OK its my turn (pc upgrade)

[Lomi]

Ok I am giving myself a 2000 dollar spending limit, minus kb/mouse/os/moniter/speakers for a new computer. I am pretty sure I want intel over AMD, and I want to try and go as top of the line as possible so I don't have to upgrade for a while.

I have a few questions first.
I can live with onboard sound and network if it means I can have a better CPU Gfx card or Ram, but of those 3 which one should I cut back on a little to get the best power out of the sytem?

Secondly, I don't need some super fancy DVD plus minus RW type drive just a good sturdy regular DVD CDRW type drive anyone know of something cheap but good quality there?

Lastly is there any argument for AMD over Intel these days?

Main reason for the comp will be Vista and AoC.

I will be looking at parts as well and posting my build, so suggestions and ideas are more then welcome thanks.

[Lomi]

Heres a parts list I found on Toms Hardware that I think fits mostly in what I want but with a couple changes

CPU Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 970
CPU Cooler Vigor Gaming Monsoon II CLT-M2I 140
Motherboard Asus Striker Extreme 330
RAM Crucial Ballistix DDR2 1000 PC2-8000 $235
Graphics 2x GeForce 8800GTX 768MB ($560) $1120
Hard Drive 2x Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS $320
Sound Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS $180
Case LIAN LI PC-60A PLUSII $130
Power PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad $200
DVD-RW Sony NEC Optiarc Black AD-7170S-0B 18X SATA $35

Only 1 gfx card
only 1 hard drive
no sb card
a different case (read cheaper)
a different powersupply (read cheaper if possible)

I think I chould shed a bunch off this currently 3600 dollar setup.

Thoughts?

[Kaneyda]

I just built a similar setup, and when I asked Overclockers UK, they advised me against the Lian Li, as it would be too small to accomodate the motherboard, massive cooler and graphics card. I ended up getting a Gigabyte Triton from amazon in the end, and I haven't regretted it.

Cut down on the processor, the Core 2 E6600 is as good as you need for any game at the moment, and with a good cooler, you can overclock it pretty well.

For hard drives, I chose to get a high speed low(er) capacity internal drive, and a huge external one. It meant that I could keep all my media on a separate drive so it didn't slow down my PC, and I could take it to mates houses and steal all their movies too.

The sound Board is not worth it unless your going to be working with sound producing programs. Imo the sound board that comes with the striker is acceptable anyway. As long as you have a cheap pair of speakers with a sub, your PC will sound pretty good.

As far as power goes, it depends if you want it capable of running 2 cards, should you choose to upgrade soon. Not an expert on this though so I dunno how much you'd need for SLI, I only have one card and use this.

[Lomi]

Yeah I know I don't need the sound card, if I downgrade the CPU could I boost up to 4gb of ram since I'll be running vista? I doubt I'll ever SLI that just sounds crazy to me. I guess I just need enough power for a basic setup. I like the idea of a small faster internal and external, but it seems like an external drive with my games on it would slow down, or did you use the external just for stuff like mp3s, video's, etc?

[Kaneyda]

I store games on my internal, and all my media on my external. However, I played oblivion off my external on full graphics and it wasn't really slowed down at all.

[Bazhij]

Anymore, it's Intel ftw. AMD is eating Intel's dust and will be for years to come. Hate to say I predicted it, but . . I predicted it

Mebbe this thread can be helpful. Timing is everything sometimes, so I might mention that we can look forward to a perfect storm of incredible hardware at killer prices coming up this fall (Sep-Nov). Some analysts are saying that due to an expected price war, hardware prices may literally be half what they are now for similar gear.

PS. best thing you can do is invest in a worldclass power supply - take a look at Enermax, for instance.

[DerangedPony]

Originally Posted by Bazhij

PS. best thing you can do is invest in a worldclass power supply - take a look at Enermax, for instance.

I agree, but Enermax is not a great company. I have a 550w Enermax in my current system and it sucks. PC power and cooling is the bast brand right now and has been for a while.

AMD's new quad cores will start coming out September 10th......so we'll see if Intel is still on top by then. Around the same time, the Q6600 (quad) will be only $266!! If you can wait untill this price drop, I say go for it.

I dont see any reason to get 4gb of ram yet. I would say get a really nice set of 1gb (2gb total). Maybe even think about going ddr3?

ATI GPUs are getting better each time a new driver is released. The new 2900XT 1GB will be out soon and the 2900XTX, so dont count ATI out yet.

I'll add more later....gotta get back to work.

[Dissonance]

Lomi, I'll PM you a computer build later today or tomorrow I use to build computers on the side for drinking money in college

Edit: as for a few comments:

SLI > Crossfire cuurently, although ATI has been getting better about this. Single cards, nVidia has a slight edge, atm, but I feel this is more so due to the fact that BFG does nVidia cards and not ATI. BFG is one of the best aftermarket producers in any field.

Currently Intel is far ahead of AMD in both quad and dual core formats. I am hoping AMD is able to catch back up before I build a new computer early next year... but.... I am not going to hold my breath.

2GB of RAM is fine, I have yet to push my two sticks of top of the line Corsair to any extent.

as far as power supplies go, there are three companies I recommend after having seen ten+ companies with my own eyes. OCZ, SeaSonic, and PC Power and Cooling,


Yes, I made a typo, it was SeaSonic, not Seagate, oops ><

[Melkorus]

Real quick I'll just comment on AMD vs Intel. I'm AMD fan, but I have to recommand Intel. Even tho AMD is coming out with their new CPU soon, so far the performance seen is subpar - on top of that Intel is coming out with yet another line of CPUs as well, which will further leave AMD in dust. Core 2 Duos all the way, especially if you can wait for the price cuts, which I think are scheduled for sometimes around mid July.

[DerangedPony]

Originally Posted by Dissonance

as far as power supplies go, there are three companies I recommend after having seen ten+ companies with my own eyes. OCZ, Seagate, and PC Power and Cooling,

Seagate power supply....eh? It must have been converted from a old hard drive. I do agree with the other two, they make great PSUs.