Thoughts and Opinions - Gaming Desktop

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Gaming Desktop

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Topic: Gaming Desktop

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Subject: Gaming Desktop
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 5:48pm

I am looking at buying a gaming desktop in the near future for around $2500 (could spend more, would prefer to spend much less).

I have no keyboard or monitor or anything so that budget needs to include everything.

I have a few questions that maybe the collective forum in their infinite computer wisdom can answer:

1) If I am correct, than dual core would be superior to quad core for gaming for the time being? How about if I want my computer to last 3 years?

I am looking at getting one custom built from scratch online. How do I choose a motherboard? How about a power supply? Do most motherboards include a sound card?

What specs should I be looking at for around that budget? Specifically things such as ram speed as I don't know much of what is good in that sense right now (for example: I was told that faster ram is more important than having more ram meomory) Should I just download more?

Hopefully that will make sense, I really don't have much time right now.

Thanks

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Replies:

Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 6:12pm

why would dual> quad?

Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 7:23pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

I am looking at buying a gaming desktop in the near future for around $2500 (could spend more, would prefer to spend much less).

Lets see if I can work my magic.

I have no keyboard or monitor or anything so that budget needs to include everything.

For a monitor, I would suggest this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009145 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009 145 . Thats the best bang for your buck 22" I found in about 5 seconds of searching.

I have a few questions that maybe the collective forum in their infinite computer wisdom can answer:

1) If I am correct, than dual core would be superior to quad core for gaming for the time being? How about if I want my computer to last 3 years?

Whoever told you "dual core > quad core" was smoking crack. It is true that most programs today cannot multi-thread worth a damn, but the fact that quad cores are so cheap now negates any argument against them. For a Processor, I would recommend a Q6600: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115018 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115 018

I am looking at getting one custom built from scratch online. How do I choose a motherboard? How about a power supply? Do most motherboards include a sound card?

Don't waste your money on those "we build it for you" sites. A retard, if properly instructed could put a computer together. Choosing the parts is the hard part, not the actual assembly. For a motherboard I would suggest this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136 055&Tpk=dfp%20jr. That board is MicroATX which means I will fit in almost any case, also because It is MicroATX you will have more room to work with in your case. Most motherboards include a sound card. There is really no reason to get an aftermarket sound card, unless your on-board card sounds like garbage. As far as a power supply I would suggest soemthing like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153 059. I prefer modular cabling, and personally I think anything over 600w is overkill.

What specs should I be looking at for around that budget? Specifically things such as ram speed as I don't know much of what is good in that sense right now (for example: I was told that faster ram is more important than having more ram meomory) Should I just download more?

You want at least 4gb of RAM today. Right now, I would suggest DDR2 ram because DRR3 is not a very mature technology yet. This is the RAM I would buy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227298 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227 298

I hope to f'n god you were kidding about the "download more ram"...

Hopefully that will make sense, I really don't have much time right now.

Thanks

For a Hard Drive, I would suggest a 500gb SATA drive. Those can be gotten around $100.
DVD Burners are cheap, you can get a good one for about $40. Make sure you get a SATA model, not IDE. IDE is junk and outdated.
For graphics, I would suggest a HD4850. They run between $175-200.

So the total cost is about: $1100.

Note that I didn't include a keyboard, mouse, or case as those are personal preference things.

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Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 8:25pm

You build a very nice set-up for your budget, it depends entirely on if you want to overclock or not however.

Snake covered pretty much everything, just a few personal recommendations/extra bits of info here:

Motherboard: Your chipset will only be key if your overclocking, otherwise go for the board that will support your components the best. Personally I'd recommend either a X48 or P45, but you should overclock with those chipsets. The P45 is supposed to work better for quads when overclocking.

CPU: This will be determined by your chipset choice. I'd definetely recommend a quad if your overclocking since it can be made to outperform the dualies with ease, if you are not its a bit of a toss up. The higher clocked dual cores may be more effective for your situtation but a quad offers much better future proofing. With your budget again I'd reccomend a newer 45nm quad which perform better then their 65nm predecessors.

RAM: DDR3 all the way. Prices are leveling out a lot and it offers much better performance to DDR2, most of the resentment towards it is just the overclocking community being reluctant to accept higher latencies. 4GB would be ideal, probably in the DDR3 1333 speed.

GPU: I'd highly reccomend an ATI 4870x2 which are outperforming anything out there right now.

PSU: I'm going to disagree with Snake here. Using a 510w PSU myself I'm practically over capacity on my system which is much older. In general parts get changed out but PSUs tend to stay. Invest a bit more and pick up something in the 800-900w range, preffereabley from PC Power and Cooling, OCZ or Silverstone.

Hard drive: Same drive I always reccomend, WD 640GB Cavier, its a fine drive and no one is reporting failures that I can find. Plus at the prices they offer it, you can get a nice RAID 1 solution which offers not only redundency by greatly improved read speeds.

All in all that should come out under $2000 leaving room for a case, monitor and peripherals. Its much closer to your total budget but thats a rig that will last for a long while to come.

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Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 9:10pm

Darur, why are you suggesting something that high-end? For a casual gamer that is really overkill. Unless you are trying to run resolutions of like 1900x1200 there is no reason to go with the 4870x2. A 4850 is fine in

As far as the 65nm vs 45nm quads, I will throw my opinion in here. The Q9450 is the best bang for your buck 45nm quad out there, but it overclocks like ass-crack. If you not overclocking, it might be a good chip but as far as overclocking is concerned, the Q6600 or Q6700 is a much better choice. The only real advantage to the peryons is SSE4, which isn't really used yet.

My recommendation for the PSU was based on a casual gamer, not you or I. I run a 1000w personally but I am also running a 4870, RAID 5, etc.

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Posted By: Thor
Date Posted: 09 September 2008 at 10:08pm

For us canucks, find everything you want to buy at www.tigerdirect.com

It's cheaper than anywhere else I've tried.

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A second class drive is always better than a first class walk.

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:09am

Snake6 wrote:

carl_the_sniper wrote:

I am looking at buying a gaming desktop in the near future for around $2500 (could spend more, would prefer to spend much less).

Lets see if I can work my magic.I have no keyboard or monitor or anything so that budget needs to include everything.
For a monitor, I would suggest this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009145 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009 145 . Thats the best bang for your buck 22" I found in about 5 seconds of searching.
I have a few questions that maybe the collective forum in their infinite computer wisdom can answer:

1) If I am correct, than dual core would be superior to quad core for gaming for the time being? How about if I want my computer to last 3 years?
Whoever told you "dual core > quad core" was smoking crack. It is true that most programs today cannot multi-thread worth a damn, but the fact that quad cores are so cheap now negates any argument against them. For a Processor, I would recommend a Q6600: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115018 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115 018 
I am looking at getting one custom built from scratch online. How do I choose a motherboard? How about a power supply? Do most motherboards include a sound card?
Don't waste your money on those "we build it for you" sites. A retard, if properly instructed could put a computer together. Choosing the parts is the hard part, not the actual assembly. For a motherboard I would suggest this one:<a style="" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16 813136055&Tpk=dfp%20jr"> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136 055&Tpk=dfp%20jr</a>. That board is MicroATX which means I will fit in almost any case, also because It is MicroATX you will have more room to work with in your case. Most motherboards include a sound card. There is really no reason to get an aftermarket sound card, unless your on-board card sounds like garbage. As far as a power supply I would suggest soemthing like this: <a style="" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16 813136055&Tpk=dfp%20jr"> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153 059</a>. I prefer modular cabling, and personally I think anything over 600w is overkill. 
What specs should I be looking at for around that budget? Specifically things such as ram speed as I don't know much of what is good in that sense right now (for example: I was told that faster ram is more important than having more ram meomory) Should I just download more?
You want at least 4gb of RAM today. Right now, I would suggest DDR2 ram because DRR3 is not a very mature technology yet. This is the RAM I would buy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227298 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227 298 I hope to f'n god you were kidding about the "download more ram"...
Hopefully that will make sense, I really don't have much time right now.

Thanks

For a Hard Drive, I would suggest a 500gb SATA drive. Those can be gotten around $100.DVD Burners are cheap, you can get a good one for about $40. Make sure you get a SATA model, not IDE. IDE is junk and outdated.For graphics, I would suggest a HD4850. They run between $175-200.So the total cost is about: $1100.Note that I didn't include a keyboard, mouse, or case as those are personal preference things.

-Can't shop on newegg in canada but isin't 5ms too low anyways?

-It's not that I heard dual>quad, it's just that games can't take advantage of quad right now so the better value is in dual. I can get a 3.16 dual core for the price of a 2.6 quad core from most places. (which would I be better with?) AMD or intel? The AMD quad cores seem to have higher bus speed and are less money but are they any good?

-For the most part I am looking for advice on how I would go about picking a motherboard. (I have no clue what to look for). "we build it for you sites" may be my best option since I have no place to solder here really. (Don't you need to solder processors to motherboards or something?) Otherwise, I would love to build my own since I allready have a somewhat basic idea of how it all works.

-The second link is corrupted but I can't use newegg anyways... so anything over 600 watts is a waste in your opinion?

-I was kidding about downloading ram. I'll probably go with something like that.

-Should I look for a 10K rpm+ drive?

-That is a really good price. I will definately consider doing that. My only problem with that is having no warranty.

Thanks

Darur wrote:

You build a very nice set-up for your budget, it depends entirely on if you want to overclock or not however.Snake covered pretty much everything, just a few personal recommendations/extra bits of info here:Motherboard: Your chipset will only be key if your overclocking, otherwise go for the board that will support your components the best. Personally I'd recommend either a X48 or P45, but you should overclock with those chipsets. The P45 is supposed to work better for quads when overclocking.CPU: This will be determined by your chipset choice. I'd definetely recommend a quad if your overclocking since it can be made to outperform the dualies with ease, if you are not its a bit of a toss up. The higher clocked dual cores may be more effective for your situtation but a quad offers much better future proofing. With your budget again I'd reccomend a newer 45nm quad which perform better then their 65nm predecessors.RAM: DDR3 all the way. Prices are leveling out a lot and it offers much better performance to DDR2, most of the resentment towards it is just the overclocking community being reluctant to accept higher latencies. 4GB would be ideal, probably in the DDR3 1333 speed.GPU: I'd highly reccomend an ATI 4870x2 which are outperforming anything out there right now.PSU: I'm going to disagree with Snake here. Using a 510w PSU myself I'm practically over capacity on my system which is much older. In general parts get changed out but PSUs tend to stay. Invest a bit more and pick up something in the 800-900w range, preffereabley from PC Power and Cooling, OCZ or Silverstone.Hard drive: Same drive I always reccomend, WD 640GB Cavier, its a fine drive and no one is reporting failures that I can find. Plus at the prices they offer it, you can get a nice RAID 1 solution which offers not only redundency by greatly improved read speeds.All in all that should come out under $2000 leaving room for a case, monitor and peripherals. Its much closer to your total budget but thats a rig that will last for a long while to come.

-I am unsure about overclocking. I have tried it before to little success but would give it another shot for sure. I would prefer to not do it at all though.

-I don't know how to tell if my motherboard will support my components.

-I've been looking at the 4870 X2 a lot but it is expensive. Is there really any point of allocating extra money for a better graphics card if the processor is going to slow it down anyways?

-Ok... well I might go a bit higher on the power supply then. They aren't that much more money anyways to upgrade.

Snake: I am buying this desktop for orgasgaming not casual gaming. I just don't have an extreme budget for it.

Thor: tigerdirect works nicely for me because their stores are so close to where my parents live.

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Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:16am

Again, don't get a WD hard drive.

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Posted By: Gatyr
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:20am

I would suggest getting 16 gigs of St. Louis Ram.

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Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:29am

DON'T FORGET YOU CAN SAVE MONEY IF YOU GO SMALL ON THE RAM AND JUST DOWNLOAD MORE AFTER YOU BUILD THE COMPUTER.

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Posted By: FlimFlam
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 1:20pm

Anyone here remember SoftRAM? More RAM on a floppy...

Carl, you do not need to solder the processor to the
motherboard. The hardest thing about building your own
system is matching up the case wiring to the
motherboard, and that's not really hard at all. Build
your own, and save some $$ or get more for your $$...

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Posted By: pntbl freak
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 1:23pm

High Voltage wrote:

Again, don't get a WD hard drive.

Why? I have no problems with my WD external.

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Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 2:43pm

Snake, In general I agree with you, however when you say your building a gaming computer very seldom do you mean casual gaming.

Carl,
I just showed you how to tell if a board will work for you.
Things that matter:
- Chipset (P45 or X48)
- RAM standard (DDR3, doesn't matter which speed necessarily)
- Number of PCI-E 2.0 lanes (2 is ideal, but you only need 1)
- Number of SATA connectors (depending on how many hard drives you want)

Other then that most of it is personal preference. I will disagree with snake here again and recommend against microATX. Unless the particular board is being well noted for its cost to performance, or you need a smaller form factor, its usually wise to stick to the standard ATX.

If you don't feel good about overclocking then its very easy to avoid it. Avoid botique motherboards loaded to the top with overclocking tools and crap, get something simple. Stay away from the higher end DDR3 and get something cheaper from G.Skill or Patriot or whatever is reasonabley cheap. Its all up to you, but you only need to pick out the hardware you want now, you don't necessarliy need to decide to overclock now. I'm definetely not reccomending it if you don't feel comfertable with it.

As for your other questions:
AMD quads are performing nearer to Intel Quads with every generation, however they lag behind by a bit still. Its not a case of speeds, its how the arcitecture works. The bus speed isn't really relevant in your case.

Building a computer is like building something with legos, you just stick the pointy ends in the right holes. No soldering, limited thinking unless you need to be cognizant enough to remember not to eat the parts.

-------------
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Posted By: adrenalinejunky
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 3:28pm

my opinion on AMD vs Intel is, if your going budget, get AMD, if your going to spend enough to where you could be buying a core2, then intel is probably your bet.

however, in all honesty the cpu is not as important as the gpu for gaming purposes.

Posted By: Kayback
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 3:43pm

Dude, buy the components. *I* can put together a working pc, so you can definately do it.

KBK

Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 4:10pm

im thoroughly pleased with my 280gtx, running crysis at 1900/1200 every setting on ultra high and AAx2 with 40 fps...its ridiculous

Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 4:56pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

I am looking at buying a gaming desktop in the near future for around $2500 (could spend more, would prefer to spend much less).

I have no keyboard or monitor or anything so that budget needs to include everything.

I have a few questions that maybe the collective forum in their infinite computer wisdom can answer:

1) If I am correct, than dual core would be superior to quad core for gaming for the time being? How about if I want my computer to last 3 years?

When multi-core processors came out there was a big debate over whether it was worth it to go with more cores or a single high-speed core. The argument was that programs were not designed to take advantage of multiple cores working simultaneously so they would effectively be using just one of the cores at any given time. For that reason, the only difference between a dual-core or single core chip as far as that application is concerned is the clock speed. However, dual-core chips hit the market years ago now and programs are designed to make use of them now (most of them anyway). Newer games like Crysis are designed to make use of the cores so it probably does make sense to go for the extra cores, especially since you can always overclock to up speeds. And if you want this thing to be good for 3 years, go with the extra cores. Multi-core support will only be on the rise and I think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by going with a dual-core with quads priced so low.

I am looking at getting one custom built from scratch online. How do I choose a motherboard? How about a power supply? Do most motherboards include a sound card?

As Darur said, you want to look at the chipset if you plan on overclocking. Intel chipsets tend to be pretty solid though the newer Nvidia ones aren't too bad (680i and newer). If you don't care much about overclocking then just look at what processors and RAM is supported and make sure it will work with the CPU and RAM you plan on using. A good site will list everything the board supports in the specs but you can also look it up on the manufacturer's site. Socket type is important but also make sure that it lists your processor because, for example, you can find socket 775 boards that quad core chips can fit on but the BIOS (software on the motherboard) does not support quad cores. Sometimes a BIOS update will add support but if it didn't ship with that update then you'll either have to use another processor until you can flash your board or send it in to be flashed, either way it's a hassle. Nearly all boards come with some sort of integrated audio now but read the specs anyway just to make sure.

Power supplies are very important, don't go cheap there. You don't have to buy one that can power your whole neighborhood but don't get a weak one either. A power supply can be useful for a good 5 years easily if you get a good one so pick one that is high quality and has decent power output so you don't have to worry about it when you build your next computer. The comanies Darur mentioned are good options and you can also check out the X-connect series from Ultra if you like the idea of modular cabling. I have used Ultra PSU's quite a bit in the last few years and had good luck with them so far. As for power ratings, the amount of power you need depends on the hardware. For a cheap desktop that isn't meant for gaming you can get away with 300-400w. However, when you start adding in extra hard drives, quad-core CPU's, and beastly video cards, you need a ton of extra power and signal quality is important for overclocking. Both will cost you extra money. For this machine, I would get as much power as possible but you would probably be fine in the 800w area. But like I said, the more the better.

What specs should I be looking at for around that budget? Specifically things such as ram speed as I don't know much of what is good in that sense right now (for example: I was told that faster ram is more important than having more ram meomory) Should I just download more?

That's only true to an extent. Speed and capacity need to be balanced, both are important in different situations. With an XP system I recommend about 2GB for a gaming system. XP runs best with 1GB or more of memory and then your game will also need some for which that extra 1GB should be sufficient. That said, you could have 100GB of RAM but if it's extremely slow your performance will still suck. Get the fastest RAM you can get 2GB of. If you're using Vista then you'll probably want to have 4GB of RAM. DDR3 is fast but still a bit pricey since it's fairly new. The RAM itself will cost more and so will a motherboard that supports it. The performance gain isn't tremendous according to the tests I've seen (may have improved a little since then) but it's your money so you decide if it's worth it. I wouldn't spend big bucks for better latency because it doesn't make a huge difference and you probably wouldn't even notice it unless you overclocked significantly.

Hopefully that will make sense, I really don't have much time right now.

Thanks

I'm judging by the budget that you want a pretty serious gaming computer but it's hard to tell exactly how powerful of a system you need because different games have different needs. Some people just play things like WOW which even a crappy video card can handle while others want to max out Crysis or other new games that need the latest hardware. Here's a build that I would recommend but you may need to revise certain things.

Motherboard
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008660 - Asus P5Q $119
It's a nice, cheap board with a good feature list. I've had good experience with Asus and I actually just bought this board for a computer I built my friend. It uses an Intel P45 chipset and supports pretty much any processor worth using on socket 775 and then some. The only limitations are that you can't use multiple video cards or DDR3 but there are other versions of this board supporting both.

or

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008653 - Asus P5Q3 Deluxe $209.99
The sexier version of the first board. Supports DDR3 and multiple video cards among other things but it'll cost you a little more.

CPU
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80864&prodlist=celebros - Intel Q6600 $188.50
If you want something that'll last you a few years, this is your chip. It's good at stock speeds and even better overclocked should you find it lacking later on. The fact that it has 4 cores will help you run multiple applications simultaneously and it'll drastically increase speed in multi-threaded applications.

Memory
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85236 - 2GB OCZ http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85236 - Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC $49.80
Not the absolute fastest you can get but it's probably a good deal cheaper than the best DDR2 and won't sacrifice any noticeable amounts of performance. Get 4GB if you're going with Vista.

or

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008743 - 2GB OCZ DDR3 $136
Also not the fastest DDR3 you can get but it's about twice the bandwidth of the DDR2 I recommended. I picked this because it'll let you compare them more easily; twice the bandwidth, nearly 3 times the cost, not necessarily twice the performance. It depends greatly on the game whether or not you'll see an improvement over DDR2. It could be significant, unnoticeable, or somewhere in between. If you want, you can look for benchmarks online and see if you can find tests that show performance change between the two memory types. Last I checked, it wasn't $100 worth of change in my opinion (even more counting the money for the better mobo). Again, you're call here.

PSU
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=316512 - OCZ GameXstream 1010w $159.99
This is basically a nicer looking version of a PC Power & Cooling PSU without the hefty price tag. PCP&C makes PSU's for OCZ so you are basically getting the same thing but cheaper. With 1010w you shouldn't have a problem powering anything even with a fully loaded system. It also doesn't seem to be abnormally long like a lot of high-output PSU's are so you won't have fitment issues.

Video Card
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008694 - HIS Radeon HD 4850 512MB $179.99
Pretty good video card that should be able to handle most games maxed out and won't cost you an arm and a leg. You can even get two and put them in Crossfire for a good boost in performance. It may not scale linearly so you might not see exactly twice the performance but it will likely be a significant gain. I ran two 7600 gs's in SLI for a while and it was pretty good for a while and cheaper than a single card of similar performance at the time. I eventually got an 8800GTS 320MB because I wanted the extra performance and DX10 capability but at this point, it seems like AMD is back in the game and Nvidia may not be your best choice. I'm also liking crossfire more now that it has developed. Crossfire allows multiple cards like SLI but with less limitations.

or

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009175 - Diamond Radeon HD 4870x2 2GB $529.99
Simply put, it's a beast. It'll spank most cards out there and even beats Nvidia's latest. That said, it's clearly not cheap. You may be able to get similar performance from two 4850's. Heck, if you could fit 3 of them on your board then that would be about the same price and may even beat the 4870x2.

Hard Drive
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008688 - Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB $82.90
Plenty of space and if you want speed then you can get two and put them in a RAID array. RAID 0 is good for read/write speed without sacrificing storage space, RAID 1 is good for read speed and data security but you get half the storage space. RAID 0 is the most common for gamers.

Case
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008004 - Cooler Master Centurion 590 $69.99
Case is mostly personal preference. This will let you use an ATX motherboard like the ones I picked for you as well as micro ATX and has space for plenty of fans. That's basically all you have to look for in a case; mobo specs (ATX, micro ATX, etc.) and cooling options. Antec makes some good stuff too.

Monitor
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008777 - Hanns-G 22" Wide $221.99
This one has decent specs. For a monitor you want to look for a high contrast ratio, low response time, high resolution, and high brightness. The specs on this monitor are pretty much what you want.

Keyboard & Mouse
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=211303 - Microsoft wired combo $20.99

or

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007814 - Logitech Deluxe 660 $29.99
Wireless if you'd rather have that.

Total: $1093.15

Add on shipping/tax and that's your real total. I used the cheapest options for that price so it'll be more expensive if you go with DDR3 or the better video card but that's a good base line.

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Mack: Yeah but hungary people go russian through their food and end up with greece on everyth

Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 5:37pm

any 512 card is too slow for todays games...

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 6:52pm

Ok, I have decided that I am most likely going to build one.

What about cooling?

Anything else that hasn't been mentioned?

Darur: I wouldn't mind being able to max out crysis

Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:16pm

pntbl freak wrote:

High Voltage wrote:

Again, don't get a WD hard drive.

Why? I have no problems with my WD external.

GOOD FOR YOU. MY 500GB INTERNAL CAVIAR DRIVE DIED ON ME, AND NOT IN A NICE MANNER EITHER. I THINK IT LASTED ALL OF A YEAR PLUS A MONTH? THE REST OF MY DRIVES, EXCLUDING THE 1TB HITACHI, ARE 3 TIMES OLDER AND STILL RUNNING FINE.

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Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:17pm

Looks like a very nice build, although I would recommend against the case/psu combo. If you like the case, then get it, but of all the parts, the PSU is one of the most dependent in terms of quality on the brand. Your sinking a very large sum of money into this computer, spend a bit extra and get either an http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2776974&CatId=2534 - OCZ GameXStream , http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3302730&CatId=2534 - PC&P Toughpower , Or http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3905289&CatId=2534 - Silverstone Olympia .

The best out of those would be the Toughpower hands down, but the others are very good as well.

Also, as far as cooling, unless your a noise nazi air cooling is more then good enough. I'd probably recommend a Thermalright Ultima 90 or even a Thermalright Extreme 120 for your CPU. The rest of the stock heatsinks should be fine.

High Voltage wrote:

GOOD FOR YOU. MY 500GB INTERNAL CAVIAR DRIVE DIED ON ME, AND NOT IN A NICE MANNER EITHER. I THINK IT LASTED ALL OF A YEAR PLUS A MONTH? THE REST OF MY DRIVES, EXCLUDING THE 1TB HITACHI, ARE 3 TIMES OLDER AND STILL RUNNING FINE.

L2Backup

-------------
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Posted By: ammolord
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:17pm

try and go water cooled. iv seen some alienware computers that have it and it seems like a good time.

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Posted By: bravecoward
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:18pm

ammolord just lost his credibility in this thread

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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:20pm

Actually, disregarding the alienware thing, is watercooling usefull?

Looking for a new case/psu now. Is that a bad psu brand?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:21pm

Darur wrote:

L2Backup

YEAH IT HAPPENED AT NIGHT WHILE I WAS AT WORK, THE DAY BEFORE I PLANNED TO COPY EVERYTHING TO MY TB DRIVE.

ALSO, YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH AN ANTEC PSU.

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Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:21pm

Yeah, its a pretty bad brand. Honestly, don't bother with a packaged PSU/case, you can use one of those PSUs and just select whatever case you want. Heck, you can find that case from your original pick and just add that to the cart.

-------------
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Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:23pm

A ZALMAN IS FINE TOO

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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:35pm

How about this psu?: it gives off more power and is cheaper than the thermaltake one. Is it better?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3973822&CatId=2534 - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-det ails.asp?EdpNo=3973822&CatId=2534

Also, xp or vista? I assume vista right now for dx10, correct?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:38pm

Hey, its your computer, I'm just saying I would recommend only those brands, if you want to go with coolmax by all means, but I personally wouldn't.

-------------
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Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:44pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

Actually, disregarding the alienware thing, is watercooling usefull?

Not unless you are doing some crazy overclocking. To be honest you would be ok with stock cooling if you are not overclocking.

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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 7:50pm

Oh... only those brands. THen i'll most likely get the ocz gamextream unless you strongly prefer the toughpower for the extra $50.

So then I just need cooling I think unless there is anything else to consider. What do I need to buy extra fans for in my computer?

Also, will I need to buy any cables or will the components come with them?

Now to the most important part: Led's (don't laugh). How exactly do I go about adding led's that run off my psu?

Edit: Something like this what i'm looking for?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=586535&CatId=705 - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-det ails.asp?EdpNo=586535&CatId=705

How would I install that to run off a psu.

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 8:43pm

You can buy fans with LED's built-in.

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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 9:16pm

That would be a good approach. Where do fans plug into?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: High Voltage
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 9:18pm

Normally your motherboard.

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Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 9:31pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

What about cooling?

If you get the retail version of a processor then it will come with a heatsink and fan which will be ok if you don't overclock and your case ventilation situation is adequate. If you want to overclock then you should definitely look into an aftermarket cooler but I wouldn't mess with watercooling. It likely won't be necessary, it can be fairly expensive, and it is also a bit risky. If one of those hoses pops or comes loose, there's a good chance something is getting damaged. A friend of mine had his system water cooled and a hose cracked, letting coolant leak all over the video card and fried it. It was a cheap video card so it only cost him like $50 to replace but in your case, it'd hurt about 10 times more.

Anything else that hasn't been mentioned?

Darur: I wouldn't mind being able to max out crysis

I kinda built one that I am looking at let me know what you think...

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4016444&CatId=1533 - Asus p5qc motherboard

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4037097&CatId=2306 - Ati radeon 4870X2

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4089664&CatId=2758 - Quad core q9400 2.66 ghz

(is upgrading to a 3ghz worth the extra $200?)

I personally wouldn't pay $200 for 400MHz of clock speed since you can usually overclock to that for free but it's up to you. If the only difference is clock speed then I would advise against it. If bus speed and cache size also increase then it's not so bad.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3923841&CatId=2318 - 22" 2ms monitor

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4083527&CatId=3361 - 4 gigs of ddr3 ram

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3905589&Sku=TSD-300GLFS&SRCCODE=&CMP=ILC-GUIDE&GSID=40615957&GSESID=0nsouen51n5jrh3hbzbgkm55&GSCID=21 - WD hard drive 300gb 10K rpm

Raptors are awesome drives (got one on this computer) but two Caviars in RAID 0 can still beat them in speed and price if I'm not mistaken. If you don't want to mess with RAID then the Raptor is a nice alternative, they are fast drives. You could also look for low capacity raptors and put them in a RAID array. I'm not sure if you can still get the 36GB or 74GB ones or something similar but if you can find two of a lower capacity then they might be cheaper than the one big one. I got my 74GB Raptor when the 150GB one came out so it was cheaper and I was going to get another for RAID but never got to it. I have a big 500GB that I use for my movies and crap and I just put games and my OS on the Raptor for faster load times.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3685290&Sku=TC3J-2341 - Nice case with 800 watt psu
...

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oreomann33: Everybody invades Poland

Rofl_Mao: And everyone eats turkey

Me: But only if they're hungary

Mack: Yeah but hungary people go russian through their food and end up with greece on everyth

Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 9:39pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

...
Also, xp or vista? I assume vista right now for dx10, correct?

You'll have to go with Vista for DX10 sadly. There have been quite a few improvements to Vista since launch (namely SP1) so it's not too bad but it will put more strain on your system. Personally, I think it's crap and didn't really offer anything over XP so I don't plan on switching over to it. My laptop shipped with it so I had no choice there but I'll probably put linux or xp on there eventually for a little speed boost. There's a slight chance that you may encounter some weird issues with compatibility in terms of software on Vista but I think the worst of that is already over. It's your call there.

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oreomann33: Everybody invades Poland

Rofl_Mao: And everyone eats turkey

Me: But only if they're hungary

Mack: Yeah but hungary people go russian through their food and end up with greece on everyth

Posted By: Shub
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:15pm

Another decent brand of power supplies is Ultra. I don't think they are so cheap anymore, but they are good. I've used them in several computers for other people, and have never had one come back yet.

Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 10 September 2008 at 10:57pm

i see no difference between 9 and 10 from screenshots so im not goin to vista any time soon.

Posted By: Kayback
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 2:19am

On the cooling thing, water cooling is good and all, but it generally makes your PC a fixed feature. Sure desktops don't get moved around much but still.

And honestly? Water inside the delicate parts of an expensive PC? Not my idea of fun.

I don't go much into overclocking, seriously it is over rated. The performance boost on a tricked out quad core with a 1Gb graphics card and you wanna tweak a couple of percentages of performance? Don't bother.

With cooling I've found all you need to do is make sure the fans are all blowing in a logical direction, with none blowing exhaust into an intake, and you should be set.

Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 3:22am

Kayback wrote:

I don't go much into overclocking, seriously it is over rated. The performance boost on a tricked out quad core with a 1Gb graphics card and you wanna tweak a couple of percentages of performance? Don't bother.

I'm hoping your kidding there. On air cooling alone you can achieve a 50% overclock on a Q6600 which will blow away a stock clocked QX6850 which costs over 5 times as much.

Its not just a boost of a few percent.

-------------
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Posted By: adrenalinejunky
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 9:25am

High Voltage wrote:

A ZALMAN IS FINE TOO

i would personally recomend a zalman cooler as well..

and arctic silver 5, it makes a pretty good difference.

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 4:20pm

So how much should I be looking to spend on a cooler? Like $15 or $60?

Do I just need a processor cooler?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 6:01pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

So how much should I be looking to spend on a cooler? Like $15 or $60?

Do I just need a processor cooler?

If you don't plan on overclocking much if at all then don't worry too much about what cooler you get. If you do want to do some overclocking, I would get something from Zalman or Thermaltake. There are a few others that make good ones but you'd basically have to look at reviews and tests online to find a good one. Even good companies sometimes make bad products so it's always good to look for web sites that have tested the device. And yes, you will only need to worry about a cooler for the processor, everything else will come with a heatsink and possibly fans. If you get the retail version of your CPU then it'll come with a heatsink and fan too but it probably won't be too good if you overclock. If you want to play it safe, you can get the OEM version of the CPU and buy an aftermarket cooler. Either way you'll be getting the same CPU, the only difference between retail and OEM is price and the retail one comes in a nice box with a mediocre cooler. Also, as somebody else mentioned, use Arctic Silver 5 for thermal paste. It can be a difference of 5*C or more just from the thermal paste.

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oreomann33: Everybody invades Poland

Rofl_Mao: And everyone eats turkey

Me: But only if they're hungary

Mack: Yeah but hungary people go russian through their food and end up with greece on everyth

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 11 September 2008 at 6:19pm

SO the oem only comes with the processor, no cooler?

Do I need to buy thermal paste? Where is it applied and how much do I need? Tigerdirect doesn't seem to sell arctic silver:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=503 - http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc .asp?CatId=503

I would definately like the option to overclock. Do the previously mentioned products allow good overclocking?

How much should I be looking at spending for an aftermarket fan? Thermaltake a good company?

Is there a large difference between a q9400 and a q6700?

What is dual channel ram?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Kayback
Date Posted: 12 September 2008 at 2:36am

Darur wrote:

I'm hoping your kidding there. On air cooling alone you can achieve a 50% overclock on a Q6600 which will blow away a stock clocked QX6850 which costs over 5 times as much.Its not just a boost of a few percent.

I wasn't kidding, but I also haven't been into overclocking for a couple of years.

I suppose that's a fairly more impressive increase than I expected was acheivable. How stable is it?

KBK

Posted By: adrenalinejunky
Date Posted: 12 September 2008 at 8:45am

thats wierd that tiger direct doesnt carry it anymore.. i know they used too.

you could try going to newegg.com. most people seem to have had better experiences with thier customer service department and with them getting the order right anyway.
or you could get the ocz freeze, that stuff is also very good.

Posted By: sporx
Date Posted: 12 September 2008 at 12:36pm

newegg and e-bay.

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Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 12 September 2008 at 2:01pm

Kayback wrote:

I wasn't kidding, but I also haven't been into overclocking for a couple of years.

I suppose that's a fairly more impressive increase than I expected was acheivable. How stable is it?

KBK

I run my Q6600 at 3.6Ghz on air. Stable as a rock. It idles at around 35-40 at that speed, 60 under laod. I load tested it in prime 95 for 24 hours.

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Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 12 September 2008 at 3:19pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

SO the oem only comes with the processor, no cooler?

Yes sir.

Do I need to buy thermal paste?

If you get the OEM version, yes. I think the retail version has some preapplied but it's likely not that good.

Where is it applied and how much do I need?

Thermal paste goes between the heatsink and the heat source (CPU, etc.). You only need to put a thin layer over the CPU. Too much or too little will affect heat transfer but it won't blow anything up so don't panic when doing this part.

Tigerdirect doesn't seem to sell arctic silver:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=503 - http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc .asp?CatId=503

I can't believe they don't have it, Arctic Silver 5 is probably one of the most popular items. Well, I have heard good things about the OCZ stuff as somebody else mentioned so you can give that a try if you can't find Arctic Silver anywhere. I think I saw a review online somewhere and the results with the OCZ stuff were similar to Arctic Silver.

I would definately like the option to overclock. Do the previously mentioned products allow good overclocking?

Zalman made some great coolers and I've had good results with Thermaltake as well. My friend has a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154002 - Tuniq on his Q6600 and seems to like it quite a bit.The link is to Newegg because they have it and Tigerdirect doesn't but I'm sure you can find it elsewhere. When it comes to CPU coolers I always google it to find reviews where they compare it to other coolers that are similar.

...

Is there a large difference between a q9400 and a q6700?

Well, what they have in common is that they are quad core chips at the same clock speed. However, it's important to understand that there is more to it than core clock and number of cores. The Q9400 is a second generation quad core and there were some significant changes made. Looked up a review on the new generation and found http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3069&p=1 - this . The reviewer says: "On average, Wolfdale [2nd gen] ends up being just under 5% faster clock-for-clock than Conroe [1st gen]." The difference isn't tremendous but certain applications show more improvement than others. Gaming results varied in their tests with anywhere from 0.5%-8% improvements. There is a good improvement in power consumption though due to the die shrink. They found about a 10% decrease in power consumption under load which means less heat and more room for overclocking. Their test chip overclocked by nearly 1GHz without changing the voltage. I don't know what temperature it ran at or just how stable that was but that's still pretty impressive. Also, this is a dated review and it was done on a pre-release version of the CPU so you'll likely see even better results.

What is dual channel ram?

If your motherboard supports it (likely) then it will allow your system to access the memory in two channels simultaneously instead of one big channel. The result is more memory bandwidth available, preventing a bottleneck. Here's a description from Wikipedia:

Wikipedia wrote:

Dual-channel technology was created to address the issue of bottlenecks. Increased processor speed and performance requires other, less prominent components to keep pace. In the case of dual channel design, the intended target is the memory controller, which regulates data flow between the CPU and system memory (RAM). The memory controller determines the types and speeds of RAM as well as the maximum size of each individual memory module and the overall memory capacity of the system. When the memory is unable to keep up with the processor, however, a bottleneck occurs, leaving the CPU with nothing to process. Under the single-channel architecture, any CPU with a bus speed greater than the memory speed would be susceptible to this bottleneck effect.

The dual-channel configuration alleviates the problem by doubling the amount of available memory bandwidth. Instead of a single memory channel, a second parallel channel is added. With two channels working simultaneously, the bottleneck is reduced. Rather than wait for memory technology to improve, dual-channel architecture simply takes the existing RAM technology and improves the method in which it is handled. While the actual implementation differs between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel" title="Intel" class="mw-redirect - Intel and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD" title="AMD" class="mw-redirect - AMD motherboards, the basic theory stands.

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 1:40pm

So i'd like to update this to show what I am now thinking as well as ask a few questions. Forgive me if anything has been asked before:

Processor:

Pretty sure I want a q9550 but If I really need to cheap out, I would go for a q6600 (opinions?)

Motherboard:

Is the ASUS p5q series as previously recommended still a good choice for a serious gaming computer? If so, I will probably get a p5qc if I decide to go with ddr3 ram or a cheaper version if not.

Ram:

How is ddr3 panning out? Is it worth the extra cost of a more expensive motherboard and slightly more expensive ram? Can I do dual channel on a two slot motherboard?

Is this good ram:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4083527&CatId=3433 - http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta ils.asp?EdpNo=4083527&CatId=3433

As far as graphics cards:

I really want to get a HD 4870 X2 but i'm not sure if I'd see the benefits. Would I probably see the benefits in putting an extra $200 into a graphics card or would I just be bottlenecked by another part anyways?

Hard drive:

I've been dreaming of getting a 300gb western digital velociraptor but they are very expensive. WIll I see a large difference in speed between a 10K rpm hard drive and a mid end 7200 rpm hard drive with twice the capacity? Enough to warrant spending twice as much on the velociraptor?

PSU:

As previously reccommended, I have been looking at the thermaltake toughpower 850 watt psu. Is 850 watts enough if I want the option of overclocking? Is there another good psu that anyone knows of that is cheaper?

DVD/Blu Ray drive:
I think I want a blu ray player but they are still sorta expensive. Does it matter if I cheap out on one or does brand really matter right now?

PPU: (physics procesing unit)

Possibly a touchy/stupid subject but is there any value in these right now? I know it only unlocks some bonus stuff for a few games but it seems pretty cool.

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 4:51pm

Processor: Sounds fine

Motherboard: Unless you're overclocking, all that matters is your mobo supports everything you need.

That RAM is fine, if you'd prefer to save a few bucks the G. Skills are supposed to be a bit cheaper and made with Micron ICs.

I personally always recommend the best or near best GPU you can afford, its probably the most important part of a gaming computer. My computer has a 8800GTS 640Mb which I bought when it was a month old, its now almost 2 years old and plays every game out there on highest settings without a hiccup. Spending the extra cash now may help your computer last much longer.

In terms of hard drives, you'll notice an increase in application load time, and boot time, as well as faster random reads, but it won't speed up your system necessarily. You'd likely notice better performance from RAIDing some 7200 drives in RAID 1 or 0.

I stand firmly behind everything I already said in this thread on PSUs, your the one spending the money, your the one who takes the risks.

Hold off on Blu-ray for a bit, the ROM drives will be much cheaper once the burners come out. Brand generally doesn't matter in terms of quality, but it will in terms of performance. Some brands and some models can be lousy and the drive will die on you quickly. Pick something that doesn't seemed to have craped out on most people.

Don't bother with physics, there are maybe a few games from around the time the card was new that can use it, but all other games use Nvidia or ATI's physics which is part of all Nvidia cards 8xxx series and above and at least all R700 cards from ATI (less familier with their older cards).

-------------
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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 6:04pm

For the motherboard: I am looking to overclock.

I heard that raid 0 often either does nithing or actually decreases performance.

Sorry, I just don't know the good psu brands.

Cool, I will skip blu ray for now. About how much longer do you think until we will have to switch?

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 6:22pm

In that case I'd recommend you stop by either ocforums.com or xtremesystems.org and look at their mobo recommendations. I don't recall if it was mentioned, but a P45 chipset will net you the best overclocking on a quad.

RAID 0 may decrease performace in the case where the CPU cannot handle the combined loads of the program and operating the array, but on the whole it shouldn't. On the contrary you should, under ideal circumstances, see a gain of nearly 100% in read and write speeds with RAID 0 and a gain of nearly 100% in read speeds for RAID 1.

Stick to brands such as OCZ, Silverstone or PC Power and Cooling. I personally prefer PCP&P, but OCZ should be almost as good as them as they bought out PCP&P. Silverstone also makes very nice stuff.

Not sure what you mean by switch, you mean when will blu ray replace DVDs for gaming? No idea, but games only really moved to DVDs in the last year or too, so my guess is you won't need them for a while more, and by that time a decent Blu ray burner will be less then $100.

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Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 6:22pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

So i'd like to update this to show what I am now thinking as well as ask a few questions. Forgive me if anything has been asked before:

Forgiven

Processor:

Pretty sure I want a q9550 but If I really need to cheap out, I would go for a q6600 (opinions?)

Well, the q9550 is certainly a good processor. It may be overkill somewhat but if you're looking for longevity from this system, overkill right now is a good thing because it'll take longer to become obsolete. If you're ok spending the money, go for it. The current generation of quads from Intel have a decent performance advantage over the last and this one is at a higher clock than the q6600 too. Whether you'll be able to take advantage of that anytime soon is questionable but it all depends on what you use the system for and how programmers decide to make use of such powerful processors. There certainly are ways to make use of it now (3D modeling, etc.) and I only see the hardware being strained more in the future. There is only one thing I can think of that might cause an issue; PhysX. This is only really an issue for systems with AMD video cards because they don't handle the PhysX processing like Nvidia cards do and that puts more strain on the CPU (more on that later).

Motherboard:

Is the ASUS p5q series as previously recommended still a good choice for a serious gaming computer? If so, I will probably get a p5qc if I decide to go with ddr3 ram or a cheaper version if not.

I would still recommend the ASUS p5q series but there are other alternatives if you'd like to compare. I think MSI makes some boards that are very similar. I personally recommend the ASUS boards because I've used a lot of them (1 of which was a p5q) and found them to be good products. I especially like the p5q's because they have some nice features for a reasonable price and I think you'll be seeing a lot more boards sporting similar features in the near future. I also like how they have quite a few in this series that give you a lot of different options so you can build a very nice gaming system with one or grab a stripped down version so you don't have to pay a premium for features you won't make use of (DDR3, extra PCI-Ex16 slots, fancy heatsinks, etc.). Last time I checked reviews there was a lot of good to be said of them from others as well.

Ram:

How is ddr3 panning out? Is it worth the extra cost of a more expensive motherboard and slightly more expensive ram? Can I do dual channel on a two slot motherboard?

DDR3 seems to be coming along nicely. Speed is going up and price is coming down which is always good. I can't guarantee that your board will support DDR3 at higher speeds than the modules are at today if they are released so getting a DDR3 board now that supports the current highest speed may not work with the highest speed in a few months. You can look around for some benchmarks to find out what speed you have to run it at to really see a difference from DDR2 and use that to determine whether or not it's worth the extra cost. http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989&p=1 - Here 's a good article on DDR2 vs DDR3. It's a bit dated but still relevant. Basically, if you go with DDR3, you want to get the lowest latency you can. At the same clock/latency, there isn't a big difference as the test results show. To be honest, I wouldn't consider DDR3 to be worth the money right now but it will get better and if you want to use it later without buying a new motherboard, you'll have to get a DDR3 board and buy some cheap DDR3 until the good stuff is out.

About dual channel, if the board says it supports dual channel operation then all you need are two identical modules in the appropriate slots to use them in dual channel mode. This can be done with a single pair of modules or two pairs. The board will have a section in the manual to tell you which slots to use if it supports dual channel operation (most do I believe).

Is this good ram:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4083527&CatId=3433 - http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta ils.asp?EdpNo=4083527&CatId=3433

It doesn't look bad but read the article I linked you to, it'll explain what to look for. The timings look alright but you can get memory at a higher clock speed with similar latency for nearly the same price (in the US anyway, not sure about availability in Canada).

As far as graphics cards:

I really want to get a HD 4870 X2 but i'm not sure if I'd see the benefits. Would I probably see the benefits in putting an extra $200 into a graphics card or would I just be bottlenecked by another part anyways?

I don't think you'd have to worry too much about bottlenecking with the hardware you plan to buy. Your CPU is a beast, top-end DDR2/DDR3 is pretty darn fast, and the P35 chipsets are very good so there should be nothing holding you back. Also, I don't think the graphics slots will be changing anytime soon so your PCI-Ex16 video card should be useable for at least a few more years. I think it's more likely that games will advance enough to overwhelm it before it gets rendered obsolete by hardware advances. If you had two of them, then it's a possibility that they aren't being fed as much as they can process but I don't think you'd be taking too big of a hit. And like I said, the video cards should outlive the CPU and motherboard so if those two become a bottleneck later you can always swap them out.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/766/1/ - Here 's a decent review of the current generation of video cards. 2 GTX260's in SLI are pretty decent until you get to high-res stuff.

Hard drive:

I've been dreaming of getting a 300gb western digital velociraptor but they are very expensive. WIll I see a large difference in speed between a 10K rpm hard drive and a mid end 7200 rpm hard drive with twice the capacity? Enough to warrant spending twice as much on the velociraptor?

The velociraptor's are awesome hard drives, better than even some SSD's right now. Compared to a 7200 rpm drive, you'll see slightly better load times but it wouldn't be as fast as two of those 7200 rpm drives in RAID 0, nor would it be anywhere close in storage capacity. If it's twice as expensive, then RAID might make more sense for you. You can get two WD Caviar 500GB drives for like ~$160 and in RAID 0 they'll outpace even the velociraptor with 1TB of storage space.

PSU:

As previously reccommended, I have been looking at the thermaltake toughpower 850 watt psu. Is 850 watts enough if I want the option of cooling? Is there another good psu that anyone knows of that is cheaper?

Not sure what you mean by that first question but 850w should be sufficient for a single 4870x2 and all the other stuff you planned on hooking up to it. I don't know how much headroom that'll leave for future upgrades though as the video card alone will eat up to 400+ watts when playing something like COD4 (according to the charts from that review). If you decided later on to drop another video card in for crossfire then you might run into problems, especially if overclocked. I've had good experiences with Ultra PSU's and I think I used one from Thermaltake that seems to be working fine but other than that, OCZ/PC Power & Cooling and maybe Silverstone are the only others I would suggest. Others may be cheaper but as said earlier in the thread, you may end up regretting your choice later if you cheap out on the PSU.

DVD/Blu Ray drive:
I think I want a blu ray player but they are still sorta expensive. Does it matter if I cheap out on one or does brand really matter right now?

I haven't really looked into Blu-ray players much since I don't really have a use for one (or the money for that matter) but I would think that any name brand like Sony, Plextor, etc. would make a decent drive. I would browse around a site like newegg and read up on some reviews so you can find out from those who actually bought one. You could also just find a drive you would consider buying and just google something like "<model name> review" and you'll probably find some info on it. That's basically what I do before I buy stuff and it's worked out pretty well so far.

PPU: (physics procesing unit)

Possibly a touchy/stupid subject but is there any value in these right now? I know it only unlocks some bonus stuff for a few games but it seems pretty cool.

I think Nvidia may have bought Ageia (people who came up with the whole PPU idea) because it seems like the whole idea of a separate processor for physics has been killed in favor of a GPU that could handle it. Nvidia GPU's have some kind of physics enhancements that allow them to do what a PPU would and it seems to have pretty drastic effects on benchmarks that make use of it (one of those reviews tested this). I don't know numbers in terms of framerates but I would imagine that PhysX processing will take a good swipe at your framerates in some games. As far as I know, AMD doesn't have any GPU related enhancements for this so it's all done by the CPU which will hurt performance. If they still sell discrete physics cards then running that with your video card might fix the performance issue until AMD releases some kind of GPU related enhancement (which I'm sure they will eventually).

Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 6:38pm

Darur wrote:

...
Don't bother with physics, there are maybe a few games from around the time the card was new that can use it, but all other games use Nvidia or ATI's physics which is part of all Nvidia cards 8xxx series and above and at least all R700 cards from ATI (less familier with their older cards).

Once again you got to it first
After doing a little more digging on that subject, it seems you are correct. Originally when nVidia acquired Ageia they assumed that PhysX would not be able to work on AMD cards until some guy started working on it himself and proved that it was possible. Then they agreed to help him work on it and started providing assistance. Not sure if they officially support it yet but they started working on it around July so if it's not done yet, it should be soon. This should bring AMD powered systems up to par with nVidia when using PhysX.

Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 7:19pm

Darur wrote:

In that case I'd recommend you stop by either ocforums.com or xtremesystems.org and look at their mobo recommendations. I don't recall if it was mentioned, but a P45 chipset will net you the best overclocking on a quad.RAID 0 may decrease performace in the case where the CPU cannot handle the combined loads of the program and operating the array, but on the whole it shouldn't. On the contrary you should, under ideal circumstances, see a gain of nearly 100% in read and write speeds with RAID 0 and a gain of nearly 100% in read speeds for RAID 1. Stick to brands such as OCZ, Silverstone or PC Power and Cooling. I personally prefer PCP&P, but OCZ should be almost as good as them as they bought out PCP&P. Silverstone also makes very nice stuff.Not sure what you mean by switch, you mean when will blu ray replace DVDs for gaming? No idea, but games only really moved to DVDs in the last year or too, so my guess is you won't need them for a while more, and by that time a decent Blu ray burner will be less then $100.

I meant until dvd will be gona as a movie watching system in the same way as vhs did a bunch of years ago.

What is involved in setting up raid?

Mod98:

Two 260's in sli seem to be comparable in performance to the 4870 as well as $50-$100 cheaper. Isn't sli kinda sketchy though? Still.. for $50 to $100, Maybe it is better to get the beast?

"As previously reccommended, I have been looking at the thermaltake toughpower 850 watt psu. Is 850 watts enough if I want the option of cooling? Is there another good psu that anyone knows of that is cheaper?

You: Not sure what you mean by that first question"

Typo: meant overclocking instead of cooling.

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<just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs>

Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 05 October 2008 at 8:32pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

I meant until dvd will be gona as a movie watching system in the same way as vhs did a bunch of years ago.

What is involved in setting up raid?

Not much, you just have to set it up in the BIOS of your motherboard, and set the appropriate configuration in the RAID controller. When you install vista you will have to insert a flash drive that has the drivers on it. If you are looking at doing XP you HAVE to have a floppy, you can't install RAID drivers from a flash drive in XP.

Mod98:

Two 260's in sli seem to be comparable in performance to the 4870 as well as $50-$100 cheaper. Isn't sli kinda sketchy though? Still.. for $50 to $100, Maybe it is better to get the beast?

I would say about half to 3/4 of the games out there benefit from SLI, however given the choice I would prefer a single card solution over a daul card solution. The HD4870x2 looks better and better every day.

"As previously reccommended, I have been looking at the thermaltake toughpower 850 watt psu. Is 850 watts enough if I want the option of cooling? Is there another good psu that anyone knows of that is cheaper?

850 should be fine. I'll look around later to see if there is anything cheaper/better than the one you mentioned.
You: Not sure what you mean by that first question"

Typo: meant overclocking instead of cooling.

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Posted By: mod98commando
Date Posted: 06 October 2008 at 3:45pm

carl_the_sniper wrote:

...
Mod98:

Two 260's in sli seem to be comparable in performance to the 4870 as well as $50-$100 cheaper. Isn't sli kinda sketchy though? Still.. for $50 to $100, Maybe it is better to get the beast?

Yeah, I'd probably still recommend going with the 4870x2, I was just mentioning the 260's because they did pretty well. However, as Snake said, results with SLI (probably crossfire as well) can be hit or miss because the game and drivers have to take advantage of the extra GPU. Most of the time you will see a huge difference as those tests showed but there's no guarantee. You would also have to cram an extra card into your case and deal with any little SLI related issues. The 4870x2 is an awesome card and one of them should do the work of the 260 SLI setup without any complications. Also, having one beastly card not only gives you good performance without the bulk of two cards but it leaves you the option of adding another later on when prices drop more.

"As previously reccommended, I have been looking at the thermaltake toughpower 850 watt psu. Is 850 watts enough if I want the option of cooling? Is there another good psu that anyone knows of that is cheaper?

You: Not sure what you mean by that first question"

Typo: meant overclocking instead of cooling.

Ok, I thought that might be what you meant. I think I addressed that in the last post. You may be cutting it close if you plan on overclocking pretty hardcore but as long as you don't go for crossfire I think 850w should be enough. If you want to leave some room for hardware additions then you may want to get a 1000w PSU. If you look on the power consumption charts in that one review I linked you to for the 4870x2, you can see that those cards need a good amount of juice when you're gaming. One of them alone took around 400w I think so two of them would nearly use up all of your 850w and that would create some stability issues.

Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 06 October 2008 at 4:22pm

Snake6 wrote:

Kayback wrote:

I wasn't kidding, but I also haven't been into overclocking for a couple of years.

I suppose that's a fairly more impressive increase than I expected was acheivable. How stable is it?

KBK

I run my Q6600 at 3.6Ghz on air. Stable as a rock. It idles at around 35-40 at that speed, 60 under laod. I load tested it in prime 95 for 24 hours.

is that with your coolers on low/off? mine at 3ghz and idles at 36/37 with all fans on lowest, just wondering because idk how you run that thing so high on air unless your fans are cranked 24/7

Posted By: Snake6
Date Posted: 06 October 2008 at 5:56pm

DzXs wrote:

Snake6 wrote:

Kayback wrote:

I wasn't kidding, but I also haven't been into overclocking for a couple of years.

I suppose that's a fairly more impressive increase than I expected was acheivable. How stable is it?

KBK

I run my Q6600 at 3.6Ghz on air. Stable as a rock. It idles at around 35-40 at that speed, 60 under laod. I load tested it in prime 95 for 24 hours.

is that with your coolers on low/off? mine at 3ghz and idles at 36/37 with all fans on lowest, just wondering because idk how you run that thing so high on air unless your fans are cranked 24/7

My fans run at about 1100RPM idle. When I am gaming/doing something CPU intestine I crank them to about 2200PRM.

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Posted By: DzXs
Date Posted: 06 October 2008 at 7:06pm

i downloaded speed fan, but i cant get any of the 5 case fans to increase, the only ones that i can control are the cpu/gpu

Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 06 October 2008 at 7:48pm

Speedfan only lets you control whatever fans are connected to your mobo or gpu, if your case fans have only 2 pin connectors or are not attached to those points they won't change. They might also need to be PWM fans. Your heat issue is most likely not due to fan speed, whats your HSF/flow orientation?

As far as SLI vs Crossfire, so far ATI's drivers for crossfire beat Nvidia's for SLI in terms of scalability and overall performance. I would highly reccomend against SLIing cards to beat a higher end single card solution.

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