First, thanks to you all again for your comments.
I'd like to keep this on the GPUs but of course, related system comments are helpful.
I have been building this spec for a few weeks with a limited budget in mind. In cutting edge terms it's a moderate system as I always seem to build
I don't have masses of money and this is a 5-year-one-off excercise again
Triggaar,
I usually build my own. I proposed my parts list to Scan, looking for a discount
and they came back with an adaptation of their Black Ops system. Their core product was an Asus Sabertooth mobo, i7 950 o/c to 4.2GHz, 6Gb memory, plus the other bits I wanted. I think theirs was cased but they put in the case I asked for, they seem flexible. After my initial enquiry to their Sales contact point on their website the rest was done on email exchanges.
The o/c comes as part of the package.
I can't find the one that most closely matched my offer, it was there a few days ago:
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/Category.asp?S...rCategoryID=20
I think I'm likely to wait the rest of this month to hear about the 6970 "due for release in November". It should top the 5870 and is optimised for Tesselation although Oleg has just stated that SoW doesn't use Tesselation but "could be considered for about 4-5 years time upgrade" if I interpret him correctly. See last Fridays Update post.
Hecke
I'm only guessing but I don't know that unused Tesselation capability will free up any resources for the other graphics needs.
dduff442
I'm not experienced enough at o/c a GPU. I tried with my 2 7800GTs but didn't get far before artifacts and temperature began to give problems.
maclean525
The AMD website stated a 500W PSU for a 5870 system and I went 600w to allow for one more 5870 in the future. I have a 750w in the cupboard but it doesn't have four 6pin PCIe lines (although I think I can adapt the molex 4 pins for a second card). I'll look at a larger PSU though. Mind you I think the 6000 series take less power so it may depend on my final GPU decision.
The cooler comes as part of the bundle, fitted tested and working - have you seen the size of that cooler??!!
I agree on price drops, in the short/medium term the 5970, 580, etc won't drop into my budget although I might save a little money waiting for the new stuff to hit the market. But my fingers are itching
Badaim
keeping my 7200rpm WDS's instead of getting the SSD would save me £120 but wouldn't help with buying a 5970 or 580 which are double the price of what I am considering. So I'll take the faster load and hopefully a few less 'new aicraftr joined' etc pauses. Anyway FSX takes 2 full minutes to load off my current HDDs
The latest videos from Oleg are pretty impressive on what he seems to refer to as modest system and I would take that right now on a 5870 if it will.
JG52Krupi
stop bragging !
Everyone else
Thanks.