PCTech Forums

Just found this site on google so this is my first post here...hello everybody!

I'm looking to build a PC that will act primarily as a DAW but will also be capable of playing games like COD4 and UT3. I've been doing some research and this is the outline I have come up with so far.

Specs Updated 16/02/08

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz
ASUS P5K-E AiLifestyle Series P35 Motherboard
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Samsung SpinPoint 500GB SATAII 16MB Cache - OEM x2
Antec Neopower 650W Modular PSU

So do you reckon this will all run smoothly together?

Any advice anyone can offer would be much appreciated!

Welcome to Pctechforums maxwell,

Oddly enough, I spent most of my day today researching power consumptions among the different nvidia 8 series vid cards as im planning to buy one or two myself. The 8800 GT draws 247 watts under a load and 152 at idle, if you ever intend to run 2 of these in SLI your eating 494 watts in video cards alone. If you will only run 1 of them, 500 is still pushing the envelope a bit. You have to account for the CPU, DVD/CD Rom drives, USB devices, etc. I'd be looking for 700-800watts to allow for future upgrades.


With all that said, you have a conflict between the board you chose and nvidia video cards. Intel boards are designed to run ATI cards with crossfire technology. You CAN run 1 Nvidia card on a crossfire board but you CAN NOT run 2. The same goes for SLI boards, only 1 ATI card will work, never 2.

You can go with an AMD based board and run 2 Nvidia cards in SLI
or
You can go with Intel and run 2 ATI cards in crossfire

And again, if you only plan to use 1 card then it wont matter.


So maxwell, hopefully that information will help you out some. Let me know what you come up with.

Just a quick clarification, even though the 8800gt draws 247 watts, its quite less than its rivals.

8600GTS : 206
8800GT : 247
8800GTS : 263
8800GTX : 304

and just to hurt venneys feelings....

ATI Radeon HD2900 XT, a whopping 376 watts under load! 752 watts for nothing but 2 video cards!

blimey! looks like I will have to upgrade when I get a new gpu as well!

i think mine atm only takes a max of edit 65 only apparently.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 0gs_6.html

im on the x1950 pro.

Yea i have a P35 chipset mobo, it seems ok. I dont use the onboard audio, even tho is is 7.1 i have a soundcard.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... subcat=913

is mine i think (if not sorry ive only just woken up).
My pc is quiet good for gaming, i could do with a new gpu but the mobo is all good.

There is great information here in this thread.
Thanks for this valuable information.