NewB with New Rig

[blindFX]

I have read as much as i could on hardwares and stuff,
so i decided to build me a gaming comp. Here is what i put
together.

-Q6600
-680i STRIKER EXTREME
-EVGA 8800 GTX
-2GB DDR2 RAM
-74GB RAPTOR HDD
-COOLER MASTER HYPER 212 CPU COOLER
-1000W OCZ PSU [just incase i go SLI]

After operating it on xp pro, i tested out a few games "The Witcher" & "Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare". Played well with maxed out settings on a 22"
1680x1050 res.

Now i know almost nothing about ocing,
except that i oced the gtx's fan to run at 100%.

Minutes ago after further reading about all the wonders
of building your own pc, i found out certain components
that i had mismatched..such as the q6600 n the 680i.

Please let me know what are the disadvantages of my new
pc. Although whats done is done, i might consider new parts
if they're worth the upgrade in the future.

Thanks in advance for any pointers and advise.

:wave:

 

[Tmagic650]

You have gained good experience doing all this... We all started out new in building computers. Good luck

 

[link590o]

the only feasible disadvantage that i could see is the amount of RAM. 2 gigabytes these days is somewhat...standard. a lot of PCs use that much RAM and then try to do some heavy gaming and find that they still lag a bit. sometimes there are too many apps running, and for this that and the other reason they still experience lag.

after all, you did go pretty much all out. perhaps you could turn it into a rock solid gaming platform with 4 gigs or ram instead?

that's just a suggestion. i mean, sure. it played call of duty 4 nicely without any problems. but the real test would be Crysis. if it runs fine with that at maximum settings at that resolution, then i would say "ok it needs nothing else". but for now, i'd suggest an extra 2 gigs of RAM and you'd be set for a long time.

as for overclocking, typically there is software that you can download that lets you toy with the settings. for my ATI card, there was an overclocking utility that would work for me right from the desktop. all i had to do was choose the higher settings and it would start running at a faster speed immediately. and i could turn it on and off whenever.

perhaps there's such a utility for your gtx card. just make sure you know the advantages and disadvantages of overclocking though....i'm only saying that as a precaution so we don't get blamed because you broke your card...you know how it is.

i would also be careful of the heat that your system might generating. make sure that your coolermaster cooling unit can handle all that hardware. if there is even 1 stray pocket of hot air that isn't being shunted out of the box, it could ruin the system. so be careful of that.

but other than that, i believe that system could take just about anything you throw at it, chew it up, and spit it back out at 6 million frames per second.

 

[Daveskater]

the only thing with having 4gb of ram is that you will need a 64 bit OS, otherwise you will be using no more than 3.2gb, with your graphics card it will probably be about 3gb so it wouldn't really be worth putting in another gb of ram unless you upgrade your OS

 

[Tmagic650]

Again Daveskater, good advice! People can jam all the memory they want into a system, but doing so won't guarantee any positive gains.

Let a powerful video card handle most of the work in gaming. With XP, 1 or 2GB is fine. For Vista 2 or 3GB. 64-bit OS, max out total RAM allowed, as Daveskater has said.

Now, I just repaired a 2001 Dell system. It had a 500MHz PIII, 64MB of SDRAM, Windows Me... I upgraded it to XP Pro, SP2. It installed fine and ran. I installed 128MB of RAM and what a difference in speed!

 

[Daveskater]

cheers again, mate

it is pretty noticeable that how much ram you have affects the speed of the system, my sister has a pc with xp sp2, amd sempron 2000+ i think and 256mb of pc133 sdram and it's the slowest running thing i've come across other than my 100mhz laptop

i tried defragging it and she's only using like 25gb of a 80gb hard drive but it didn't make a lot of difference, it really wants some more ram. i need to find out if it will take ddr ram because i plan on getting some faster stuff at some point (found out my system can do better ) so i might be able to put my current ram in there. how nice is that

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

First of all, consider SLI only if you are going to game at 1600x1200 or higher, since that is where SLI shows its real performance potential. For 1680x1050, a single 8800GT\GTX should be plenty.
Next, you should have gone with a 650i SLI motherboard like the MSI P6n Platinum. The 680i chipset is only needed if you are going to overclock. The 650i chipset provides identical performance without the added OCing potential of the 680i and the added head output as well.
In addition, you should add a 320GB 7200.10 Barracuda to the whole setup. It's quite fast and will allow you more space for your stuff. Keep your games and OS on the Raptor.
Lastly, you don't really need a 1kW PSU for SLI. A good-quality PSU like the Silverstone Decathlon 750W will do fine.
I hope I helped.

 

[blindFX]

thanks everyone for your pointers,

well, ive always wanted to run on x64 OS
but well..im not too sure if its compatible
to run my drivers and games.

i do believe i kinda need more memory though
as i did experience lag while running "Oblivion"
not major lag though..just minor ones, noticeable
enough since i thought the 8800gtx could handle
ultra high settings.

would tweaking the core clock and memory clock
of the 8800gtx be able to kill those minor lag?

thanks again for yout input
:grinthumb

 

[nickc]

if u are going to run the 32bit OS 3gig of mem. is all that will really help but if u are going to run the 64bit OS then 4gig would be great.