Build my own gaming rig

[Madxgraphics]

Ok good people of PCR
Earlier today I made a comment on PSD's thread about giving Mr credit card a spanking on OCUk and building my own rig..
Well I had a little scratch around me brain and banged on the caculator repeatedly for about 15 minutes and came up with a figure of about £ 2500 to spend..Now the thing is I do know what I am doing, but its been a good few years since I last built a PC so I am a bit out of date when it comes to whats good and whats not..Obviously important things need to be speed and storage..Storage for the incredibly stupendace amount of music I have..And the most importantly stability. So if you can give me ideas for Mobo, Memory, HDD, CPU, Cooling, Sound and graphics cards..Don't worry about OS or monitors or owt like that..Casing will be taken care of by my brother who is a master acrylic fabricator...
Thanks in advance for any advice that I recieve...


P.S Bets on at William Hill our Wizkid makes the first post..

 

[Waynos_Face]

WOW thats a crazy amount of money to spend!

Seriously wait for the Intel Nehalem to arrive, will be early next year, no point spending a massive amount of cash and then a totally new CPU and Chipset arrive, if the rumours are true its gonna be a new socket, so if you go with an X48 Motherboard and DRR3 Memory then you won't be able to upgrade.

But if you can't wait then £1500 should be plenty.

Added this on OCUK

Intel Quad 9550 (best price for power, just overclock it to 3.5Ghz save £500)
ASUS Rampage Extreme X48 (best chipset, X58 at Xmas)
4GB Corsair DDR3 @ 1600Mhz (best price for power)
PowerColor ATI 4870 x2 (4870 on its own beats a GTX 260)
2 x WD Velocaraptors 150GB Each in Raid (For games and O/S)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB (for your music)
Corsair 1000W Modular PSU (best power supplies)

Total £1,475

Want to have another Hd 4870 x2???

new total £1,811

Would easily be the best PC, you could spend £4000 but i think that is just about the best price/performance, if it were my money i would wait.

Hope this helps matey.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Night shift again I take it..?

Serious money..? I just say relative to the amount of work I do..
Looks like a pretty cool setup..As for waiting that can also be done I am in no rush really.
Thanks, off to look at the parts and their revues now..Me doing nght shift to..lil one is sick again..

 

[Waynos_Face]

Yeah am on nights still, 29 days on, 3 days off, i only go in for a few hours now, as i think i said i am off soon and start me new job in Nov, so they can't sack me . 2 weeks left then i have a 5 week termination period, can't wait, gonna play on me PS3 all day and hopefully go away.

If you can wait all the better, get a Nehalem CPU when it comes out or if not then the Extreme Quads will be so much cheaper, probably only things that don't get cheaper are PSU.

Trust me if its Gaming you want then the new ATI beat Nvidia, sad to say but they do, heat is a bit of an issue but i'm sure you could get your brother to sort that in the case.

 

[guest_9323wk]

Ok good people of PCR
Earlier today I made a comment on PSD's thread about giving Mr credit card a spanking on OCUk and building my own rig..
Well I had a little scratch around me brain and banged on the caculator repeatedly for about 15 minutes and came up with a figure of about £ 2500 to spend..Now the thing is I do know what I am doing, but its been a good few years since I last built a PC so I am a bit out of date when it comes to whats good and whats not..Obviously important things need to be speed and storage..Storage for the incredibly stupendace amount of music I have..And the most importantly stability. So if you can give me ideas for Mobo, Memory, HDD, CPU, Cooling, Sound and graphics cards..Don't worry about OS or monitors or owt like that..Casing will be taken care of by my brother who is a master acrylic fabricator...
Thanks in advance for any advice that I recieve...


P.S Bets on at William Hill our Wizkid makes the first post..

Hi Madx,


I didn't make the frist post. But I will make the 3rd. Two qustions are you looking for an DDR3 motherboard or DDR2? Also do
you want onboard WLAN?


Can you let me know this, and then I will put a few good high spec rigs togeher and you can have a look through and let me know what you think of them.

Regards,

Wiz

 

[Madxgraphics]

Cheers Wiz

DDR3 and onboard WLAN

 

[guest_9323wk]

Cheers Wiz

DDR3 and onboard WLAN

Hi Madx,


Please find attached 1st rig.

I have put a high spec gaming rig for you, the total of this is £1,363.98

This is quite a lot of money but its in your budget.


Please let me know what you think of it, if you would like me to put make any more rigs up, then let me know.


Regards,

Wiz

 

[Waynos_Face]

Been reading a bit more, X58 will only support Intel Nehalem, now renamed Core-i7, and will only feature, triple Channel DDR3.

I can see intel having a word about the price of DDR3 as if its too high who's gonna buy the new processor?

Core-i7 looking for a release pre-xmas apparently. Read a review last nite, will try to find the link but a 3.0Ghz Core-i7 will function faster than 4 x 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo's working together.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Cheers Wayne..Trying to do a bit of readin of revues myself on what you and Chris have to say..Remember money is not an object here..As to ATI, laods of people I know try to swing me in the direction of nVidia..I think the only Nvdia card I have had is the one you have..Most of my games with exception of C.O.D 4 are racing games and require higher frame rate..Will do research once the kids die down..lol..Chris as to my budget I set it out like that so i'm not scraping the bottomof the barrel if something nice comes along..1tb sounds nice, although I think I might kil it when you see the stupendace amount of vinyl and cd's I have..But I suppose external for that can be bought at a lter stage..Thanks again guys, your input is appreciated..

 

[floppybootstomp]

I'll just say - don't rely on current hard disks for permanent storage of any data at all, be it documents, music, movies, whatever.

And if you have to, ALWAYS have a backup.

It takes a lot of time and effort to convert and arrange music, don't risk losing it - backup.

If you always waited for the next computer development that's round the corner, you'd never upgrade.

If 1tb is not enough, get two or three 1Tb disks, they're cheap enough atm.

I won't suggest a system without some research on my part but two x WD 150Gb Raptors in a RAID 0 for main HDD sounds good to me.

If you have room for and money for 4 Raptors go for RAID 0 & RAID 1 together, best of both worlds.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hiya mate,

I know money isn't an object, but that don't mean that you need to spend it all,

If you take the original build i posted, add another 1TB HDD so thats 2TB of storage, and 300GB on Raptors, and add another 4GB RAM and another 4870 x2 and a soundcard then it adds upto £2000 - £2100, Blu-ray players are a waste of cash, even at £60, the discs cost too much.

Oh and the ASUS board Wiz posted is better than the one i picked out, must've missed it.


Edit: Just saw Flopps, RAID makes alot of sense, 4 x Raptors and 2TB of storage, your bro is gonna have his work cut out making a case.

 

[Madxgraphics]

At the end of the day I am in a position where money is not an object at all..I came up with the figure of £2500, thinking ahead..I don't want to build something for a couple of hundred that needs constant upgrading..In other words I want Power and reliability that is going to be good for the next few years without upgrades..
As for the music bit. I think 1TB is a starting point..Although the scary point is so far I have only been estimating the amount of vinyl I have..

Anyway thanks to all of you that have given your advice..It is very muchly appreciated..

Thanks guys look forward to more input..

 

[Madxgraphics]

Hiya mate,

I know money isn't an object, but that don't mean that you need to spend it all,

If you take the original build i posted, add another 1TB HDD so thats 2TB of storage, and 300GB on Raptors, and add another 4GB RAM and another 4870 x2 and a soundcard then it adds upto £2000 - £2100, Blu-ray players are a waste of cash, even at £60, the discs cost too much.

Oh and the ASUS board Wiz posted is better than the one i picked out, must've missed it.


Edit: Just saw Flopps, RAID makes alot of sense, 4 x Raptors and 2TB of storage, your bro is gonna have his work cut out making a case.

Just been looking at what you put together at the moment..All looks god, A mate said the same as what you did about the mobo that Chris picked out...
What Flopps has suggested is pretty uch the route I was thinking of...As it goes since yesterday when I firt came up with the idea I have been reading through his threads and learning a lot..As many qualifications as I have, I am learning so much from people like Flopps and others on here...I am going to give this thread about 2 weeks and then sift through everybodies ideas, then put together a "Moc" rig and post it and see what evrybody has to say..
As for me brother and the casing, erm this is going to be a walk in the park for him.I have given him moc dimension already..Basically it needs as much air flow as possible, and also not to keep everything close together..I want parts to be spaced so that when I might have to add hardware to the rig, i'm not working in a cramped inviroment..If you get that..?

 

[Waynos_Face]

Might be worth picking out the power supply and buying it as i'm sure your bro could use it, put holes in the backing plate for cables and such, see how many SATA can reach the HDD cage, etc.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Edit: doesn't read well that, i mean see what kind of distance the cables have as they vary quite alot.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Edit: doesn't read well that, i mean see what kind of distance the cables have as they vary quite alot.

Legth of acble is not an issue..I have a box of cables rainging from 25cm to 1mtr

 

[Waynos_Face]

Been reading lots of reviews the ASUS board definetly comes out on top, here is just one of the comparisons i read, all say the same.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/x48-motherboard-comparison,1781-16.html

 

[guest_9323wk]

Hi Madx,

I think either motherboard will do you well that I listed and WF, Have you made any decisions yet or are you still looking around atm. Let me know if you want me to make up anymore rigs for you.

Regards,

Wiz

 

[Madxgraphics]

Hi Wiz

Still reading various revues etc. Will let you know though if I need..

Thanks again..

 

[Waynos_Face]

Well, it seems i should do more reading,

ATi HD 4870 x2 is the most powerful card to date, and a single 4870 is on par with a GTX 280 (5% less), however the 4870 x2 will use upto 400W (371 real world bench) at load and is nearly 30 degrees C hotter than any Nvidia rival.

Might be worth considering 2 x GTX 260 OC in SLI? As that is alotta heat, too much i think.

Well i might have to have a think here before i recommend anything else.