Suggestions as to upgrades?

Hey everyone, as you may now know I'm planning on doing a major upgrade this summer as I'm going to be making a lot of money at my job and will only buy music and games otherwise. I'm going to be upgrading the following:
Video card: GeForce 7800GTX hopefully
Mobo, something SLIable
Sound Card
Maybe another hard drive
Possibly another case: Antec super lanboy
Cpu: Maybe 3700 San Diego
Ram: 2x512 kit, latency 2-x-x-x?
DVD+/-RW dual layer drive
PSU: Something really nice that can support 2 GeForce 7 cards. (Unless ATI's look better)
I think that should do it, so anthing blank I'm not sure yet, anything that you think is really good? Any new products I should watch out for? Any suggestions at all would be appreciated, budget is large so I can probably look at spending around $1000 when all is said and done. Thanks everyone.

 

Thanks dude, nope, still the old 15 incher but I do plan to get a 19" CRT soon, hopefully my Dad will get it as he promised if my grades were B's or above, I can only cross my fingers now. I've definately decided against LCD's as we know, plus they aren't really a great value for what you get, comparitively anyway. I might wait for ATI's crossfire and new line of cards before I buy anything.

 

I'd hit up SLI Zone and look at the PSU's listed there. The Enermax EG701AX is probably going to be the cheapest of the bunch. Now, keep in mind these are the SLI certified units and you might be able to find other SLI users with something else.

For an SLI board, I'd go with the Asus A8N-SLI or the DFI LanParty/LP UT NF4 SLI-DR, depending on what kind of OC'ing you'd like.

 

Thanks BB, great link, I like the looks of the DFI LanParty myself, though how would the overcclocking differ between boards?

 

The DFI has the widest range of voltages and the most memory tweaks, which can make a difference. That's also the bad part about it if you've not dealt with as many of them before. Of course, there's no guarantee you will get a better OC with the DFI over the Asus, but you've simply got the best options out their.


Also, if you go with the DFI, (and you should do this anyway) is be careful about what PSU you use. Most people are using OCZ PowerStreams or Enermax units with their DFI's, preferrably of at least 480W and a 24-pin ATX power connector.

I could keep going on and on, but I think you'll find it better if you can read up on it yourself at DFI's supported forums, DFI Street. There's just a lot of good info about what stuff to pay attention to, and the boards will work fine. They just are a little pickier with the PSU and RAM than other boards. I'd also look up info on the A8N as I'm sure that one has it's own nuances.

 

A little picky eh, hmm, that's a bit of a let down but I'll definately concider both. I just don't like worrying if what I just bought will work okay and if it doesn't how will I know what's wrong kind of thing. Thanks though dude.

EDIT: Whoops, the SLI central link doesn't seem to be working B, and google's not comming up with anything right off. Thought I'd let you know.

 

ahh dude if you get a 7800GTX ahh, nice i have a 3700 SD too, but damn id be jealous

 

Link fixed.

As far as the PSU pickiness: if you just follow DFI's recommendations, you'll be fine...that's what people don't get.

 

Good work, it's not the psu's I'm worried about, it's just simple upgrades like ram for instance.

 

The biggest issues happen to be with Corsair's Value RAM. The latest BIOS available is supposed to help with it, but just as a general rule, you don't want to go with the cheapest stuff you can find. If you want RAM that won't cost an arm and a leg, look at Patriot/PDP PC3200+XBL (make sure it's the +XBL) or something by G.Skill. A lot of people are using OCZ's VX RAM, but that's a bit on the high-side, and I've seen it priced higher than Corsair XMS DDR.

I really like the Patriot +XBL. I've been able to hit 285MHz with 3-4-4-8 timings and 2.8V. My CPU won't hit that high on the HTT (doesn't seem to want to go past a 260MHz HTT), but if I get something that will in the future, I've got capable RAM that didn't cost me a fortune.

 

So is this
crappy ram? It looks awfully tempting but I've never heard of this brand before. Think it's worth a shot because it's pretty much the cheapest for the latency.

 

I googled it and I really didn't come up with anything for a review. I came up with several on-line vendors, but no actual reviews. It's your money, but I'd be really cautious.

I believe you can get a 1GB dual-channel kit of Corsair XMS PC3200 for under $150 @ Newegg. It's some of the less flashy XMS stuff (no blinking LEDs), but I'd spend the extra money with a known good RAM. The 1GB DC kit of the Patriot PC3200+XBL is $185 there, and does pretty good timings. They also use the Samsung TCCD chips that OC pretty well. I don't know if those Corsair sticks do or not, but there's ways to find out. XtremeSysForums has some thread regarding what has the TCCD stuff. I *think* you can find something similar over at PCPerspective's forums as well, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

i have 2 gigs of CMX1024-3200C2PT and they have little problems to people and seem to work great on dual channel, and another thing, if you dont have raid 0, get it, it speeds up things a noticeable amount in my opinion

 

Thanks guys, yeah I'm thinking about getting that and seeing how it will work but I might wait until someone on Newegg rates it first. I just think the latency it too good to miss, concidering that the Corsair XMS is quality stuff but pricier and has a higher latency. I'll keep pawing around I guess. I haven't done anthing with raid before, as I only have 1 80gig drive but if I get another I'm definately going to hop in that direction:good:

 

Raid 0 doesn't offer any backup system and if one drive goes byebye so does the other with your data.

 

thats why we have 0+1 haha

or he could save it on an old Ide drive or Dvd discs, but raid zero does improve the overall system performance

 

Well raid 0 is fine because it is the same thing as 1 HD, just faster. What I mean is that 1 HD offers no redundancy either, so if you need redundancy like on a server, then do it, but in my mind it's like having registered ECC RAM. Get an external drive for backup.

 

Hmmm, clever, I might try that later this summer when I get all my stuff.

 

It is defintaley worth it. At this point, at least in my opinion, hard drive speeds are the bottleneck of a computer. You get considerable speed gains over 1 hard drive.