Please comment/sdvise/suggest on this spec

[johcri]

I welcome comments/advise suggestions on this spec that I am thinking of ordering.
I am not a hard gamer, just the daily shoot em (die) session on online shooters.
I am not a huge graphics user just family stuff.
Thanks for your comments.......................

Case COOLERMASTER HAF 932 FULL TOWER GAMING CASE (£115)

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-980X (3.33GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB 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, INTEL X.M.P (6 x 2GB KIT)

Graphics Card: 2GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5970 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

2nd Graphics Card: NONE

3rd Graphics Card : NONE

Memory - 1st Hard Disk: 80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***

2nd Hard Disk: 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

RAID (HDD 1 & 2): NONE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive : NONE

Memory Card Reader: INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)

Power Supply & Case Cooling: CORSAIR 1000W MODULAR PSU (HX1000) 80+ ULTRA QUIET £172)

Processor Cooling: COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£62)

Sound Card: ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

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

[Gorman]

Hello and welcome!

Hopefully our other members will take a look and add their comment but here my 2p

This is a very, very high spec machine for a casual gamer. Which is fine and great but if cost is an issue there is scope to pull it back a little.

The 5970 is the fastest GPU availiable bar none, for the occasional bout of battlefield 2 etc this can be scaled back quite a lot.

The CPU is great and will last a long time while still being relevant.

The watercooling is probably overkill unless you intend to overclock, which you wont need to.

Everything looks like a good fit and i can see no compatability problems.

[Darko]

I welcome comments/advise suggestions on this spec that I am thinking of ordering.
I am not a hard gamer, just the daily shoot em (die) session on online shooters.
I am not a huge graphics user just family stuff.
Thanks for your comments.......................

Case COOLERMASTER HAF 932 FULL TOWER GAMING CASE (£115)

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-980X (3.33GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB 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, INTEL X.M.P (6 x 2GB KIT)

Graphics Card: 2GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5970 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

2nd Graphics Card: NONE

3rd Graphics Card : NONE

Memory - 1st Hard Disk: 80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***

2nd Hard Disk: 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

RAID (HDD 1 & 2): NONE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive : NONE

Memory Card Reader: INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)

Power Supply & Case Cooling: CORSAIR 1000W MODULAR PSU (HX1000) 80+ ULTRA QUIET £172)

Processor Cooling: COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£62)

Sound Card: ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

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

Very powerful game, but i have a question tho,
you said, I am not a hard gamer, just the daily shoot em (die) session on online shooters. (gtx460 will do just fine with your need)
do you need all those 6 cores ? i7-930 will do just fine i guess
other than that its very powerfull

[johcri]

Thanks for those 2 observations .. maybe I should consider overclocking also...
What I want is to have a machine that will remain high performance for 3 to 5 years.

[Gorman]

Thanks for those 2 observations .. maybe I should consider overclocking also...
What I want is to have a machine that will remain high performance for 3 to 5 years.

This spec is as close to that as you can come really as it includes the top end CPU/ GPU. Everything gets outdated within a year or so but it will still be a strong contender.

[HMFC_Riley]

Thanks for those 2 observations .. maybe I should consider overclocking also...
What I want is to have a machine that will remain high performance for 3 to 5 years.

Your processor is wasted on games. Your lucky if most utilise 2 cores nevermind 6. I'd also suggest dropping this down to a 930. Maybe buy the overclocked one instead since you've selected the ECO Liquid Cooler? It'll give you a good extra bit of performance and save you £600-£700 (at a guess).

I'd suggest if you want it to be futureproof maybe get the RAMPAGE III and increase your PSU? For the 1000W one you could probably just add an extra 5870 down the line if you ever feel a bit sluggish in the graphics department in essence of having a trifire 5870 setup. Or you can increase the PSU to a 1500W with the frame of mind of adding a 5970 down the line the equivalent of just below 4 5870's since the 5970 is slightly underclocked.

[steveuk87]

yeah brilliant pc but all the above comments are correct so nothing else to add

Steve

[LDUK]

Wow! Now that's awesome. Only thing is, the GPU. Yep, it's a great one, and is actually on top with games of today compared with Nvidia. But the future of games rely on Tessellation, of which Nvidia cards dominate. Even today, as standard, tessellation and PhysX are utilized with the GTX 4xx series. This is something that ATI cards lack. Plus, the top end Nvidia card is cheaper than the top end ATI card. I only say this because you asked about the future of games and how well your PC will be with them. Still, this machine is a beast!

[greybing]

lduk makes a good point about tesselation...i decided to go with nvidia as opposed to ati for the reason of the possible reliance on tesselation in the future

[johcri]

Well, thanks for the comments... I received the new machine a week ago and am still fighting with incompatailitites with Windows 7 64bit :-(
I am unable to get an Epson printer/scanner working correctly. My DX6000 failed to communicate even after downloading Epson's latest Win7 64bit drivers.
So, today I bought a Win7 compatible Epson SX218. first driver install didn't work. Downloaded/installed Epson's latest detect software - download 64bit drivers........ almost working....... first it took a change of lead Epson-PC.... even then the print function continues to stall half way thru a page. It scans Ok but it seems the PC is not communicating well with the printer - any ideas please?