Are they serious??!

[Samanosuke]

So I thought tomorrow I was going to have the money to buy the PC with. It took me about 2 weeks of fiddling with specs to finally be happy with what I want and I've been uber excited and I've already decided the BEAST was going to sit on the desk instead of under it because A) it's going to be gorgeous and B) it's going to be massive

What do I find out this morning? the money won't be in my account till early next week.............

AAAAAAAAAARGGHHH by the time I put the order in, wait for the PC to go into production, testing then delivery I won't care what I get/if I get it... I won't be bothered and chances are I won't even love the new rig! this sucks...

It's likely to be my luck (or lack thereof) also that it will take PCSpecialist 1.5 months to put my PC together and in transit the Titan will plop off and bash into the GFX Card [rollinglaugh]

I'm sitting at work staring at the monitor and I don't feel like doing much work. I should be setting up a funeral for my excitement.

/rant

 

[tom_gr7]

on a more positive note, what spec are you looking at going for ?

 

[Samanosuke]

I swear specs are like good ****!! :winkiss:

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
(will plonk 6TB of mine when it gets home and this 250 will be converted to a spare external)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY
My own 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Monitor
My own Samsung SyncMaster 27"
2nd Monitor
My own HP something or other 19"
3rd Monitor
My own Hanns.G 19"
Keyboard & Mouse
My own Microsoft Ergonomic setup
Speakers
My own creative surround
Headsets
My own Turtle Beach PX something
Cable Tidy
3 x JML 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management (£10)
External Hard Drive
I don't know, I think I have in excess of 10TB of external HDDs
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Pricing Information

Price (excluding VAT) £1,072.50
Price £1,287.00

I wish I could spend a little more but hey ho, this will have to do

 

[tom_gr7]

looks pretty high end, what's it for?

16gb ram is alot, you may find that you could drop the 8gig ram and to the 2600k,

Are you planning on OC'in? if so, go through the overclocked pc section, then you get mx 4 thermal paste and pcs will oc it for you, which saves you having to do it.

edit - a 1.25gb 570 may struggle trying to run three monitors dude, I'd look at an amd car if i were you.

 

[tom_gr7]

If it was for gaming, i'd look at this spec, cost £1199, this is going to be alot better suited to gaming, the only thing i did was drop the 2700 and the extra ram. I changed the case too, as well the haf is great, but its expensive and allowed for a much better GPU that will be perfect for a load of monitors


Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 500R WHITE MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7950 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,199.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Samanosuke]

It's for graphic design, 3d modelling, abit of video editing, gaming, and now finally blurays. I want the PC to be future proof as I dont see myself being able to afford a replacement before 4 to 5 years

Not too fussed about the 3rd monitor as it tends to be Skype's permanent residence however my current card (Radeon 4600 series) is quite happy with 3. Anyway, if the shiny NVidia struggles I'll cut out the Hanns one. I opted for NVidia for the 3D aspect of it. I'm waiting for the Playstation 3D Monitor to be released (oooooh I'm feeling alittle happier now)

With regards to overclocking, I'm not doing it just yet. I want to have the option available. The last time I overclocked was about 4 years ago and knowing my tinkering nature...

About the Ram, 16 is loads I know but some graphic packages are very fussy and if I drop to 8GB the price difference is not huge. Still think I should drop 8?

 

[Rakk]

Not too fussed about the 3rd monitor as it tends to be Skype's permanent residence however my current card (Radeon 4600 series) is quite happy with 3. Anyway, if the shiny NVidia struggles I'll cut out the Hanns one.

It's not the fact it may struggle with 3, its the fact that it can only display to two
(unless I'm mistaken, the Nvidia website says its multi monitors but never puts a number on it, but I don't know if any single Nvidia card will display to more than 2)

About the Ram, 16 is loads I know but some graphic packages are very fussy and if I drop to 8GB the price difference is not huge. Still think I should drop 8?

If you're using graphics/rendering programs that use loads of RAM, it is probably worth keeping the 16GB

 

[tom_gr7]

in that case i'd stick with the 16gb of ram, the titan and the 2700k then, however, I wouldn't keep the haf-x, only because its so damn expensive!

Personally I'm not too fussed about 3d so suggested amd, also the 7950 loads faster than the 570, even faster than a 580! can handle atleast 4 monitors. outputs less heat, uses less power, you can have two 7950's with a 650w psu!

But if you want 3d then ya will need an nvidia card.

 

[vanthus]

It's "claimed" the GTX 590 can drive 3 monitors.

 

[keynes]

Not too fussed about the 3rd monitor as it tends to be Skype's permanent residence however my current card (Radeon 4600 series) is quite happy with 3. Anyway, if the shiny NVidia struggles I'll cut out the Hanns one. I opted for NVidia for the 3D aspect of it. I'm waiting for the Playstation 3D Monitor to be released (oooooh I'm feeling alittle happier now)

I personally enjoy the 3D experience, I have played Resident Evil 5 with an nvidia gpu and the 3D features were great! I did the same with my PS3 (not the PS3 monitor but a Sony 3D TV) and it was just not the same, the quality was just not great.

 

[Rakk]

It's "claimed" the GTX 590 can drive 3 monitors.

Yeah, I heard some mention of this, but wasn't sure.

And anyways, the 590 is basically two lesser cards stuck together anyway, so I was just blatently ignoring it

 

[Samanosuke]

in that case i'd stick with the 16gb of ram, the titan and the 2700k then, however, I wouldn't keep the haf-x, only because its so damn expensive!

Personally I'm not too fussed about 3d so suggested amd, also the 7950 loads faster than the 570, even faster than a 580! can handle atleast 4 monitors. outputs less heat, uses less power, you can have two 7950's with a 650w psu!

But if you want 3d then ya will need an nvidia card.

:-O 2 x 7950 on a 650w???? If (when) I decide to put a second 570 in there i'll have to upgrade to a 1050w. Wow they're power hungry!
Yeah unfortunately I do want 3D.

 

[Samanosuke]

I personally enjoy the 3D experience, I have played Resident Evil 5 with an nvidia gpu and the 3D features were great! I did the same with my PS3 (not the PS3 monitor but a Sony 3D TV) and it was just not the same, the quality was just not great.

No dont tell me that please what was bad about 3D gaming on the PS3? I was looking forward to it with the PS3 Monitor...

 

[keynes]

No dont tell me that please what was bad about 3D gaming on the PS3? I was looking forward to it with the PS3 Monitor...

It was ok but on a pc it was much better. The level of detail and motion is pretty good (if you enjoy 3D). 2D was also better but keep in mind I am not an expert in comparing quality of graphics, it is just my personal view. Since playing on my pc I just can't see myself going back to my PS3.

 

[tom_gr7]

:-O 2 x 7950 on a 650w???? If (when) I decide to put a second 570 in there i'll have to upgrade to a 1050w. Wow they're power hungry!
Yeah unfortunately I do want 3D.

an 850w may just suffice, but if you have loads of hdd's, fans, lights, sound cards, or anything else you may add in the future you may well need a 1050w corsair.

personally i'd chin off the 3d and get a beefy amd card with a nice multi monitor setup.

 

[Samanosuke]

an 850w may just suffice, but if you have loads of hdd's, fans, lights, sound cards, or anything else you may add in the future you may well need a 1050w corsair.

personally i'd chin off the 3d and get a beefy amd card with a nice multi monitor setup.

*sigh* I've been an ATI girl for quite some time. The only reason I looked at nVidia again is because of the 3D business. Now I've just found out that nVidias are VERY iffy on multi-monitor setups and they run really hot as they can't run on 2D idle when the monitors are of different resolution (which mine are)

So back to the drawing board it is...........

tom_gr7 within the budget I listed earlier, what AMD card would you recommend? I was going to go with the 1GB 6870 before looking into nVidia.
Also are AMD that bad at displaying 3D??? surely they are not, they're a massive brand! I would like to use the 3D for Blurays, not particularly fussed about 3D gaming as I can always fall back on my PS3 (rubensolo what I don't know won't bug me I will try not to ever play 3D on PC so I don't know how much worse it is on PS3).

 

[tom_gr7]

tom_gr7 within the budget I listed earlier, what AMD card would you recommend?

As you want the pc as future proof as possible, don't wanna buy a new pc for 4 / 5 years.

spec like, 2700k, p8z68 v gen 3 mobo, (note no need for the pro version, little difference apart from pro has 4 usb 3.0 ports) 16gb kingston ram, titan cooler, i'd only get a blu ray player if ya wanna watch blu rays on ya pc, as ya have a ps3 i'd forgo the blu ray.

The new line of amd gpu's are great for gaming, I'd look at the new 7950, because it requires less power and outputs less heat, as I said before two can run on 650w's . the older AMD models of 6950/70 are great, however, two 6950's wants 850w and the 6970's requires a 1050w. On the contrary, I know you only want a single GPU set-up for now, however, adding another GPU in a year or two would give you a great performance boost. So If you know that you don't want another GPU in the future you could go for a 6970, great for loads of screens, still going to give you loads of great gaming.

But note that if you wanted two 6970's you would need that 1050w corsair, If you went with a 7950 and a 650w corsair you are only looking at £14 more and you already have the option of crossfire.

So to put it in short, if you at some point want two amd cards, I'd get a 7950 and atleast a 650w corsair (750w mod psu would be a choice, but that's another story lol) BUT if you don't want two gpu's you could get a 6950 or the better 6970.

how much gaming do you do? because its quite likely that a 6950/70 will be plenty for most games,

 

[Samanosuke]

oh lord... and there I was thinking I had nailed the final spec!

Bluray: I want to watch them on PC as if the drive dies I'd rather have to buy a new bluray drive than a whole PS3
Gaming: :-O not sure about the £14 more for a 7950, it comes up as costing me an extra £106 which unfortunately is a no go. Unless you meant that by getting 8GB Ram, no Bluray, smaller PSU etc...

Let's put it this way, I do 80% of my gaming on the PS3 but when I do play on the PC I'd like it to behave.
It's looking like a 6970 atm, though I would really like to get the 7950. Maybe an additional 6970 in a year or 2 and a new PSU?

 

[Rakk]

oh lord... and there I was thinking I had nailed the final spec!

Hehe, never

Let's put it this way, I do 80% of my gaming on the PS3 but when I do play on the PC I'd like it to behave.
It's looking like a 6970 atm, though I would really like to get the 7950. Maybe an additional 6970 in a year or 2 and a new PSU?

The 6970 should handle games and stuff easily for quite some time, and yes at some point later if you decided you wanted another 6970 you could indeed upgrade the PSU at the time.

 

[Samanosuke]

Thanks Rakk
let's see how many times I change my mind between now and next week when I finally put the order through

So what's the deal with AMD and 3D, I read it's not great for gaming but good for bluray. Could anyone with experience shed some light please?