Building new PC, looking for oppinions on selection.

[Yarginis]

So here's what I've put together for my new system. I think I've got everything figured out, I'd just like to get a few look-overs to make sure I haven't bone-headedly left something out, or missed some glaring computability issue. (Swapped motherboard already because my 1st choice seemed to have a lot of RAM computability problems from reading reviews) Anyways here's my planned setup, and below is a link to a copy I made of my Newegg shopping cart where you can click the links to view the exact items & such. MoBo: EVGA Nforce 680i Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Ram: 4gb Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC26400 HD: 2x 320gb Western Digital Raid-0 Video Card: BFG Tech 8800gtx 768mb Sound: X-Fi Extreme Game Fatal1ty PS: 700w OS: Vista Ultimate Thats pretty much the core components, a full list of parts with links can be found here. <a href="http://www.yargnit.com/pc-setup2.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.yargnit.com/pc-setup2.html</a> I was considering, swapping from Vista 32bit to 64 bit, but am not quite sure on driver availability or the performance increase in EQ2 since it's a 32bit app. Anyways, just looking for feedback/comments/suggestions on system. Thx. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[TheJoeJoeMan]

<p>The powersupply you selected may not work fully with the 8800(at the very least give it the power it needs), Nvidia states: Min of 475watt power supply(Which your is) with a 12V current rating of 32a or more(Your powersupply has 3 12v rails rating at 16A, 25A and 17A). While the card will probally work, it will not work to it's full powered potiential(Has the potiential for certain components on the card not to work to it's full power due to lack of power). While i doubt you will have a major issue, you might want to look into getting a different power supply that meets the Min requirements of the Card Manufacturer.<b><b><span style="color: #0099ff"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span></span></span></b></b></p>

[TheJoeJoeMan]

<cite>TheJoeJoeMan wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The powersupply you selected may not work fully with the 8800(at the very least give it the power it needs), Nvidia states: Min of 475watt power supply(Which your is) with a 12V current rating of 32a or more(Your powersupply has 3 12v rails rating at 16A, 25A and 17A). While the card will probally work, it will not work to it's full powered potiential(Has the potiential for certain components on the card not to work to it's full power due to lack of power). While i doubt you will have a major issue, you might want to look into getting a different power supply that meets the Min requirements of the Card Manufacturer.<b><b><span style="color: #0099ff"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></b></b></p></blockquote><p> From what i have been told(and Someone that knows better please correct me if i am wrong), is that if you have 3 12V rails(we'll use your power supply as the example) with 16A, 25A and 17 A, that means if you have all 3 in use that is what the power ratings would be. But if you do not have one in use then it's power could be used by one of the other 12V rails. So say you are using the 16A and the 25A but not the 17A, then the 16A would potientially be 24.5A and the 25A could be 33.5A. So if you are not using all three 12V rails then using the 25A on the card should be fine.</p><p>That is what I've been told about how those work, Someone with expert powersupply knowledge, please correct me if i am wrong. Thanks </p>

[Terynn]

If you don't mind saving nearly $600, I'd cut the ram in half to 2GB and stick with windows XP.  If you're only running EQII, there's really no need for more ram...2 gb is plenty.  Also, cutting vista not only saves you money, but many headaches.  Most experts always say wait for 4-6 months after a windows platform launch for all the updates, fixes, and compatability issues to work themselves out.  I plan on getting nearly an identical system sometime around May-June.  Nice setup

[Yarginis]

Now the 8800gtx's have 2 power inputs, correct? So would that not mean that each input would only have to be half the 32 (so 16 each or better) to meet the full requirement? (or am I not reading this correctly?) The reason I went with 4gb is pretty simple. From my understanding eq2 with full graphical settings on maximum will top out at about 1.8gb of memory used. On a 2gb system that leaves only 200mb approximately free for windows and any other programs that may be running, and I know for a fact that I've had ACT (Parser) showing upwards of 500mb used when importing the parses of several raids simultaneously, and with Vista using more memory than XP, too much is better than too little. (I am a devout believer in completely disabling the windows paging file, so I must have enough RAM that windows won't ever miss it) As for Vista, I know I've heard the same, but my whole point on the timing of building this machine is that I was waiting until Vista was released so that I could build a system with Vista and full dx10 support. (I also play EVE online occasionally, which I know for a fact has a dx10 only client in the works) & really the savings on getting XP vs Vista (XP Pro, not home) isn't that significant when evaluating the overall cost of the machine. So I'm going to stick with Vista and the 4gb RAM, but I would be interested in hearing more on the power supply issue. Newegg had this PS bundled with the Motherboard, and since the MoBo was running the Nvidia 680i chip set, and was actually designed to support up to 3 PCI-E video cards I had figured that and PS bundled with it would at least be completely sufficient to run a single top end card. But I will look more into this, and if anyone else who knows more specifically could chip in, I'd appreciate it. Hoping to get this ordered tomorrow, so I'd like to iron everything out with it. ;P

[Yarginis]

Sorry to double post, but I can't seem to find the edit button on new forums. : So here's the applicable quote taken from the 8800gtx specs: <hr /> The graphics card physically occupies two slots A 475W PCI Express-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 32A or more* Two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors -or- Four 4-pin Molex power connectors <hr /> Reading that, I take it to mean that the available power going to all of the 12V rails combined must be at least 32A. & going under the assumption that it means this 32A must be all available to the card, and that the card does indeed have multiple power inputs, that this 32A should be deliverable from a combination of at least 2. The power supply states: <hr /> +3.3@28A,+5V@30A,+12V1@16A,+12V2@25A,+12V3@17A,- [email protected],[email protected] <hr /> For it's listed outputs. Therefore I would operate under the impression that any combination of the 12V@16, 17, or 25 A being connected to the video card would result in proper availability of power? That, plus the fact that a $170 retail power supply is obviously designed to appeal to those people interested in top end hardware, and I would think that it should handle the graphics card just fine. Or am I completely misreading something?

[TheJoeJoeMan]

<cite>Yarginista wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sorry to double post, but I can't seem to find the edit button on new forums. : So here's the applicable quote taken from the 8800gtx specs: <hr /> The graphics card physically occupies two slots A 475W PCI Express-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 32A or more* Two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors -or- Four 4-pin Molex power connectors <hr /> Reading that, I take it to mean that the available power going to all of the 12V rails combined must be at least 32A. & going under the assumption that it means this 32A must be all available to the card, and that the card does indeed have multiple power inputs, that this 32A should be deliverable from a combination of at least 2. The power supply states: <hr /> +3.3@28A,+5V@30A,+12V1@16A,+12V2@25A,+12V3@17A,- [email protected],[email protected] <hr /> For it's listed outputs. Therefore I would operate under the impression that any combination of the 12V@16, 17, or 25 A being connected to the video card would result in proper availability of power? That, plus the fact that a $170 retail power supply is obviously designed to appeal to those people interested in top end hardware, and I would think that it should handle the graphics card just fine. Or am I completely misreading something? </blockquote>I read up some more after I posted originally, since the card does have two power connectors, you should be fine with your power supply unless you are installing other componets that require 12V rails since you will only have one left after the card.