Need Advice On A Build

Wilcoxx

Heres what i've got so far:

CPU: Core 2 Q6600 2.40 Ghz (prolly guna OC to 3.00 Ghz)
GPU: eVga 8800 GTX KO ACS3
Mobo: eVga Nforce 680I SLI (A1 edition of course)
Heatsink: Zalman CNPS9700NT
Sound: Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer
OS: Vista Home Premium
Case: Antec P-182 SE (which i already own :-P)
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2
Drives: LG (not going into specs)

Ok, the two things i need help with are the RAM and the PSU. i was thinking about the
new antec quattro 850 watt, but ive heard it doesnt fit into my P-182. I need something
that could run 2 8800 GTX's if i decide to upgrade later, and its gotta have long enough cables for my case as well.

Im clueless as to the RAM. i know 2GB hit the sweet spot with XP, but whats the right amount for Vista?

Ill appreciate any feedback, TY!

kris23

here is my response,

get rid of the 8800GTX ACS3, get something like the MSI 8800Ultra HD OC card, better memory, better cooling, and a better chip factory OCed to 660Mhz


if you are seriously going SLi keep the 680i board, but if you dont think you actually are going to get SLi and just go to a brand new G92 core when it comes out...

for me.... SLi and crossfire are pretty worthless technologies, the drivers suck and the performance to dollar sucks HARD....

i feel you would be alot better off with an ASUS P5K DELUXE P35 board, it has better RAID so if you want HDD speed, its there

it OCs so much better and is more stable.

the P35 boards allows the use of 4GBs of RAM and higher at 1T timings and no hit on stability, it also support DDR2 1066MHz naturally

skip the zalman heatsink and get the TUNIQ tower or Thermalright Ultra extreme heatsink

for sound, get the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude, it is just a superior card with superior components

Vista home premium is good.

the case is a pretty decent one as long as you can fit the PSU you need

the hard drives..... get rid of them, get the Seagate ES.2 1TB SATA drive with 32mb cache or the seagate 7200.11 500gb drives with 32mb cache if you can find them. (they barely came out)

if in the end you need to get rid of the case because it cant handle big PSUs try and find this in your area, it is an extremely good value
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Stacker 830 Evolution RC-830-KKR3-GP Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case Real Power Pro 1000W Power Supply - Retail

as for RAM, try and find Crucial 1066MHz sticks or OCZ Platium XTC 1066Mhz sticks or maybe even G.Skill 1000MHz, remember you can stick 4GBs in the P35 boards so you got a good boost in performance

good luck man hope you make good choices

Wilcoxx

anyone know a good 700 watt+ PSU that would fit nicely in the P-180?

kris23

do you know the maximum PSU length of the case? can you measure the space? i can find a good PSU for you

Wilcoxx

the cage holds "normal" size PSU's. thats 15X15X8.6 (cm) pretty much impossible to find one thats 15cm long and over 600 watts. the cables gotta be long too, cuz the layout of the case puts the PSU on the bottom, but keeps the mobo upright. thus the power connectors are still on top

kris23

i believe i remembered people being successful using the Corsair PSUs in P180 series cases, the PSUs are small yet there have been reports that the 620w model being able to power dual 8800 cards nicely with the molex to PCi-E adapters.

but then like i said, i dont recommend dual anything.... the thing is that usually by the time you NEED to upgrade, there is a much more powerful GPU and the old one would be most likely just as expensive as the new ones.... drivers suck too

Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail

if only newegg shipped to canada, you can just order stuff straight out...

kris23

can 16cm PSUs fit in there? the Tagan ITZ series PSUs all the way up to 1300w are all 16cm in length, very compact for the power....

Newegg.com - ABS Tagan ITZ Series ITZ800 ATX12V / EPS12V 800W Power Supply 115 - 230V ± 10% tolerance TUV, UL, CE, CB, FCC, Semko, Nemko, Demko, Fimko - Retail

Necrosis

150 mm (W) x 86 mm (H) x 180 mm (D)

mike2h

dont buy more than 2 gig ram. neither xp or vista can address more than 3 gig ram - including video card mem. having a lot more ram than the os can address can actually cause minor hiccups - though probably not noticable 99% of the time if ever.
see if thermaltakes toughpower series will fit. if you have a really tough time finding a powerfull ebough psu, thermaltake also has a 'addon' 250w psu that fits in drive bay & is for video cards. that way you can get by with a smaller 'main' psu.

KRIS! if you are interested, razer finally has the battlelight for the tarantula available at their website for $29 including shipping.

ChaosMinionX

x64 Vista Ultimate and 4GB of RAM all the way

Everyone should be buying 64bit OS unless they have something ridiculously outdated that a company does not wish to code drivers for, or if a company has one in works just its not out.

kris23

u serious? sweet ive been needing that, probably cant by it for a while tho.....

anyways, the PSU that Necrosis showed off was the silverstone ST75F PSU which was 18cm long! in my opinion, the Tagan ITZ series is still better because it is newer and better engineered with higher end components.

will you be buying from NCIX.com? if so i can help design a computer from the parts available there.
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd - Designing Inspiration

kris23

x64 vista and x64 OSes in general are really being pulled into the normal OS, DDR3 sticks are pretty sure to hit 2x2GB sets pretty soon, and current DDR2 P35 boards can use 4GB like nothing

drivers are getting better and so on..... i mean hey, my cousin accidentally bought an x64 bit Vista Home Premium CD (for an old Dell so he couldnt use it) i just told him to keep it because it would be good in the long run

mike2h

while i got the ultimate vers of vista(not installing till next hardware upgrade) becuase of the 64 bit inclusion, i dont think 64 vista is ready for primetime yet.
& kris, saying that x35 boards can use 4meg mem might confuse somebody. all mainstream chipsets from the last few years can handle 4 meg mem, it is the 32 bit os that cant.

kris23

actually there have been certain performance issues, while the boards CAN utilize 4GBs, low Mhz memory was being locked into 2T no matter what... OCing problems and all that stuff, P35 boards especially the P5K deluxe are not hindered in anyway and are capable of being fully overclocked with 4GBs and can be set at 1T depending on the capabilities of the sticks...

i know the 32bit OSes couldnt handle so well but you couldn't overclock so well could you?

mike2h

you are 100% correct, i just didnt want the guy we are trying to help or anybody else looking in here thinking(then buying 4 gig of ram) that a x35 board automatically gives them use of 4 gigs of ram - without the using a 64bit os

kris23

well technically he can use 4 gigs, but it would be a little unstable and the 4GBs would look more like 3.75GBs or something, the OS removes that portion of memory to use it for its own functions and processes and leaves the rest (3.75 or so) ChaosMinionx was running 4 gigs with minimal hits on performance

now i think he uses x64 bit vista but before then, he was running a pretty decent system,

64 bit was just better

mike2h

the point i was making is that there is no reason for him or anyone else pay for 4 gig mem unless you are using a 64bit os. especially if you have a vid card that has 512 of mem or more as this counts towards the max the os can address.
i just cant understand why people with sli/crossfire rigs have 4 gig of mem, possible stability problems aside, it is a waste of money,power, & produces extra heat. the reason i say this , is that if you are running 2 512 mb cards your usable mem has just dropped down to 2 gigs, so those other 2 sticks of system mem(assuming a 4x 1gb setup) are doing nothing but drawing current & producing heat.
bottom line, unless you are running a 64 bit os, 4 gig of mem is just silly.

kris23

i suppose so, but i thought that vid cards consume system RAM equivalent to themselves to function properly, but ya i kinda see why 4 gigs was useful in gaming rigs especially with vista....

while i was running it, the OS itself usually tried to consume as much of my unused RAM as possible to speed itself up, when i had my old rig (with my 2gigs of G.Skill and HIS X1950PRO card) while playing FEAR, my memory consumption was approaching something like 1.90GB(XP used this amount as well so i wouldnt be surprised if it was supposed to be alot more) of my ram, this was at the standard 1280x1024 with all textures up, i could imagine the newer games pulling considerably more than that at 1920x1200

the guy is using vista and the extra memory really helps there thats what im saying, and with an 8800GTX/Ultra the textures and/or processing power really can make use of RAM....

i mean hey, as far as i know, drivers for that guys planned hardware all have x64 drivers so i see no reason to get x64bit vista home premium and take advantage of all that vista could give

mike2h

i think you might be missing part of what im saying & /or i havent explained it right. 32 bit xp/vista can only address just over 3 gb total. this total is system ram + video card ram. for example - you have 4 gig ram & a 8800gtx. windows will only have the 3gig system ram minus the 768 mb of gtx mem leaving a total of just over 2.2 available for sytem mem. now given all the downsides we have already discussed as far as having 4 gigs mem, i just dont see any justifacation. & as i said before, sli/crossfire make it an even bigger waste.
anyway, im hoping the support for 64 bit has progressed enough by the time i get all my upcoming upgrade together(2-4months), that installing ultimate64 will be viable for me. takes care of all those pesky men issues

i have never heard that thing you mentiomed about a comp needing at least an equivalent amount of system mem to operate properly. i really dont think that is true, but i may be wrong.

kris23

yea i guess i was wrong, maybe the simple processing needed by the CPU to crunch its data. but i noticed textures took more space in the RAM than things needed by the AI but that probably was just the extra things needed to run extras

Necrosis

For the record I'm user of a 32bit OS w/ 4GB. It runs perfectly but of course I can't see all the ram but I'm moving to 64 soon.

I really wasn't pimpin' my PSU though it's been running fine for me. Just showing it so he'd know what would fit nicely. If you get around the size of my PSU you have to add grills to that middle fan. Besides if you get near the $200 mark might as well go PC Power & Cooling.

PangingJr

i think it might be hard to stop thinking about having 4GB of RAM installed on your system, since the dimm slot is free, memory are quite cheap these days (and you happen to have money left for it), and perhaps especially, many in this field are using 4GB Vista system, and said there are better than 2 GB system. but i also think, you can add more RAM to your system later when needed, just plan for it beforehand if you can.