[Glor]

anybody out there feel like giving me their picks for a gaming pc in this budget range? .. would obviously like to run SLI vc's but i will also need to run a separate (PCI) vc to run another monitor thats the only stipulation .. thanks in advance for any input (btw i already have the PCI vc)

Edited by Glor, 25 August 2006 - 10:46 AM.

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Building or buying?

[kidnova]

Building or buying?

[warriorscot]

Why run another monitor off another card when you can run it off the same one, and you dont want SLI either unless you are getting or have a very high res monitor, besides building a system today i would get crosfire with the x1950 faster and cheaper than a 7950 from nivida and its only one card not two.

The way we usually work this is you pick stuff and we guide you to whats better and whats not what you can cut and what you need to improve, most dont have the time or inclination to rake for prices and links its up to members to do leg work we just advise and supervise.

[Glor]

sorry .. building .. and 24" lcd 1920x1200 so yeah pretty high res

sorry again this is the "legwork" i did when my budget was around 1600.. it has gone up and im not sure where to spend the extra


Athlon 64 x2 4800+ (posibly better here)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103544

Apevia chassis w/500w psupply (better here)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811144125

A8N32-SLI
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131568

2gb geil ddr400 (want to go with better here .. corsair probably but not sure which ones)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820144322

2xWD raptor hdd's 38gb
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822136054

2x7900gt (maybe better here too)
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814143066

Edited by Glor, 25 August 2006 - 12:29 PM.

[warriorscot]

If you want the best gfx wise and cant wait till the end of the year for DX10 then a pair of X1950s from ATI is the best you can get right now they are even faster than a 7950 retail prices are going to be around $450 in the US £240 here(so cheap im in love allready [bleep] dx10 i want one now) ive seen 7950s at $600.

You want to go AM2 if you are going AMD, probably reccomend coughing up for the 5000+ at least if you are going full hog on the PC buying, that means DDR2 ram, intel is also a consideration with core2 intel has caught up to AMD with performance, although prices are still a bit steep intel side.

Ditch the raptors normal HDD are just as good these days and bigger and cheaper.

Def better on the case, check out antec, akasa and coolermaster those are my fav three, thermaltake also should get a mention.

PS X1950 review http://enthusiast.ha...W50aHVzaWFzdA== if you are interested i reccomend reading alot of reviews thats also a very good review site so have a read at their other articles.

Edited by warriorscot, 25 August 2006 - 12:41 PM.

[Glor]

"Ditch the raptors normal HDD are just as good these days and bigger and cheaper."


http://www.storagere...1500ADFD_3.html

a little old but still seems like the raptors are faster

[SirKenin]

The Raptors smoke any other SATA or PATA HDD out there. I wouldn't buy two 38's though, I would buy 1 150GB.

Also, the core 2 from Intel is now smoking the AMDs, so I would look in their direction instead.

The advice is good about the switching the VGA to the X1950.

I would switch the case for an Antec. Better PSU... Better everything.

Hmm. How else can I drive your price up??

Oh, try some of the OCZ Platinum RAM or something.

[kidnova]

Well if you're going Core 2 and Crossfire, then you might as well go all out:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131025

This build will be at $4000 in no time at all. lol

Edited by kidnova, 25 August 2006 - 02:10 PM.

[Glor]

so anything that doesnt involve changing mb's / processors and driving up my budget

[kidnova]

I would probably look at buying the case and PSU seperately. It may drive up your price, but not by a lot. You might want to look at Coolermaster cases and Antec PSUs. You probably want one rated at 550W if you plan on running SLI or Crossfire.

Something like these:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119094
http://www.newegg.co...;SubCategory=58

Edited by kidnova, 25 August 2006 - 02:53 PM.

[warriorscot]

Actually raptors dont in actual performance for some reason when it comes to anything other than benchmarks they lag behind, the latest generation of samsung SATAIIs anhilated the raptors in game tests beat the raptor by almost 10 seconds on level loads, the 7200.10s also have performance effects similar not as fast in a benchmark but the real life tests show it to be faster, Raptors are fast on paper and benchmarks but it doesnt cut the mustard in real life, certainly not enough to justify the price tag, the SATAI raptors even struggle to beat maxtor diamondmaxs in game loads and thats pretty bad. If you want to play games DONT get a raptor not worth the money even if the performance matched the benchmarks.

And when you look at the AMDs performance difference isnt a huge void especially when you compare prices instead of speed, when you include similar speced mobos in your price you can get a very fast AMD for the mid range core 2 so it balances out, AM2 is also the better socket its fordward compatible with AM3 so itll last a while and you get AMD memory controller and nforce mobo chipsets, so its not as clear cut but intel is a good choice in some respects however they are being let down by the mobos and the availability, price and features of the mobos more than the chips themselves which are excellent. Also quad core is out next year so you might want to opt for slightly cheaper and upgradable AMD.

So personally i would be 50:50 over AMD or intel as i usually tend to think what am i going to do in a year or twos time with this PC as well as now.

I would maybe be tempted to go for a single x1950 for now(still good enough to get the job done very well) and wait for dx10 Nvidia is releasing their ones in about a month or so according to them but the big wait is for the ATI offerings in november december which look to be pretty amazing(they helped write dx10 around there own cards) and those should be pretty capable to run your monitor with only one card(significantly more efficient as well as more powerful than the current dx9 crop, if yo put whats supposed to be the fully opened up best x600 gpu its twice as powerful as a 1950 if it was a dx9 card and its dx10 so mega power), so get one x1950 now wait 5 or 6 months maybe longer sell it and get a dx10 number.

Edited by warriorscot, 25 August 2006 - 06:24 PM.

[SirKenin]

Actually raptors dont in actual performance for some reason when it comes to anything other than benchmarks they lag behind, the latest generation of samsung SATAIIs anhilated the raptors in game tests beat the raptor by almost 10 seconds on level loads, the 7200.10s also have performance effects similar not as fast in a benchmark but the real life tests show it to be faster, Raptors are fast on paper and benchmarks but it doesnt cut the mustard in real life, certainly not enough to justify the price tag, the SATAI raptors even struggle to beat maxtor diamondmaxs in game loads and thats pretty bad. If you want to play games DONT get a raptor not worth the money even if the performance matched the benchmarks.

I'm interested in doing some reading on this. Would you please provide some links to this effect? Thanks.

[kidnova]

Raptors are faster for many applications, however for GAMING, the difference is negligible. The only time you will see a noticable difference is when loading areas. Most reviewers don't even bother doing gaming benchmarks when reviewing harddrives because of this fact. The real benefits are seen doing harddrive intesive apps such as digital video capture and editing. So, it's just a question if you feel that the marginal increase in performance is worth the steep increase in price.

From PCStats.com:
"Well, hard disk performance seems to be fairly irrelevant to gaming benchmarks, but the Raptors manage to squeeze out a very slight performance advantage here. Honestly though, the only place a faster hard drive is likely to have any effect during gaming, is when loading maps. "

From Anandtech.com:
"For the most part, gamers agree that your hard drive isn't limiting performance while you're actually playing a game. After all, if you are swapping to disk a lot, then your gaming experience is going to be pretty poor, regardless of how fast your disk is. But what is important and very noticeable when it comes to disk performance in games are loading times."

From extremetech.com:
"If you're into gaming or the media center PC thing, and you're not sure those extra MB/s at the top end justify spending twice as much money, springing for a bigger drive might make more sense. Typical desktop usage patterns usually involve transferring large chunks of data, and even heavy multitasking won't imitate the quick random access needs of server class drives. With the big Barracuda or Caviar, your gaming rig, media center, or HTPC will run cooler and quieter, and you'll have a lot more room for photos, video, and music. In these environments, the benefit of higher storage capacity will be a lot more tangible and useful than the upper echelons of extreme hard disk performance."


http://www.anandtech...aspx?i=2073&p=9

http://www.pcstats.c...t...1746&page=6

http://www.extremete...,1926854,00.asp

Edited by kidnova, 26 August 2006 - 07:00 AM.

[warriorscot]

I can link to it because it was in a magazine on both occasions, custom PC was one(they have a website but only offer stubs but you might get lucky) and the other i think was in PCformat for the review of 7200.10s.

As kidnova said most reviewers dont review it because it doesnt sho raptors in a good light, however custom PC did do one and it was fairly damning the particualr review was the samsung spinpoint SATAIIs the new p120s not the old ones, very limited supply of the drives only one store in the UK stocks them i reccomended it to a friend and its a very fast drive in reality as well, its like SLI it gets alot of hype but since the most common resolution of gamers is 1280x1024 its useless for most people but it still gets the hype that everyone should do it.