 badtripI heart the East BayPremium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA | reply to kpross
Re: Build review please A LCD monitor with 5ms or below should have no issues with gaming. I even had a 8ms Samsung LCD and it had no ghosting issues.
I don't like your choice of video card. For the amount of $$ you are likely spending, it may behoove you to get a more modern card like a gtx 285 or up.
The raid setup seems a bit much for my tastes but you may like RAID for the geeky thrill. If I was to choose between RAID and higher tier video card or SLi, I'd choose the video cards.
Otherwise, the build looks solid to me and I'm sure you will enjoy it. |
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 kpross
join:2001-06-20
united state | I've got a RAID 0 right now and love the load times it provides me. The only thing I've always hated is backups and rebuilding so the mirroring gives me a little wiggle room for that. But yeah it's a nerd thing too. 
I've been on the fence about the vid card as I'm not sure how much more I'll get out of a better card right now. Just to pull a number out of the air, Tom's shows the 260 running 76fps where the 285 is at 89. (»www.tomshardware.com/charts/gami···508.html) Is 13fps more worth $190 more right now, especially when I'm still looking at a monitor?
The idea was to either SLI the 260s later for a little boost or get a new board when the current "next gen' becomes second gen like a 295. The PS I selected has enough amps on the 12v rail for it. I've never spent the money on the latest & greatest vid cards, never seen the need for it. (kinda how I ended up still running a pair of 7800s) 
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin |
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badtripI heart the East BayPremium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA
1 edit | You should certainly look into a higher tier card. Like you, I'm all about bang for the buck and milking the system until it chokes on new games. But consider this, when you are ready to go SLi when vid card prices drop, the price differential between a 260 and a 285 will be a lot closer than they are now. Depending on how long you wait, the price differential may be trivial.
Thus for a $100 extra investment today (and you're probably dropping a good grand or more on this build), you will enjoy a large positive performance differential between a 285 SLi setup compared to a 260 SLi setup. Your rig will be viable longer in the long run for a small increase in cost.
I chose to spend the extra $$ on a 285 when I rebuilt in sept. because I get a performance boost now, I can wait longer to go SLi (allowing vid card prices to drop further before I buy) and when I do go SLi, I will have a 285 SLi setup.
EDIT: I say $100 increase over your $190 because I was able to find a gtx 285 for a couple bucks over $300 at Micro Center. There's deals out there if you're vigilant. Plus take a look at the tomshardware chart you linked to comparing the gtx285 and the 260 SLi setup. The 260 Sli only gives you 1.9 FPS more than the single gtx285  |
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