I am speccing out a new gaming machine. Mine is almost 3 years old and WOW is even sluggish. I'd like to play WOW, Call of Duty 4 and dabble into Crysis. Hopefully this is future proof a little for adding another GT 8800 and the new CPU chips early next year. At that point in time I will upgrade to Vista also. I'd like to OC a little bit but nothing too extreme. This is what I got so far.
Case: Antec 900
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz Mobo: ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Video Card: XFX 8800GT 512MB (Purchasing 1 for now and will SLI another in a few months)
RAM: Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
Optical: DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S203B
Cooling: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler OS: Windows XP Initially (Vista in 4-6 months)
I have a few Questions.
1. There is a similar 750 Quad PSU thats Red and called (Crossfire Edition) is there any particular difference between this one and the one I am purchasing (same brand)?
2. I've heard with Antec 900 case the PSU sits at the bottom. Does this come with cable extentions or is this something I buy seperate? Do I even need cable extentions?
3. 8800 GT. There seems to be different MHZ speeds like 600, 640, 700 etc. There is a $40-$60 differnece between low end and high end. Do I want the 700MHZ or stick with the 600?
4. I believe the ram I am getting is 5.5.5.18? I have heard that I want 4.4.4.12 ram. Can I purchase 2GB sticks with this voltage or is this something I change via software.
5. Is this hard drive ok? I was thinking about buying 2 smaller ones and running RAID 0. Is 2 drives and Raid 0 a huge performance for gaming? I would barely use 200GB at most so not too sure what to do here.
6. I only plan to OC the CPU to 3.0 or 3.2 Would this be sufficient cooling? Should I buy extra fans or does the Antec 900 come with plenty?
Thanks for all the help. I've learned a ton from your tips and advice on this forum.
Looks great.
1. No difference.
2. No idea don't have the case.
3. If you have the money get the OCed editions.
4. Crucial Ballstix has better timings.
5. RAID 0 will make loading times faster.
6. I have that cooler and it's a piece of crap. Just a good price for fair cooling. Get Zalman 9500 or something.
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I wish everyone at my high school could be mature enough to talk PC hardware not just gaming. You're unique... just like everyone else.
1. None. Other than marketing hype. Just like there's no such thing as dual channel ram. The mobo will run identical ram in dual channel automatically.
2. If you don't mind routing cables over or around the mobo, the case is ok. Some like to route cables behind the mobo tray & the cables may not be long enough.
3. Keep in mind the higher the o/c, the more heat. My stock 8800gt idles around 60'c & loads around 85'c. O/c'ed cards will be hotter.
4. If you mean to change ram timings, you can say the bios is software. You set up your ram settings in bios. By default, the mobo will see the ram a bit slower than the specs. You have to set it up yourself.
6. The Freezer is quite a cooler. This cooler will be much better. It needs 1/2 fans. It can be installed vertically or horizontally if space allows.
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