Just about to order, not bad I think. I have a creative xfi extreme pro sound card and will just use that instead of the onboard sound.

PC Specification

Intel Core i7



Computer Case ANTEC Nine Hundred Gamers Case - Black
CPU Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) 8 MB 4.8GT/s 1600FSB
Motherboard ASUS P6T DELUXE/OC PALM SKT-1366 S/L 6.4GT/S (Intel X58)
Memory Corsair 4GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (2x2GB) - Lifetime Warranty CAS 9 (DDR3)
Graphics Card ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 - 2 GB - 2xDVI/VGA (Sapphire)
Power Supply ThermalTake W0132 1000W TOUGHPOWER CABLE MANAGEMENT
Hard Drive 1 80 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 8MB
Hard Drive 2 320 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 8MB
Optical Drive 1 Samsung (S222A) DVD PLUS/-RW 22x Dual Layer - Black (IDE)
Optical Drive 2 Samsung (SH-D162D) 16x DVD-ROM Black (IDE)
Floppy Drive Floppy Disk Drive 1.44 MB - Black
Sound Card Motherboard Integrated 5.1 Sound
Firewire Card 4 Port Firewire IEEE 1394 & Free Cable (PCI)
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
USB Ports 4 X USB 2.0 Ports
CPU Heatsink Cooler Master V8 - Ultimate Silent Cooler
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included)
Backup Solution Standard Operating System Backup

I am using xp at the moment, is vista Home Premium ok?

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Add the prices to your post?

But as far as I can tell, that's really not best value for money. i7's are not that much better than 775 Quads, and cost up to £400 more? That processor you chose is ~£450. Why not get a Q6600 for ~£150 and OC it to 3Ghz, save £300.

A SSD Drive is always good to store your operating system on as they're much faster than normal drives. They are expensive though.

I also suggest Vista Home Premium 64x, to make use of over ~3Gb of RAM.

You could also add what you have now, and look into actual upgrades rather than buying a whole new system to save money.

Otherwise, if you don't really care about cost, it's definitely a good build.



[ Edited Mon Nov 24 08, 12:11AM ]

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Only downside I can see is the hard drive space and you need a 64bit OS to make the most of 4gb ram.

And if you have the money, go for a nVdia GTX280 or two!

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Free Hax:

Yup u have to post the price m8 so we can say is it a good deal or not.

And like Dec said if u wanna use those 4 Gb then u have to go to 64bit Vista.

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I would really recommend only getting the lower end i7 at 2.66ghz, the 2.93 ghz version is £215 more expensive and the only difference is its slightly faster ~ 0.27ghz, the cache and memory is the same, you could acheive 3.0ghz no problem with some very simple tweaks in the bios ( i doubt you would even have to raise any voltages)

Also the new i7's take use of triple channel ddr3 memory, so if your going for ddr3 might aswell make the step up to triple channel as that wouldnt even use up all of the £215 spare from the lower processor.

Graphics is ATM the most powerful single card available at the moment (humm i lie two boards welded together )

and the power supply will give you more than enough juice incase you want to add an extra graphics card in the future.

all the rest looks peachy and i would deffo reccomend vista 64 bit home premium to take use of all that extra lovely ram



take alook at the above, compares i7 920 2.66ghz with older quad cores and q6600 and you can see it comepletely blows them outta the water, this due in part to the new triple channel memory

A quick snoop on Overclockers uk and these are the prices for the motherboard, ram and cpu
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £266
Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £246
G.Skill 6GB DDR3 NQ PC3-10666C9 1333MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ) £176

prices including vat, this coupled with a radeon 4870x2 will BLOW away and current game there is, running crysis like a dream

and tf2 and css, pah youd be getting like 200fps


ALSO one more thing what monitor do you use?

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I am 66% addicted to Counterstrike. What about you?

wonderfull world of Giggetty

100% RELEVANT POSTS AND PROUD

Intel E4500 2.2ghz stock O/C 3.2ghz stable, 30ish idle 60 load stock cooler / Artic Silver 5
Crucial Ballistix 2gb DDR2 PC6400 o/c 960mhz 5-5-5-18
Geforce XFX 8800 GTX - not yet o/c'd
Abit IP35
Creative SB XFI Platinum
OCZ 600w
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Case
LG Flatron L204WS

Ohh and more thing hard drive, yer you could install vista and keep programs to your 80gb HDD and then spend an extra £40 ( 320 gb ~£35-40, 1000gb samsung spinpoint f1 £80) and install all your games and keep all other movies and what not in there!

also that samsung drive is one of the fastest 7200rpm drives there is despite its huge size.

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I am 66% addicted to Counterstrike. What about you?

wonderfull world of Giggetty

100% RELEVANT POSTS AND PROUD

Intel E4500 2.2ghz stock O/C 3.2ghz stable, 30ish idle 60 load stock cooler / Artic Silver 5
Crucial Ballistix 2gb DDR2 PC6400 o/c 960mhz 5-5-5-18
Geforce XFX 8800 GTX - not yet o/c'd
Abit IP35
Creative SB XFI Platinum
OCZ 600w
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Case
LG Flatron L204WS

if you're going to spend that much on a system, it seems crazy not to raid your disks as disk access is going to be in many ways a limiting factor for your system

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[yt=120,100]zZigGOPezYE[/yt][yt=120,100]Wq8QcrJCqko[/yt]
.Tito\\\'s Law. - You can\\\'t fall off the floor

and i would also suggest that you get a widescreen monitor. Makes it so much better.

wouldnt do raid as its proven not to give any real perf increase and when it fails its a bugger to recover from.

go with the i7 and ddr3, if your investing in a new rig then its best to buy the most uptodate you can afford (ie not quad) but agree that stepping down the processor list is best value. not read the full i7 review in custompc this month yet but have skimmed it and these processors do seem to rock.

Be careful with the gfx card as those are abosolutely huge, so make sure your case can cope with its lenght, still wouldnt touch an ATi card but not going to get into that one again.

otherwise a few tweaks here and there with processor and ram and i think you have a winner. I would seriously question your need for this gfx card, unless you are playing on very high rez with the very latest dx10 games then its pointless. agree with the guys that to get the full use of 2gb video gfx and 4gb main ram, then 64bit is a must. without it, pointless buying 2gb video card as the system will struggle.

god i have been out of the PC marketplace for 2 months, and I am loosing my knowledge, must read more!!

good luck.

very nice machine

just don't check any prices fro the next 3 years

Quoting Dunk about the graphics card, bit pointless having an 4870x2 unless u have a monitor that can display a resolution such as 1900x1200 or higher. Anti aliasing uses the onboard memory on the graphics card, that card has 2gbs worth, my 8800 gtx has 768mb and seems to run all new games except crysis with anti aliasing wacked up to the full on 1680x1050.

so thats why i wanted to know the monitor size, but obviously if you can afford it why not just put the best in incase of further upgrades down the line such as a larger monitor with a high resolution, which would stretch the card more than just a games graphics alone.

some people seem to think that this case if huge whereas others say it is cramped but workable. A simple phone call to someone like overclockers or scan and im sure they would be able to tell if the 4870x2 would fit in that case or not

it has been heard as dunk thinks that their are more driver issues with ati cards than nvidia, but dont let that put you off as everyone gets bad components in their time which they have to send back because of whatever reason

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I am 66% addicted to Counterstrike. What about you?

wonderfull world of Giggetty

100% RELEVANT POSTS AND PROUD

Intel E4500 2.2ghz stock O/C 3.2ghz stable, 30ish idle 60 load stock cooler / Artic Silver 5
Crucial Ballistix 2gb DDR2 PC6400 o/c 960mhz 5-5-5-18
Geforce XFX 8800 GTX - not yet o/c'd
Abit IP35
Creative SB XFI Platinum
OCZ 600w
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Case
LG Flatron L204WS

Thanks for your replies, vista 64bit is being installed. I usually play at 1680 x 1050 on a asus widescreen tft so the new setup should cope with no problems, I play a lot of supreme commander and forged alliance and when there are over 1,000 units my present comp lags a bit and the fps drops so the new one will be tested to the limit

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