Gaming PC Spec

[ces973]

If that's all you're putting in your build, then you most likely don't need a 850W PSU. My PC has 4 HDD's and I had a ton of unused cables from my 750W PSU.

[Jamo]

I would say a PSU is one of the most important parts of a gaming rig. The 295GTX is a power hog, keeping the voltages stable keeps your PC running smoothly for many more years than a cheap 500W one. The less stress on the PSU the less fluctuation you should have in a good PSU.

 

Plus it keeps the options open for xfire and SLI for later

[Techie101]

Maybe I should just buy an xbox

[Techie101]

Actually for that price I could buy several, lol

[ces973]

I would say a PSU is one of the most important parts of a gaming rig. The 295GTX is a power hog, keeping the voltages stable keeps your PC running smoothly for many more years than a cheap 500W one. The less stress on the PSU the less fluctuation you should have in a good PSU.

 

Plus it keeps the options open for xfire and SLI for later

 

I'm not saying skimp on it by buying a no-name PSU, I'm simply saying you could probably get away with a 650W PSU and save yourself some money in the process. I just bought a Corsair 750W and I probably could have got away with a 650W.

[Techie101]

Just had a look at this site and the BFG comes out way ahead -

 

HEXUS.net - Review :: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB Vapor-X graphics card: the best in the world? : Page - 5/10

 

I take this back, blooming review sites, just read a review on the same site that says the ATI is faster than the nVidia card?????

 

Do these people actually test the hardware that they have or do they just make stuff up as they go along, how can one website give two different reviews.

[mac_shinobi]

I take this back, blooming review sites, just read a review on the same site that says the ATI is faster than the nVidia card?????

 

Do these people actually test the hardware that they have or do they just make stuff up as they go along, how can one website give two different reviews.

 

watched a youtube video and although they were more a less similiar in performance I think the nvidia GTX 295 or there abouts was double the price where as the ATI 5870 was a lot less expensive for a similiar performance in comparing 3D mark scores

 

3D mark vantage or something like that ( what ever the latest one is )

 

Think ATI have the 59xx series now where as Nvidia are or were meant to bring out the GTX 300 series but still awaiting nvidia to release them.

[Guest richard_s]

To be honest i don't see what all the fuss is about. My gaming rig consists of:

 

AMD Phenom x4 9650 (2.3GHz)

4 GB DDR2 800 Ram

GTX 260 896MB

 

and it easily handles any game that I care to throw at it andf the whole thing set me back about £450 including and 850 watt PSU and Saitek Eclipse 2 Keyboard and Mouse.

[flyinghaggis]

Hi all

 

Graphics Card wise I was thinking –

 

BFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB for £366.79

 

If I were you I'd be tempted to wait if you can until Nvidia release more details of the forthoming 300-series card with DX11 support to see how that compares with what's out just now.

[synaesthesia]

If you must buy a card now, it's ATI all the way without any shadow of doubt. I'll double confirm that having just played the Dirt2 demo in all it's glory.

 

Plus, if you do anything other than game, or if you game on more than one monitor, avoid nVidia like the plague. They don't know, or care, how to handle anything that doesn't involve pushing pixels as fast as possible on a single screen.

 

Plus, if you're worried about reliability - just look at nVidia's track record, especially with the 8800 and all it's derivatives (all low end GT cards, 8800, 8600, 9800, 9600).

BUT, and a big BUT, a bonus with companies like BFG is a lifetime warranty. Got a GTX285 OC FU (absolutely top of the range) in replacement for a failed 8800 OC.

[Haptic]

I have had a 9800GTX for ages and not had one problem:confused:

[flyinghaggis]

If you must buy a card now, it's ATI all the way without any shadow of doubt. I'll double confirm that having just played the Dirt2 demo in all it's glory.

 

I've always favoured Nvidia over ATI. I've personally seen too many ATI cards with hardware faults and encountered too many issues with their drivers (like leaving debug code which broke them as a no-admin account!) to ever consider buying an ATI card ......

 

BUT

 

and it pains me the say it but if I HAD to buy a new video card right NOW for £200-300 it would definitely be either a Radeon 5850 or 5870. At this point in time they're :-

 

Faster

Consume less power

Support DX11

Support triple screen on a single card

 

Having said that I'm sure Nvidia will bring out an equivalent card soon so I'm gonna wait until then

[Techie101]

I guess thats the problem with technology in general, how long can you really wait, something better, faster, bigger, more powerful is always just around the corner, i've even heard that Intel will be replacing the i7 cpu come 2010, and they have only just come out! so your fancy new i7 system will already by old hat!

 

Its a hard choice, ATI cards offer more bang for your buck, nVidia are very expensive comapred to ATI but with the likes of BFG offering a 10 year warranty in the UK (its only lifetime in the USA, i think). Like i have said before i used to swear by ATI but after 3 cards died all just out of warranty i switched to nVidia and never looked back. If i end up spending close to £300 on an ATI card and it dies just out of warranty i'll seriously cry, but if i spend that bit extra on a BFG nVidia at least i know i'll be covered to 10 years!

 

As far as direct x 11 support i guess i could wait for the nVidia 300 series of cards but i bet you that they will be closer to £500, way tooooo much for a video card in my opinion, also not many games fully use direct x 11 as yet anyway, guess i'll have to sleep on this one before i decide to spend this kind of money on a pc, god i hate pc's sometimes

[alexsanger]

I've been looking at options for updating my rig, but don't have the cash yet. Pesky mortgage. Anyhew...

 

I love the idea of a OC'd i7 920 (no point buying the higher spec i7 9xx's - they're basically the same chip, and you can OC the 920 to 4.0ghz+ on air anyway)

 

BUT

 

it uses a hell of a lot of juice, so unless Pappa is on the board of directors at EDF I'd settle for a P55 board, socket 1156 i7 860 (plenty of headroom for OC'ing these too) which will use way less power. You still have mega high bandwidth DDR3 to use, and crossfire for ATI cards.

 

I used to be an nVidia fanboy, but lately ATI have stolen the march in terms of hardware and software - nVidia's drivers have been patchy for a while now, to say the least, and lets not talk about their chipsets... I would definitely be looking at at least a 5850 (with a view to getting a second in six months time) or a 5870. Again, there's OC'ing headroom in both if you're that way inclined, and the drivers are still young, meaning you should see steady performance improvements as new drivers come out. Of course, if you're made of money, the 5970's are out. They'll spank anything on the market, but you'll pay close to £600 for one at the mo

 

Oh, and a caveat to your choice of P55 board is detailed here (P55 boards to avoid)

 

Get a good quality PSU with a strong 12V rail. The number of connectors is by the by. Hiper or Corsair make good offerrings around the 500-650W range. You shouldn't need more unless you add graphics cards or OC.

 

Hope that was of some use. I tend to carried away with this stuff...

 

Current Rig: Q6600 @ 3.0ghz, P6NSLI:(, 8Gb OCZ DDR2 PC6400, BFG Geforce 8800GT, Nesteq ASM 600W, WD Scorpio Black 640Gb, WD Greenpower 1TB. I've been assured my life is on back order.

[synaesthesia]

Still a lot of luck involved re faily hardware. There's an 8800 in my other boxen which is still marching on strong. Although that very sentence will be enough to invoke fate and kill it

 

Plus, nVidia are annoying me with their Apple-like methods of marketing-rubbish.

"How to sell old stock? Rename it and make it look like its new"

[flyinghaggis]

i guess i could wait for the nVidia 300 series of cards but i bet you that they will be closer to £500, way tooooo much for a video card in my opinion,

 

Nah, Nvidia know they need to compete with ATI's 5800 series so they'll have to market a 300-series card with similar performance at that kind of price-point so more likely £250-£300. I know the feeling that at the end of the day there's always something newer and faster around the corner but I'd genuinely feel like shelling out on a top-end Nvidia card right now would be buying last-generation technology.

 

I'm starting to feel like now's about the time to upgrade my 8800GT. I know that the new Nvidia cards will be out in a couple of months so happy to wait until then. Currently running 2 x 20" monitors but ideally would like to get a new 24" monitor to go with a new Nvidia 300-series video card and have triple display if possible.

 

That's my current plan at the moment anyway

Edited December 3, 2009 by flyinghaggis

[synaesthesia]

Running multiple displays, as said, on anything nVidia will be cutting your nose off to spite your face. Really, really daft thing to do - as to do anything useful you'd need to spend money on 3rd party software to make it work even half as well as it should.

The only company that can get multi-monitor right is Matrox, and as they're not in the game these days, that leaves ATI as the next best thing.

[flyinghaggis]

Running 2 displays on an Nvidia card just now and it's fine so cant imagine a 3rd will be a problem? I'm not specifically planning using the triple displays for gaming. Just as long as I have a video card that can run games on my main monitor at 1920x1200 that'll be fine. Anyway it's too early to make a solid call on how well the next-gen Nvidia cards will compare to ATI's offerings. Edited December 3, 2009 by flyinghaggis

[Techie101]

Thanks for the advice guys, looks like i'll put things on hold then until the 300 series of cards come out and see what kind of reviews they get.

[pvtbanner]

I built my rig 2 years ago and its still capable of playing every game I get.

 

Q6600 OC's to 3.3 with 2gb ddr3 with ATI HD2900XT.

 

There's no point in paying too much money these days. We're pretty much stuck with console port's/graphics for the forseeable future now.

 

Just look at MW2.

 

In the past it might have been worth spending £300 on a graphics card with the likely hood that games would take advantage of it in the near future - I just dont see this happening.

 

Gaming on the PC is still the elite experience IMO but we're second fiddle to the consoles, as sad as that is.

 

I'd check out custom-pc and bit-tech.net for good advice.

 

Sometimes its about getting the right mix of hardware. Not just the biggest numbers on paper.

 

 

Good Luck

 

I'd be tempted to wait for Fermi to see if it lives upto the hype.

[flyinghaggis]

 

I'd be tempted to wait for Fermi to see if it lives upto the hype.

 

That was my plan but according to some recent stories it's launch has been delayed until March

 

Nvidia delays fermi gpu chip - The Inquirer

 

So looks like if anyone is building a gaming PC at the moment and has a couple of hundred quid to spend on a vid card then the 5800 series will be the best you can get for the next 3 months at least.