[ShaneBelanger]

I heard that you guys are the people to ask about computers so here I am! I have about 1500 but i'd love to keep the price tag under 1200 so that I can still buy a good monitor. This is what I have so far. I have specs for both amd dual/single and a intel dual. BEFORE you look down there I'd like you to know that I really don't know much about computers let alone gaming grade computers andything that I went overboard on or didn't go good enough feel free to change. Thanks for looking guys it is HUGELY appreciated i'm sure that you will stop me from making a huge mistake somewhere down there

AMD DUAL
http://www.newegg.co...MP=OTC-d3alt1me case 125.00

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817103931 Power Supply 80.00

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131569 Motherboard 90.00

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814143037 graphics card 310.00

http://www.tigerdire...p?EdpNo=1717669 ram 200.00

http://www.tigerdire...30&Sku=L12-1090 DVD 60.00

http://www.tigerdire...88784&CatId=480
DVD ROM 24.00

http://www.tigerdire...=119638&CatId=0
HARD DRIVE 80.00


Now for the Intel...

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820145098 RAM 190.00

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819116238 Processor 334.00

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130499 motherboard 164.00

single core amd

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103529 processor 334.00

Edited by ShaneBelanger, 23 February 2006 - 09:51 AM.

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I will be curious to see what others say...I have previously argued against dual core for gamers, but the nforce4 drivers are resulting in some performance increase depending on the games (cpu intensive games like doom3)

Personally, way over spending for the case

Other thoughts....motherboard does not support sataii
harddrive is not sataii
no sli should you care to add another card later (though sli boost may not be what you hope for)

[gerryf]

I will be curious to see what others say...I have previously argued against dual core for gamers, but the nforce4 drivers are resulting in some performance increase depending on the games (cpu intensive games like doom3)

Personally, way over spending for the case

Other thoughts....motherboard does not support sataii
harddrive is not sataii
no sli should you care to add another card later (though sli boost may not be what you hope for)

[warriorscot]

Well from a quick glance, i agree with gerry its way to much fro a case and its not that nice either to me anyway,

Dual core for a gaming system is if you can afford it the way to go as there are dual core games coming through now and the CPU is rarely the limiting factor in a pc as long as you get a good enough gfx card its fine and a second core is just a generally nice thing to have.

Mobo i agree not a good choice, lacks neccesary feautres and its an ASUS, which i wouldnt recomend for an AMD system and at the moment you want an AMD system. SLI i wouldnt be overly bothered if it costs more unless you do it at the time of the build its not as good value/performance wise as the card prices especially nvidias rarely drop by enough to make it viable in short enough time, and a new single card is usually much faster and with DX10 out this summer youll probably want a new dx10 card than a second dx9 one, its something to think about.

The HDD is ok looks a good price certainly but SATAII is preferable if you can get it.

[jrm20]

Dual cores are good for anything. The amd dual core is what I would go with right now. About what gerryf said. The dual cores are not the best for gaming as of right now because very few games have dual core support. Some games do have dual core support like Peter Jacksons king kong it already has it with the game and you dont have to download any dual core patch at all like in call of duty 2 you can download a dual core cpu patch.


Dual cores are actually good for gaming you just need to know how the dual core works on the processor. If you have a game that doesnt support dual core at all, you just have to go into the task manager and you can set the cpu affinity for that particular game to run on either core and tada no problems at all... Basically if you run into a game that doesnt like dual core processors at all go into the task manager and do what I said above. It will run the game with no problems. Right click the game process in the task manager and set the affinity to either of the cpu's, only pick one or the other. Its a good idea to download the dual core patch from amd's website so you dont run into any problems.

So really dual core is good for gaming, there is always a solution if you do ever run into any problems which you shouldnt. Dual cores cpu's are powerful chips but having 2 cores doesnt mean that it will help in games as much as a single core cpu would. It wont help any out any extra in games EXCEPT, in the dual core supported games which will allow the game to run on both of the processors. The next gen games will use the dual core processors by giving the "AI" artificial intelligence (ai is the computer generated characters that move and you can interact with in some way). It will give the "ai" its own core on the processor and the other core of the cpu will be for you the user to play the game on. By using this method the game will not bog down as much as it would if the ai and you (the human player) on the same processor/core.

See what I mean lol???

Anyway the dual core chips are worth every penny and some are cheap priced right now. Id stick with amd right now but intel might pull something out soon that might be good.

You can manually set a program to run on one core and another program to run on the other core so you get no slow downs at all just by using what I typed above about the affinity in the task manager. It doesnt have to be just games is what im trying to say.

You can multitask like you cant believe with dual core chips. You just need a good amount of ram. Id say 2gb of ram is all you would need right now.

*Edit*

left out some stuff lol..

You will start to see more games coming out with dual core support that will take advantage of the other core in games.

Edited by jrm20, 23 February 2006 - 04:23 PM.

[ShaneBelanger]

hey thanks, you guys have been a HUGE help. My only problem now is what would be a better board and hard drive. It looks like those are my only problems? Will that processor be overkill for just gaming or will it be just perfect? I talk to one person and they tell me duals are horrible then another says they are perfect(not on this forum) but just in general. It gets you so confused!! Also are those the best prices that I could get for those? In total it looks to be costing about 1566.00, i'd like to lower that but not cut back on anything.

Thanks,
Shane

[anoobrew]

nVidias G71 (7900series) cards release March 9. The 7900 GT is going to run around 300, there fore current 7800series cards will drop. Wait the 3 weeks and decide from there. Waiting and saving or getting a better card 4 the money never hurt anyone.

[ShaneBelanger]

what mobo and case would you suggest?

[Hammm]

Antec SuperLanBoy with out PSU, then get the Enermax 535 Watt ones
Mobo, you can get
SLI:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI
DFI Lanparty UTs,
Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro SLI
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLI
DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI-D
DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR

that's the list in order of cheapest to most expensive(roughly)

non-SLI, nForce 4 Ultra
Albatron K8NF4U nForce4 Ultra
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
DFI LanParty UT ultra-D
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9

the gigabyte nForce 4 ultra mobo is well known for they are the top of their weight everything gigabyte can think of is in there,don't get the Fatal1ty ones, they waste money, i'm getting the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI when i upgrade so MSI are the best overall for money wise. Albatron, they interest me only because they give you 5.1 sound while all the others give you 7.1 sound, it's not like Albatron can't, it's just they don't........................

[gerryf]

I like the MSI motherboards...never had an issue with one yet

For a case, any particular reason you are going to high cost. I do not understand the whole case fancy thing...I'd much prefer to save money there and splurge elsewhere

Perfectly good case for $59, and $39 after rebate...this is very nice

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119074

Once again...do not feel pressured into going sli--truly if you do not go SLI out of the box, then you will probably never upgrade to it (especially since you need two identical chipset cards and gpu cards have about a 6month life space before they are altered)

I think your power supply was a good choice...antec true powers are beautful to behold if you put them on a power meter....

[D-Shock]

I have a Thermaltake Kandalf Silver Case, it's awesome

[Hammm]

SLI thing not true. new nVidia drivers can now take two separate manufactured cards as long as they have the same GPU

[warriorscot]

And the same bios as well, its more difficult to get two compatible cards of they arent the same and its always a good idea to get two of the same brand and model otherwise you are playing with fire.

[gerryf]

SLI thing not true. new nVidia drivers can now take two separate manufactured cards as long as they have the same GPU

that's what I said when I said two identical chipset cards...i never mentioned different manufacturers

But, be very careful here....there are other variables involved Different, seemingly identical GPUs are not likely to be the same. 6 months from now, manufacturers will have tweaked the memory timings or added different memory with the same GPU making SLI success unlikely.

[ShaneBelanger]

Hey, I noticed that you told one person that they could save a lot of money if they tried. They priced their computer at 1800 mines at 1500, could I save money on my components?? Are they already the lowest that anyone can get them??

Thanks,
Shane

[jrm20]

hey thanks, you guys have been a HUGE help. My only problem now is what would be a better board and hard drive. It looks like those are my only problems? Will that processor be overkill for just gaming or will it be just perfect? I talk to one person and they tell me duals are horrible then another says they are perfect(not on this forum) but just in general. It gets you so confused!! Also are those the best prices that I could get for those? In total it looks to be costing about 1566.00, i'd like to lower that but not cut back on anything.

Thanks,
Shane

The guy who said the dual cores are horrible from another site, doesnt know his information or know much about the chip.

There is patches out to fix any problems that you might run into. You can even set the cpu affinity in the task manager and fix any problems if you ever do come into. Set the affinity to either of the cores of the processor not both if you have a game that gives you problems. Some people just dont realize how easy it is to solve the problem..


I will tell you exactly how to solve a problem if you come into one with a particular game.


Open up the game, then right after it press control + alt + delete then the task manager comes up..

(the game might still load onto the main menu when the task manager come up so all you do then is press the Windows key on the keyboard and you can then click on the task manager in the toolbar)

Next goto applications and you will see the name of the game in the list (it will say running beside it)
Right click on the game under task, then click goto process it will then take you exactly to the right process so you cant mess anything up so dont worry. When it highlights the process right click on that now and goto set Affinity...

Processor Affinity will then come up.

The processor Affinity setting controls which cpus the process will be allowed to execute on.

It will show CPU 0 and CPU 1 available to choose from. Uncheck one or the other so the game is only going to be ran from ONE of the CPU's. And your done.... Its not hard..