General Setup Question

[gonesy]

Hi all,

I have a general question about system set-up.

I have 2 computers at the moment, 1 has an MSI P7 Diamond 780i motherboard with a Q6700 processor in it and the other is an ASUS Striker II Formula 780i and has an E8600 processor in it. I have 2GB of 1066MHz in each system.

I have recently bought 2 x GTX 260 (216) Graphics Cards that I am using in SLI. I also have 2 x 8800GTS 512 that I could run in SLI although I could sell them. One computer is used for gaming and the other my 13 year old uses to chat on MSN and do girly stuff, but no gaming to mention.

I want to get the best set-up possible for gaming so I can use any combination. I am also running Windows 7 32bit and Vista 32bit on one computer and just Vista 32bit on the other, if that helps at all.

I am running the 2 GTX’s at the moment on a 700 watt PSU, using 2 dedicated PCI-E 6 pin connectors to power 1 card and 4 Molex connectors to power the 2nd card, is this acceptable?

I do not intend to overclock anything, I like to have things running at stock, my head seems to tell me that the components may just last a bit longer.

All your input is gratefully received as usual, and if you have any questions then please ask, thanks.

 

[wuzy]

A lot of latest games today are well capable of using over 2GB of RAM in total when running Vista so 4GB would be recommended (meaning x64 time). You can either go with 4x1GB if the two rigs have RAM sticks matching specs similarly or 2x2GB DDR2-1066 kits are extremely cheap these days.

If you play PhysX heavy games like Mirror Edge where enabling it will result in heavy FPS loss, you can use one 8800GTS 512 as a third/dedicated card for PhysX.
Stick with the E8600 + 780i combo if the rig is solely used for gaming.

Besides the above suggestions selling the two 8800GTS 512 and the Q6700 would be the best way to go and re-invest it in something else. A HTPC perhaps.

 

[gonesy]

@wuzy

Thanks for the suggestions. I have 4 sticks of matched RAM so the 4GB option is a good one. You said about using the 8800GTS as a dedicated PhysX card, how would I go about doing that?

many thanks