Spring RTS Engine

Ok. Been researching for a couple days now, reading through 33 page reviews from all over the internets and comparing hardware. Finally I have a reasonably specific idea of what I want in my new rig.

Budget is about £1400 and already I don't have much room to spare, but I'm choosing some pretty high quality/expensive components. Guess you could say I'm going all out with the budget I have to work with and I'm also trying to select components that are future-proof and give room for upgrades in the future.

Lastly, I intend on overclocking this build once I get it all set up and working properly.

Specification:

CPU:

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £172.71 inc VAT *

Chipset:

Asus Blitz Extreme Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £199.74 inc VAT
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £135.11 inc VAT *

Graphics:

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £364.24 inc VAT *

Memory:

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit £99.86 inc VAT *
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £117.49 inc VAT

Storage:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £69.31 inc VAT *
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £131.59 inc VAT

Case:

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £82.24 inc VAT

PSU:

BFG 800W UK/PFC Approved PSU £105.74 inc VAT *
OCZ ModXStream 780w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £99.86 inc VAT
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £93.99 inc VAT
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £70.49 inc VAT
BFG 800W UK/PFC Approved PSU £105.74 inc VAT

Cooling:

Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £32.89 inc VAT
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £45.81 inc VAT

Monitor:

Samsung SM-2032BW Pebble 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor £176.24 inc VAT *
LG L1900J Fantasy 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Red £164.49 inc VAT
LG L194WT 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver £123.36 inc VAT

Total cost of the components listed in bold from OCUK is £1017.47 so I have £300-£380 odd to spend on the remaining parts.

Ok. Items highlighted in bold are those which I'm almost entirely sure I'm going to buy. The other options are ones I found and liked when I was researching but have decided not to go for either because of cost or because I think I've found something better.

Notice there is no selection in bold for Case, PSU or Cooling. I havn't decided what to go for in these areas although the options I have listed are the ones I am currently deciding between. Any help making a decision is appreciated and any suggestions for alternatives also. Case wise, I'm basically looking for a case that is big enough to accommodate huge air cooling solutions for CPU or a water cooling setup, with good air flow. Looks wise, that Antec I listed looked pretty sexy in my opinion. I don't mind if its modest and doesnt have windows on the side so long as functionally and aesthetically it fits the part. Suggestions here would also be great, and ideally I would go for a case that is cheaper than the one I listed without sacraficing in quality, so I have more to spend in other areas.

I really can't decide between top-range air cooling or any kind of water cooling right now. In the air cooling department I'm definately looking for top of the range performance air cooling solutions, because the Q6600 does run rather hot when OC'd and I expect to reach at least 3.1 GHZ on air. Any suggestions here are also welcome. Please give reference links/reviews if possible.

I have no previous experience with water cooling so help in this area would be really beneficial. I'm seriously considering it but price is an issue here as well as my inexperience. How easy/hard is it to fuck it up and ruin everything? How reliable is water cooling - is there much chance of water cooling breaking or me installing it badly which would lead to a catastrophe? If anyone has good knowledge and experience in this department, please help me out. Some links to good (and reasonably cheap) water cooling solutions would be great, with preference to those which are easy to install for a beginner to water cooling.

Note that I'm pretty intent on getting a PSU that is at least 700W from a respected manufacturer because I know fine well from past experience that if theres one thing in your system that can totally dominate all of the components in one horrible whitey its this. Also because I want to OC, and because I want it to be future proof in the sense that it has enough power to handle 8800 GTX in SLI at some point in the future.

Finally, take note that I am buying from the UK and all the prices quoted here are from OCUK site. Suggestions of any other competitive online UK retailers would be great, and I would prefer it if you can reference components from UK retailers, although this is not necessary.

Thx, hope you can help me out a bit ¬_¬

I'd strongly suggest a nvidia chipset.

I looked into the nForce 680i chipset on several motherboards and read several reviews. If I remember correctly, there were several suggestions not to use either the motherboard or the chipset with the Q6600 though. Several users ran into problems.

Please give examples of your suggestions if possible, btw. Suggestions with no reasons or examples doesn't really help me much:)

OcUK has a bad reputation for after sales support (RMAs etc). However I have used them a few times, and my 2 RMAs went through fine. Sometimes they overcharge for some things so keep an eye out. (e.g. they were charging a premium on q6600 g0 stepping when it just came out)

On the other hand Scan.co.uk has a great reputation in all aspects, and thats where I've bought from most, lately; highly recommended

Ebuyer.co.uk; I've used them many times too and had no problem with them; you can find real bargains with them at times.


Recommendations;

PSU: 600w will be hard driven if you decide for 8800GTX sli with Q6600.. But dont forget P35 can't do SLI.

Cooling; Tuniq Tower > Thermalright except for some suspect reviews around.... I wouldn't recommend going for watercooling if you're going for a more value PC. Overclocking gains are not very big vs good Air cooling.

RAM: IMO go for cheaper ram, theres very little benefit on C2Duos of faster ram, and it's best to just keep a 1:1 divider. Go for PC2-6400.

DemO wrote:I looked into the nForce 680i chipset on several motherboards and read several reviews. If I remember correctly, there were several suggestions not to use either the motherboard or the chipset with the Q6600 though. Several users ran into problems.

Please give examples of your suggestions if possible, btw. Suggestions with no reasons or examples doesn't really help me much:)

It also has sometimes problems with some RAM, and 4x1GB sticks

Well I've had problems with several modern intel chipsets. There is a newer EVGA board which is optimized for the quad http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... cture=eVGA

Get a 6750, 6600 is more expensive and not as awesome.

For PSU and CPU cooler get the Corsair HX 620W and Thermalright 120. I've used OCUK and I have had no problems with them.

For PSU and CPU cooler get the Corsair HX 620W and Thermalright 120. I've used OCUK and have had no problems with them.

Muzic wrote:Get a 6750, 6600 is more expensive and not as awesome.

No way; look at latest reviews; I'm not gna bother searching for links but basically OCd 6750 won most benchmarks by a few FPS, but then came along Lost Planet which has quad core support, and the also OCd q6600 obliterated it. And more and more games are supporting quad-core due to XBOX360

EDIT: Ha! didnt allow you to delete ure double post

Lippy wrote:

Muzic wrote:Get a 6750, 6600 is more expensive and not as awesome.

No way; look at latest reviews; I'm not gna bother searching for links but basically OCd 6750 won most benchmarks by a few FPS, but then came along Lost Planet which has quad core support, and the also OCd q6600 obliterated it. And more and more games are supporting quad-core due to XBOX360

EDIT: Ha! didnt allow you to delete ure double post

Yep, I looked into this pretty conclusively to make sure I was getting the best future proof CPU. Check out this review where not the E6750 but the E6850 is put up against Q6600 over several benchmarks and games and both are OC'd. You'll be surprised:
Multi-Core Confrontation: Core 2 Quad Q6600 vs. Core 2 Duo E6850

Go get the 206BW... hmm apparently not available in the UK. Weird.

Also, look at Lian Li's cases.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productli ... &subid=187

Unless manual overclocking frightens you, you're wasting your money on "factory overclocked" hardware. GF8 series has great temperature tolerance and has no difficulty overclocking. Take my card for instance. I get better benchmark scores with my 8800 GTS 320 than people with a stock-speed GTX.

I've also set my card up with some Rivatuner settings that allow me to automatically tune the overclocking based on whether or not I'm playing a game. I drop my clock speeds to about 20% of normal while just running windows. Keeps things cool and, I think, if there's any lifetime lost due to the overclocking, it's made up for by underclocking it the rest of the time.

However, I do advise you to get the higher-memory GPU. It's a good investment in being future proof... I mean, take the 640/768 rather than the 320. The only difference performance wise is whether it can handle high-quality anti-aliasing on the latest games. However, in another year the 320 may have difficulty running what will then be the latest games, at highest detail.

8800 GTS 320 = ~90% performance at about ~50% the price. just something to think about.

I bought a 8800GTS 320MB (by XFX) not too long ago and runs the new games at max detail at very good FPS. I would go for a 8800GTS and maybe in the future but another one when the prices drop and SLI them both (off course you have to have the right chipset for that as well).

My 2 cents.

EDIT: Cadyr beat me by 3 minutes. Although i dont agree and i say go for the 320 - as of now it performs even better than the 640 (granted - I dont know what the future holds) and is cheaper.

Hope this helps:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

SLIing gts's kinda removes the whole cost-effectiveness of getting a gts

Recent nvidia chipsets have been crappy though, be very careful about what motherboard you buy because many of them are riddled with incompatibilities.

SLIing gts's kinda removes the whole cost-effectiveness of getting a gts

not when the drivers will be better (getting more performance out of 8800SLI is a mostly a driver problem at the moment) and not one year from now when the card will be much cheaper

Peet wrote:SLIing gts's kinda removes the whole cost-effectiveness of getting a gts

SLI in general is a waste of money. Woo 50% fps increase at only 200% cost. But at least now you can do 32x antialiasing

Get a Core 2 Duo Extreme. You have no use for a Quad, and few applications can take advantage of the four processors.

Caydr wrote:Unless manual overclocking frightens you, you're wasting your money on "factory overclocked" hardware. GF8 series has great temperature tolerance and has no difficulty overclocking. Take my card for instance. I get better benchmark scores with my 8800 GTS 320 than people with a stock-speed GTX.

I've also set my card up with some Rivatuner settings that allow me to automatically tune the overclocking based on whether or not I'm playing a game. I drop my clock speeds to about 20% of normal while just running windows. Keeps things cool and, I think, if there's any lifetime lost due to the overclocking, it's made up for by underclocking it the rest of the time.

However, I do advise you to get the higher-memory GPU. It's a good investment in being future proof... I mean, take the 640/768 rather than the 320. The only difference performance wise is whether it can handle high-quality anti-aliasing on the latest games. However, in another year the 320 may have difficulty running what will then be the latest games, at highest detail.

The GTX i chose from OCUK was actually one of the cheapest on that site despite the "factory overclock" so I figured I may as well go for it.

Concerning GTS 320/640 vs the GTX, I read a shit tonne of reviews featuring all cards and probably just as many that also included the ATI 2900 XT, as well as all 4 cards in SLI/crossfire setups.

What I established from the plethora of testing I read through from enthusiast sites is that making a choice over which card or SLI/Crossfire setup you go for largely depends on the resolution you wish to play at. Repeatedly the GTS series turned out to be a major performance downfall in games that are played at 1600x1200 or greater resolutions.

At 1280x1024 the difference between both the 320 and 640mb versions of the GTS and the GTX were negligible or all 3 posted an frame rate well within respectable boundaries, but the differences between the GTS and GTX become massive as you knock up the resolution in highly graphically demanding games such as FEAR, Stalker, Supreme Commander and Oblivion.

The differences between the 320 and 640mb GTS are almost completely negligible and in many cases both cards give exactly the same FPS through all resolutions up to 1920x1200.

The quoted memory of graphics cards is more or less just a marketing ploy and has limited to no impact on the performance of the card in most situations, and after 512mb of memory there is practically no measurable difference in performance. The GTS line is a perfect example of this. Case and point is the performance comparison between a 512mb 2900XT and a 1024mb 2900XT - when tested across several respectable sites the performance difference in all tests was recorded as ABSOLUTELY ZERO. Modern games just don't make use of this extra memory.

Another interesting insight I have come across is that 2900 XT's in crossfire on windows vista will repeatedly give better performance than 8800 GTS's in SLI, apparently due to the catalyst drivers being more efficient at using both cards in vista currently. Repeatedly the crossfire setup gave results between 80-90% improvement in fps where the SLI'd GTS's gave anything from 15% to 60% maximum.

Perhaps even more interesting, but don't hold me to this as actual fact - is that apparently its currently not possible to make full use of two 8800 GTX in SLI due to nvidia's SLI having some sort of "bandwidth" issue. 2900 XT's in crossfire will give more performance an 8800 Ultra and totally own it in benchmarks, but lets be honest, benchmarks are more of a bragging toy than a real measure of graphical performance in games.

But yeah, the 320 mb GTS is just as good as the 640mb version for much less cost. I actually considered getting two 320 MB GTS and putting them in SLI but again I want to look to the future and have the option to put 8800 GTX in SLI when I eventually need the extra performance.

I just wish the 2900XT was better. I really tried to find evidence enough for me to buy one - or two - because I have always been an AMD/ATI fanboy. Regrettably, Intel/Nvidia just own them right now so I guess I'm going to jump ship.