Review my future PC purchase!

[Kamakazie Sith]

CASE : ALUMINUM X-Navigator Server 420W W/ Window & Temp Dis, Fan Control w/ Liquid Cooling (BLACK w/ Blue, Black, & Silver Face Plate)

CPU : (Sckt775)Intel® Pentium® D 830 CPU @ 3.0GHz w/ 800FSB Dual-Core 2x1MB Cache, 64 Bit

MOTHERBOARD : Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe nForce4 Chipset LGA775 DDR2/667 SATA RAID Dual PCIE w/7.1Audio,Dual GbLAN,IEEE1394

MEMORY : (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (4x512MB) PC5300 DDR2/667 Dual Channel Memory (Kingston Hyper-X High Performance Memory w/ Heat Spreader)

VIDEO CARD : NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
SLI
VIDEO CARD 2 : NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card

MONITOR & LCD : NONE

HARD DRIVE : (SATA150) Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive

Hard Drive 2 : NONE

Optical Drive : SONY 16X DVD-ROM (BLACK COLOR)

Optical Drive 2 : SONY DWQ-28A DUAL FORMAT 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)

SOUND : New! Creative Labs X-FI XtremeMusic 24-BIT PCI Sound Card

[weemadando]

Mmmmm. Beast.

[Captain tycho]

If this is for gaming, I'd go for an AMD 3800+ or 4200+. AMDs almost always wipe the floor with Intels in games, and the dual-cores are positively awesome. Plus, future games will start utilizing them more, so thats an added bonus.
Other than that, looks pretty good, but I would opt for 2 1 gigabyte sticks of RAM so you could run em in dual channel mode.

[phongn]

You may wish to consider an Athlon64 X2 3800 rather than the Pentium D 830, along with two 1GB sticks of RAM (along with the Asus A8N-SLI motherboard).

[Uraniun235]

Uhh, you can run dual channel with four sticks of memory. But why are you getting 4x512 instead of 2x1GB? That doesn't leave you any room to upgrade.

I second the AMD > Intel remark, especially when it comes to dual-core CPUs.

Twin 7800 GTX cards is incredible overkill.

[Ace Pace]

I'll third the AMD > Intel and expand it to include everything bar rendering.

[MKSheppard]

Always get a second hard drive. Why? Because if your windows install goes tits up you can just format the OS hard drive and not lose all your saved stuff on Hard drive 2.

[Pu-239]

Or just partition the HDD... (besides, one is supposed to back up to another computer anyway)

[Uraniun235]

Well, one could also simply partition a single hard drive, and then just format the OS partition should it come to that.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I guess I could order the RAM seperately. The reason that it's 4X512 is because of the builder, Cyberpower. They don't offer 1GIG sticks. *(For intel)*

Shep - I already have a second HD, a 120GB Western Digital.

As for AMD, yeah I suppose I should switch. I've always used Intel, but perhaps it's time for a change.

I could build the whole thing myself, but I simply don't what to do it. I'd rather pay the extra money.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Twin 7800 GTX cards is incredible overkill.

I know, and I love it.

[darthdavid]

Cyberpower? Never heard of 'em. You used them before? Don't want to buy something that bitchin' rad from someplace shitty.

[Arrow]

Twin 7800 GTX cards is incredible overkill.

I know, and I love it.

I have SLI'ed GTXs - gaming at high res (1920x1200) with AA and AF and high FPS made the purchase well worth it.

Also, you'll need a lot more power than 420W PSU. 510W average is the minimum (that would be the PC Power and Cooling SLI PSU).

And go with the AMD X2s. Right now, they have the better architecture and will have better performance when games start making use of dual cores.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Twin 7800 GTX cards is incredible overkill.

I know, and I love it.

I have SLI'ed GTXs - gaming at high res (1920x1200) with AA and AF and high FPS made the purchase well worth it.

Also, you'll need a lot more power than 420W PSU. 510W average is the minimum (that would be the PC Power and Cooling SLI PSU).

And go with the AMD X2s. Right now, they have the better architecture and will have better performance when games start making use of dual cores.

Yeah, I have a 600W PS designed for SLI.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Cyberpower? Never heard of 'em. You used them before? Don't want to buy something that bitchin' rad from someplace shitty.

They are quality. Check them out.

www.cyberpower.com,[/url]

[The Jester]

Is an Intel 3.0 GHz fast enough to keep up with dual 7800 GTX's?

[Ace Pace]

Is an Intel 3.0 GHz fast enough to keep up with dual 7800 GTX's?

I'd hazerd a educated guess at no.

[Captain tycho]

Twin 7800 GTX cards is incredible overkill.

I know, and I love it.

120fps in Half Life 2 with everything jacked up is sweet.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Is an Intel 3.0 GHz fast enough to keep up with dual 7800 GTX's?

I'm switching to the AMD 4400. I'll post my new specs later tonight.

By the way, what would be the recommended processor for dual 7800s?

[Arrow]

The 4400 or the 4800 should minimize any CPU bottlenecks for a dual core CPU. I have a 4800, and it rarely affects my playability.

[InnocentBystander]

Cyberpower? Never heard of 'em. You used them before? Don't want to buy something that bitchin' rad from someplace shitty.

Cyberpower is a great place to buy a computer if you want a high level of configuration and relatively low cost.

They are definatly a buyer beware company. They insure the core components (minus GPU) for a year, beyond that everyone else is ensured by the manufacturer (just like if you were to get something retail), they've got this tendency (maybe it's gone away?) to use lesser quality power supplies, so it's always a good idea to buy your own, or at least upgrade theirs, I know a lot of folks with cyberpowers who have had this problem.
If you need quality tech support, then you are SOL because no one provides it But last time I called the support line they offer, it wasn't indian guys, so that's a plus.

With them you are getting a great machine, but expect to run into a problem during it's lifetime, one problem. Mine was a dead PSU, my brother's was GPU fan, co-worker was PSU (slightly more pronounced than mine). It'll happen, but for the price; unbeatable. Not to mention almost every computer under the sun is going to have at least one problem in it's lifetime.
Expect a great computer; just not a falcon-nw.

As for AMD vs Intel; unless you spend your time doing nothing but video/audio encoding AMDs are simply better

[Kamakazie Sith]

CASE : HOT NEW! Xplorer Mid-Tower Case 420W W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display (Black Case w/Silver Face)

PSU : Enermax EG565P 535 Watt Power Supply (SLI-Ready)

CPU : (939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 X2 4800 CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology

MOTHERBOARD : (Sckt939)ASUS A8N-SLI nForce4 SLI Chipset SATA RAID Dual PCIE MB w/Gb-LAN,USB2.0,IEEE-1394,&7.1Audio

MEMORY : 2048 MB (1GBx2) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY (Corsair Value Select)

VIDEO CARD : NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card

VIDEO CARD 2 : NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card

MONITOR & LCD : NONE

HARD DRIVE : (SATA150) Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive

Hard Drive 2 : NONE

Optical Drive : SONY 16X DVD-ROM (BLACK COLOR)

Optical Drive 2 : SONY DWQ-28A DUAL FORMAT 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (SILVER COLOR)

SOUND : New! Creative Labs X-FI XtremeMusic 24-BIT PCI Sound Card

[Arrow]

<snip specs>

Very nice. Almost an exact clone of mine. Anyway they' strip that 420W PSU out of your order? That could help offset your shipping costs.

[Kamakazie Sith]

<snip specs>

Very nice. Almost an exact clone of mine. Anyway they' strip that 420W PSU out of your order? That could help offset your shipping costs.

I believe so. Either way I got a 5% discount so I'm not too worried about it.

If anyone is curious the system alone came to a total of $3,102, and with shipping the total is $3,167. However, with the 5% discount the grand total is; $3011.90.

[InnocentBystander]

Why cheap out with a 7200 rpm HD? If you're going nuts, you might as well grab a 10,000 rpm HD, maybe even raid it

Also, you might be in for a wait, Cyberpower is known for taking 3-4 weeks to deliver (not surprising, I hear they get a lot of business, being as well priced as they are).