Anything i can do to boost performance without jacking the price here?

[jcummons]

I want to stay with the GTX 260 instead of an ATI card i have Abysmal luck with ATI cards and i hate heat. i intend to SLI it with a second card and change the CPU to a good quad in a year or two. all these parts are from Newegg and total
$ 1473.00

CASE: RAIDMAX SMILODON Extreme Black ATX-612WEB 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Foldout MB Computer Case

CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 CPU @ 3.16GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit

CPU COOLER: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler

MOTHERBOARD: EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i FTW SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

MEMORY: OCZ Platinum Edition 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2P10004GK

VIDEO CARD: BFG Tech BFGEGTX260MC896OC2E GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

PSU: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Sony NEC Optiarc 20X DVD±R Burner Black SATA Model AD-7200S-0B

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit

SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

 

[englandr753]

I would bump up that psu to at least a 750 watt psu. It seems like a lot of the recommended suggestions for the higher end video cards are configured with 750 watters.

Go with the Corsair or PC Power & Cooling, whichever is cheaper...

 

[4745454b]

If you are going to upgrade the CPU in a year or two, why get that CPU? Seeing as your getting an after market HSF, get the 5200 or 7200 and overclock the cr@p out of it. Even if it dies early, your replacing it in a year or two.

I wouldn't get the nvidia board, that overclock I mentioned will/might cause harddrive corruption. But seeing as for some reason you want to SLI the 260, I guess you don't have any choice.

Drop down to 4GBs of ram. DDR2-800. DDR3 is coming, so new computers will use it. Unless your going to stick with this machine for a long time, just use 4GBs.

The last cost saver is to get a different case. You didn't provide any links, so I have no idea how much you are spending. Seeing as this is a steel case, I'm sure it costs a bunch. Switch to something else, I doubt you'll notice anything.

 

[Zecow]

The PSU wattage is fine.. off the wall a crossfired 4870x2 consumes around 800w @ 80% efficiency, its around 650. So a 700w psu for that rig should be ok.
I recommend Corsair though...

 

[arson94]

Wow ZeCow, seems like I've been following you around in these damn threads for the past 2 or 3 days lol...

The only reason they recommend 750w PSU's for these higher end video cards in SLI and CROSSFIRE is because of the amps the cards require. Just make sure your amps are sufficient and you'll be ok.

 

[croc]

Wow ZeCow, seems like I've been following you around in these damn threads for the past 2 or 3 days lol...

The only reason they recommend 750w PSU's for these higher end video cards in SLI and CROSSFIRE is because of the amps the cards require. Just make sure your amps are sufficient and you'll be ok.

I think that you need to take a course on basic electronics... knowing amperage without knowing voltage is as useless as teats on a bull. I have a 20A wall circuit... How big of a floor heater can I have? Ohm's law is your friend.

 

[4745454b]

Not only that, s/he figured the efficiency backwards. First, there is no way a 4870x2 consumes 800W. A total system with a 4870x2 maybe, but there is no way a single card draws that much power. Second, s/he figured 800w * .8 = 640W, or about 650W. Thats not the way it works however.

When talking about the efficiency of a PSU, you are talking about how well it converts AC power to DC power. The more efficient it is, the less power from the wall it will use, and the less heat it should emit. For example, lets say we have two 500W PSUs, one that is 65% (.65) and another which is 80% (.8). To supply 500W, the 65% efficient PSU will need to draw (500W * 100 / 65) 769W from the wall. The 80% PSU will need to only draw 625, nearly 150W less.

I don't mean to be rude, but I suggest more reading before talking about these things. The OP should make sure that his OCZ 700W PSU is enough for 2 GTX260s. These are large power hungry cards, and it might not be up to the task.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

I don't mean to be rude, but I suggest more reading before talking about these things. The OP should make sure that his OCZ 700W PSU is enough for 2 GTX260s. These are large power hungry cards, and it might not be up to the task.

I agree. I've seen ZeCow recommending some pretty low PSU's on high-end machines. Some more research is definitely recommended. Nvidia's site only has two 750W PSU's on it's certified PSU list for SLI GTX260's. Most of them are 850W+. The only OCZ PSU on the list is 1000W. Here's a link to the Nvidia SLI PSU page:

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

There is no reason to go below the recommended PSU or you're asking for trouble.

 

[jcummons]

http://www.ocztechnology.com/drivers/GameXstream_700W_chart.jpg

This is the new gamexstream 700w PSU it has four 12v rails instead of one like the Elitexstream 1000w. I figured that would be better than the single rail 1000w PSU

 

[arson94]

I think that you need to take a course on basic electronics... knowing amperage without knowing voltage is as useless as teats on a bull. I have a 20A wall circuit... How big of a floor heater can I have? Ohm's law is your friend.

WTF? Who the hell needs to know Ohm's Law to choose a PSU? And considering that video cards run off the 12V rail, your other condescending remark is also nullified. If you're going to be a dick, don't bother posting unless you're going to add something to the thread. Your post was absolutely useless and not relative to this thread. Maybe I could have specified that the amps in question were on the 12V rail. Since the power to the card is always 12V, knowing your amps, which is what I originally said, gives you watts as Watts = Volts x Amps.

 

[croc]

WTF? Who the hell needs to know Ohm's Law to choose a PSU? And considering that video cards run off the 12V rail, your other condescending remark is also nullified. If you're going to be a dick, don't bother posting unless you're going to add something to the thread. Your post was absolutely useless and not relative to this thread. Maybe I could have specified that the amps in question were on the 12V rail. Since the power to the card is always 12V, knowing your amps, which is what I originally said, gives you watts as Watts = Volts x Amps.

OK, *******.... Have it your way. Then tell me how many MFG's list their GPU performance in amps... Or how many PSU's are rated in amps per rail.... Your constant harping in several posts that it is the amps that matter, not the wattage, indicates to me a rather poor understanding of basic electronics.

I posted this reply not to denigrate you per se' but hopefully so that your misleading posts don't lead some noob on a wild goose chase.

 

[arson94]

OK, I don't want to start any $hit, all I'm saying is that if you only look at Watts, then a 700W PSU has enough watts to handle crossfire 4870x2's, but doesn't necessarily provide enough amps on the 12V rails to sustain at full load. And if that happens, the computer's just gonna shut off. It's alot easier with a PSU that only has one 12V rail, as you don't have to worry about using two seperate rails to the same card. But, a 700W multi-rail PSU seems to carry more amps across all rails combined than most of the 750W single rail PSU's I've seen. The amps do matter, but i'm not trying to say that only the amps matter. It's just something to keep in mind when trying to crossfire or sli the top cards now. And every PSU's specs lists the amps on every +-12V, +-5V, and +-3.3V rail. GPU specs never lists the watts or the amps, at least I've never seen them from the MFG's. Somebody else always measures full system power draw in their reviews. And I'm going to take a lucky stab in the dark and say that you're "*******" in your response is a substitution for the word @$$hole. Am I right?

 

[croc]

OK, I don't want to start any $hit, all I'm saying is that if you only look at Watts, then a 700W PSU has enough watts to handle crossfire 4870x2's, but doesn't necessarily provide enough amps on the 12V rails to sustain at full load. And if that happens, the computer's just gonna shut off. It's alot easier with a PSU that only has one 12V rail, as you don't have to worry about using two seperate rails to the same card. But, a 700W multi-rail PSU seems to carry more amps across all rails combined than most of the 750W single rail PSU's I've seen. The amps do matter, but i'm not trying to say that only the amps matter. It's just something to keep in mind when trying to crossfire or sli the top cards now. And every PSU's specs lists the amps on every +-12V, +-5V, and +-3.3V rail. GPU specs never lists the watts or the amps, at least I've never seen them from the MFG's. Somebody else always measures full system power draw in their reviews. And I'm going to take a lucky stab in the dark and say that you're "*******" in your response is a substitution for the word @$$hole. Am I right?

You obviously don't understand how most new PSU's are designed, or you don't understand how the various PSU certification labs test various standards. I could give you various links to the most common certification labs, NIST being one and UL being another, but this is getting as boring as trying to teach an eight year old why to use proper punctuaion.