NF4 Build for nephew.. Need advice please

[bud951]

I am building a rig for my nephew from my old DFI-NF4-SLI board. Its a great board and I have never had any trouble out of it. I am trying to hop it up with the best of what I have and can get for socket 939. I have bought an AMD FX-60 dual core, 2gigs of Corsair Pro series RAM, Vista x64 and I would like to give him my two 8800GT's to run SLI on a Samsung 215tw 1680x1050 monitor. My concern is he wants to play new games like FC2 and Dead Space. Is this rig capable in SLI or will the FX-60 bottleneck the whole thing at this res? Do I need to think about a single card solution like GX2? The machine is running great now in Windows Vista 64 but I havent gamed on it yet. It actually seems zippy in 2d compared to my rig with Vista 32 and I have a q6600. I am trying to be the hero so any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Laurijan]

That build will do just fine for these games

 

[trickson]

Looks good .

 

[cdawall]

at that res the FX60 most likely wont be a bottleneck at all give it a small kick in the pants if your nervous 2.8-3ghz wouldn't hurt it

 

[bud951]

at that res the FX60 most likely wont be a bottleneck at all give it a small kick in the pants if your nervous 2.8-3ghz wouldn't hurt it

Yeah I figure an overclock would not hurt. I forgot to mention that and, I am also giving him my old Audigy ZS2 (i think thats what its called) so I am trying to give all the power I can to the FX-60 to make it run as fast as it can during intense games.

Thanks for the responses.. Any other opinions are greatly appreciated!!

 

[frankie827]

+1 on what everyone else has been saying

that fx-60 is just fine for that res...and with 2x 8800gt's , that system should fly

 

[bud951]

Thanks to all for the input. I have a new question: I have just one PCI slot to work with and I am wondering what would benifit FPS the most? I have a SB Audigy Zs2 or a Physx card I can use. He is not much on sound since he plays alot of Xbox 360 in stereo from the TV and his PC only has a stereo speaker set with sub (that sounds pretty good) so I figure maybe the Physx card would help FPS and image more unless the 8800GT's in SLI are more than capable of handling Physx on thier own. Would the soundcard be the better bet? Info is always appreciated. Thanks again to all!

 

[Mike0409]

The 8/9 Series have physx unlocked in a recent driver update. I would go with the sound card, I have always found that Onboard audio actually slows the machine down by about 15-20% because it has to use the CPU to process the audio.

Edit: +1 on that build. I have an older NF4 board as well that I enjoyed and I felt mine was much quicker than when I went to a dual core. With that build he should not have any problem's playing the latest.

 

[Darren]

The 8/9 Series have physx unlocked in a recent driver update. I would go with the sound card, I have always found that Onboard audio actually slows the machine down by about 15-20% because it has to use the CPU to process the audio.

The difference between onboard and a dedicated soundcard is usually an extra 0.1-3% CPU usage. In terms of frame rate it translates into a loss of 0.1-2 frames per second!
In actual fact a lot of the new dedicated soundcards use more CPU than their onboard counter parts because of all the fancy DSPs which require CPU processing e.g. Dolby Digital Live, EAX etc.

Edit:

bud951, I think that system would be fine for your nephew, I'd put in atleast 4 GBs of ram though.

 

[Error 404]

I'd say 3-4 GB of RAM would be perfect for it, because you'll lose 1 GB of RAM to windows paging for the graphics cards, and Vista likes moar RAM!
Other than that, a nice overclock on the CPU and a sound card will make this perfect for what he wants to do.

 

[bud951]

I have everything up and running but man do these 8800GT's run HOT in SLI. I need this build to be reliable and some what quiet. This thing sounds like a jet since I have all the fans running at 100%. Is there a single slot solution that can give equal or better performance and be quieter? Maybe ATI X2 series? I just dont feel comfortable giving this SLI rig to a young family member running at such hot temps with such loud fans just to keep it from catching on fire. Info is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[cdawall]

order some better coolers

 

[sneekypeet]

order some better coolers

not a bad idea, but on the Nf4's DFI went with the uber close slots to run SLI. I had dual maze4's on my rig with 7600GT's and the maze4's took some modding for them to fit right. Even a VF700/900 is a tight fit!

 

[bud951]

not a bad idea, but on the Nf4's DFI went with the uber close slots to run SLI. I had dual maze4's on my rig with 7600GT's and the maze4's took some modding for them to fit right. Even a VF700/900 is a tight fit!

Yeah, not much room in there. Thats why I would have loved for the two single slot 8800GT's to work right. I think I need to ditch the SLI for a single powerful card. I might just have to bite the bullet on cost. Any recomendations? I was thinking ATI X2 series or Nvidia GX2 and just running the NF4 board in x16 single mode. Thanks for input.

 

[ascstinger]

how about one of those 55nm gtx260's?

 

[bud951]

how about one of those 55nm gtx260's?

I am looking at Newegg now. How much are they? I need bang for the buck on this one. Dont want to tip the balance of the NF4/FX-60 if it cant handle it. I dont know what card would be best.

I would definatly like to stay under $200.. if possible.. way under.

 

[sneekypeet]

Why not just use a single 8800GT you have and get a 3rd party cooler for it. Should do well in games, and will give you time to save loot if you think he still needs more umph after he plays around a bit.

 

[bud951]

Why not just use a single 8800GT you have and get a 3rd party cooler for it. Should do well in games, and will give you time to save loot if you think he still needs more umph after he plays around a bit.

Not a bad idea.. I was thinking of that but he wants to play some newer games like FC2, DeadSpace. Would one 8800GT be good enough even oc'ed on this NF4/FX-60 setup?

 

[bud951]

Isnt there a self contained dual card liquid cooler that can fit on two 8800GT's? I could have sworn I have read about it somwhere.

 

[sneekypeet]

Not a bad idea.. I was thinking of that but he wants to play some newer games like FC2, DeadSpace. Would one 8800GT be good enough even oc'ed on this NF4/FX-60 setup?

should handle FC2 , my 9800 did ok with it. Not sure on Deadspace never played it. I figured this way you could see if the card is enough and if not then spend to go with say the 260 mentioned earlier.

IIRC you are thinking of the Aquagate and from what I read it wasnt much better than stock coolers just quieter. Ill lee what I can dig up.

This maybe?

 

[inf3rno]

Dead Space won't challenge your hardware any more. And for the current era or i think the 2009 your nephew won't have any problem with this rig.

 

[bud951]

I guess Ill just upgrade the coolers on the 8800GT's What is the best way to go?

 

[inf3rno]

I wont do that if I were you. I would focus the cooler of CPU. and remain the 8800s at stock coolers. Anyhow it is my humble opinion. You are the decision maker.

 

[bud951]

I wont do that if I were you. I would focus the cooler of CPU. and remain the 8800s at stock coolers. Anyhow it is my humble opinion. You are the decision maker.

I have a Zalman 9700LED and it seems to be cooling the CPU well. I have thought about water colling the whole thing but this is a build for someone else and not me who could be there 24/7. I am going to install better coolers on the cards if I can fit them both.

What cooler is best for the 8800GT? the Zalman or Artic Cooling? Please advise. Thanks!

 

[inf3rno]

If arctic cooling is good then Zalman is better. Though its your own choice. I had a 4850 with arctic cooling solution but my cousin had his VGA with Zalman. His VGA's temperatures were way better then mine.