the deceived
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Firstly, I just want to thank all of you for the advice you gave me years ago (can't actually remember how many years ago it was), as I asked a lot of questions about hardware in general so I could go out and build my first PC. I think it was around the time the 8800 GTX was top card on offer.
EDIT: Haha, just looked at my forum sig. That's how long it's been since I was last on here!
Secondly, I totally forgot about this forum and the amount of helpful people on here. Was reminded by clearing out my inbox the other day, so thought I'd come back and take a look around. Great to see that it still looks the same!
Right, onto my question. As you all know, it's nearing the end of the financial year which means bonuses are about to be handed out at work. I'm going to be spending pretty much all of mine on a new rig as I haven't upgraded for a bout a year and a half.
I'm outside of the loop again with regards what's going on in the hardware world, but after a few hours of research, I have come up with a spec that I feel should give me a top spec based on what's available on the current market and also some future proofing (not too much as I'm likely to upgrade in a year/year and a half). Was hoping you guys wouldn't mind looking over it and pointing out any major flaws/suggestions that you would change, as well as any inside tips on overclocking.
Here's the rig:
CPU: Intel Core i7 860 2.80GHz (Nehalem)
Mobo: Asus Maximus III Formula Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 2000MHz PC3-16000C
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3
SSD: OCZ Vertex Series 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
PSU: OCZ Z-Series 1000w Modular '80 Plus Gold'
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card
Case: Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos PURE Black Silent Full Tower Case
Now I have a couple of questions about the setup listed above.
I suppose the most important question is; does that rig look good overall to you? If there's no glaring mistakes, then I'll be ordering the parts in a few weeks.
Oh and please ignore the sound card. It's only £30 on Overclockers and I'm not currently looking for extreme sound performance until I get a few more wage packets under my belt
Thanks!
EDIT: Haha, just looked at my forum sig. That's how long it's been since I was last on here!
Secondly, I totally forgot about this forum and the amount of helpful people on here. Was reminded by clearing out my inbox the other day, so thought I'd come back and take a look around. Great to see that it still looks the same!
Right, onto my question. As you all know, it's nearing the end of the financial year which means bonuses are about to be handed out at work. I'm going to be spending pretty much all of mine on a new rig as I haven't upgraded for a bout a year and a half.
I'm outside of the loop again with regards what's going on in the hardware world, but after a few hours of research, I have come up with a spec that I feel should give me a top spec based on what's available on the current market and also some future proofing (not too much as I'm likely to upgrade in a year/year and a half). Was hoping you guys wouldn't mind looking over it and pointing out any major flaws/suggestions that you would change, as well as any inside tips on overclocking.
Here's the rig:
CPU: Intel Core i7 860 2.80GHz (Nehalem)
Mobo: Asus Maximus III Formula Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 2000MHz PC3-16000C
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3
SSD: OCZ Vertex Series 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
PSU: OCZ Z-Series 1000w Modular '80 Plus Gold'
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card
Case: Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos PURE Black Silent Full Tower Case
Now I have a couple of questions about the setup listed above.
- I've gone with the 860 CPU because the performance difference between that and the 870 is minimal, but the price difference is huge. Secondly, I don't have the cash for the 980.
- I've been a solid AMD & nVidia fan through and through, so this is the first ever PC I've built that uses an Intel CPU. AMD seem to be far behind Intel at the minute, am I right in thinking this?
- With me being an nVidia fan, I've chosen the GTX295 instead of the Ati 5970 series. The ATi card seems about £100 more expensive. Is there £100 worth of performance difference between the cards? Most reviews I've seen put them in the same league, with minor differences on each of the benchmarking tests.
- I've got plenty of normal SATA hard drives for storage, so the SSD is purely for Windows 7 and one or two games. You'll also notice that I'm a massive OCZ fanboy. Have used a lot of their products in the past and have been extremely pleased with the results. The new Vertex SSDs that they released seem to have some of the best stats around. Again, am I right in thinking this?
- I've currently got the Cosmos-S case, and really like the layout, air flow and design. Just moving to the all black case for a slightly more polished look. Couldn't see any other cases out there that came close to the amount of expansion bays, while also falling into a nice price bracket and looking more than just a plastic box. Any suggestions on other models?
I suppose the most important question is; does that rig look good overall to you? If there's no glaring mistakes, then I'll be ordering the parts in a few weeks.
Oh and please ignore the sound card. It's only £30 on Overclockers and I'm not currently looking for extreme sound performance until I get a few more wage packets under my belt
Thanks!