What Hardware Should I Buy? - May 2009

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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: £296.68 (inc. VAT) for two
US Pricing: $359.98 (ex. Tax) for two

Following the huge drop in pricing for the GeForce GTX 260-216 in the last month or two, 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 £300, undercutting the HD 4870 X2 by around £30 and the mighty GeForce GTX 295 by over £100. At the same time, two GTX 260-216s 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 £300 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 D0
UK Pricing: £241.70 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $279.99 (ex. Tax)

While the 940 and 965 processors are still much too expensive, 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 and usable 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 towards 4GHz, 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.

If you can find it - grab the new D0 stepping specifically. It's widely regarded as being not only a little cooler, but also more overclockable, eking out a few hundred more MHz, if the motherboard is up to it.

Motherboard

First Choice: Asus P6T Deluxe
UK Pricing: £234.93 (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 and others, 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 another board, although we'd advise against it right now at least - Nvidia has made great strides in supporting SLI for the latest games but 3-way 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 (1,600MHz) CL8
UK Pricing: £79.99 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $104.99 (ex. Tax)

We've hooked up our US friends with OCZ's latest 1,333MHz 6GB "Animal" Core i7 kit. It's a "1,333 part" on the side, but it'll do more than 2,000MHz at CL9. Great price, great value and we'd highly recommend grabbing some if you can find it - we're still searching for the UK, so if you know, please hook us up with a link!

Right now for the UK, we have opted for some Core i7 XMP kits from OCZ this month. At under £80 they are very good value, and the two XMP profiles within should make overclocking a breeze, or just a starting point from which to push further!

We'd avoid the 3GB conundrum entirely: 6GB (or more if you need) is a must for high performance, and large multitasking environments. Prices have really tumbled for 6GB DDR3 kits in the past couple of months, and these particular kits soften the blow of the increased CPU and motherboard cost, while still yielding great performance.