Building a PC would like advice from fellow tinkerers...

[Damiuss]

Ok so here is the set up I am working on if anyone could give me some advice as to what they would consider a better piece for my build and why I would definitely appreciate it. At this time I would also like to state that the parts that I have initially chosen are here because of their ability to accept future upgrades or be easily replaced by a future upgrade without having to change the system as a whole;

MOBO - eVGA Nvidia SLI 680i ATX Intel 775
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775
Hard Drives x2 - Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Power Supply - SILVERSTONE SLI Ready ATX12V/EPS12V 850W
Graphic Card - eVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SUPERCLOCKED HDCP (later upgrading to a second one for SLI feature)
Extra CPU Cooling fan -ZALMAN 9700 110mm
Memory - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Monitor - Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP 24.0-inch Flat Panel LCD Monitor

I am recycling my G15 gaming keyboard and lightscribe DVD/CD +/- R/RW as well as my offbrand mouse and 3.5 floppy drive to save some money.

Here comes the real question, my brother wants me to build him a PC as well but I know that the new ATI Crossfire Cards are coming out soon that also support Direct X 10. Would it be worth waiting for those cards for a better build or is this one good enough to compete for a long time? if not what would you change to make it a better build.

Thank you all in Advance for all your input.

 

[Anttaru]

That one will compete for a long time. Games won't be made to max out on a Crossfire for quite some time.

If you or you're brother is one of those who would regret not waiting a little longer, then wait a little longer and go for the ATI.

Maybe build the box anyway, and salvage you're brothers old GPU to sit in for the upcoming crossfire. What does he have, a 256 ?

 

[Damiuss]

yeah right now he is running an ATI Radeon 9600 with 256 on board mem

 

[CmdrFly]

That Corsair XMS is hot shit.

As for your drives - I've read a lot of enthusiasts saying they prefer the smaller (200-320gb) SATA2 16mb 8ms drives, something about density affecting read rates. Sounds like hocus pocus to me though, I'd still probably go for the 500s.

Here comes the real question, my brother wants me to build him a PC as well but I know that the new ATI Crossfire Cards are coming out soon that also support Direct X 10. Would it be worth waiting for those cards for a better build or is this one good enough to compete for a long time? if not what would you change to make it a better build.

I'm an ATI fanboy and it hurts me to say that Nvidia is owning right now. I haven't read much about ATI's next-gen core but by the time they get dual-GPU on the go, I'm worried about what Nvidia's going to have in the pipes.

John Carmack spoke of DX10 during CES:

On the topic of DX10, Carmack said that there’s nothing at the moment motivating him to move to the new API just yet for Quake Wars, citing that he’s quite satisfied with DX9 and the Xbox 360. “DX9 is really quite a good API level … Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step--they’re not worried about breaking backwards compatibility--and it’s a pretty clean API,” he said. “I especially like the work I’m doing on the 360, and it’s probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I’ve worked with.”

Gamers often look to Carmack to tell the fortunes of PC gaming hardware. His opinions on hardware can sway hardcore gamers to purchase one hardware choice over another. Those in awe of the potential offered by DX10 may want to hold off on that shiny graphics card purchase, as Carmack says that there isn’t a huge need for new hardware just yet, as current hardware is more than adequate. “All the high-end video cards right now -- video cards across the board --are great nowadays,” he said. “Personally, I wouldn’t jump at something like DX10 right now. I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there’s a really strong need for it.”

However, Carmack seems to be slipping. He also stated in the same article that dual-core isn't all that great. Sounds like he's getting lazy to me, it's been proven by Valve that multithreading is a hell of a bottleneck lifter.

 

[Damiuss]

Yeah, same here I love the ATI stuff but, in the recent reviews and unbiased (as possible) reports I have read Nvidia is the top dog for the time being. Even with the problems they are having the gains outweight the problems. I think for the time being I am going to build my rig and when it comes down to my brothers I will use his old card for now and when the reviews come out decide from that weather we will go with the crossfire or sli cards for him.

Cmdrfly, to be honest with you, I am glad I am not the only ATI fan out there who found the Nvidia chipset appealing. I thought I was alone on this one lol.

 

[Anttaru]

Those in awe of the potential offered by DX10 may want to hold off on that shiny graphics card purchase, as Carmack says that there isn’t a huge need for new hardware just yet, as current hardware is more than adequate.

It's the same thing i mentioned to you before Fly. It's very true what he wrote. Nothing will surpass 256MB capability by much for quite some time. Other than the fact the bigger cards can display at higher resolutions, games will not be pushing the 512's potentials for awhile.
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The thing about SLI and CrossFire Damiuss, as you may know, they don't double the performance of the system. Each GPU get's reduced to half performance which results in the GPU output to be just a little better than solo.

With the type of games being put out, a single 256MP can handle it alone. you can use a 512 and run it at higher resolution by todays standards, and in time a game developer will release a game that will actually begin to utalize the 512 era. Even then you're 768 (DDR which is sweet might i add) will display the same performance as as 512 for a very long time, due to lack of software released to fullfill you're GPU's actuall purpose.

SLI was once required that boath GPUs must be identical. I don't know if Nvidia changed that.

CrossFire You're brother may be pleased with the fact, only 1 Crossfire edition GPU is required and there is a whole list of Radeon serise GPUs that is compatable to work together on the board. That alone makes CrossFire alot easier to upgrade and live with money wise.

I've read the ups and downs about CrossFire, and suposidly CrossFire has a greater number of solutions. Say you're GPU's were running too fast for the monitors refresh rate, there is a feature ATI calls SuperAA that raises the anti aliasing to a much higher level resulting in a better picture with less lag caused from a CPU or monitor that can't keep up.

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More developers are leaning towards ATI in the current and upcoming generation. Meaning ATI cards will be less of a hassle, having to change drivers and change settings for every game, like we use to do will become a thing of the past, already has in many casses. Nvidia has always been more stable with games.

I'd Build the CrossFire box and put a 512MB X1950 XTX CrossFire edition in it, and let it fly solo for awhile. And if it dosn't turn out just wrap it up and take it back in exchange for an SLI card and chipset. Atleast you'll be able to take out anyone on the subject if that's the case.

Even for you're Geforce if you added a secondary GPU it would look and act exactly the same as there is no games to challenge you're GPU to begin with.

P.S. What ATI card are you waiting for ? I couldn't find any upcoming ATI that can match the specs of you're 768MB GeForce. Maybe i never looked hard enough.

 

[CmdrFly]

Without getting into our big nasty quote-debate war again:

It's the same thing i mentioned to you before Fly. It's very true what he wrote. Nothing will surpass 256MB capability by much for quite some time. Other than the fact the bigger cards can display at higher resolutions, games will not be pushing the 512's potentials for awhile.

Do believe I agreed with this. 512 will last for a while but the DX10 ball is already rolling, and will be at full capacity in a short time. By "pushing the 512's potentials" I presume you mean, utilizing all 512mb of the card? I have a 512mb X1900XTX and it gets stressed, hard, detailed at the bottom of this post.

Carmack's word usually carries a lot of weight, and I respect the hell out of him... but his denial of dual-core seems to suggest he's lacking the ambition today that made him such an oracle in the past.

Games will be supporting DX10 within months. As an ATI fanboy even I have to recommend his current choice, the 8800, if only for the fact that he'll be ready to enable all the bells and whistles in these games before any of his buddies. Gamers thrive on bragging rights, and when those DX10 games hit the shelves, Damiuss will have all the rights he needs.

I can't confirm nor deny Nvidia's SLI requirements, I seem to recall the same.

Even for you're Geforce if you added a secondary GPU it would look and act exactly the same as there is no games to challenge you're GPU to begin with.

With a 2407FPW, if he wants to run at native res, Oblivion and Vegas likely will press the system hard. I run Vegas at 1920x1200, no AA, no AF, no HDR, low shadows, low blur. I still have slowdowns. X1900XTX, X2 4400 (dual 1mb), 2gb OCZ 3-3-3-8, and SATA2 16mb. Damiuss has the advantage of dual-core gpu and... is that QC cpu?

I'd be very, very, very curious to hear how it performs with maxed Oblivion and Vegas settings at 8x & 16x @ 1920x1200.

 

[Damiuss]

Antaru its the ATI r600 video card. It hasn't been released yet but it should be out within the next 2 months or so.

Being me though, I went ahead and ordered my build just like i posted it and will, with luck, have the results of the build for you guys in the next few days as i recieve the parts to start it off.

I will most definitely post specs on Oblivion and Rainbow Six: Vegas Maxed. Stay tuned...

 

[Taurothar]

Quad Core is so not near what it sounds like. It's gonna be slower than the pentium core 2 duo mentioned in the OP.

For those AMD fans, FX-70 through 74 were just released, as a dual core, dual proc setup. The price of two of them is about the same as an intel Quad Core, but it's far more speed in the CPU department.

nVidia is owning ATI by a huge margin now, and even the next gen isn't going to be close because we still have yet to see what the true potential of the 8 series is anyway, with DX10 being unreleased fully.

Right now, the best you can do with hard disks is use a pair of raptors (10k rpm) in striped raid setup, and just keep a large storage drive for your music/vids etc.

Performance wise, 99% of procs are above what the average gamer can use, since the real bottleneck is in memory speeds. And with DDR3 on the way, I'd wait to buy anything at the time being, since DDR2 is such a tiny improvement over what DDR had in the first place.

 

[Damiuss]

Performance wise, 99% of procs are above what the average gamer can use, since the real bottleneck is in memory speeds. And with DDR3 on the way, I'd wait to buy anything at the time being, since DDR2 is such a tiny improvement over what DDR had in the first place.

This actually makes a lot of sense... I am really interested in seeing the improvement over DDR2 specs on the DDR3 Memory.

 

[Damiuss]

Actually, I can't wait for this build to be done... It means I can lose my life and finally log back on to FFXI...

My PC right now just lags out sooo bad that I keep losing connection....

I don't have a copy for PS2 so I can't put it on my PS3 and I do have the Xbox 360 version of it but unless I can plug in a mouse to my 360 and it is guaranteed to work the same I refuse to play it on anything other than a PC lol...

God I think I'm having FFXI withdrawls...

I'm twitching...

 

[Anttaru]

Checked out the R600 and found this:

According to recent news, originating in Canada, spread on a few hardware forums the new ATI R600 chip will be released around November/December 2006. The full specs include a stunning 64 shader pipelines, GDDR4 memory and will be built on 65 nm. The full specs leaked are as follows:

65nm
64 Shader pipelines (Vec4+Scalar)
32 TMU's
32 ROPs
128 Shader Operations per Cycle
800MHz Core
102.4 billion shader ops/sec
512GFLOPs for the shaders << Reconize
2 Billion triangles/sec
25.6 Gpixels/Gtexels/sec
256-bit 512MB 1.8GHz GDDR4 Memory << Reconize
57.6 GB/sec Bandwidth (at 1.8GHz)
WGF2.0 Unified Shader

And

ATI R600 vs. G80 (GeForce 8800) - the next level of ATI vs. nVidia.

The following massive 12-page article, including lots of benchmarking of the R600 and GeForce 8800GTX, shows who did his homework better during the last months of the never-ending fight between ATI and nVidia. First of all we need to say that ATI’s R600 is not available to the public market yet (while we do have a certain certification sample), while nVidia’s G80 (better known as GeForce 8800) hit the stores already. This was a smart move from nVidia in the short run because they were able to catch the christmas market; however, in the long run the additional research invested in the R600 might not only catch up to the G80 performance, but take the GPU crown captured by nVidia’s current flagship

Taken from the 12 page test report:

http://level505.com/2006/12/30/the-full-ati-r600-test/1/

Nice find on the R600. It really is different. If you get it. I'll feel giddy for you.

 

[Anttaru]

Actually, I can't wait for this build to be done... It means I can lose my life and finally log back on to FFXI...

My PC right now just lags out sooo bad that I keep losing connection....

I don't have a copy for PS2 so I can't put it on my PS3 and I do have the Xbox 360 version of it but unless I can plug in a mouse to my 360 and it is guaranteed to work the same I refuse to play it on anything other than a PC lol...

God I think I'm having FFXI withdrawls...

I'm twitching...

Oh yes i wanted to mention ...

Once you play FFXI with a controller and a keybaord, you will not go back to Mouse.

I use to play FFXI with a mouse, i even bought a crappy mouse for my PS2 version, But as time passed i decided to give the controller a shot, just so i can analog my character around. Then it turned into doing everything with the controller. If i play on PC, i use my PS2 adapter so i can use the controller now. Try it man, you'll like it.

 

[CmdrFly]

Quad Core is so not near what it sounds like. It's gonna be slower than the pentium core 2 duo mentioned in the OP.

Are you talking, true quad-core? Intel's current implementation is a somewhat ghetto version, where it's 2 dies (under one heat spreader) with 2 cores each. AMD's first quad-core (excluding QuadFX) will be 4 cores under 1 die. I don't know what the real-world difference will be like but it seems to me like current quad-core processors are kinda... pulling wool over the public's ass.

For those AMD fans, FX-70 through 74 were just released, as a dual core, dual proc setup. The price of two of them is about the same as an intel Quad Core, but it's far more speed in the CPU department.

Not according to this article:

AMD is going to have a very tough sell with Quad FX; although the CPUs are priced competitively, if the ASUS L1N64-SLI WS ends up just shy of the $400 mark it's a platform that is simply too expensive at no benefit to the end user. When only running one or two CPU intensive threads, Quad FX ends up being slower than an identically clocked dual core system, and when running more threads it's no faster than Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700. But it's more expensive than the alternatives and consumes as much power as both, combined.

The above article was however written based on a pre-production board, but it was close enough to alpha that ASUS branded it with a model number.

Right now, the best you can do with hard disks is use a pair of raptors (10k rpm) in striped raid setup, and just keep a large storage drive for your music/vids etc.

Are the 15k SATA Raptors buyable yet? I read somethingorrather about them either on AT or on CES coverage.

Performance wise, 99% of procs are above what the average gamer can use, since the real bottleneck is in memory speeds.

This piqued my interest. Isn't this largely the advantage of 512/768mb cards? If those local gfx buffers are as unused as is claimed, why would bus speeds matter? Do textures/models go to local ram first? I thought PCIe was developed so more stuff could be pushed directly to the gfx card and bypass all the nomenclature of cpu/ram traffic.

 

[exodusamphi]

The quad core that will be 2x2 is garbage compared to what a true quad core can be. And isnt Intel working on their first 8 core to be released fairly soon?

As far as checking GPUs on a game, dont. Use 3dBenchmark or something that is truley meant to push GPUs to their limit...

Those 15k Raptors are holyshitexpensive... I think they have em on Newegg
Clicky Here
All SCSI, a few years back Id never thought Id see that used ever again.

edit: Looked at that test report website and it looks like the r600 just barely out does the 8800... price vs quality hmm?

 

[Anttaru]

As far as checking GPUs on a game, dont. Use 3dBenchmark or something that is truley meant to push GPUs to their limit...

That is true. In the article it showed how the X1950 XTX beat it's own successor in call of Duty 2, by 1 tenth of a frame. Boath the ATI's ate the Nvidia though.

Still out of 9 tests they ran, (7 being on games) Nvidia only took 1st place once, on the Battlefeild 2 comparrison. ATI's stability issues are turly becoming a thing of the past.

The Article is a good read man, they also used 3D Benchmark and the R600 smoked the 8800GTX twice, even though the Nvidia is optomized to work well with the benchmark software.

We start off with the test result of Futuremark’s 3DMark05. Even though it is a rather old benchmark, the score still matters for today’s games:



This is an impressive result: ATI’s R600 scores about 8.2% better than nVidia’s current flagship, the GeForce 8800GTX, and it leads to the assumption that the card performs even better in higher resolutions. As said above, we will test on higher resolutions shortly. The graphics quality of the R600 is similar to the GeForce 8800GTX, while AA seems to work a bit better on short distances.

We have to note again that these results come from a pre-release driver which has not been optimized yet. Therefore, we expect to see a further increase in performance soon. nVidia will undoubtedly optimize their drivers over time as well, especially in combination with the upcoming Windows Vista.

Our next test is based on Futuremark’s 3DMark06, the current high-end synthetic graphics benchmark which demands every quantum of power from all graphics cards, including ATI’s R600. It is utilizing DirectX9 and is therefore a very good reflection of current game performance.

Again, the ATI R600 scores best, but with less advantage over nVidia’s GeForce 8800GTX (compared to the 3DMark05 test results on the previous page): The score difference is only 5.5%; but it is well known that nVidia is optimizing their drivers for typical benchmarking applications.

 

[Damiuss]

Well the PC is built and damned if I don't get any kind of lag on most of the games I have played. The only problem I am trying to solve is when playing ffxi some of the tabs (linkshell, item, magic, etc..) are too bright. I mean they are soo bright that the tab and the words inside are about the same color. I don't know what the problem would be since it is not all the tabs that are that bright just some. I'll have to tinker with the settings.

Oblivion on the other hand runs beautifully. I have never seen the game look so good in all my time playing it, not even on the 360 hooked up to a 1080i capable 60 inch screen.

 

[Rorschach]

Take a tip from me, make DAMN sure that the power supply can handle your new rig even if you think your old one can do the job.

 

[Vandoura]

Rememeber Whom ever release their hardware first, a second one will always be out performing the other one

so If ATI had released first, Nvidia will pwn ATI, because they know the Specs of the ATI, and they try to boost it up to outperform it


8900 GTX may outperform R600? who knows


but so far, 8800 and R600 is almost the same, performent by scores on R600 is only increased slightly compare to those 2....

Now is just the Money.. will R600 be $700+ at start??

8800 started at $679.99 i think, and it had gotten down to <$549.99 now

Sometime Money issue > Graphic card issue, if your a graphic freak and wanna max out your FPS and stuff, hell!! Get R600, but if you don't wanna spend so much money on newly released card, why not get 8800 for much cheaper then R600 and performent only little more then 8800

If I was you, and wanna build it now, get 8800, don't wait R600, first you need to replace the whole motherboard, second, R600 and 8800 will looks the same when you played a game on max setting, if the graphic did improved on R600, you won't able to see with your naked eye


So ya.. so far... Geforce 8800 GTX > ATI (Owned by AMD now) R600
Money comparason 8800 GTX @ $500~$550 ATI R600 $600~$750

in 1 or 1 1/2 years, i'm gonna upgrade 8800 GTX SLI by then is only <$300 per card

who cares about 8900 GTX in 1 years, No game atm need 2GB from 2 8900 GTX, is just plain overkill lol, if it do, is just plain stupid lol

I still using my 7800 GTX, and it work fine with many games up-to-date atm, except i can't get Neverwinter Night 2 at 2048 low rang, 2048 high rang, and 1024 character detail, and 16x AL and 4XAA and other enivorment setting it lag like hell >.>

 

[exodusamphi]

AND there are no games that can fully utilizie all of the 8800 or R600s reatures... only game that comes to mind MIGHT be crysis, and thats not even out yet.