[Cloud Striffe]

I am looking to buy the ultimate system for like $2000 not including the monitor, trying to make the parents buy that for college present. Here is what I was leaning toward if anyone could help and tweak it so I can be in my price range that would be most appricated.

Specs: (everything is from newegg.com)

-Still undecided about case
-ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice
-ASUS EN6800GT/2DT/256MB Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card
-Kingston HyperX 1GB (2 x 512MB)
-Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM
-Microsoft N90-00073 2-Tone USB Wireless Ergonomics Wireless Optical Desktop
-CREATIVE Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS GAMER Limited Edition
-SONY 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW

I think that should be under $2000. Please if you have any suggestions feel free to suggest. I am going to be running mostly Guild Wars but when Elder Scrolls: Oblivion comes out I need to be ready because that game is going to be crazy on the spec's required.

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just to be crazy i would put water cooling in that with some sick UV reflective water and UV reflective cabling and maybe do some over clocking.

[crazy_azz_mat]

just to be crazy i would put water cooling in that with some sick UV reflective water and UV reflective cabling and maybe do some over clocking.

[hacp]

Maybe cut back on the processor to get the ultra?

[crazy_azz_mat]

another thing.....Eww pci video card :S

[warriorscot]

Yeah you might want a cheaper cpu and just overclock it get an X2 later down the line. In terms of the western digital hard drive do you really need one, ive looked at the raptor range of hard drives for a while and they small and noisy and while you get a speed advantage is that really what you want i like to have a at least half my games on my pc at one time for selection thats quite hard with my current 80gig so you might want a larger 300gig sata2 or something at last in my opinion.

[Cloud Striffe]

What is wrong with PCI video cards?

I really haven't done much of the overclocking so I'd be kinda in the dark about how do that. But yeah I was thinking about the liquid cooling, isn't that supposed to be a good way to keep the temp down? What I plan to do with this rig is use it as like my tv and gaming stationed in my living room and it will probably be running quite a bit so I need that extra cooling.

What do you mean ULTRA, Ram? If so what kind?

[sapperlight]

Aloha. I just built my first computer, so I'm not an expert by any means, but I can offer some thoughts as I did lots of research in building it.

I like the Raptor HDD. I have the Aspire X-Navigator which has 5 case fans, so the noise of the HDD is really a non-issue. It's not that the case is particularly noisy, but unless you install ultra-quiet fans or acoustic suppression, the noise of the HDD is not noticeable. What is noticeable, though, is the increase in speed over my 7200 IDE HDD. The size can be an issue, which is why I have the plain jane HDD on the system as well.

By Ultra I think he means the 6800 Ultra card. I think it's the current top nVidia model. Another school of thought here is to go with dual graphics cards using SLI. While that would normally be expensive, Gigabyte offers a mobo-dual gpu combo for $500. The two 6600GTs are on the same card. Mine benchmarked at 14393 on 3DMark03, which is higher than any single nVidia card I've seen. If you plan on getting a second 6800 series down the road, though, go with one now and one later.

PCI connection would be the slowest option at the moment, but you will have PCI Express, which is the fastest. I think he just missed the -E at the end.

Also, I noticed a big difference in 2 GB of RAM over 1 GB. Of course, that was for the 3 days it actually ran with 2 GB, before it crashed.

[warriorscot]

One now and one later is a bad idea as SLi requires two identical GFX cards a year or two down the line you might have alot of trouble finding another identical card, i only say because i was given the same warning rather strongly by a friend. So its two mediocre ones now or a very good one now. I would think you would be able to get a more top of the range 6800 fro that money if i had that budget i would. You might think about a slower venice and overclocking or bite the bullet and get a san diego.

Edited by warriorscot, 09 June 2005 - 12:21 PM.

[Cloud Striffe]

Thanks for the advice. What I am looking at now is for my case the new ASUS Vento 3600 with Liquid cooling and noise suppression(however you spell it) and a Enermax ATX 2.0 w/SLI Support 535W Power Supply. Also for my harddrive I was looking and I was thinking about getting a Raptor 34GB and a 80GB SATA 7200, even though i don't know what SATA means I figure thats good and it will be less than the 74GB Raptor. About my graphics card I was going to get the Geforce 6800GT 256MB and maybe like a few months down the road get another one for the SLI. How much of a difference is 1GB from 2GB of RAM? Also what is the difference between Venice and San Diego

Edited by Cloud Striffe, 09 June 2005 - 01:06 PM.

[warriorscot]

Venice and san diego are the cores in the cpu san diego is the faster of the two as it has a bigger L2 cache. You have enough money i to get a bigger sata hard drive a 160gb is dirt cheap SATA is beter than IDE so you want to get that. 2Gb of ram is better than 1 Gb as a rule but if it is 2Gb of crap ram its not quite so good. I really cant impress on you anymore the fact that everyone who ive asked and every review ive read says do not try and get one card and then another later for sli. When i say identical i mean identical not identical specs, form what ive read depending on the origanal make you not only have to get the same type and brand you might have to get the same batch, at least thats what i read.

You really would be better of with either 2 6800GTs now or a really good single.

My personal opinion is that vento cases are the ugliest things ive ever seen and the fact that they are huge you could mistake it for a coffee table.

Also if your liquid cooling why are you buying a case that was according to it run down designed to give enhanced air cooling to your motherboard. Its also very expensive for that price you could get a nice coolermaster or a cheap lian li.

[Cloud Striffe]

Starting like June 15 or sometime around there they are going to start shipping the new Dual Core so I am thinking that the price of the processor will go down so I just might be able to get the San Diego. I will definantly get the SATA now, thanks, but I really don't need a 160GB I have an 80GB right now and I am having trouble filling that one. I will look more into the coolermaster cases but I have just heard that the colder it is in the case the faster it will run so that was the reasoning behind that if it makes any sense. I might be able to pull something and maybe be able to get like 2 6800's instead of the GT's.

[crazy_azz_mat]

so is the pci express version or just pci? bc thats garbage then.

[Cloud Striffe]

For the 6800's? It is PCI Express

[syfer]

I now this may be crazy but my dream system would be i7 extreme pressers with 24gb of ram and ddr3 and two of the latest directx 11 cars with 5 x 2 terabyte hard rives with a lanlie armor case and there are motherboards that sport 24gb out there for gaming.

Edited by syfer, 25 December 2009 - 07:09 AM.

[ZzDiety]

Also, water cooling pc's are such a great idea, it acutally doesn't make the pc last forever, since it's all h20. It's best to have a normal pc, with fans.
Liquid cooled pc's are just to show off, just pay for a decent pc that lasts you and you can do upgrades in the future.

Also, this is like less then 2k, it's super cheap you got crossfire XFX radeon HD 4890s which is pretty good, your parents will say yes right away.

Barebone kit: http://www.tigerdire...mp;sku=B69-0161 ( Awesome case)

Graphics card x2 : http://www.tigerdire...p;sku=P450-4894 ( This is another one because the one in the barebone kit has one too.)

This is like an instant yes from your parents and you have extra money for whatever lese you want to do with it ( i,e buy shitloads of steam games.)