New Gaming Machine

Jotaru

Jotaru

shinobi-no-mono
FC/Active Member
Hey all-

This is more for the tech-oriented... I've decided its time to upgrade my rickety tub I use as a computer, so I had a friend of mine make up a little wishlist of stuff as if he were buying the computer himself. I used to keep up on computer technology, but kinda haven't in the past two years or so, and if you are into computer tech you know how drastically things change. (For instance, I had no clue my P4 3.4ghz was nearly 6 times weaker than my buddy's unclocked current Core 2 Duo 3.0)

Anyhow, here's the list he made up. I am looking to buy the best I can, within reason... I.e. not spending an extra large sum of money for very minimal gains. I have long plagued myself with 'skimping'; I would try to save cash for going one-under on parts, and it has always pissed me off, so I am trying to really get top of the line (within reason) here, without killing myself with my wallet. Anyhow, if anyone could, look over the list, tell me what you think, and what you might suggest I change / add / modify. Would be greatly appreciated~

COOLER MASTER Mystique RC-632S-KKN1-GP Black Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 320-P2-N815-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

SILVERSTONE SST-ST60F ATX 600W Power Supply

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive



I am also looking at a Samsung 22" LCD monitor; its not included as I'll have to wait to buy that /cry. The sooner I get the machine though, the better, this CRT will last a bit longer /pray. Any information greatly appreciated, I don't want to spend a large sum of money on something I will regret a week, month, or even six-twelve months down the line. Thanks~
 
All i can say is the parts look nice, and those video cards own =P, I'm running 2 of the EVGA 8600 GTS (512mb) cards overclocked like crazy pulling mad framerates in WoW when I get on, if you looking at spending just like $90 more, I would recommend the best thing I ever purchased! -->> http://www.vigorgaming.com/main/monsoon.html
fucking love that thing, front mounted plate to control the temp and all, quite loud depending on how u have the settings and if the side of your case is off. =)
 
Despite how amazingly technical all those diagrams are, it just confused me :) Is that the thing that uses current to circulate the air around the chip? I remember reading a while back about that; conventional fans can only do so much, because after a point the hot air just swirls over the top of the chip and doesn't really move much at all, limiting overall cooling... if so, and you really think its worthwhile, maybe I'll go with it ;)

All I can say is... SLI with those cards? @_@ I suggested that to the guy who set that up for me, and he just laughed... basically saying, its not necessary, for anything, lol. It must be nice though, I'm jealous =p
 
IMHO, especially running nVidia cards, I'd get a MOBO with an nVidia chipset (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=680i+LT), but that's personal opinion and just from experience. The rest looks good and, like your friend said, SLI really isn't necessary yet. Most games don't take advantage of it and some are even confused and slow down because of it. I have dual monitors and one monitor per card, so each gets their own processing power, memory, etc--works out nice.

I'd kick in for a bigger power supply... you're gonna need it and they make kittens cry when you have to replace it mid-way through. 1kw is pretty normal now days and not much more than 600w.

Only other thing I can think of is consider another hard drive or 3 and RAID 0 them (stripe). Basically you spread your data out among 2-4 drives (NOT REDUNDANT, so if one fails you're screwed), but you have four spindles spinning away and loading stuff up rather than one. Hella fast on the SATA 3.0 drives. If you want solid storage, you could have 4 drives, RAID 0 3 of them and leave the 4th by itself and keep important stuff there.

I don't deal with a lot of it much anymore besides dealing with Dell. With educator's discount... they're cheapers for an XPS than anything I can piece together. Heh. Only disadvantage is I can only order one per 2 years. No rapid upgrading. :(

Good luck!
 
Agreed, Intel chipsets don't support SLi. You're better off with a 650i or 680i chipset if you're running nvidia cards. Then, in a few months, you can get that second 8800GTS 320 card and have a decent SLi setup, or grab a single 640 and ebay the 320.
 
I HIGHLY recommend xoxide.com when shopping for computer accessories. They are some of the nicest guys I have met. When I was building my acrylic case, I stripped some of the screws and even broke a few off in the blocks because I had torqued them too much, sent them an email and a few days later had a new set of screws and corner blocks. No charge. They really do deserve your business. I get all my rounded cables, sata cables, cpu coolers, cases, lights, etc. from them.

Also, save yourself the money and just get an e6750 and overclock it. Much better price/performance ratio. And dump the single 320gb drive and get like, one 120GB drive for downloads, o/s, music, and 2 80-100 GB drives in a RAID 0 setup for games and page file. Keep them all WD drives of course. Your PSU can handle it and your system performance will be better.
 
Looks like a decent build the only thing I would change is:

Change the 320GB drive to a 500GB samsung spinpoint and add a 150GB Raptor as your boot/OS drive.

I always seperate my OS and DATA/GAMES. Makes for a faster system and easier to rebuild if your OS blows up.
 
Much better price/performance ratio. And dump the single 320gb drive and get like, one 120GB drive for downloads, o/s, music, and 2 80-100 GB drives in a RAID 0 setup for games and page file.
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Change the 320GB drive to a 500GB samsung spinpoint and add a 150GB Raptor as your boot/OS drive.
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Thanks guys, this is exactly what I was looking for. I don't know pretty much anything how hard drives / page files work, other than it uses hard drive space as RAM when it needs to, thus faster = better, yeah?

I don't need a ton of HD space, so that HD isn't really necessary... The one good point was it was cheap, though. I can afford to shell out more, it just means waiting longer to get it, which is definitely not fun. Anyhow... so yeah, I don't download many movies / music / other things, I've been running completely on my one 60gb HD for the past six years :D As far as the other drives you guys are recommending, could you perhaps pop up links on Newegg so I could get an idea what we're talking about? I'm a nub ,_, Don't want to do it wrong.

Edit: To simplify, speed > storage space for me.

Edit2:
Then, in a few months, you can get that second 8800GTS 320 card and have a decent SLi setup, or grab a single 640 and ebay the 320.
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This is a gewd idea. Just grab one of those chipsets you recommended above? And as Ehon posted, 1kw PSU for when I do eventually upgrade?
 
Man I wish I had money to get something like that :( That's going to be hottt.

As far as buying the parts, check out www.pricewatch.com. It searches every PC parts site known to man and finds you the best price. Aside from eBay, I've never found a lower price than what they got me, and it updates constantly.

Also, don't use monitor screen cleanser to dust the parts off :D
 
Also go to http://slickdeals.net/ my brother ordered a video card that was over clocked $100 cheaper than the video card that isn't over clocked same model.


for example: Newegg offers 2GB (2x1GB) GEIL DDR2 PC2-6400 Desktop Memory for $60 - $25 MIR = $35 + $5 shipping = $40 shipped.

and frys has the BFG 8800 GTS OC 320MB PCI-Express Video Card for $250 + $7 shipping.
 
Tarnak said:
Also go to http://slickdeals.net/ my brother ordered a video card that was over clocked $100 cheaper than the video card that isn't over clocked same model.


for example: Newegg offers 2GB (2x1GB) GEIL DDR2 PC2-6400 Desktop Memory for $60 - $25 MIR = $35 + $5 shipping = $40 shipped.

and frys has the BFG 8800 GTS OC 320MB PCI-Express Video Card for $250 + $7 shipping.
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EVGA > BFG
 
its not just that one deal the purpose of me pointing out an example was that a lot of decent deals price wise ARE on the page.
 
furax said:
save yourself the money and just get an e6750 and overclock it. Much better price/performance ratio.
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I must quote this as it really is good stuff. Saves you about 80 bucks and overclocking is a great experience if you have never done it before. Make sure to obviously research it extensively.

Also, I say this from experience, but the P5K series of ASUS motherboards are fantastic. I have the P5K deluxe and it is very OC friendly along with the e6750.

Lastly, when you go to get your nVidia graphics, get it from EVGA. They have a wonderful step-up program that allows you to spot the difference of a newer, better card within 90 days of original purchase. That is, say you buy first card for 300 bucks and 2 months later you want to splurge on a 500 dolla one. Send them your old card with 200 bucks and you'll get the new card. I got a 8800 GTS 640mb from them and will prolly step-up to a GTX or Ultra in the next coming months.
 
Oh, dayum. That sounds good.

The reason I didn't want to go with the cheaper card really is that's what I've been doing the whole time I've had PC's.. I'd get second or third rate GPU, CPU, etc to try and save cash, and found out very quickly that I all of a sudden had to run on Medium settings instead of high, or 'oh at this point I get really low FPS'... I really just want a system I can crank up as high as I want and have no issues, period. I don't need to run at 1900 resolutions or anything nutso like that, but it'd sure be nice to at least play on max settings and play smoothly. That card you mentioned might work, but on the other hand, I'd be furious if I got it and I lagged even a little bit ^^; I'm anal about that. Anyhow, with the overclocking, I could overclock the other card too ;) And that would be hawt.

As far as the setup goes, that sounds great, that'd give me a chance to test it out and see if I like it or not. Also, I've hated having to buy, resell, and rebuy, as you lose a lot of cash in the upgrade process (almost to the point of wasting your old stuff)... this way I could upgrade every few months and just keep top-of-the-line cards while really not losing much cash in the long run. Thanks for the tip!!
 
Aelfinn said:
if you want a machine with some style and quality OS & software:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...e&mco=7B723646&node=home/shop_mac/family/imac
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GTFO Macfag.

Jot, while you're correct about not getting medium range gpu. The Core2Duo cpus can EASILY match the performance of their much more expensive chips with a little overclocking. My recommendations for air cooling are a well ventilated case in a cool area of your home and attach either the Tuniq Tower 120, Thermalright Ultima-90: Sflex 120, or the Thermalright Ultra 120 (both the extreme and regular are awesome coolers). With any of those three coolers and some research you can probably bump the e6750 to around 3.7+ GHz. Don't believe that?
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3012&p=10 - ON STOCK COOLING WITH A SAMPLE CHIP.

Look at it this way. You're paying 80 dollars for only 334 extra MHz. If you're looking to spend 260 dollars on a CPU, at least go from the e6750 to the Q6600. No 1333MHz bus but you gain 2 more cores. My choice, the 3.7+ GHz e6750.
 
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GTFO Macfag.
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Agreed. On a budget, so shelling out a few hundred bucks for an apple logo on my computer isn't in my payframe ;)
 
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