Opinions on a new, OTT build

My cousin's in the market for a new PC again. He's just had to take a supplier to court to sue for breach of contract (paid £2k for a PC which hadn't arrived after 9 months) - so he's got plenty of money.

I think what he's looking at is slightly over the top (about 3 grand, UK£), so your opinions please (Moriz, Elder - I'm looking at you!)

Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-965 (4 X 3.20GHz) 6.4GTs/8MB Cache
12GB CORSAIR XMS3 1600MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (6x2GB)
ASUS® P6T DELUXE V2: DDR3, SATAII, 2 x PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 1 x PCI-e x1
300GB WD VelociRaptor® SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)
300GB WD VelociRaptor® SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm) (not in RAID...)
6x BLU-RAY WRITER & HD-DVD ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
1024MB GEFORCE GTX285 PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
1024MB GEFORCE GTX285 PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT (yes, two)
COOLERMASTER HAF 932 BLACK GAMING PC CASE
1200W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
ASUS TRITON 81 PURE COPPER BASE ULTRA COOLER

What's the word?

(Edit - already) Talked him in to getting the Asus Rampage II Extreme, sticking the two Velociraptors in RAID 1, and (this is the contentious bit) swapping the SLI'd 285s for a 295. Oh, and an Asus Xonar DX for good measure. Also, as I don't trust no-name PSUs, I opted for the unnecessarily large 1500W modular Thermaltake Toughpower.

If you can configure anything better from his manufacturer of choice, look here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index....&select=intel4

Overkill. Hot. MoarRam. GreenhouseEffect.

That's all I've got.

Actually, I've talked him down to 6GB of RAM - don't think he'll need 12GB for GW and Office :/

Get a third GTX 285 while you're at it! xD

Anyway, will he only use it for office work and GW? If yes, that's WAAAAAAAAAAAAY overpowered. But then, if he has the money, why not...

Make sure it has lots of shiny lights on it to. Since he's basically using it as decoration it might as well look kewl.

I would stick the VR's in RAID 0. Backup necessary files to another internal drive or an external.

Damn - I meant 0. Striped, not mirrored.

You just made my day

Ok, let's narrow it down.

What is better, one GTX295 (the current fastest graphics card) or a pair of GTX285s (the current fastest single-chip solution)?

(Edit) That's him - next post.

Ok Its a bit of Overkill, But what the hell, I,ve got the cash (well I will have soon)

mmmm shiney lights, now thats a good idea, might need to wire it in to the national grid.

12gb of RAM lol I think 6 will do it.

The question is though Shall I have 1 GTX295 or 2 GTX285's

May i suggest you try here:

Novatech

Theyre quite cheap and they are good at service i use them myself.

I agree, chocodiledundee - I always use Novatech for all my components. Problem is, Weebs is not confident enough to build his own system and Novatech's pre-builds aren't configurable.

He knows I'd happily build it for him, but he'd rather go for the peace of mind and guarantees that a pre-built system comes with.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon...odid=FS-066-OK - Overclockers do have a configurator, but they're out of VRaps.

Well,theoretically, 2 GTX 285 will outperform 1 GTX 295. The GTX 295 is basically two GTX 260/285 hybrids sandwiched together.

The GTX 295 has 2x 448-bit memory interface compared to the 512-bit memory interface of the 280/285. It also has 2x 896 MB Memory, compared to the 1024 MB Memory of the 280/285.

I myself got a GTX 295, and I can say that there is no game which doesn't run fluently (even Crysis/Warhead on max, 1680x1050 AAx2 runs well over 35 FPS constantly) Of course, GTA IV doesn't run that well again, but that's due to it's heavy CPU usage ( I "only" got an E8500 @ 3.8 Ghz). With your CPU, you should be flying trough that game.

I can see his trepadation, but to be honest the only way to learn in to jump in thats how i learnt.

i speced myself a small pc (by comparison) for just over £360.00 a mid range. but i did splash out on the graphecs card a bit. and thats with Windows XP and a wireless dongle. i'm picking that up this wkend lol

overkill indeed, but if you have the cash, why not?
i'd go with 2x gtx285's because they'll perform better at higher resolutions.

oh, and if you're buying unnecessary goodies, buy this monitor: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?DLL-3008
that thing is SICK! costs alot, but a friend of mine just bought it, and he's very satisfied. woohoo 30'' .

and you can get a tv at that size for under £500. its a matter of what you want but i have a 32" sony bravia that i run my computer through. it works great.

Well yeah, but you're not going to run a 32" Bravia at 2560x1600 are you?

Besides, the smug git's got a 42" plasma on his wall :/

I only have 2 things to say about that:

no, and bastard

Why would you spend that much and not buy an SSD from Intel?

Built a similar machine for a customer recently (to a combined spec we both worked on), but I used the Corsair 1000W PSU (which is truly awesome), a Lian Li case and an ATI HD-4870X2. And 12GB is just insane, 8GB is fine. Vista Ultimate 64 bit, I assume


Also, I prefer Raid 1 for the data security it gives. Raid 0 is faster but way more susceptible to failure, and SSD is faster still and less prone to fail. Small, but very quick. Obviously SSD, would just be for the OS and game installs which would benefit (like shooters).