Building a gaming PC

Ok, so now that i have my new PC, i' m going to be building another over the next 6 months or so ... (because i' ll be buying a 45nm Intel [Yorkfield???] processor and a GeForce 9) ... but it' s been years since i' ve built a computer and i' ve not exactly been following the PC scene, i' m going to need some advice.

I' m not putting a budget on this project, i simply want the best performance possible without going SLI.

So the list of required components would be...

Case
Mainboard
Processor
Ram
Graphics card
HDD
Optical drive' s
Powersupply
Monitor
Mouse & keyboard

...right?

I' ve been looking at cases, and unless somebody can recommend something better, i' ll be deciding between the...


Raidmax RX9




Thermaltake Xaser VI




Raidmax Sagitta 2




Raidmax Aztec




NZXT Lexa Blackline




...and i know the Thermaltake and NZXT case' s have great build quality, but i don' t know about the Raidmax ones. What do you guys think?

On top of the case, i need recommendation on everything but the graphics card and processor (which won' t be out until next year)

Thanks guys

Get a couple seagate hard drives. They' re very reliable with good performance and price.
Also get a sound blaster X-fi sound card, it blows away everything else.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

My favorite motherboard is the ABIT P35 Pro

Case doesn' t matter, they' re all the same shit. Just make sure it' s big enough and rip out the stock fans and put your own in. I like aluminum cases because they are light and you can move the PC around easily,* Quality* brands would be Lian Li and Antec' s higher end cases, though Antec' s cases are all steel and I dont like PCs that weigh 80lbs.

Get any 750+ watter PC Power & Cooling or Silverstone PSU.
Any non generic 1066mz ram with atleast 4-4-4-12 timings

Seagate hard drives are good, I' d get some 10,000 RPM drives, the 15,00RPM drives currently don' t offer enough space, you' ll fill them up with a few game installs.

And Intel' s stock HSFs are garbage, when you get your CPU throw the HS/F away in the trash and get this so you can overclock. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118020&Tpk=Zalman%2b9700

Cooling and noise is a big part. I like investing in a silent PSU, swap the case fans for silent ones and get a good heatsink/fan for the particular gpu and cpu (they make specific ones for each model) usually by zalman or arctic cooling. You could go down the road of watercooling too, since its evermore accessible these days.

Case wise, I' d go for either Coolermaster or Antec as emo said. Big, spacious, thermodynamic, well thought out designs that look sleek. Expensive for a case but if you' ve no budget its worth it.

The motherboard will depend on the speed of RAM, FSB for the CPU, whether you want SATAII, SLI for the gfx card, ethernet speeds, overclockability and other features. In the end its just picking one that suits your needs.

And then I guess sounds the other big area, but I suppose an x-fi and a decent surround system will do you as you said you' re not a big audiophile. Some PC games are all about the sound.

I cant believe your making another PC though, you crazy person.

Antec eh?

The Antec P190 looks ok...

As for the motherboard, i' m guessing it' ll have to be P35 as i' ll obviously wanting to be as futureproof as possible and it' ll need to be both DDR3 and 1333 MHz (front side bus) compliant. I' m planning on buying one of Intels upcoming 45nm Yorkfield chips so i don' t think i have any other option.

SLI is out, ...i' m hoping that the flagship GeForce 9 card will mean that SLI is totally avoidable.

Apparently i have an X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card in the Alienware and i paid an extra £52 for it. I didn' t buy any 7.1 speakers though... so perhaps i' d better. The only issue i have with that though is they look so fucking numb, and i hate shitloads of wires trailing. The Alienware i bought for gaming though, so since it' s not going in my office i guess it doesn' t matter as much. What are the best speakers available?

As for why i' m building a gaming PC when i just threw a couple of grand at Alienware...

Why not?

In truth i just want to build a PC. I don' t know why. I' ll be upgrading the Alienware to the same or similar spec too and i' m buying an iMac for my office. I would likely have done this last year had i not been so sure i' d have been living in Canada right now. This next 12 months or so as i try to decide exactly where i' m going to go is going to be interesting... i quite fancy the Dakar Rally in 2009

Anyway... what' s the best type of cooling?

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Logitech G7
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Sound Blaster X-Fi

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

The case is a no brainer.

Coolermaster CM Stacker 832!

The cases you shown while they look alright are what i would consider to be mid range. They' re flimsy and weak. The Stacker 832 pisses all over them in every measurable way. I like the P180/p190 but they can be a bitch to work with. If you go to any PC nerd forum and ask them which is better the 832 and any other one and they will laugh at you for mentioning the Stacker in the same sentence.

Honestly though I wouldn' t build another PC just yet, I would wait for Nehalem (Intel Core 3). There are no super demanding games coming out between now and then anyways. Don' t bother with Penryn, just wait a few months more and get a real upgrade. There' s nothing stopping you from getting a Nvidia series 9 card and upgrading the rest of your computer once Nehalem is released. Even motherboards and ram will be much better by the time Nehalem comes out.

The CPU cooler that Emofag has shown is pretty good. Easy to install and it gets the job done. I have the 9500 and I' m happy with it.

well if you want both quiet and insane cooling the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro is hard to beat. It is also very easy to install. You just have to make sure you have some space above your CPU, cause it is fairly big. With a mid sized case you can just barely fit a side case fan. but it would be pointless to have one above the cpu with that thing on there.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

I can vouch for the AC Freezer 7, but it is damn heavy so those screws have to be snug!

The Stacker is an awesome case. I have a Wavemaster currently, not as good as my old Pretorian.

Speakers will come in all shapes and sizes, never looked into 7.1 since I' m quite happy with 5.1. (Most DVDs/games will need to be artificially split into 7.1 anyway, most stuff is made in 5.1.)

I looked at lots of home theatre systems which are good for your TV/console, but usually only hook up via digital to your X-fi. Xfi doesnt do some things in surround via digital, and I dont think the gamerXtreme variant comes with an I/O box which has the optical out on it.

For analog hook up surround sound, I' ve found Creative or Logitech to be the most convenient and best value. As I said before I' ve got the Logi THX certfied Z5500s, but there maybe better options nowadays. Advantage being digital hook ups as well so I can use it for both my PC and console.

I have the X-Fi Fatal1ty edition. It does improve the framerate a little in most games. I wasn' t going to get it but I got a deal on it so it was cheaper than the platinum. Both the platinum and the fatal1ty have the optical and all the other fancy hookups for midi guitars and whatnot which I wanted.
It is worth getting an X-Fi card just for the 24-bit crystalizer. Which makes most music and movies sound way better.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

The freezer 7 pro has great reviews, I' m thinking about getting the freezer 7 pro or a Tuniq-120, but I' ve OC" d 1ghz out of my E6850 with a Zalman 9700 so I don' t know if I want to do that, I may get shittier over clocks.

One thing I dont like about the Zalma is the fins are so open/exposed it gets dusty really fast, I have to aircan it every now and then.

The Tuniq-120 should give you the highest overclocks. I think it' s still the best air heat sink, maybe something beat since I last checked.

I wouldn' t bother though. Spend 50$ to get half a frame per second added to your FPS. Fuck it.

Discovered a cool mouse. Not as fancy as the gyroscopic stuff youre considering, but simple and well designed.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/01/06/steel_series_ikari_mouse_and_sp_mousemat/2

Ok, i still haven' t decided on a case. It' s between the Stacker 832 and the Cosmos and reading each cases respective reviews on Hexus.net - i' m leaning towards the Cosmos.

Thoughts?

Do you really need those cases? They' re full tower spec, meaning they' re colossal. Unless you plan to put 5+ HDD' s in there, it' s kind of a waste.

Personally, I find most cases these days to be grotesque attempts at design. Most cases, while performing well, all have that " zomg look at me i' m sooo l337" syndrome. Stupid amounts of LED lights/fans, crazy shapes, unnecessary handles, gimmicks that have little use, etc. Even some of the once sublime Lian Li cases have started too look like they were made to appeal to 14 year old nerds, who get boners over plexiglass side panels and insane amounts of LED fans that make the case look like a wind tunnel.

There are very few cases out there that actually function well and have aesthetics too. I recommend Antec' s Performance One range or Lian Li. While both are still guilty of turning out crappy " Gamer" cases, they' re still better than most. I' ve got the Antec P182 and it' s fantastic. It cuts down greatly on noise, it' s airflow is top notch, easy to work with, has plenty of room and best of all, it looks good. None of that tacky crap. The P190 is their latest model and from what I can see, they' ve improved upon nearly everything in the P182.

So I recommend having a look at those before you go off the deep end.

Hey get one of these:

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2008/01/21/the_weighted_companion_pc/1

Hehe, ok not really. Your cheap alternative is the CM690 link, the Antec P190 would be my next choice up.

Then going all out between the Cosmos and the Stacker (although I agree the looks aren' t as minimalist as their older cases) I would personally go for the Stacker, since I pretty much take what bittech says as gospel and they prefer the Stacker!link

I have a mid-tower case and I have all high end stuff and 5 hard-drives. The only thing I don' t have in there is SLI. Big cases are just annoying IMO, and I hate flashing LED fans, those are really annoying. I don' t even like the little light for hard-drive activity.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

The P190 is their latest model and from what I can see, they' ve improved upon nearly everything in the P182

Yeah I currently use a Sonata II and I want a P190 but I can' t find one without a 1200Watt power supply included. I already have a Decathlon 850Watt. I don' t want to pay a price premium for a power supply I don' t need. A p182 has the water hookups I want in the back but the p182 with a water cooling system would abused my budget a bit too much for my project. So I' m leaning towards a Coolmaster 832 on air.

Majik another recommendation I would give you if water cooling appeals to you at all is the Gigabyte 3D Mercury. It' s not the prettiest case but it has fully integrated water cooling. It' s supposed to be very easy to use and include everything you would need for water cooling a CPU. It' s expensive but not really considering the cost of a decent case and seperate water cooling system. This is far easier to set up, five minutes and you' re ready. You might be able to find similar cases like it too. If you avoiding water cooling becasue of the hassle, there is no hassle with this. If you want to push a quad core to it' s limits you' ll want to water cool it. Even a QX9650 will reach higher overclocks with water.

http://www.madshrimps.be/action=getarticle&articID=623


Last night I scooped up a E8400 (penryn dual core) to replace my AM2 2X 4600+. I was planning on waiting for a Q9450 but with a multi of 8, lower FBS motherboards support for Quads along with double the price I figured I' d be better off with a higher clocked dual core. I' ll save 200$ and get it a few months earlier.

My intention is to wait for X48 mobo' s to be released to see if they have any worth my time, otherwise I' ll just pick up an ASUS P5E3 DELUXE.

I' ve had my eyes on a pair of Patriot DDR3-1600. They should overclock to near 2000Mhz speeds.

My overclocking goal is to either have something like 4.3Ghz with a 1:1 ratio or 4.5Ghz with a 5:4 ratio. I expect the latter will be the easier goal. I' ll see which one performs better. Either way, this thing will ***ing smoke my AM2 4600+ @2.6Ghz.