Pre-sales questions and Spec advise.

[LFFPicard]

Hi,

I was debating on building a new PC myself as my current one is a major headache, but after recommendations from a few reviews i found i have come to yourselves for my next PC.

Unfortunatly i made the mistake of purchasing my first custom build PC from Vadim, who went bust before fixing the issues with my PC i had from day one. At the moment my PC has a faulty master alarm on the PSU and the benchmark is below average for it's spec.

My current spec on my PC is:

OCZ DDR2-1150 2x1024MB FlexXLC Edition Dual Channel Kit
BFG Nvidia 8800GTX OC 768Mb PCIe HDCP - Overclocked to the same as the Ultra
Samsung SH-S183 SATA 18x DL DVDRW Black
Asus P5K Premium Wi-Fi (Intel P35 - 1333 FSB Conroe/Penryn) (replacement from P5N32-E SLI Plus)
2x 320Gb Samsung SpinPoint T166 HD321KJ 7200 16mb Cache SATA II
LiquoCool Antarctic D (CPU+VGA+Chipset)
Enermax Galaxy Modular 850W PSU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Retail (4x2.40GHz 1066FSB 8Mb) G0 Stepping - Overclocked to 3.4GHz
SONY-NEC Optiarc AD-7203S SATA 18x DVDRW Black OEM
Icy Box 16-in-1 internal/external USB Card reader (Black)
Creative 7.1 X-FI ExtremeGamer Fatal1ty
Windows XP Home Edition 32bit


Due to the issues i decided not to strip any parts out for a new PC, not even my sound card as i dont want to plague my new system with the same issues.
I am a avid gamer, and looking to spend around £1700 - £2000 less if possible ofcourse, and take advantage of the buy now pay later scheme.


My couple questions are:

- When i order a pc will i have my own dashboard to see the detaisl fo my build, the step it is on and any information that is relvent.

- How much communication is there during the build, ie will there be information on the progress, any components that need to be substituted, changed or awaiting stock etc.

- Looking on the forums it has showed that sometimes a PC may take 2-3weeks form order to delivery due to stock or checks etc, does the buy now pay later scheme start from the moment i place the order and pay deposit or from the delivery date where i have a usable product?

- Is the Antec 900-2 Gaming case available as the only one in the spec build is the 900.

- Why am i not able to select a WD caviar black as my 3rd drive as i wanted a SSD for the OS and 2x WD Blacks

Now onto the specs.

At the moment i play wow, Supreme Commander 1&2, Battlefield 2 and the Total War games, there are other games i like to play but these are my main.
I currently have 2 monitors set up but will look to replace one soon.
I decided on the below spec to go for a SSD for the boot drive as there is no SSD card large enough to hold my Steam games, so i will just opt for standard 7200rpm drives, i am yet to decide weather to stripe them or not.
I also am looking to future proof the PC, and from readint he forums i have seen suggestions of sticking to a single gtx470 card instead of sli and add another card in the future, as the single gtx470 is plentyfull. I am looking at a large amount of ram as windows has the habit of increasingly needing more ram as the versions progress. And ofcourse multi tasking will be much easy, i tend to alt+tab alot during games or run in window mode or even duel cleint, so ram will help with switching.
I have always been an nivida user but if anyone can show a better spec with ati cards then i shall loook into it.
Also hwo much more is neede dot make the below spec 3D usable.
Any recommendations on the below spec would be great.

Thanks.


Case
ANTEC 900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D PREMIUM: DDR3, USB 3.0 & SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (6 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£88)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Gamer (£68)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,748.00 including VAT and delivery.

[Sleinous]

- When i order a pc will i have my own dashboard to see the detaisl fo my build, the step it is on and any information that is relvent.

- How much communication is there during the build, ie will there be information on the progress, any components that need to be substituted, changed or awaiting stock etc.

- Looking on the forums it has showed that sometimes a PC may take 2-3weeks form order to delivery due to stock or checks etc, does the buy now pay later scheme start from the moment i place the order and pay deposit or from the delivery date where i have a usable product?

- Is the Antec 900-2 Gaming case available as the only one in the spec build is the 900.

- Why am i not able to select a WD caviar black as my 3rd drive as i wanted a SSD for the OS and 2x WD Blacks

-Dash board, yes there is one. Click on My Orders > [Order number will be displayed on next page] click on that, show order, scroll down, at the botom there will be notes attached to your order telling you who's worked on it and at what stag eits at, and/or if there are parts out of stock/discontinued/delayed etc etc. Shouuld also give you lead times on delivery.
-Communication: Loads, you will get a status update everytime your build moves into the next stage. Processing, Pre-Production, In-Building, In-Testing, Dispatched. (There is also an additional stage for buy now pay later as the credit has to be approved I believe. You'll get a text message from PCS telling you your consignment number when the PC is dispatched by HDL to give you an estimate of which day it will arrive. (99% of the time its the following day between 9am-1pm).
-Buy now pay later - no clue, will have to wait on staff for this.
-This may well be the number 2 case (I read somethinhg about a number 2 case on here somewhere as someoen asked a similar question, not sure if it was antec though. But if you really want it you can send it to them or buy off amazon or something and set their warehouse as the delivery address? :) Just change invoice address.
-WD drive as 3rd drive? No idea. PROBABLY, because its a 6gb/s drive and would be pointless to pop into a 3gb/s port as you have (from that spec below) already used 1x 6GB/s port for teh WD1002FAEX drive (excellent drive btw I have it :D) and 1 for the SSD. So probs why it wont let you add another as you wouldnt experience any speed increase. Good choice on the 64mb cached version, thats what makes the diff, not really the 3G and 6G speeds so the Caviar Green will still be good.


OK onwards....Yes you're right about the GTX 470, I have it in my pc right now :D its insane, go for it, end of story :) and then ofcourse in a year or so the 2nd one will have gone down in price and should be way cheaper to buy.
I like the mobo, I like the CPU. I think you could do with a better PSU though, the 850W or 1000W modular, for a GTX 470 SLI otherwise youre gonne be upgrading that psu at the same time as buying teh second GPU later on, waste of monies
I Like teh CPU cooler. This is pretty much my PC, bar the mobo and the extra HDD, PSU, CPU obviously mien is the older 930 ^^

Hope all that helps, have fun.

[LFFPicard]

Thanks for the replies.

I didnt think to look at the ports for the HDD's it's been a while on PC builds so i am rusty. I am not keen on the "Green" HDD's as i seem to remember reading somewhere that the green drives go into idle standby rather strickly when not in use, but i guess if i use that as my data drive and the Caviar Black as my games drive.

I was keen on SSD for games but there are still two major issues with this:

1 - Price
2 - Space

Currently there are no SSD's that are large enough to hold my Steam installation let alone any stand alone games, and to get more than one drive would be rather expensive. So standard 7200's are my only option.

Regards

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums. :)

You've put tegether a great specification there and Sleinous has answered most of your questions perfectly. For the specification, my only point to note is Windows 7 Professional, do you really need this? Compare the differences here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

To add to sleinous's answers:

1. The Buy Now Pay Later scheme starts from the day you receive your computer (and FYI the prooduction lead time starts from the day our finance company give the go-ahead after receiving your signed agreement documents.)

2. We are looking into adding the Antec 902 shortly.

3. You currently cannot select a SATA 6GB/s HDD for the third HDD because of the number of SATA 6GB/s ports available on the motherboard. If however you order 2 x SATA 6GB/s drives as drives 1 and 2, and your SSD as your third drive, and contact us after ordering we can install your OS on your SSD.

4. For Nvidia 3D Vision you need the Goggles and a compatible monitor. Therefore you're looking at £339 for the bundle from us.

[LFFPicard]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

How shortly is the 902 going to be added as it would be great to use that in my build without the added hassle of ordering elsewhere and having it delivered to you. I just simply would like to eliminate any issues there may be with things like the unlikelihood that the case arrives at yours damaged and holds the build up while a replacement is sources etc.

Would installing the SSD in the 3rd HDD slot cause any speed issues as yourself has said it will not go in a 6GB/s slot?

Lastly, i am looking at professional as there may be a need in the future to use the remote domain join for work for disaster recovery purposes, and the basic windows xp mode may be useful. Also if it is anything like XP (Didn't touch vista) you only get client/host remote desktop in Pro. So assuming that's the same if there is a remote desktop as well as remote domain then I am covering bases.

I forgot to ask in my original post also, as I saw no option for it in the build options can i correctly assume cable management comes as standard? as this is something I have had to pay extra for in the past.

Thanks for the quick replies.

[Sleinous]

Yes its standard and excellent :D

[PCS]

We're working to add thre Antec 902 case in the next few days, and yes, the tie back all your cables as part of the service :)

[LFFPicard]

Excellent,

Just the one unanswered question and i think that might be it and ready for a quick amend to my spec.


Would installing the SSD in the 3rd HDD slot cause any speed issues as yourself has said it will not go in a 6GB/s slot?

[Sleinous]

Itw ill be in a 3gb/s slot, as, if I remember correctly, it doesnt make much if any difference although what id do is, when the PC comes, i'd switch one of the WD blacks into teh 3gb/s slot, as thsoe drives dont really have any performance increase at all from being in 6gb/s slots, as HDDs as far as im aware barely make full use of 3gb/s :) Whereas the SSD does I think. So if you just flicked the cables around when it comes youd be fine :)

[Gorman]

Itw ill be in a 3gb/s slot, as, if I remember correctly, it doesnt make much if any difference although what id do is, when the PC comes, i'd switch one of the WD blacks into teh 3gb/s slot, as thsoe drives dont really have any performance increase at all from being in 6gb/s slots, as HDDs as far as im aware barely make full use of 3gb/s :) Whereas the SSD does I think. So if you just flicked the cables around when it comes youd be fine :)

It may interest people to know that 6gbs drives (standard 7200rpm) can not output anywhere near 6gbs, or even 3gbs.

[Sleinous]

Ah there we go :) my suspicions have been confirmed :) Only reason I got it was because I wasnt prepared to pay the extortionate prices for an SSD drive just yet :) Cutting edge technology can only go down in price :D

[LFFPicard]

Good to know.

I am only going SSD on the OS drive as i am impatient and dont liek waiting for windows to load :)
I will keep an eye out on the Antec 902 and then respec when thats available. Gives me that little bit extra saving time :)

Thanks for the help

[Phoenix]

It may interest people to know that 6gbs drives (standard 7200rpm) can not output anywhere near 6gbs, or even 3gbs.

So is there any point getting a Western Digital Caviar black HDD over a Western Digital caviar green HDD?

[LFFPicard]

So is there any point getting a Western Digital Caviar black HDD over a Western Digital caviar green HDD?

The Caviar green has power efficiency which i believe includes standby when idle which can get very annoying for access times.

Anyway, save make a new thread i thought I would bump my own, is there any news on addition of the Antec 902? and are there any others being added to the list at the same time?
I am eager to go over my spec and place an order, now that I am selling my 22year old laptop I shall have some extra funds :D

[LFFPicard]

Another option..

Anyone got any reviews on the coolermaster Sniper next gen case? looks rather smart aswell.

[Phoenix]

There's a review for the case here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdXog4d2eqs
It looks pretty good :)

[LFFPicard]

I will take a look at the video when i get home, no speaker at work booo..

But i do seem a little torn between the Sniper and the 902 now... the 902 has removable air filters and more fans as standard which is nice, but the snipe has a good look to it and a easy fan control on the front.

Any other pro/cons from anyone or even anyone who has either of the cases, more help the better :)