Feb 2007 Gaming system spec

[ddrueding]

This is what I can build for under $2000 (charging about $3000) as a gaming PC. It includes things I would not put on my own system, but that "gamers" traditionally like (windows, 4-disk Rapor RAID-0 arrays, etc). Let me know what you think.

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E4300 - Retail
Scythe SCNJ-1100P 120mm CPU Cooling Fan - Retail
GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GX22GB6400UDCK - Retail
BFG Tech BFGR88640GTSOCE GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC HDCP Video Card - Retail
Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 ATX12V 650W Power Supply with Three 12V Rails - Retail
4x Western Digital Raptor WD360ADFD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology Black SATA Model SH-S183L - OEM
5x OKGEAR SATA II cable with metal latch,Silver Model GC36ATASM12 - Retail

Considering the pricetag, that is one hell of a system. I would be tempted to take it to 4GB of RAM and a 8800GTX for myself, but I don't think it's necessary for gaming.

 

[LunarMist]

I'd expect a faster CPU, but the gaming kids probably have bigger hard ons for the WD 10K drives. The gauche appearance of the case seems about right.

 

[ddrueding]

From another thread, Merc indicated that this CPU is massively overclockable.

 

[Clocker]

Informative review:
http://www.techspot.com/review/40-core2-e4300-vs-e6300-overclocking/page1.html

 

[ddrueding]

Good review. Summary:

E4300 - 3.46Ghz
E6300 - 3.5Ghz

While both processors achieved similar frequencies they used very different settings to achieve them, nevertheless real-world performance was much the same.

 

[Clocker]

I think there's only about a $15-$20 price difference between the two processors but you save yourself some $ by being able to buy cheaper RAM with the E4300 (since it has a lower default FSB).

 

[ddrueding]

I think there is more to the story than that. Because the E4300 is designed to use a lower FSB, it allows a higher multiplier value. Because of this higher multiplier value, turning the FSB up to the same as an E6300 gives you a healthy overclock while still keeping everything else within spec.

 

[ddrueding]

Updated Spec:

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E4300
Scythe SCNJ-1100P 120mm CPU Cooling Fan
2x GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GX22GB6400UDCK
BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXOCE GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM ATX12V / EPS12V 700W
4x Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM
SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology Black SATA Model SH-S183L
5x OKGEAR SATA II cable with metal latch,Silver Model GC36ATASM12
ViewSonic Pro Series VP2130b Black 21.3" 8ms DVI LCD Monitor
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech 6 Buttons Tilt Wheel USB Wired Laser G5 Mouse - BF 2142 Special Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2b 1pk w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield 2: Deluxe Edition
Battlefield 2: Special Forces
SWAT 4: Special Weapons and Tactics

Including Software and Peripherals it comes out to $3,800. Considering this is a LanParty Gamer's dream, I don't think he'll be too worried if I charge less than $5,000...

 

[time]

I've just specced a somewhat similar system, only for a power user rather than a gamer. Therefore, we're settling for Gigabyte Silent-Pipe X1650 graphics, a more conservative case, and 3 Samsung 400GB rather than 4 Raptor 74GB.

But seriously, if your 700W power supply isn't a manifestation of anatomical inadequacy, what is?

 

[time]

However, the real reason I posted was to express slight disappointment with the Viewsonic VP2130b we supplied to the same customer - great viewing angle, but in my view, otherwise showing its age.

I also chose a Philips 190P7EB as a secondary monitor. Only 19", but WOW! The best LCD monitor I've seen yet. They're not kidding about the 1300:1 contrast ratio, colors are just amazing. When we were trialling this stuff, the Viewsonic was left to gather dust while we drooled over the smaller Philips.

Unfortunately, it's also expensive. And very, very heavy - almost as heavy as the larger VP2130b. And even though the picture is still visible nearly side on, the contrast ratio is only that stunning in a fairly narrow range (60 degrees?). Nevertheless, it's at the top of my LCD-hating daughter's wishlist.

 

[Bozo]

Why the Allendale C2D rather than the Conroe?

Bozo :joker:

 

[Clocker]

Try post #7..

 

[Mercutio]

Several of my home PCs won't boot without a 700W PSU.
I don't know why anyone needs 1kW, but it's not that hard to need 600W+ with a high end graphics card, modern CPU, 4GB RAM and a case full of disk drives.

I'm actually not fond of the Seasonic 700W unit simply because the modular cables make building in a big ol' P180 rather more work than I care to do.

Why the Antec 900 as opposed to something decent? Is it lighter, or something? 'Cause from an aesthetic and layout standpoint, it's not appealing at all.

Also, depending on the game there can be real issues with 8800-series cards. City of Heroes, at least, has a laundry list of issues with them, plus there's apparently a lot of problems with those cards under Vista.

 

[ddrueding]

I've found modular cables in P180s to be a must. Theres simply too much opportunity for spare cables to foul the mid-mounted fan, or just obstruct airflow in the tunnel.

The Antec 900 is a bit smaller and lighter than the P180, plus it has a window and a cup holder; very useful for LAN parties. This system will be just for gaming, mostly at LAN events, he already has other systems for other stuff.

The games that are included with the package are the only games that are going to be on there for now, and the OS will be XP Pro 32-bit.

 

[sechs]

I don't know what you have running, but I used to run my dual processor system with a 430W PSU -- and that was back when I had 15k SCSI drives in the system. I'm sure that I could run it with a 350W or less PSU.

The reason that I overwatt my power supply is to make it quieter. Although you're at a less efficient point on the PSU's curve, it tends to produce less heat than if you were closer to its maximum output. This means that, for appropriate designs, the fans spin slower and make less noise.

 

[Sol]

I'd swap the WDs for a couple of Samsung 500GB drives it's too much money for too little space and not enough reliability... I'd probably use OC-Z ram instead of geil, I love geil ram for it's stability in stock systems but in my experience it doesn't overclock all that well even with heinous timings.

I'd also beef up the PSU to 700 or 800 watt.

I'd probably also go for an SLI capable board... No one should need 2 8800gtxs, but then no one should need a $3k gaming PC

As a personal thing if I was thinking of spending that type of money on a gaming system I would buy a E6600 or so and overclock it with excessive voltage and water cooling... Actually for that money I'd want to add the second 8800gtx right away and watercool both of them too (the card you list can be bought with a waterblock instead of a heatsink)...
If I really wanted the hard drive performance and had the floating cash I'd go with an SAS X15 before I touched something from WD.

But that's just what I'd do...

 

[ddrueding]

sechs, it's the video card and the number of drives that are going to really up the consumption I think. I would have put in an Antec NeoHE 550W, but bigger is better with this crowd.

Sol, capacity is not important nor is reliability. Only speed. For gamers, only raptors will do shy of 15K SAS. Dual 8800GTXs would be the next step, but game support for that is even more sketchy.

 

[Sol]

What's the rationale that says hard drive speed is of any use in games... All I can see is a load time reduction... That's nice for Oblivion and the like, although a 7200 is still plenty fast in my opinion, but I wait around in FEAR servers for a few seconds waiting for people to load in whenever the map changes and I'm running a 5400rpm laptop drive.

I'm reasonably sure that BF2142s slow load time is typically due to the amount of processing it does on data whilst loading rather than the hard drive access, so raptors would help some, but not as much as more CPU grunt...

Unless it's really important to you that you get a couple of extra seconds to take your pick of vehicles in Battlefield I just don't see the massive up side to a faster drive... Well not one worth using a WD for anyway...

 

[Mercutio]

Don't most organized network games make people wait for everyone to zone in anyway?

 

[ddrueding]

Guys, you're using reason and logic...we are talking about gamers here

When I first talked to some potential clients, I talked about a 500GB drive and an iRAM or two for games. They didn't know what it was, and when I told them a RAID-0 array of them wouldn't help anything, they dismissed it.

 

[Mercutio]

A few months back, didn't you say an X1600 was doing everything you wanted for gaming, ddrueding?

I notice that there are some x1800 (GTO models, sure, but still x1800s) models down around $120 now, and I understand the x1650 is a pretty substantial improvement over the x1600 as well.
On the other (evil) side, there are 7900GS cards around $150.

There are no DX10 games except the crappy ones that come with Vista.
Most people have who have a flat panel are gaming at 1280x1024.

And I'm given to understand that a lot of games actually have a maximum framerate these days.

So what are we getting out of $500 video cards right now, anyway?

 

[Clocker]

To Answer Merc's question...

Guys, you're using reason and logic...we are talking about gamers here

When I first talked to some potential clients, I talked about a 500GB drive and an iRAM or two for games. They didn't know what it was, and when I told them a RAID-0 array of them wouldn't help anything, they dismissed it.

But then that also raises the question as to why this system would not be Quad Core or something...

 

[Sol]

Well if logic for pure gaming dictates the fastest single core you can get the duel core kind of makes sense as a logic-free alternative...

And wouldn't a raid0 array of iRAMs be faster than just 1? I mean not practically obviously, no-one would write software that expected to be able to read from a drive anywhere near that fast but technically it should be... And I would have thought that the fact that that combo would blow a raid0 array of Raptors away speed wise would have been a selling point...

Clearly if you could not convince a gamer of this you were not using enough graphs...

 

[ddrueding]

Merc,

I'm currently running an "evil" 7950GT, driving a pair of VP2130b @ 1600x1200 each. Supreme Commander is not only multi-core, but multi-monitor as well It also claims DX10, but I doubt that it's much of an implementation. I could seriously use some more graphics horsepower to handle this monster.

Clocker/Sol,

I was trying for a system that I could sell profitably (but still beat Dell, Alienware, etc) for under $5000. It also had to have some character (4 drive RAID array) to get noticed. Two iRAMs would be faster if they were set up seperately with the OS on one and the game on the other I think. I'm looking forward to finding out some day

 

[P5-133XL]

Clocker/Sol,

I was trying for a system that I could sell profitably (but still beat Dell, Alienware, etc) for under $5000. It also had to have some character (4 drive RAID array) to get noticed. Two iRAMs would be faster if they were set up seperately with the OS on one and the game on the other I think. I'm looking forward to finding out some day

I'm sorry, but I think you have it all wrong. The group you are trying to get are young (with money). Young because of the gaming and money because you are trying to deal with the very high-end at $5000. I would argue that that group is not going to be impressed with raid: If anything, the current equivilent to raid is water-cooling (another pointless exercise). I would argue that they are also going to know that the E4300 is a low-end CPU and discount it.

If I were to try for that market, I would junk the raptors and do two things. First, I would hire someone to do a custom paint job on a neat looking case, small and portable is prefered. Add a Tuniq Tower 120, and deliberately over clock it and then advertise it as overclocked: Guarantee a clock frequency. The same thing with your graphics cards.

If you want to do more than an occasional one, then I'd look into placing the art work on plastic (contact paper) and then wrap the case.

It will increase your labor costs, but it will distinguish yourself from the rest and I believe attract your target market.

 

[ddrueding]

Mark,

I appreciate your input and you almost have it right. The target isn't particularly young (they typically don't have this kind of money), the customers that are currently interested are in their mid-20s to late-30s. They have been playing for years and feel that it makes/keeps them young. Kind of an early mid-life crisis, or at least a gamer with a good job. The guy I'm doing this for had water cooling on their last rig; it's the kind of thing you only do once, and then you know better. I specifically picked the low-end chip and bragged about how it's going to be overclocked; bringing up his favorite old PC, a Celeron 300A @ 450Mhz. He no doubt will have it custom painted, and he is an electrician, and will be building his own custom wiring harness for it. Also all the lights will be his doing. Primarily I'm focusing on the technical guts of a bragging-rights gaming machine.

 

[Bozo]

I think there is more to the story than that. Because the E4300 is designed to use a lower FSB, it allows a higher multiplier value. Because of this higher multiplier value, turning the FSB up to the same as an E6300 gives you a healthy overclock while still keeping everything else within spec.

This might be a double edged sword. The system I'm using has a CPU running at 800MHz. My memory is rated at 667MHZ but is only running at 533MHz. It looks like with the system clock low, the memory runs low. Still investigating.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

Depending on your motherboard, there should be a memory multiplier setting somewhere. But IIRC, you are an Intel fan, and I have no idea about Intel branded mobos.