Need help, high spec gaming rig.

[p0isonapple]

Ok, my previous two threads were to no avail. So now I'm asking the lovely people here what you think is good. Money is no concern but I don't want to spend pointlessly.

I am now considering holding off this purchase till the Nehalem chipset, what do you guys think?

Thanks alot

 

[evll_panda]

Intel Q6600 2.4 Ghz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
$214.99

ASUS P5N-E
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131142
$119.99

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227267
$104.99

MSI GeForce 8800GTS (G92) NX8800GTS 512M OC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127325
$209.99

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288
$94.99

OCZ GameXStream 700W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002
$124.99


*Board and GFX Card are both SLI Ready so if you want to buy two Vid Cards go for it.

 

[akhilles]

The question is, can you afford Nehalem? The board per se may come out to $300-400. The cpu is a question mark.

The sweet spot, IMO, is the P45. This time next year, you'll see what I'm talking about. People aren't Bill Gates and can't upgrade to Nehalem. The P45 will be around for a LONG while. Intel won't like it. Well, they made the mistake of forcing overclockers to buy the premium Nehalem boards.

 

[p0isonapple]

Great point akhilles. and thankyou heaps panda for the rig setup, i was thinking even a bit more hardcore though, ie. getting a Q9450, clocking it pretty high and getting SLi GTX280's. Opinions?

thanks again!

 

[p0isonapple]

bump before work. I've been looking at cooling solutions and I would rather run with air, but i'd love some suggestions on air or water cooling..

 

[akhilles]

If you're going SLI, look at the 750i/780i with DDR2 & Yorkfield support. They both do true X16 SLI. The P5N-E doesn't. Only x8 SLI. Also, 5x0/6x0i can't do 45-nm quads. So you can't throw the Q9450 in the 5x0/6x0i boards.

These are good w/c stores. I suggest you go with a pre-built kit such as the Swiftech H20-220 Compact CPU Liquid Cooling Kit. I don't recommend cooling the GPU's unless you can afford it. The GPU block for the new cards ain't even out. I'd say it'll cost about $100 each. You just have to cool the cpu so you can overclock it further than on air.

http://www.dangerden.com/
http://www.jab-tech.com/
http://www.petrastechshop.com/

 

[p0isonapple]

Thanks for that reply akhilles.

I'm a true noob to water cooling, so I was looking at something like this http://www.petrastechshop.com/swh2cocpulic.html

Also, i was considering the 780i boards, however I am concerned that in order to get all i can out of SLi GTX280's, I will need a 790i board, and DDR3 RAM.

What do you think mate?

 

[p0isonapple]

quick bump, these forums move quick! :lol:

 

[akhilles]

That w/c kit is ok.

Not true. The 780i is PCI-E 2.0, isn't it? The 1st bottleneck is usually the cpu, assuming it's a 2-4 gigs of ram.