Tip-top motherboard and CPU advice wanted

[Francko]

I suppose it's a mid-life crisis...for a lot of men it's either a mistress, a high performance car or bike, or some suitably cringing lifestyle change.

I've gone for the PC instead.

And then they create jokes about IT people.

http://www.jokes-news.com/2007/01/03/the-talking-frog/

[Ardesco]

I spent far too much money on my machine when the 6800 ultra and Athlon 64 chips first came out.

I blew something silly like £600 on a GFX card and a CPU and 6 months down the line I had an averagely performing PC anyway. With that experiance in mind I tend to go for the generation behind the cutting edge now as the performance isn't really that much worse and it saves a hell of a lot of cash

Anyway sent you a PM about TS2

[Board Game Geek]

decent amount of performance without spending the earth

Fair enough !

I'm my case, I've always had to settle for second best and balance performance against cost.

Now, I'm going to treat myself and to hell with second best.

I suppose it's a mid-life crisis...for a lot of men it's either a mistress, a high performance car or bike, or some suitably cringing lifestyle change.

I've gone for the PC instead.

Anyway, got a raid on WOW (Provided our TS Clan Server is working) as it seems to go down every day for 5 mins here, 5 mins there. I've spoken to the Host and they don't seem to understand that people are using it 24/7 and since I pay for it, we should receive a prompt service. People are also collecting dates and times when it goes down and sending this to me. Scary reading.

Is it too much to ask, when you pay for a service to expect 99% uptime ?

I've tried looking for other hosts, but none so far offer a 24/7 support service. Sure, via email they do, or support tickets. But when 40 people lose TS in the middle of a Raid at 3.00am in the morning, I want to ring someone and get it fixed immediately....Grrrrr

[Ardesco]

I'd disagree slighty, but I would be looking at getting a decent amount of performance without spending the earth

Processor : AMD Athlon 64 (Good chips, maybe not as fast as the latest intel dual core ones, but a hell of a lot cheaper and a better architecture so the future looks good when you upgrade)

Board : Asus all the way, which one depends on the chip, but don't skimp on it as everything runs through this

Ram : I agree, as much as you can afford although I don't bother overclocking it myself. i prefer stability. I've always gone for Cruicial memory. i tried Kingston memory once and had to drive down to London at a silly hour in the morning to replace it when it died, never had any problems with crucial RAM

Drives : Western Digital all the way (sooo easy to RMA if something goes wrong) but I wouldn't bother with the Raptors unless your into making an ultimate gaming PC. It really won't make much difference for everyday stuff and for the price of a 120Gb Raptor you can prolly get a 500Gb normal one.

GPU : the best you can afford, i would waste money on the latest one out there though, give it 6 months and the price will have halved

PSU : FSP Sparkle. I have used them for a while and they seem to be very robust. Tried a few others I wasn't impressed with.

Sound Card : On board will do for most things unless your an audiophille. in this case Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi is the mutts nuts

Cooling: Zalman Reserator V2. Nothing beats a silent PC and this baby will keep everything at a decent temp. i'm using the V1's atm and they are great.

[Board Game Geek]

Currently doing builds for my new pc and Mrs Bgg's Pc.

Have spent hours and hours reading forums and articles on hardware and end-user sites.

Here's a good site :

Custom PC

It's also a magazine in the UK. I recommend the forums.

I'm planning for my PC to be an ultimate gaming PC (well, for at least 2 weeks anyway :-) )

Processor : Go for Dual Core E6600
Board : Asus P5W64-WS Pro Intel 975X £180

Ram : As much as you can afford : Expect to pay £250 for 1GB of insanely high performance overclocking RAM
Drives : Western Digital Raptors. End of story.
GPU : GeForce 8800 GTX (£500) and probably another one in SLI as well.
PSU : Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL £250 (You need 1000 watts to drive this PC)
Sound Card : Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 Soundcard - £179 (Top of the range sound card aimed at musicians)

As far as cooling, the dual cores run a lot less hot than other chips, and vanilla builds don't need much beyond a standard fan. However, since I plan to overclock my PC, I'll be looking at higher performace Zalman Coolers.

Depending on how much I want to O/C, I may end up having to need a Asetek WaterChill Xtreme CPU/VGA/Chipset Cooling Kit - Triple 120mm Radiator/6 Fans £321

Then all the cold cathode ray rubes, lights, etc.

I did intend to fashion a clear perspex box, to house the kit in. Think Orac from Blake's Seven. Then I decided to buy a case.

NZXT Lexa

This PC will eat any game on the market for breakfast. Even Oblivion, which is the most demanding game a PC can run. The game can be set to maximum settings and the GPU will say "is that it ? I'm hardly being taxed at all. Give me some real work to do"

Have fun building !

[Churchill]

Ask Threaded if he wants to sell his Cray...

[Back In Business]

Good motherboards come from MSI and ASUS.

Antec do really smart looking (minimalist) quiet cases.

HTH

[_V_]

Don't waste £1500 on a PC.

Half that will be 90% as good.

[OrangeHopper]

All that just to run Word!

[OwlHoot]

Now the last heap of junk I'm ashamed to say I bought at PC World a few years ago is starting to play up, I quite fancy the idea of putting together a blindingly fast new PC from parts.

I know it's a bit of a mug's game these days, as one can get excellent PCs for a few hundred quid. But if one had, say, up to around £1500 to spend for a top-of-the-range large case, stonking motherboard, CPU, and 4 gigs of memory, what would people suggest (without going too far into server territory and silly money) ?

Oh and P.S. Anyone know the best heat sinks and cooling fans to buy? My current PC has taken to howling like a NASA wind tunnel at the slightest provocation. So a quiet one would be good; but efficiency, or rather effectiveness, is my main criterion.