Recently I've been experiencing Counter Strike: Source at the peak of technology.. with 15 FPS. Great, huh? Haha thats what happens when you play games on a Dell 2400, so ive decided to build a new computer. I had a $1000 dollar budget, and this is what me and my friends came up with. i have already purchased the MOBO/CPU combo but i am all open for suggestions for anything else. If you have any idea could you please inform me of the average frame rate that i would get with these specs. Thanks guys. (I was also going to go with a GeForce 8800 GTS instead of the 8600 if i had the money.)

Motherboard and CPU $499.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...MBM-680LT-Q6600

DDR2 Mem: Any Suggestions?

VideoCard $149.99 ($129.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814150229

DVD DRIVE $37.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106057

PowerSupply $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817341010

Case $54.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811147040

Fan $6.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811998121

HardDrive $67.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822144701


Total not inculding rebate= $992.92

I was also thinking of going with a cheap water cooler if i had money, let me know whether i should or shouldn't.

As i said before im open to any suggestions so let me know if there are things i should change. Thanks again guys.

Welcome to Geeks to Go.

With a budget of $1000 a $500 quad core/mobo combo was not the best route... Gaming (or really any applications) doesn't utilize the abilities of the 4 cores yet. If it was a recent purchase it might be best to RMA it. With the money you saved you could get a 8800 GTS like you wanted to. You would see better frame rates with a e6600 and 8800 gts then you would with your current build. Your build doesnt include RAM or an OS.


There is no such thing as cheap water cooling. Much better than my first try .

This post has been edited by Titan8990: Jul 3 2007, 02:11 PM

yeah i did realize that games/processes dont really use all four cores, and i just purchased it yesterday so i would still be able to RMA it. I already have a copy of XP, and i would upgrade to vista if i had to. the price that you saw was with the ram, but i forgot to deduct it after i took the ram off. and also at first i was looking at the e6600 but then i found this and decided i should jump on it since it was only a limited offer. are there any other things that i should take into consideration with this build?

Well the quad will retail for around 266$ after July 22nd.
I have to agree with Titan, either go all out on water cooling or don't both at all, the "cheap" stuff leaks and causes more problems then what it's worth.
James

yeah it was just an idea i had, wouldnt do it any time soon. And also i wasnt really looking to make this a super computer now, i wanted to make it somewhat futureproof so i would be able to play games released in the next years. If i were to get 200 FPS on this computer then that would be more then i expected. If you think i will get lower then 150 frames per second and the e6600 will outpreform it in the future, then please let me know because if thats the case then i will return it

This post has been edited by laxr3m1x: Jul 3 2007, 02:44 PM

Umm 150 frames per second where? what settings? and are you saying you want this as a max, min or average?
These are very high frames per second that you probably would only achieve on either a old game or newer game with all settings on low, but y buy expensive hardware to play settings at low? You won't see a difference in FPS after the 30ish mark.
If you want a futerproof computer get the P35 chipset from Intel. Or if you want to go AMD, get the AM2+ chipset which should be coming out later this month, though it could be delayed.....
The E6600 just has half the amount of cores of the Q6600, they should achieve realitivly the same performance in games that only utilize 1 or 2 cores.
One other thing to add, you won't be happy with that video cards performance, thats like putting a 50 year old engine (8600GT) in a 2007 viper (Q6600).
James

This post has been edited by james_8970: Jul 3 2007, 05:26 PM

well at the moment, i dont play extreme games, just CSS Gmod, and other steam games. in the future i will probably purchase some newer games but for now that is it. and for the frames per second i mean 150 tops. i would be fine with an average around 60.. and as i said before i will probably go with the 8800, to put in my new viper

Well, once the games become fully quad core optimized, there will be a few by the end of the year, that quad will be very nice advantage when it comes to games. When this occurs anything less then a 8800 or 2900 would become a large bottleneck. Must have missed where you mentioned you would be getting a 8800 (GTS/GTX)....
James

thanks for your help, i think im going to stick with the quad considering there will be more games coming out in 2008 for it, and in the first post i mentioned that i might go with an 8800 instead of an 8600.. do you have any suggestions where to buy/what type of card (gts/gtx) also what type and how much ram should i get.

This post has been edited by laxr3m1x: Jul 3 2007, 08:28 PM

Newegg or Tigerdirect would be the best places to get the card. Right now the "sweet spot" card is the 8800 GTS 320mb. If you are looking towards the future than you may want to look into the 640mb version but with the games are out now there wouldn't be a noticable difference between the two.

Since you won't be doing any overclocking DDR2 667mhz will do. You can step it up to DDR2 800mhz if you would like. I would look at 2x1gb package. It will proably be around $75-$85 for 2gb of 667mhz and $90-110 for 800mhz. Some good brands are Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, and OCZ. I personally like the Corsair XMS2.

arite thanks a lot for your help guys

If you've already ordered that CPU/mobo package, do you have a heatsink/fan for the CPU? I noticed it says it is an OEM unit, so you'll need to buy a separate one. I haven't seen that mentioned yet, but if you've got one then you can ignore me...

oh i hadnt noticed that, do you have any recommendations for what i should get?

I'm not sure really, but this one looks COOL!