Time to upgrade my system and with the new 17 on the market i have decided to go the whole hog and start from scratch, below is a list of the components i have chosen and although i have built several pc's in the past new technology has changed quite a bit so if anyone has suggestions on alternative parts and different configurations please let me know. SilverStone Raven RV01 Case ASUS Rampage II Extreme Mobo Intel Core i7 930 Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB HD103SJ Samsung SH-B083A Blu-ray DVD Combo Drive XFX 850W Black Edition Modular PSU CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1600C7 6GB Kit Dominator GT XFX Radeon HD5850 Black Edition Case and mobo have been purchased so far but im still undecided on the ram and whether or not i need a 1000w PSU i have also thought about going with 2x XFX Radeon HD5770 1GB XXX Edition instead of the single 5850 so any feedback on that would be great.
the two 5770 would be faster hands down. you do not need a 1000w PSU the 850W will be fine, although that would leave plenty of room for future upgrades. P.S. looks like a sweet system
Thanx for the info i was pretty confident the dual 5770's would be the way to go, they seem to have some good reviews and the price comes out almost the same and i end up with 2g instead of 1g on the single card. My last system was all blue so im after a neon green theme this time round which should look great in the rv01 raven just need to change the led's in the front light.
Just noticed quite a few people on your forum dislike the asus range of products and im curious why, i have only ever used abit and gigabyte mobo's so im curious now and wonder if the rampage board is as good as ive read, any info would be great.
I myself have had only one Asus mobo - p5vd-mx. it was ok, but the chipset was Via, so that's a bummer, but overall it was quite solid. So, from my side - go with it. what do reviews say?
Nice case. As for motherboard OUCH! Asus name says it all, me personally don't trust Asus after they moved there production to china also almost everything I've had thats branded Asus has failed including a opticle drive. anything dating from 2008+ have alot of problem. I would tend to stick to Gigabyte, Evga motherboards high quality components and low failure rates. Still im sure you won't have any problems with your Asus motherboard. I just overclocked an old skool Forumla II socket 775 on the q6600 got 3.6ghz out of it with a 1600mhz system bus no problems, but this asus board dates before they moved production. I would make use of that onboard raid controller, change the drive to, two western digital caviar blacks in a raid 0 looking at 180mb/s read speed, excellent drive only £60 for 1TB, it will make a massive difference to your system. As for the cpu heatsink invest in the Thermalright ultra true copper, beast of a heatsink, bit on the heavy side but have your system running on par with watercooling if not better. Graphics cards I just installed 2x 5770's (customers request) in crossfire config 2x pci-express x16 2.0 slots (4GB/s bus caps) on a socket 775 3.6ghz q6600,4gb ram system, ran far cry 2 benchmark average framerate was 80fps which i found to be very disapointing. I would of rather gone with 2x gtx 260's. If you can afford it invest in one Ati Radeon 5870. Psu might as well go for 1000W so it's future proof.
thanx for the info, ive noticed there isnt that many online pc stores selling anything but gigabyte so thats a sign in iteself i guess and that asus board is certainly not cheap at 500$aud. there are so many psu's on the market anyone got suggestions on whats the best as i dont mind spending 300-400$ on a psu as long as it modular.
lastly anyone used the Xigmatek Thors Hammer Double Layer HDT CPU Cooler? i read some good reviews on it without the fans but i can add a fan to either side as well.
Enermax are very good quality power supply units, so are OCZ, Coolmaster aint bad either, Corsair very good too.
