Budget: Around €1200. Purpose: Age of Conan gaming in high settings, DX10 @ 1680x1050 (see current system requirements in paragraph 1.10 here). Multimedia usage including several Adobe softwares, light rendering and x264 playback. Overclocking: Yes, at least 20%. System: Windows Vista 64-bit.
Case: Antec Performance One P182 - €113 CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400 3 GHz - €160 CPU-Cooling: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme - €51 CPU-Fan: Nexus 120mm Real Silent Case Fan D12SL-12 - €17 GPU: Sapphire RADEON HD 3870 X2 - €348 Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L - €68 PSU: Corsair HX620W - €115 RAM: Corsair XMS2 4 x 2 GB - €168 Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - €66
This setup leaves me in Danish market prices at €1115. As you may notice I've left out the hard-drives as the ones I have are fully functional, and until I can free more money on silent and larger ones they'll have to suffice. All the hardware actually on the desktop is good for now so I won't need upgrading there. Concerning mount of RAM: I've heard good feedback from those with 8GB in Vista, and the extra expense is marginal at any rate so I'll give it a go.
What do you think?
Message edited by Alash on 03-18-2008 at 12:22:03 AM
€1113 is about $1755. I checked Newegg.com earlier today and the prices you have in current Danish conversion is about 30% less, but ordering from there would leave me in jeopardy of paying the toll once they his the Danish border, and with defective hardware etc. it gets hairy to send back and forth. The listed price is pretty much as good as I can get it with the market available to me.
I'm a bit worried about the GPU and how much noise that will make. I'm hoping to make a somewhat silent system (hence the expensive case), but the amount of cooling those two GPU's need could ruin it. Perhaps someone have experience with this card?
drop the case and get the Antec 900... The P182 is overpriced.
don't worry about Age of Conan - i'm pretty sure i could get at least 30+ fps in 16x10, DX10... you'll really be able to throw on the graphical candy...
i have that card and its pretty near silent if you turn the fan down. It also stays very cool (58 degrees when OC'd). I've heard the CM cosmos and stacker are good cases for "silent" operation
Thanks for the feedback. Which model have you got acidpython, and what are your current OC specs?
I agree with you amd_fanboy that 30 FPS shouldn't be a problem, but again I want to make this system expandable in the future. Namely, I've been looking closely at Matrox's Surround Gaming solution that merge multiple monitors into one resolution, and seing that it would double or triple the amount of pixels rendered I imagine I'd run into trouble. This isn't high-end so I'm not expecting too much, but it'd be nice to have a vague idea what my options are.
