My proposed new pc setup

[philstoke]

My wife has let me spend a little money on a new pc which will mainly be used for gaming, especially with BF3 coming soon
I have picked out the following which I think should make a good setup and is just in my budget at the moment.
I picked the m/b because it look as though it would be the best one for updating the system at a later date and it seems to be easy for a relative novice to slightly overclock
do you think the 8mb of 1600mhz memory would better than buying 16mb 1333mhz ram or not.
Later I would like to buy another HD 6970 graphics card to pair up with the one in the system, looking on the internet there are a lot of different makes of HD 6970 cards, so do I have to get the exact same one again or does it not matter.
Thanks for any suggestions

Phil


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS IV EXTREME (NEW REV 3.0): INTEL P67 ROG MOTHERBOARD
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
450GB VELOCIRAPTOR WD4500HLHX, SATA 6-Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W PRO SERIES GOLD (AX1200) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£205)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software

 

[Teaz]

You will be much better with this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, NVIDIA® SLI™, ATI® CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
450GB VELOCIRAPTOR WD4500HLHX, SATA 6-Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (10,000rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W PRO SERIES GOLD (AX1200) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£205)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Total: 1367

The motherboard will be easy updating and no different from the maximus along with also an easy overclocking feature so you could save yourself with this board.

Took out the K variant since you will only slighly overclock it and not to mad lengths of overclocking.

You will be better with the 8gb 1600mhz ram as 16gb is overkill especially just for gaming alone with general everyday use.

Popped in a better case as the t900 you will not get the side fan if you went for the Titan cooler as it will obstruct the side fan. You will still get good cooling

It can be any so long as its the right one, it doesnt really matter by brand as its still the same gpu but it would be better to get matching brands to prevent confusion at times.

 

[Wozza63]

for the price of them HDDs you are better off getting a 60GB SSD then a 500GB Caviar Black, and then once all programs (and OS) have been installed onto the SSD you can use the remaining for cache, which greatly speeds up the speed of your other drive, to probably a better speed than the velicoraptor, plus your OS will load in about 20 seconds compared to a 30+ with the velicoraptor,

just checked the suggestion above and the SSD + normal drive is £30 cheaper than the velicoraptor, and you will get much better overall performance oof HDDs/SSDs

to gaming, the i7 2600 has no benefit over the i5 2500, the only advantage is hyperthreading which is not needed on gaming and everyday use

 

[odie147]

if you can squeeze it into your budget, crossfire 6970's would be great.
I would just go with a single 2TB drive or 2 1TB WD Blacks until SSDs become more mainstream, the 10,000 RPM drives aren't really worth the price.
If the machine is just for gaming, I would recommend a 2500, the performance difference is next to none in gaming usage. (unless you are planning to overclock at a later date, in that case go for the 2500k)
If you are not planning on overclocking, I would change the 1600mhz ram to 1333mhz ram as the performance difference in games is next to none

 

[philstoke]

I seem to have put this post in the wrong section, sorry about that.
Thanks very much for the prompt replies. Obviously everybody has their own preferences, I will have to do more research and juggle my choices around after your thoughts.
I wanted to get a system that is fast enough without overclocking to play the latest games with no lag, but that in the future I could overclock things to speed it up when it lagged behind the latest specs without having to buy more hardware, although by that time there might be something completely different on the market, lol
I chose the ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, NVIDIA® SLI™, ATI® CrossFireX motherboard after reading a review and seeing it was very good for overclocking and also has a setting which temporarily boosts the speed of the processor when needed, which seemed a cool idea, rather than have it overclocked all the time, also that was also why I chose the 2600k.
What do you think about Intel v AMD processors
Also is it best to have two crossfire graphic cards or go for a single better one
I am getting a headache with all the choices available, my star sign is Libra and they are supposed to have difficulty making a choice, that seems to be true, lol

 

[Rakk]

and then once all programs (and OS) have been installed onto the SSD you can use the remaining for cache, which greatly speeds up the speed of your other drive, to probably a better speed than the velicoraptor,

SSD caching don't quite work like this - as was discussed in another thread

I would just go with a single 2TB drive or 2 1TB WD Blacks until SSDs become more mainstream, the 10,000 RPM drives aren't really worth the price.

I'd agree here, SSD's are very nice and all, but are still ridiculously expensive for the amount of space they have.

Also is it best to have two crossfire graphic cards or go for a single better one
I am getting a headache with all the choices available, my star sign is Libra and they are supposed to have difficulty making a choice, that seems to be true, lol

I figure it's always best to go for the best single card that you can rather than 2 lesser cards, for a start when you decide you want more graphics power you can just get another one of the cards you already have and SLI/Crossfire it, rather than having to buy two new cards to replace what you have, also there are still some games and stuff that don't use SLI/Crossfire very well anyway.

 

[philstoke]

I don't think I will be going for a SSD at the moment, like you say they will get cheaper in time, the same for the graphics card, having just one good card gives me the option to add another later when they are cheaper