Super-Duper Sombrero Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 I've been looking to upgrade my computer for some time now, and I've just started browsing newegg. As I began my search through the processors and graphics card and whatnot, I was assaulted my various nonsensical jargon which is of no use to me. I've figured that OCR will have some hardware savvy people, and may be able to help me figure out what specs I should be looking for, is quad-core really worth it, etc. Since I will be using this computer primarily for gaming, I want a decent machine. I am, however, on about a $1500 budget (with some buffer zone), and I don't really want to spend my life savings on this. I've already got hard drives and a case (though the power supply could use an upgrade). I'm really looking for what the important stats are on the vital parts, and which companies are the best to buy from. Particularly the ATI v. GeForce and AMD v. Intel debates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majin GeoDooD Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 If the machine is going to be for gaming I don't believe a quad core is necessary yet. No game that I know of yet actually takes advantage of more than two cores to run the game. If you run a quad core you'll be able to run things in the background while running your game without experienced any major slowdown, but that's about it. If you plan on doing other heavy multitasking then a quad core will be best. IMO a Core 2 Duo is still the best buy currently, with the E8500 model being the best bang for the buck (3.16 GHz, $179.99). When it comes to graphics card I think the best bang for your buck is the Radeon 4870 - the 512MB models can be found for around $250. What games are you planning on playing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Duper Sombrero Posted October 12, 2008 Author Share Posted October 12, 2008 I intend to run Crysis/FarCry 2 at full with minimal slowdown. If possible, that is. I run dual-monitors, and I do like multitasking, which makes me think the quadcore may be justified. Thanks for the tip on the graphics card, I'll look into that. As for RAM, what should I look for? Is timing really that important, and what about the voltage? I once bought a graphics card upgrade only to fins it was the wrong interface type, and I want to avoid future occurrences of that. =/ I understand PCI-e 16x is the standard now, but what about CPU or RAM socket types? is there a certain type I should look for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitty Posted October 12, 2008 Share Posted October 12, 2008 For memory, 32bit(standard...for now) systems only get something like 3.5gigs of RAM max even though you can slot 4. If you really want more than that, you should look into 64bit stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 12, 2008 Share Posted October 12, 2008 gimme a few minutes, i'll work you up a good system. ok, here goes. dvd burner boot hard drive storage hard drive evga 9800gtx+ dvd drive zalman zm600-hp 600w hard drive (up to 750w under load...it's modular and amazing) 2x2gb ddr2 800mhz ram evga 780i motherboard e8500 cpu xigmatek cpu cooler retention bracket for the cooler, totalyl worth the 7 bucks shipping to me (14867, near ithaca ny) is about 25$. at that price, you could go with either two cards or just get something like the gtx 260 core 216, which is an absolute beast when it comes to processing power. one of the most powerful card profiles available today. not that much more money either, considering it almost doubles the performance of the 9800gtx+. i go with evga boards and cards - they have a lifetime warranty if you register it within 30 days. and they have the best customer service in the industry. i had a card that had issues about a month after the 1-year warranty you get if you don't register, and they still replaced it for free AND let me sign up that card for the lifetime warranty. it's worth the extra ten bucks or so. i'd say to go with a 64-bit version of your os of preference. vista's 64-bit version is excellent. if you're not going to do that, you'll get between 3.25 and 3.5 gigs of ram based on how much video ram your card has. just keep it in mind. it's not a big performance hit (xp is SO slim compared to vista) but it's there. 64-bit'd give you all 4 gigs of your ram...and at that price you could get 8 gigs easily. total with the above loadout would be $1156.33. assuming you don't need a case. if you need a case, get something big that's worth the time. if you don't mind it being a little louder and want something flashy, the sunbeam transformer is a great one (about 100$ shipped at newegg, lots of fans and blue leds). the antec nine hundred is another good one. if you want something a little classier, just dig around. but watch shipping costs, they add up a lot. if you want a quad instead of the one listed above, the q6600 is a good offering for a good price. if you want a 1tb drive for storage instead of 750, go with the samsung 1tb offering on newegg. it's the standard for price, speed, and temp performance. don't go with the 1.5tb drive, it's an open drive. more of an enthusiast item. if you're into bluray, go with this hd-rom/bd-rom/dvd-rw drive. it'll read hd and blu-ray and burn discs, and it's got lightscribe as well. if you get just that and not the other two drives, it'd be about 90 bucks more. hopefully that'd help. if you want anything more, let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majin GeoDooD Posted October 12, 2008 Share Posted October 12, 2008 $220 (Yea I know it has a rebate..) for a motherboard? He's not building an enthusiast system. Something like this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128345 - would work just fine. I have the P35-DS3L myself. I don't really see the need for the Raptor either. I had a Raptor and then switched to a 7200.11 Seagate series and Windows booted just as fast for me, and the Vista system rating (Though I'm sure that's not 100% reliable as a system benchmark) actually rated it higher than the Raptor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Duper Sombrero Posted October 15, 2008 Author Share Posted October 15, 2008 Wow, prophet, I think you just saved me like ten hours of browsing pieces and parts. There's no way that CPU cooler will fit in my current case, so it looks like I'll be getting one of those, too. Too bad every case I've found has like a billion LEDs and neon tubes and stuff. I'm going ot miss my current beige rectangle. =( Everything you listed looks like it will work for me, and I might just throw it all into a cart and have it shipped on over to me. I'll probably go with mephisto's MB, as it seems to have better SLI support, which is something I may be interested in in the future. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 $220 (Yea I know it has a rebate..) for a motherboard? He's not building an enthusiast system. Something like this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128345 - would work just fine. I have the P35-DS3L myself.I don't really see the need for the Raptor either. I had a Raptor and then switched to a 7200.11 Seagate series and Windows booted just as fast for me, and the Vista system rating (Though I'm sure that's not 100% reliable as a system benchmark) actually rated it higher than the Raptor. he gave a price, and i filled it. 220$ for a motherboard may be a lot - but it's a long-life motherboard with solid-state capacitors that won't leak in a few years, like most of the mid-level asus and gigabyte boards. it supports a bunch of newer technology (optical audio, e-sata, etc) NATIVELY (you might not realize this but the support for spdif audio and dual lan is kind of hacked onto the p45 boards, try an older bios and see what happens )that he might want in the future. it's definitely an upgrade from some basic mobo, and the overclocking support and sli support (both of which might be possible for the future) are worth the time. and there's a lifetime warranty, which is worth the extra few bucks because the mobo is generally the first part to fail in really well-built computers (barring spilling coffee on it or kicking down a hill or something). you're also forgetting that when lots of people review something there's generally a reason. the evga board is purchased like fifteen times more often than the gigabyte board, and not cause it's bad. and raptors, raptors are so much better than standard drives for the speed that they give you. say what you want, it runs faster (by seconds) in loading programs and the like. if it's a big deal, whatever - but it's worth getting a boot drive of some kind that's physically separate from the storage drive, since it's the heavy reading and writing from day-to-day usage of your OS that generally kills an hd as opposed to having a bunch of movies and music backed up on it. makes it easier to defrag your storage disc too =) if you don't want the raptor, get an 80gig western digital caviar drive (sata, plz) and use that for your OS instead. just store all your illegal content on the other disc =) and no, vista system rating doesn't count as a benchmark. the rating was likely higher because it was a fresh install, not because the drive was faster than one spinning 30% faster. as for a case, here's a few. remember that all three have free shipping, which means a lot when it can cost thirty bucks for shipping nowadays. fantastic smooth-looking case great-looking gunmetal gray case, great build quality, a little cheaper rosewill makes a few varieties of these. i've put three computers into their cases, and while they're not the most rock-solid cases i've ever bought they do the job and are a good price. if you don't mind modifying your case's fans a bit, this is a good buy. it's got two LED blue fans in front which you can take out and replace with yate loon med-speed 120mm fans (i've got five in my case and it's near silent - about 30db total ambient), as well as adding one to the side of the case as well if you want. anything in this list will handle what you want, and it's more of a selection, if what's above doesn't suit your fancy. hope that helps. edit: Wow, prophet, I think you just saved me like ten hours of browsing pieces and parts. this was about twenty minutes of browsing, mostly because i had some huge downloads going on in the background =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivi22 Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 as for a case, here's a few. remember that all three have free shipping, which means a lot when it can cost thirty bucks for shipping nowadays.fantastic smooth-looking case great-looking gunmetal gray case, great build quality, a little cheaper Can I just second these reccommendations. I have the P-180 and aside from being a gorgeous case on the outside, I love how it's setup on the inside. Mostly anyway. The power supply cables can be a bit of a bitch and kind of get in the way sometimes, especially when you're trying to put everything together, but none the less it's a great case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majin GeoDooD Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 he gave a price, and i filled it. I dunno.. I've always had the idea that if I have a budget and can get what I want/need for less I'll just do that. 220$ for a motherboard may be a lot - but it's a long-life motherboard with solid-state capacitors that won't leak in a few years, like most of the mid-level asus and gigabyte boards. it supports a bunch of newer technology (optical audio, e-sata, etc) NATIVELY (you might not realize this but the support for spdif audio and dual lan is kind of hacked onto the p45 boards, try an older bios and see what happens )that he might want in the future. it's definitely an upgrade from some basic mobo, and the overclocking support and sli support (both of which might be possible for the future) are worth the time. The Gigabyte board I linked uses solid-state capacitors as well. I'll give you the future support though. if it's a big deal, whatever - but it's worth getting a boot drive of some kind that's physically separate from the storage drive, since it's the heavy reading and writing from day-to-day usage of your OS that generally kills an hd as opposed to having a bunch of movies and music backed up on it. I've almost always just used multiple partitions on harddrives to keep my boot drives and storage drives separate. I've never had a drive die on me this way. Actually, the first HD I ever bought (40GB Maxtor back in '04) was being used just for storage and died a year after I bought it. I then switched to Seagate and haven't looked back. One of my Seagate drives (again, used just for storage) started to make clicking noises probably about a year or so after I bought it.. I sent it to Seagate and they fixed it up and it's working 100% in a buddy's system. and no, vista system rating doesn't count as a benchmark. the rating was likely higher because it was a fresh install, not because the drive was faster than one spinning 30% faster. Both were rated on a fresh install, but like we both said, it's not an accurate benchmark . as for a case, here's a few. remember that all three have free shipping, which means a lot when it can cost thirty bucks for shipping nowadays.fantastic smooth-looking case great-looking gunmetal gray case, great build quality, a little cheaper rosewill makes a few varieties of these. i've put three computers into their cases, and while they're not the most rock-solid cases i've ever bought they do the job and are a good price. if you don't mind modifying your case's fans a bit, this is a good buy. it's got two LED blue fans in front which you can take out and replace with yate loon med-speed 120mm fans (i've got five in my case and it's near silent - about 30db total ambient), as well as adding one to the side of the case as well if you want. Man I could never see myself spending $150 on a case. I totally see how some people could, just for the design and better airflow/sound control. The most expensive case I ever bought was a Chieftec Dragon back in '04. It cost me about $75 and it's actually the only case I've ever bought - I've used it for every single one of my different systems over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 :3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majin GeoDooD Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 :3 Ridiculous Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 they sell a cube case that's like 500$, i think. and their premade watercooled cases are almost as much as the rest of the computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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