Video Card Prices shown in our system build menus are not the actaul prices to buy a video card . Our Formula inside this menu is based on the following Motherboard + Video Card + Memory. Example - Basic Option allows for Onboard Video with most models , obvioulsy if you need a high end video card the motherboard can increase in price by up to €150. We can understand this can be confusing and this is why we dont go on about this on the site and try to make the selections as easy as possible for the novice. * Video Card Options Have Also Been Updated for Windows 7 October 2009

Our prices are based on a formula that puts them as the most competitive in Ireland & close to Uk & European prices when you take into account €210.50 of every €1000 you spend on our site is Tax.

If you have any suggestions on how to imprvce our site please email us with your suggestions.

Again Thank You for Your opinion and we will look into any suggestions you may have in the future.

CustomPC.ie Irelands Online Custom Gaming Store

You guys are competing with Komplett, who have cheaper prices and a much better more confidence inspiring site design. Will be tough. Would probably be better in the long term to specialise into building PC's, however for that you need a PC configurator that actually works well..

check www.hardwareversand.de (pc configurator)

If you had a system going like that (even if you can't get the prices that low) then you'd be flying. Pure client focus is much better for the long term.