Rough specs

[pc master]

I will be starting a pc company soon and I am working out the rough specs for our pc's. I have just been working on a high end gaming build. What do you think.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Corsair Twinx 2x512MB XMS3200 (2)
500GB Maxror SATA 2
2x MSI GeForce 7900GTX in SLI
FSP Epsilon 700watt psu
Sony CDRW/DVD
Arctic cooler 64 PRO
Samsung SM930BF 19" TFT
Creative inspire T3030
Gigabyte 3D Aurora Aluminium silver case
Microsoft intellimouse
Logitech media keyboard
Windows XP home edition

I am expecting the retail price to be around £2600. I was thinking of water cooling the videoc cards and cpu but I cant find a VGA water cooler for the 7900.

[786ARS]

nice set up, but 1. you might consider an fx 60 as they are better gaming wise, and you would make better use of the extra cooling facilities, becasue of the unlocked multiplier. 2. before you think about water cooling the gfx cards, is your psu sli-certified. check at slizone.com (i think). as for the water cooling blocks, i dont know sorry. Also, you could go for dual 7900GTs, and have an extra gig of ram instead.

[pc master]

I checked the psu is SLI certified. Sure then I will change the CPU to an FX60.

[786ARS]

you might want another gig of ram, it does help alot with gaming.

[pc master]

OKay, I will ditch the 512mb sticks and go for 2 1gb sticks in duel channel. The FX60 adds a hefty £700 to the price tag though.

[Panama Red]

You could always consider making the 4800 your "base line" gaming rig and offer the FX60 as an upgrade. You may scare away the folks that would pay the 4800 price if you use the FX60 price as your advertised price.

[blue60007]

You can't have 3 sticks of RAM in dual channel - only two of the sticks will be. Anything over 2gb is pretty well useless, even if programs and XP could address anything over 2 gigs. I read in another post and in an article that regular (32 bit) XP maxes out at anywhere from 2.5 gigs and up. 64 bit XP would solve that but it's driver support isn't great. I'd stick with what you've got or get 2 1 gig sticks.

[pc master]

Yeah the FX60 will be an upgrade. Also how hot does it run. The Gigabyte case as one fan at the front and two at the back. But I am not sure how hot the FX60 is. Will the stock cooler be alright or is a third party cooler better. Do you think I should do the Gigabyte water cooler as an upgrade as well.

[Tin]

Originally Posted by pc master Yeah the FX60 will be an upgrade. Also how hot does it run. The Gigabyte case as one fan at the front and two at the back. But I am not sure how hot the FX60 is. Will the stock cooler be alright or is a third party cooler better. Do you think I should do the Gigabyte water cooler as an upgrade as well.

The stock AMD64 is actually a pretty darn good cooler. I had my 3700+ Clawhammer and now my 3800+ Manchester both overclocked...all on the stock cooler. Im seeing about 36C at idle on the stock cooler with my 3800+...and about 45C full load.

[pc master]

I am also working on a high end INtel system with an ATII X1900XTX card. I will be using the Pentium D 950 with an option for the extreme ediiton, I will definatly be replacing the stock cooler on this system . Expect the same case, psu, ect.

[glc]

I would NOT replace the stock cooler for warranty reasons! Do you want to sell a system with no processor warranty and be responsible for it yourself?

[Panama Red]

The stock cooler works just fine on the 950 D. I'm running one with two Folding@home clients - one on each processor - and I'm running the stock cooling. Even in an 80 degree (F) room, the cpu temp never gets above 60 degrees C. That's both cpu's at 100% load.