Advise needed with Spec

[abdulhamid]

Hi guys,

I have gone and bought a AMD 6870 gpu on pre-order for £175. I need to spec a decent rig for this card. I have come up with the following and would appreciate your vastly knowledgeable views.......

Thank you

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz @ max 3.8GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£88)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD OVERCLOCK THERMAL PASTE
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
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

 

[Sleinous]

The liquid cooling option isnt really needed unless you intend to overclock Same goes for the 1600mhz RAM, but its only a few pounds extra if you want to keep it anyways

May I ask why the 6870? The 5870 is more powerful Ok, ill admit its slightly more expensive.

 

[abdulhamid]

Oh, the thread is here. I posted a new one as I could not find this one, can the other one be deleted (oops). I had to choose the 1600mhz RAM as that was the only option on the overclocked CPU. 6870 coz it was cheaper, it was either that or the GTX460.

 

[abdulhamid]

Sleinous, I have been lead to beleive that the liquid cooling will run quieter than air cooling, is this correct?

 

[Tysuro]

Is the ATI 6870 even out yet.

 

[abdulhamid]

Yeap, apparently came out late last week.

 

[Tysuro]

Howmuch is it? and is it anygood?

 

[abdulhamid]

They are selling currently for between £190-£225. No idea whether it is any good, need to buy a system to test it out. I have read some pretty decent reviews and it competes quite well with the GTX 470, blows the GTX460 out the park. It is a mid range card not the high end one, for that you will have to wait for the 6900 series and work extra shifts for the cash to buy it....

 

[Phoenix]

It would be a good idea to get the proper overclocking paste (Arctic Cooling MX-3) for that build.

 

[abdulhamid]

Thanks Phoenix, I will take that into consideration. Do you know if the liquid cooling option is quieter than the titan fenrir? Any other suggestions?

 

[Sleinous]

Yes the liquid is quieter than the Fenrir, whether or not you actually need this oc, thats for u to figure out

 

[abdulhamid]

What is your opinion, is the oc'd CPU worth getting? There is no difference in price, other than the option to get the lower RAM with the non oc'd one.

 

[Sleinous]

Bearing in mind an oc'd cpu wont last as long as stock, and also bearing in mind that the limiting factor in most computers nowadays is the speed of the mechanical drive, id drop the oc, downgrade the ram, wait for intel gen 3 ssd's If youre doing really heavy cpu work then the oc may be an option

 

[abdulhamid]

Thanks again, I will take this into consideration.