New system help please.

Mac daddy

Well i sold my rig -
Ga 8n sli pro - p4 3.4 2mb cache - Gainward 7800GTX -mushkin PC6400 800Mhz ram.

Reason always liked ATI Gfx cards - At present i have a Budget of 2000 euro's to spend ( another 400Coming next week ) and i want a to build a AMD rig.

Parts i have picked out so far -
Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU => Was thinking of changing to a Ocz power stream 560W.
Antec Performance One P180 Miditower, Aluminum Silver (Without PSU)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 2MB, BOXED w/fan
Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA 8MB 10000RPM

Grand Total so far 1015.01Euro's

The big one - the Gfx and the memory and the motherboard.
The Gfx is the one i canno't decide on was thinking about ordering a Sapphire x1800XT 512Mb Master.
from overclockers.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/X1800_Series.html

Also the motherboard i was hoping to get based on a XPRESS 200P chipset, but not sure as i have seen several problems with it namely limitations and usb speed issues.

Memory cannot decide at all because of the motherboard needs to be picked first, I can wait another month untill the GFX comes out should be released on the 28th of november if not mistaken which gives me time to save a couple extra quid.

The comp is going to be mainly be used for playing games and it will be crossfired at some stage ( january or feb)

BeatFreak

I'm actually upgrading for the exact same reason and my specs are scarily similar to what you've picked out

Few small points, I'm going for an OCZ over Antec. Antec make solid PSU's but with dual core and Crossfire you've already got a crazy amount of wattage to deal with and 480 won't give you much headroom, especially when/if you start overclocking. I was originally going for a PCP&C 510 which is one of the most powerful PSU's available after reading reviews of the OCZ I'm choosing that instead, it's far quieter and powerful enough for what I need.

I'm going for a single core because I want to overclock and bench and not many games have been dual core optimised as of yet so a nice 2.4/2.6 Ghz San Diego will do me.

The GFX is going to be a pain in the arse what with ATI and paper launches I had to wait 3 months for the 9800XT and 4 or more for the X800XT so I would take "late November" eta's with a grain of salt. I'm going to be going for 2 x X1800XT of any brand I can get my hands on.

Motherboard wise I'm not 100% yet. Overclocking wise the ATI chipset is supposed to be very stable and full of features but I haven't seen many reviews.

Ram wise, I'm picking up 2x 512Mb OCZ PC3200 VX real nice Winbond UTT memory which I've seen doing 250/260mhz @ 2-2-2-8 and is warrentied up to 3.5v so you've plenty to play around with

Other than that I'm going for the P180 too and I'm going to be installing 2 Swifttech 120mm watercooling loops one for CPU and one for both cards, I've started a work log here but it will be a slow one considering how long it's going to take to get the hardware Good choices anyway.

gline

BeatFreak wrote:

I would take "late November" eta's with a grain of salt.
.

yep. The reason i am going nvidia next as they are already out. Also i dont want to invest in the 1st crop of crossfire equipment

Jammer

BeatFreak wrote:

I'm going to be going for 2 x X1800XT of any brand I can get my hands on.

:rolleyes:

WizZard

Overclockers.co.uk reckon they'll have the Connect 3D X1800XT on Wednesday next week.

BeatFreak

Jammer wrote:

:rolleyes:

?

BeatFreak

WizZard wrote:

Overclockers.co.uk reckon they'll have the Connect 3D X1800XT on Wednesday next week.

I didn't see that, I thought they were all 28th of November. I'll probably wait and order the master and slave together though. Good sign though maybe we will be seeing these cards next month.

WizZard

See here
It's still a maybe

Not that I can afford one...

BeatFreak

Exactly, better than a poke in the eye with a short stick.

About the only advantage of these paper launches is it gives me plenty of time to save for the cards I can't even remember when it was officially launched.

And also being a Ati fanboy I missed the SLI buzz so this will be my first Dual GFX machine an honour which deserves a splurge

K.O.Kiki

Most important part of a powerful PC: the PSU.
Reading up on OCZ PSUs, looks like they're unable to output 100% claimed, and are border-line ATX-spec on efficiency. Get a Seasonic instead.

BeatFreak

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Most important part of a powerful PC: the PSU.
Reading up on OCZ PSUs, looks like they're unable to output 100% claimed, and are border-line ATX-spec on efficiency. Get a Seasonic instead.

Link please?

Also thanks for the heads up WizZard card's on order

Jammer

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Most important part of a powerful PC: the PSU.
Reading up on OCZ PSUs, looks like they're unable to output 100% claimed, and are border-line ATX-spec on efficiency. Get a Seasonic instead.

You liked that edition of CustomPC mag, eh?

Spending that much money on a card, which is still to prove itself is madness. And i hope, after seeing the 'marketing scam' that is "1GHZ on a GPU", you're not thinking you'll throw it in and get 1GHZ or anywhere close to it.

I'd like to see ATi doing well out of this, but i reckon nVidia are sitting on a new core, which, once the X1K range is out and about, will sicken the people who bought into xFire (€800+ later too).

WizZard

BeatFreak wrote:

Link please?

Also thanks for the heads up WizZard card's on order

Np

I'd like a link too. Considering that OCZ PSU's are generally regarded as one of the best in the industry! Their customer support is legendary too!

I'd like to see the test parameters.

Jammer

WizZard wrote:

Np

I'd like a link too. Considering that OCZ PSU's are generally regarded as one of the best in the industry! Their customer support is legendary too!

I'd like to see the test parameters.

Well, they needed £22,000 worth of equipment to stress most PSU's.

Which, for starters, would suggest an element of exaggeration and exhaustion with the testing. If they can't stress it 100% in a PC then whats the use...Its not very 'real world' ...

On the other hand, the PSU's shouldn't have exploded when asked to carry out what they state they should.

Cuddlesworth

Is that the 32 psu test? Because if it is then you would remember that he said that the ocz was bang on for the voltages and was solid all round. Plus adjustable rails are a big benefit.

He did not blow up a psu as well. It just smoked a little. Don’t be so melodramatic.

And the 20 grand’s worth of equipment was in a psu factory.

Jammer

krazy_8s wrote:

He did not blow up a psu as well. It just smoked a little. Don’t be so melodramatic.

I was poking fun :P But read the front of the magazine...

I didnt say OCZ was good or bad.

gline

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Most important part of a powerful PC: the PSU.
Reading up on OCZ PSUs, looks like they're unable to output 100% claimed, and are border-line ATX-spec on efficiency. Get a Seasonic instead.

yep, go for pc P+C, they are the sh*t, 1 of the best, expensive, but u get what u pay for

BeatFreak

Only problem with PCP&C is the noise levels, that and availability

gline

BeatFreak wrote:

Only problem with PCP&C is the noise levels, that and availability

they use new fans to combat noise and they are readily available to us from their site, you can order direct

DemonOfTheFall

You better wait a good while if you want a Crossfire board. They all smoke the meat cigar at the moment. Look at all of the crap experienced with one of their boards here:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE3

Wouldnt use one if it was free.

Mac daddy

Putting in my order today with Overclockers,

Don't really care to much about the lack of sata II or poor usb performance,

As the drives i have currently - Samsung sata is backwards compatible with sataI

Usb the only thing i really need to connect via usb is the keyboard and mouse.

Ordering
X2 4400
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-043-CO) should be available by wednesday again
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/X1800_Series.html
Slight change on the motherboard going for a crossfire.
DFI LanParty UT RDX200CF-DR Crossfire (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-017-DF)
Case still keeping with the P180 main reason with the Dfi board the memory will be to close to the psu for my liking at least with the P180 he psu is located at the bottom of the case in a separate compartment.
Memory not 100% have the rest of the day to make up my mind so far GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC4400 UltraX-TCCD CAS2.5 (GLX1GB4400DC) (MY-051-GL) is what i have in mind.
Psu also changed to a Seasonic 600W
Cpu cooler ThermalRight XP-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-017-TR) + papst 120mm fan for it.
Third hdd will be a raptor 73Gig for the os( again sata II doesn't bother me with this drive.

If it means in the next couple of weeks when all the sata and usb problem have been solved no problem i will get a new motherboard then.

Just reading a bit more about the memory before ordering it.

The 7800GTX is a good card ( when i managed to get i working ) but i still rather have a ATI card instead.

BeatFreak

After reading This I'm pretty confident that this DFI board will be a good choice.

Best of luck with it anyway.

Edit : Nice info on this thread Here too

gline

the mobo looks great if you dont need sata 2 or decent usb, which isnt too big of a problem