My Planned £2000 PC System -Thoughts/Input/Opinions?

[ATLANT3AN-UK]

Hey guys,

Well I am buying a new PC soon, in the next few weeks. It will be built by myself and the components brought individually.

Information:

Budget = £2000
Usage = Gaming, Performance (Using multiple Virtual Machines)
Wants = Intel Quad Core, Nvidia Graphics, 1080p (24inch Monitor), OC Ability

Ok, so above is a simple explanation of what I want and the money I have t do it, Now below is what I have come up with and reasons why I chose, I would like your views on this and tips/hints as I have no great experiance in this, first time I have built a system myself .

Monitor

Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey
£458.24 inc VAT
Link

(Chose this because as I said, I want 1080p (1900x1200) playback, DELL because I heard nothing but good things about modern DELL monitors especially this one)

CPU

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail
Link
or
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail
Link

Best CPU

(Now I first looked into with the QX9650, because I thought with £2000 I could buy more or less the best everything, but this isnt the case at all, I then found that these two new processors were coming out using the new 45nm and Yorkfield, as well as having the same 12MBL2 cache as the QX9650 just lower speed, so I thought maybe I could buy this, save £200-300 and then clock it to 3.2ghz or 3.4ghz which is faster than the upcoming QX9750)

Motherboard

Asus Maximus Extreme Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£199.74
Link

(Right, Well I was all set to buy a Striker II motherboard with the 780i chipset, but I was told by many and read some reviews which stated it was overpriced and the only really unique good thing was the SLI, which in my eyes is overkill if you have a good card to start with, So I looked into the Intel upcoming x48 chipset and was set on that but then realized that the only real differences are

-10 Gigabit LAN
-Removal of LPT PS2 ports
-Wi Fi

To be honest I don't like the idea of Wi Fi on my motherboard, 10 gigabit to me is also overkill and keeping the PS2 and LPT might not be so bad, so i checked out x38 and found this one, I wanted DDR3 to be future proof I guess, and now it is a time where its good to buy some DDR3.

PSU (Power Supply Unit)

Tagan 1100W Modular BZ Piperock Series
Link

(I chose Tagen because most my friends who build PC's say Tagen are the best make for different reasons, I chose the BZ series as it seems to be the most current and 1100w should easily last me even if I did crossfire)

Memory

OCZ 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz ReaperX (2x2GB) Dual Channel DDR3
LInk

or
OCZ 4GB PC3-10666 Reaper HPC (2x2GB)
Link

What's the best one out of the above?

(I am not entirely set on which memory to get to be honest, I was going to get a DDR2 motherboard as I remember hearing DDR3 was pointless but now when I ask, people seem to say the opposite plus it would be a good idea to have a mobo that supports all the current tech and is future proof, how does this memory sound?)

Graphics Card

Ge Force 8800 GT 512 (Current) / Asus Extreme 8800GTS 512MB TOP PCI-E 2.0

(This is the card in my current PC which btw is a AMD 4400 X2, Nforce 4 A8N-SLI (It was when AMD was the kings) I think due to cost issues as I will keep this card for now, It's still a good performer and even the new G92 8800GTS isn't leaps and bounds ahead of it, I will perhaps upgrade to a 9800GTX or similar when the time comes later this year)

Case

I dont really know to be honest, few friends use ANtec Gaming case, the price seems good. I have been told LIan Li is the best make but they seem expensive, any help on this?

What about?
Antec P182 Advanced Super Midi Tower Black £78
Link

Sound System

Creative GigaWorks 5.1 G550W THX Wireless Speakers
£199
Link

(I was all set on the Logitech 5.1 THX Certified, but then I saw this Creative set which has the same THX Certified status, same watts and the added benefit of wireless although I prefer the look/design of the Logitech one, I think I will be having this one for sure)

Hard drives

500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 32MB ST3500320AS 7200RPM x 3
Link

(I think Seagate are a good make but so is WD and Maxtor I guess, I want 1TB of space and reliability so I intend to use Hardware RAID 5 and get a 1tb of usable space out of the 1.5tb available, thoughts?

Optical Drive

Pioneer BDR-202BK / Asus DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black/Silver) - Retail

Link 1
Link 2

(I was thinking of this, but its too expensive and would push me over budget, I could always get blu ray at a later date plus reviews of this are not so great, I will just get a £20 normal DVDRW DVDDL as listed above)

Keyboard & Mouse


I would prob spend £80 on these together perhaps, Id like an illuminated keyboard and a good mouse, I have these in mind thoughts?

Razer Lachesis Banshee Blue 4000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail £46.99
Link

Saitek Eclipse 2 Illuminated Keyboard - Blue/Red/Purple
£23.49
Link

Note: Apart from the illuminated part those keyboards don't look great, an all black one might be better like the one I have currently have.

Cooling

I wanted to do liquid cooling but then thought it was too expensive, Using the case fans and obviously the normal CPU fan, will I be able to overclock to a good degree?

Thanks very much, sorry about the length but this is £2000 after all, look forward to receiving your input.

P:S
If I have forgotten a component, please tell me so I don't look dumb for too long


ATLANT3AN

[intense.ego]

I don't know much about hardware, but it could help those who do know something if you could provide links (if, of course, you are buying online). This would let people see the specs in more detail and let them know where they should look for alternatives to your suggestions.

[Lostincyberspace]

I really like the Foxconn X38 $200 US about 125 GBp
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813186134
It has a better board design as well as more features but has a dual 1Gb network ports a little better than a single in my opinion.

[ATLANT3AN-UK]

Yeah I will add links, Heard alot about newegg.com, It is a shame they don't ship to anywhere in Europe.

[Miguel]

Your future computer looks nearly as nice as one of my nodes:

16 Gb Memory:

$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         15649      15628         20          0        826       3452
-/+ buffers/cache:      11349       4300
Swap:        32767          0      32767

8-core opteron processors:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 33
model name      : AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping        : 2
cpu MHz         : 2399.970
cache size      : 1024 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips        : 4799.08
TLB size        : 1088 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 1
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 1
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 2
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 2
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 3
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 3
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 4
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 5
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 1
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 6
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 2
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

processor	: 7
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 33
model name	: AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 880
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2399.970
cache size	: 1024 KB
physical id	: 3
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips	: 4799.08
TLB size	: 1088 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

Yes, I am boasting, but I couldn't help it. Now, seriously, yours looks like a killing machine. Especially coupled with that sweeeet monitor.

[Lostincyberspace]

newegg is really useful for building computers with their power search function you get to the general area (you need like hard drives) then you just click on power search and select the features you want i really like it. ans since they don't ship to Europe you could use it to find the parts you want and then find a European supplier.

You also might like to look into the server class boards they might be a better fit.

[cawill]

Hey guys,
Cooling

I wanted to do liquid cooling but then thought it was too expensive, Using the case fans and obviously the normal CPU fan, will I be able to overclock to a good degree?

ATLANT3AN

I think you will need a custom CPU fan to overclock it, where do you intend to buy all the components?

Will be a good system once setup

What OS's you planning on running?

Won't this be one noisy machine?

[ATLANT3AN-UK]

I think you will need a custom CPU fan to overclock it, where do you intend to buy all the components?

Overclockers and ariapc (Check the links), I was going to use Ebay but id rather get things fast and securely, plus not a huge loss of money will occur


Will be a good system once setup

Indeed


What OS's you planning on running?

Same as now, Ubuntu, XP and Vista

Won't this be one noisy machine?

Well, I don't know, I would of assumed not, mine which was the best system almost 3 years ago is relatively quite, I assumed this would be better.

So I should ditch the CPU fan that comes with it and buy a custom one to use? and keep all the case fans?

ATLANT3AN

[cawill]

I think you will need a custom CPU fan to overclock it, where do you intend to buy all the components?

Overclockers and ariapc (Check the links), I was going to use Ebay but id rather get things fast and securely, plus not a huge loss of money will occur


What OS's you planning on running?

Same as now, Ubuntu, XP and Vista

Won't this be one noisy machine?

Well, I don't know, I would of assumed not, mine which was the best system almost 3 years ago is relatively quite, I assumed this would be better.

So I should ditch the CPU fan that comes with it and buy a custom one to use? and keep all the case fans?

ATLANT3AN

Take a look at http://www.komplett.co.uk , I've used it along with overclockers, generally cheaper.


Also I'd stick with nvidia graphics cards, but there drivers arn't meant to be that great on vista, why not wait for the 9800?

[ATLANT3AN-UK]

Also I'd stick with nvidia graphics cards, but there drivers arn't meant to be that great on vista, why not wait for the 9800?

You haven't read what I put for graphics card then,

(This is the card in my current PC which btw is a AMD 4400 X2, Nforce 4 A8N-SLI (It was when AMD was the kings) I think due to cost issues as I will keep this card for now, It's still a good performer and even the new G92 8800GTS isn't leaps and bounds ahead of it, I will perhaps upgrade to a 9800GTX or similar when the time comes later this year)

I don't intend on using ATI, and I will most likely use the 8800GT until the 9800 GTX comes along, or I will get the GT depending on the cost.