[spyke01]

Hey guys, i have a fw questions for you. Ive been building boxes since i can remember, but its been getting more and more expensive, and im trying to stay cheap for now.

A little background on me: I am a web designer and gamer. I use PhotoShop CS 2 daily, and am constantly multi-tasking. It's not unusual for me to have over 40 windows up at once. My current system is dieing quickly, and i want to upgrade. Some of the games i plan to play in my offtime will be: Fable, Oblivion, Unreal2, UT2004 GOTYE.

I was thinking about getting a AMD X2 and a SLIx16 Motherboard with a 300GB SATA hdd, maybe 2 in a mirrored array, i also want at least 1GB memory and a nice modular power supply.

Heres my questions, should i spend the extra money on an X2 or should i just get the 64 4800+? Also, i use only nvidia graphicxs cards, so should i get a 6600, 6800, 7600, or 7800 pci-x videocard? I'm kinda behind on my videocard stats, so i really need some help here guys. Im needig to keep under about $850 for these parts.

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Well CPU wise there is two new ranges out for AMD and intel as of today, AM2 and core 2 Duo(pentium has finally died) AM2 just the same as the old chips except a new ddr2 memory controller and the new socket and some slightly faster speeds. However because the 939s were so good there isnt a huge diff in them old to new. The new core 2 duos on the other hadn are looking very impressive and even though i prefer AMD the intel chips look to be better for the moment at least until next year when AMD release k8l. So something from the conroe range if you can find them(availiabilty in the UK is pretty poor but US i think they are about) and the prices are un intel like and pretty competitive. Am2s came out today and there is actaully good availability surprisingly and nforce 5 mobos are doing the rounds as well.

Given you multi task and use photoshop as well as game core 2 duo is what i would reccomend. Mobo wise Abit, Dfi and MSI are my preffered brands gigaybte are also pretty good, but plenty choice i would neccesarily say get SLI as its fairly useless for most users and unless done at the time with really cheap cards isnt worth the extra cost of implementing it.

HDD anything sataII with a 16mb cache is fine one is really as good as another. Wouldnt go mirrored thought because its volatile and if it crashes all the data is essentially unrecoverable.

gfx card wise photoediting pushes me towards one of the x1000s from ati because of the better image quality and colour reproduction but the 7600GT is fast enough and more importantly cheap and given DX10 is coming out soon you really dont want to spend alot of cash.

But you are going to be pushing that budget for what you want if you want dual core with a good gfx card.

[warriorscot]

Well CPU wise there is two new ranges out for AMD and intel as of today, AM2 and core 2 Duo(pentium has finally died) AM2 just the same as the old chips except a new ddr2 memory controller and the new socket and some slightly faster speeds. However because the 939s were so good there isnt a huge diff in them old to new. The new core 2 duos on the other hadn are looking very impressive and even though i prefer AMD the intel chips look to be better for the moment at least until next year when AMD release k8l. So something from the conroe range if you can find them(availiabilty in the UK is pretty poor but US i think they are about) and the prices are un intel like and pretty competitive. Am2s came out today and there is actaully good availability surprisingly and nforce 5 mobos are doing the rounds as well.

Given you multi task and use photoshop as well as game core 2 duo is what i would reccomend. Mobo wise Abit, Dfi and MSI are my preffered brands gigaybte are also pretty good, but plenty choice i would neccesarily say get SLI as its fairly useless for most users and unless done at the time with really cheap cards isnt worth the extra cost of implementing it.

HDD anything sataII with a 16mb cache is fine one is really as good as another. Wouldnt go mirrored thought because its volatile and if it crashes all the data is essentially unrecoverable.

gfx card wise photoediting pushes me towards one of the x1000s from ati because of the better image quality and colour reproduction but the 7600GT is fast enough and more importantly cheap and given DX10 is coming out soon you really dont want to spend alot of cash.

But you are going to be pushing that budget for what you want if you want dual core with a good gfx card.

[spyke01]

thanks for the quick response, i knew that there was a new chipset coming out for AMD but i thought it was socket n, im trying to stay pretty cheap, ill be checking on the core 2 duo, ive just really been hating intel for their prices. never been a fan of ati, never for that matter.

a hdd i found that looked good to me was the seagate barracuda 3.0Gb/s SATA 250GB.

Thanks for the input on the slix16, the only reason i thought about getting it was because of upgrade possibilities, so for now i think im going to stay away from it.

Thanks for all the input again, hopefully i can find a good core 2 duo MB, btw what socket is it? 775?

[warriorscot]

Yup as far as i know its just the old 775, the core 2 duo is going to be priced pretty cheap as intel are trying to get some leverage back from the killing AMD have been making with there chips for the last couple of years.

SLi isnst a good upgrade option at all beause of compatibilty issues with possibly non identical cards its better than it was when it first came out but its still a possible problem.

AM2 is the new AMD socket, If you are from the US the ati thing is more surprising Europe and to a slightly lesser extent Asia ATI is more popular that Nvidia but in the US its reversed.

[jrm20]

I have looked here in the usa and noone has conroe or am2 cpu's out yet. I wish they would come out soon so we can see some more benchmark results of the final production conroe chip.

[warriorscot]

Well i can get AM2 here i just finished getting a sub £500 shopping list for ma wee bro, AM2 3000+ gig ddr2 x800xl and a new msi 550 mobo, put in a 17" hyundai and thats not a bad price.

Availabilty is usually better for AMD in Europe because the production site is in Germany it means chips can go from the production line to your doorstep in only a couple of days if you are lucky, at the moment the wait is 2-3 days. Plenty choice on the AM2 motherboards as well.

[spyke01]

really nice price there, cant wait to see this in the US

[jrm20]

Okay now I am starting to see a few sites that have a couple of the am2 processors but not a large selection at all.

I still see no sites at all with the conroe cpu.


Newegg has 2 at the moment I posted this.

A sempron 3400+ 64 bit and a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Orleans 2000MHz HT Socket AM2 Processor.

They have about 5 motherboards and thats it right now for the new am2.


Thats all newegg has right now at the time I posted.

I had to type am2 in the search box at newegg, they dont even have it listed under processors yet..

http://www.newegg.co...ion=am2&Ntk=all

Edited by jrm20, 24 May 2006 - 01:58 PM.

[warriorscot]

Yeah itll just be logistics, i can pick up the full range here and they even have the new MSI 590 mobos for sale.

[jrm20]

Newegg has a few more of the newer am2 cpu's in stock today.