8800 ultra leviathan

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C'mon guys! It's his money and his wish. Maybe he won the lottery or a rich aunt left him some serious money. Never-work-a-day-in-your-life-again kinda money. You might not do it, I might not do it even if we had the money, but if that's what gets him off... 😛

Richo1981: The parts you listed are pretty much the absolute best. There are a few changes I would advice.

■ Drop the BluRay burner: pretty useless right now IMO. With the industry swinging from one format to another, it's anyone's bet which format will end up on top. You can just upgrade to whichever format wins, as an optical drive is the easiest and most hassle free upgrade. Plus, you will get a faster and more mature product then (support for more layers)

■ Get 150x2 Raptors in RAID 0, with an external RAID card preferably. The onboard RAID controllers do a decent job, buy RAID cards are still the best option. Get a 1TB drive too for storage if you want. Putting 2 Raptors in RAID 0, with a dedicated RAID card no less, will result in a massive HDD performance jump.

■ Better get a big-*** monitor to go with this setup. Anything less than 30" will not do it justice.

■ Yes, those cards in SLi will run 1 monitor. Otherwise you wouldn't be seeing any performance increase if each card ran separate monitors, would you? Anyway, I think putting THOSE two together isn't a good idea, if even possible. The Leviathan uses some pretty esoteric cooling, and from what I know, there doesn't exist any cabinet that can accommodate two. Read some online reviews to know more about this. You can get 2 non-water cooled Ultras. With the money you are throwing around, I suspect you will have some pretty nice air conditioning :). The Leviathan isn't really that much higher clock than some of the other factory OC'ed Ultras. Life the XFX 8800 Ultra (SHF9).

And don't take offence from anybody here if they are suspicious of you really buying this. All too often, on tech forums, some douchebag will come claiming to be buying the ultimate machine, the kind the rest of us dream about. I don't know what pleasure they get out of it. Maybe they feel turned on from all the (perceived) adoring gazes they think they are getting 😀. So people are bound to be a little cautious. Just post pics in a personal review when you get it.
 
The really funny thing is that he will spend a fortune now and when the new nvidia cards and new amd processors come out it will allready be obsolete.
 
If you really really wanna waste money like this (if you're not a liar) then there are also poor children in africa that could use some help.
 
You kinda picked a bad time to get a ultimate machine, G92 and Yorksfield/Barcelona is right around the corner, they'll make your machine right now second rate in a few months
EDIT: Leviathans now $800 on newegg
 
I would get a "lower" C2Q and overclock, plus I have heard that 8800GTX's/Ultras in SLI dont overclock very well. It would save you a ton of money
 



so what ? that's how it's always been, you buy high end product and sthing better is out a few months later. If he has the money, which seems to be the case, and wants to please himself let him do so! There's still no date for a new high end nvidia card btw (g92 being mid-range)
 
Look man, if want to build the best, spend the money and get it. Some of these guys seem jealous of the fact that you have all this money to burn!

Here's my suggestion:

-Go with the qx6850
-Get the 8800 Ultra's, they will work in sli for one monitor
-As far as the mobo, I'd go with the Asus Striker Extreme, or the DFI Lanparty 680i LT mobo
-You don't need to waste your money on a raid card, those mobos have the capability to run raid just fine
-For the hard drive setup, 2 western digital 1TB drives in raid 0 will perform just as fast in most applications as 2 raptor 150's. But I would go with the raptors in raid 0 for the main programs, and 3 1TB drives in a raid 5 configuration
-The case you chose is awesome, but you might want to check out Silverstone's TJ10 case.
-The memory you chose seems fine, but I would go for some Corsair Dominator PC2 10000 sticks.
-Power supply- try the Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 Watt, it's the best 1000+ watt power supply you can get right now.
-As far as a blueray or hd dvd drive, take a look at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136124
it will burn blueray, dvd, cd, and read hd dvd's. The best of both worlds!
 


Dude, you do realize, the Ultra Leviathan's do NOT SLI???? ....so, why would you get two.

I also recommend the 37" Westinghouse LCD 1080p panel, 8ms, very fast, very sharp, bright and good color balance.
 
Umm, warezme, this was taken from the newegg product description:

Leadtek PX8800 Ultra Leviathan GeForce 8800Ultra 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

and

SLI Supported Yes
 
New hardware in a couple months, sure, but after that there will be new hardware in another couple months. It's the cycle of technology. New stuff will always be just a few months away. Why wait, the 680i chipset will support Penryn. He can always upgrade when it does come out. If you were to wait for new stuff, you'd never buy anything, would you.
 
Technically the Leviathans can do SLi, but since no case can properly fit them, they might as well not support it. Read the comments from buyers on the product page of newegg itself.

New technology is always just about to come out. We know the Penryn desktop processors aren't going to be available before the end of the year. Also, they don't seem to be out-performing Kentsfield with too much of a margin. If he were to wait for these to become available, he might as well wait for Nehalem to become available, right? Cause that's a pretty radical redesign.

NVidia has given out absolutely nothing about the next gen. Everything has been speculation. People believe that it's going to be released around Christmas, that it's going to be twice as powerful as G80. None of this has been confirmed by NVidia. Hell, we don't even know the name of the card yet. 9800? 8900? 8950? I don't think NVidia would have managed to keep everything so tightly under wraps with only 3 months to launch, do you? That's why I think there isn't much chance that there is going to be a new flagship product coming out this year.

You have to pull the trigger on the purchase sometime, might as well be now, since upcoming products aren't revolutionary or are uncertain.
Who knows, this guy might have the cash to upgrade to the latest again as soon as it's released.
 
A case like the Silverstone TJ09 or TJ10, or the Stacker 830 can accommodate them. Some modifications might have to be made, but it is possible.
 
if he has that much money, why can't he afford a saw? so long as it would be possible in theory to fit 2 leviathans on one mobo, then the case shouldn't figure into the equation
 


Well according to a 9 page THG review its not?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/30/leadteks_performance_leviathan/

They concluded: "This is neither for the faint at heart nor for those looking to double up with SLI."

I wouldn't trust some Newegg spec sheet. Why don't you go to the Leviathan website and make sure.
 


Well according to a 9 page THG review its not?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/30/leadteks_performance_leviathan/

They concluded: "This is neither for the faint at heart nor for those looking to double up with SLI."

I wouldn't trust some Newegg spec sheet. Why don't you go to the Leviathan website and make sure.
 


You realize TAGAN is a top tier brand?

Your other suggestions were on par, but the PSU he has chosen is just fine.
 
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