Need help compiling a gaming spec

[aftereight]

My current PC and everything in it is over 4 years old now so i thought it was time for something super modern
Ideally I would like a spec that totals around £1500 but I am willing to go to around £1800 if its worth it.
I do alot of digital artwork and so I'm thinking of getting a 30inch monitor (the price of which im not including in the mentioned budget) and so the spec needs to handle those resolutions.


Parts I'm pretty sure about:
a single HD4870 X2 for the graphics, (if thats enough for 30inch gaming)
2X 150GB raptor hard drives
blu-ray dvd player
1000w PSU


Stuff I need help with:
CPU - I was thinking the e8600 but i dont know if its better to have a duo or a quad
Motherboard - I really don't know much about this, i was thinking of the Asus Maximus Extreme X38
RAM - Not sure which is better - speed or memory, i.e should i get 4GB at a standard speed or 2GB at a really fast speed
Case - wanted something with good airflow aswell as good noise insulation, was thinking about a Coolermaster case
Cooling - I was planning on liquid cooling on the CPU and VGA but as i understand it, i will need a special pricey water block for the 4870 X2 and i dont know the first thing about this so was wondering if its really worth it.
Soundcard - will using one give better audio quality as opposed to using the onboard sound? and do i need one for 5.1 or 7.1 speakers?
Builing - I wanted to build it my self as its cheaper but i've never done it before, is it recommended to try on this sort of spec (with in depth guides and my old PC to practice on)?

I know I've mentioned alot but i really want to get this right and would really appreciate any thoughts or advice on this,
thanks

 

[Abarbarian]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU0MSw3LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Why buy a cheap board when you could have this.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I think Abarbie has a bit of a thing about that motherboard, second time he's linked to it today

It IS a nice board though, I'd love one of those.

Just a damn shame it only supports Crossfire and not sli.

Could still use it with a nice high end Nvidia card though.

Hmm, me mouth's watering.

Aftereight, after a quick glance, all looks good but I'm not sure about the ATI cards.

Will you be using the Raptor disks in a RAID 0 config?

Building is easy, tons of guides about all over the net (we don't actually have one here yet, maybe that's something I should work on).

As for the other stuff, I'll come back to you.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hiya mate,

Best bits at the moment for punch/price QX9450 intel quad, Q6700 or Q9300, Motherboards, X38 or X48 are the high end ones but the X58 is out soonish so you could wait a month or so.

Graphics cards, well the 4870x2 is about as powerful as it gets at the moment, wait for one of the ATI partners to bring thier versions out as alot of reviews at the moment say they are running very hot.

Wait for a HIS version of it, much better coolers.

Cases, The Coolermaster Cosmos are very good and discrete, for flashy look at Antec Gamer series.

You're gonna need a massive power supply as well as the 4870x2 uses upto 350watts on its own, so to be on the safe side look for at least 700Watts, 800Watts + to be safe.

Corsair or pretty much top dog for Power supplies at the moment, OCZ do very good ones for reasonable prices.

Finally its good having that much to spend but you won't need it, about £1000 - £1200 will get you the best of what today has to offer.

Oh and water/liquid cooling isn't worth the money, a decent aftermarket cooler and a decent case and thats all you need.

Hope this helped.

 

[aftereight]

Thanks for the replies

I dont know what you mean by RAID 0 config, i chose raptor drives simply because i heard they have much less loading times than normal hard disks, although I've been recently hearing they are a waste of money :S

Also, whats wrong with the card? From what i've seen around the net, the HD4870X2 is the fastest card out by a fair margin and thats the only reason i've chosen it. So far I'm not planning on crossfire, i want to see if one can handle things well enough first.

One other thing i forgot to mention is DDR3 memory and motherboards - is it worth it? Will anything in the near future require/benefit from it?

Edit: Waynos, I've been recently searching around about duo/quod, what ive read is that most stuff cant make use of more than 2 cores and duos are faster so i was leaning towards those.

about the budget, i've done some searches for the parts i would need and it totals at least 1500 for all the stuff ive mentioned which is excluding the monitor and any cooling equipment. I've been searching on the google product search which compares prices

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hi,

Yeah those were just a few suggestions and a bit of advice.

The Quads overclock really well, have more cache memory and well its a quad, if you gonna spend £1500 you might want to try future proofing as much as you can.

With the release next year of the Nehalem Chip from Intel, there will be more support for Quads and it makes sense to get one, if you want bigger cores go for a bigger Quad QX9650 or overclock a small one.

Regards to DDR3 RAM, generally its not worth it at the moment, i posted a link to an X48 Motherboard that supports DDR2 and DDR3 on another thread.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=750981

The only problems i've read with the card (4870x2) is that it uses massive amounts of power and the ATI version runs too hot. Also ATI are notorious for releasing new cards with crap drivers.

Again i've only read this and don't know anyone who has one.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Example build

Intel QX9550 @ 2.83Ghz £210
Coolermaster Cosmos S £160
Corsair 1000W Modular £140
4GB OCZ Dominator RAM £80
150GB HDD Raptor £115 For games and Operating System
750GB Samsung F1 £60 For storage
LG Bluray ROM £65
MSI X48 Platinum £145
ASUS 4870 x 2 £365

Total £1340

Fair enough was more exspensive than i thought, but less than £1500, leaves £150 for Keyboard, mouse and Operating System.

 

[Abarbarian]

Personaly I think these latest Seasgate drives offer very good performance along with a five year guarantee. Much better value than the raptors.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Personaly I think these latest Seasgate drives offer very good performance along with a five year guarantee. Much better value than the raptors.

If you mean these Cheetah drives, I'll agree with you. 15,000 rpm speed outperforms the Raptors and the warranty period is the same as the Raptors.

A little more expensive than the Raptors though. And for £250.00, if you went for a RAID 0, you get only a 150Gb drive.

They are actually available in bigger sizes but Seagate's website doesn't list any UK or european distributors Seagate's website

If you're talking about the standard Seagate 7200rpm drives, the Raptors outperform them easily and are thus not better value. If you mean the standard Seagate drivers are better value because they're cheaper, well they would be wouldn't they? You only get what you pay for, after all

 

[Abarbarian]

I'm having a b******k's of a day aren't I. Goof after goof.

I meant these,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130826/show_product_reviews

Found this Seagate Cheetah drive but not sure if it will do, very pricey

http://www.pcbuyit.co.uk/product2.asp?sku=498&deptId=73

 

[floppybootstomp]

Mr Barbarian, lol, they're not better value, the crux lies in the meaning of the word 'value' I suppose.

By the same margin a Fiat 500 is better value than a Lotus Elise.

Both will get you from A to B but..... well, you get the picture

 

[Abarbarian]

Aye you are right. Will those Raptors really make a noticeable difference in real life when playing games ? Or do they just have better specs on paper ? If we are just talking a few frames extra per sec then most folk will not notice the difference.
I am a tyke after all so all my suggestions are steeped with the values of thrift.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Aye you are right. Will those Raptors really make a noticeable difference in real life when playing games ? Or do they just have better specs on paper ? If we are just talking a few frames extra per sec then most folk will not notice the difference.
I am a tyke after all so all my suggestions are steeped with the values of thrift.

They really won't influence gaming much at all, the overall system and graphics card are the major influence there.

Nope, they just make the system run faster, is all.

They kinda neutralise Vista, in other words, using a pair of Raptors in a RAID zero gives the same speed in Vista as XP on a standard system