What Hardware Should I Buy? - April 2009

Premium Player

When only the best will do there’s a raft of hardware out there to cater to your needs, providing premium performance for a premium price tag. Without going crazy and losing our heads, we've really gone to town to maximise this set up because even with a high budget, we’re not out to waste money and building a top end system isn’t as simple as just buying the most expensive components out there.

Be wary before you unleash the credit card though and really consider if you’re really going to get the most out of this kit. The PC hardware market is one of diminishing returns – the more money you spend, the smaller the improvements between hardware options becomes, and the poorer the value you get as a result.

However, if you’ve just bought that 24" or 30" monitor, surround sound speaker kit and nice comfy leather chair with foot rest (usually called the sub) and are looking for some kick ass performance that won't wait for anyone, this is what we consider the very best hardware in each component class.

Graphics Card

First Choice: 2x Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216
UK Pricing: £313.98 (inc. VAT) for two
US Pricing: $379.98 (ex. Tax) for two

Following the huge drop in pricing for the GeForce GTX 260-216 in the last four weeks, we thought we'd reconsider our premium graphics solution, and it soon became clear the dual GPU cards like the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and the GeForce GTX 295 couldn't hold a candle to a pair of Nvidia's mid range cards in SLI.

In the past we've shied away from recommending dual GPU solutions following the technology's reliance on driver profiles, but our recent experiences in the office have changed our opinion, with Nvidia's continued push for better driver support for its SLI customers pushing it ahead of ATI's CrossFire.

It's the value of this set up that really won us over though. Two GTX 260-216 cards can now be bought for less than £320, undercutting the HD 4870 X2 by around £15 and the mighty GeForce GTX 295 by over £100. At the same time, two GTX 260-216 deliver performance that is generally better than the HD 4870 X2 and is within just five percent of the top end GeForce GTX 295! While £320 is still a hell of a lot of cash to throw at your graphics solution, for a premium set up it's not too bad at all, especially when you consider that when these cards launched a pair would set you back upwards of £500!

Even though this is a premium system, we're still not going to ignore such an awesome bargain, and two of these cards in SLI combine to produce a monstrous graphics solution that scales right from the lowest to the highest resolution. If your X58 board supports SLI (as the one we've recommended below does) we'd opt for this affordable powerhouse over the dual GPU HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 295 every time.

CPU

First Choice: Intel Core i7 920
UK Pricing: £239.95 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $278.90 (ex. Tax)

Released last November, Intel's revolutionary new line of processors has seriously impressed us over the last few months, with excellent performance and while it might not excel in absolutely everything it's the firm choice for both CPU-intensive games and future proofing.

However, the 940 and 965 processors are much too expensive and it's the Core i7 920 processor that's really caught our eye with its fantastic overclocking performance making it very attractive for high end users. Shipping at 2.66GHz, we're currently running a Core i7 920 at 4GHz completely stable in the labs here at bit-tech and over 4.2GHz on air isn't unheard of.

You'll need a decent third party CPU cooler to tame upwards of 135W of heat produced though, especially if overclocking to upwards of 3.5GHz, but the promise of what is a very considerable, and otherwise free, performance gain should be motivation enough to jump into the BIOS and get tweaking.

Motherboard

First Choice: Asus P6T Deluxe
UK Pricing: £234.94 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $289.99 (ex. Tax)

While the MSI Eclipse SLI or Foxconn Blood Rage provide more features out of the box, the fact is that we’ve had more success with the Asus P6T Deluxe with its stable BIOS, great overclocking support and decent price: so it’s the board we’d recommend.

However, unlike the MSI Eclipse, the P6T Deluxe doesn't support triple SLI, so those who might want to add a third GTX 260-216 in the future will want to opt for the MSI board, although we'd advise against it right now at least - Nvidia has made great strides in supporting SLI for the latest games but triple-SLI support is still unconvincing and offers a much smaller boost in performance than that gained from adding a second card.

Nevertheless, for the vast majority of users the Asus P6T Deluxe is the X58 board of choice, combining a solid feature set, reliability and excellent overclocking with a reasonable price tag.

Memory

First Choice: 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit - PC3-12800 (1600MHz)
UK Pricing: £128.24 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $132.99 (ex. Tax)

With a Core i7 920 at 4GHz you'll want lots of fast memory to complement it; 1,600MHz DIMMs are par for course and should provide a mammoth amount of memory bandwidth. With memory prices varying almost daily, certainly weekly - our advice is to aim for a 6GB kit of PC3-12800 or 1,600MHz for Core i7. Previously we've recommended G.Skill, but this month we have found some OCZ and a Patriot kit that are CAS-8 while maintaining a very low 1.5-1.6V, making it well within Core i7-safe specifications. They all feature a lifetime warranty which should be a key factor in your purchase - all the top memory companies supply this so demand it in your purchase.

Prices have really tumbled for 6GB DDR3 kits in the past couple of months, and at not far over £100, the price of these particular kits soften the blow of the increased CPU and motherboard cost.