Another Gaming build ~£1000

[j2k]

Hi everyone, I'm planning to build my 2nd home built primarily gaming system by around june the 11th, as im a medical student and this is when my exams have finished. Unfortunately i dont really have the time at the moment to search around and read up on all the reviews so i thought some of you gifted with the "knowledge" would be able to give me a hand.

So far from my old system build i have an Antec P180b. Which i'd like to keep i think the case is very good.
I've also already purchased a BFG 9800GX2 as i got it for a good price off a friend. As well as a 500gb + 250gb sata HDD from my previous build.

So i have a couple of questions and ideas, ill start with what i'm thinking and why and you guys can pick it to peices if you please

future proofing my system is very important to me as i dont want to have to buy anything more than another G-card / cpu and ram in the next couple years.

I've sort of settled on the Intel Core 2 quad Q9450 As it has the new 45nm tech and runs faster at standard speed than the q9300 however ive seen the suggestions to get a dual core for gaming would be better, but my thinking is surely if i overclock this cpu to about 3.2ghz it would run better if not the same? Please correct me if im wrong but this is how i assume the cores work, a game that utilises dual core tech would use 2 of the 4 cores of a quad? leaving 2 cores for background processes?

I also have another question about the 9800GX2, it already being dual gpu? what are the implications of this, as i would like in the future to beable to buy a 2nd card when they are cheaper and run them in SLI this would mean i need a board that can support this and a psu that in the future could support 2 9800GX2 in Sli.

I read the article on here about 8gb vista 64 bit and it appealed to me very much, i thought that with the DDR2 prices so low i would buy some low latency DDR2 800 or even DDR2 1066. As the DDR3 seems completely pointless for a couple % performance increase. And for the price how can you go wrong with 8gb of memory to play with!

Which leads to another question about using Vista 64bit for gaming?? good or bad idea future proof im thinking good idea? Drivers??

My main problem ATM is finding a motherboard capable of supporting another 9800GX2, Able to have something like a 1600FSB allowing an upgrade from the chip i have atm. And capability for DDR3 ram as im sure in the future these prices will drop considerably.

So what do you think?

 

[dos1986]

Intel are changing sockets next year, so no future proofing 😀

ddr3 boards are crazy money as is ddr3..

This site is the cheapest and best around ( only place I buy now )

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/3/home.jsp



Not bad for £570 delivered?

 

[modode]

I'd recommend you save yourself a couple hundred dollars and forget a quad CPU. The dual core Wolfdales (8400/8500) tend to be easier to overclock, and higher clock speed will improve your rig's gaming performance, while more cores than 2 will not at this point in time since the games are not coded to take advantage of more than two cores. The 8400 is overclockable to 3.6 ghz very easily on air-cooling on the motherboards below, even by novice overclockers.

By the time games come out that do scale with additional cores in a year or two, your current generation quad core CPU will be obsolete and you'll be dying to upgrade anyway to a better quad chip, so why spend the money now?

The P180 is a great case. The 9800 GX2 is the fastest single slot gaming graphics card available, and as you said it's a dual gpu. If you have money to burn, buy another and connect them for quad SLI for the maximum graphics performance available today, though don't expect to double the performance of the single GX2 just because you're spending twice as much. You'll need a motherboard that supports nvidia SLI - one with an nvidia chipset like the 680i, 780i, or 790i boards from XFX, BFG, or EVGA. You'll also need a beefy power supply (at least 650 watts I'd say).

4 gigs of ram in Vista is plenty, and DDR2800 or 1066 is fine. Though I don't have a ton of experience with Vista 64 bit, my understanding is it's more trouble than it's worth right now and not helpful for improving gaming.

GPU family, CPU family, CPU clock speed, amount of RAM, and hard drive speed are the most important factors determing the gaming performance of your rig, in that order of importance imho.

My philosophy is a little different though - instead of trying to "future-proof" your rig(which is impossible) select components that give you alot of bang for your buck, then just build a new computer every couple years. Today you can build a gaming rig that will perform 90% as well (or better) as some exotic setup from Alienware or some such for 20% of the price, and play all games at max settings with good framerates (except Crysis - which no desktop can dominate).