WarSpartan Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Basically I bought this monster LCD to play on and my current hardware cant smoothly push the native rez for a lot of games. Soooo.... What would you folks recommend if I were to build a new system right now. Im currently doing some reading and newegg searching getting my ideas set. However Im a bit out of the current tech news and info so catch up can take a bit What do you guys consider hot and worthwhile. Lastly, Im more of a semi-budget wont buy newest biggest tech as I think the price is simply ridiculous vs. performance gains. So while Im looking at core 2 duo CPU's I probably wont touch the "extreme" versions as they seem just totally out of whack for price. Thinking SLI is the way to go as well, but am open to any suggestions Thanks for the input ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Ob. Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 A low or middle Core2 Duo would be great, esp if you get a 3rd party HSF and OC it!! Dual vid cards are nice, but not all games are supported by dual vid cards. If it was the different between one high end card versus 2 middle of the road cards, I'd get the one monster video card. If you get less than 2 gigs of ram, you are a fool. 2 Gig should be your minimum and possibly 4. Get a new big HD (if you reuse a current one, make that the 2nd HD), if $$ was no object, I'd say get a raptor as they are nice and fast! Other stuff I'd get if it was my rig, a X-Fi and a Intel PT-1000 pci-e nic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarSpartan Posted March 6, 2007 Author Share Posted March 6, 2007 KK yea 2 gigs was the bare minimum, im considering 4 but thats a solid $ jump so maybe, though I'd love to have it. Intel PT-1000 ? Dedicated network then ? Lastly what about power ? I see antec cases arent selling with more than 500w, but I had thought we needed more than that for SLI. Tanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Ob. Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Yep, the Intel PT 1000 is a dedicated network card. (PCI-E 1x slot) Power supply will depend if you OC and what pair of vid cards you get. I overclocked enough to burn out 2 500w p/s, so I have a Thermaltake ToughPower 700w (just one vid card, x1900XTX), and I think PurSuiT has 2 x1950 PROs on a 550w. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParoxysM Posted March 7, 2007 Share Posted March 7, 2007 http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=625 E6400 2.13GHz stock to 3.50GHz overclocked! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsebastianbach Posted March 8, 2007 Share Posted March 8, 2007 Overclocking: Budget System and mid range 965 based board is your best bet here. They'll give the headroom needed to overclock the slower E6300 and E6400 CPU's. Due to their low stock multipliers (7 and 8* respectively) high FSB is required to push these chips. You need to be aware of the lack of downclock memory dividers on the 965 chipsets however. You'll need to get some decent memory to really push your CPU. The recent release of the 650i chipset also adds another option here. These board's are cheap and overclock well. 500 FSB is about the max which is 3.5ghz on a 6300. If that's enough for you then the 650i's are worth considering. The boards also offer async memory overclocking which means you can spend MUCH less on ram. PC2 4200 would be an option with this board, though it tends not to be much cheaper than PC2 5400. PC2 6400 is a good bet, if you can't stretch this far 5400 memory should be good for 400 FSB. Spend as much of your budget as you can on decent memory. Mid to Higher end Here, mobo choice depends on CPU choice and how far you want to push things. If you choose a lower multiplier chip (ie 6300 or 6400) then again plump for a 965 based board. If you pick a higher multi CPU (ie 6600 or faster) then the 975 board maybe the best bet. These boards tend to celing at around 430-450 FSB giving a shade over 4ghz from an E6600. As above, 650i is another option in this bracket. Ram choice isn't quite as important here if the budget doesnt allow. Of course you can run upclock dividers on the memory or drop the CPU's multiplier to fully overclock your ram if required. If you choose an X6800 CPU then the Nforce 570 board maybe a consideration too. Due to the unlocked multipler, the overclock shouldnt be limited by the low FSB's achievable (around 330 max). ========================= Reccomended Systems: Budget/mid Range - E6300 or E6400 Gigabyte DS3 or Asus P5B "vanilla" 1GB PC-5400 GSkill ZX Mid/High E6600 or 6700 or Higher Asus P5B Deluxe or Asus P5W DH 2GB DDR2 XP2-5300 Mushkin Extreme Performance (default rated 3,3,3,x) Budget/mid Range Overclocker - E6300 or E6400 Gigabyte DS4, Asus P5N-E SLI or Asus P5B "vanilla" 1GB PC-5400 GSkill ZX Mid/High Overclocker E6600 or Higher Asus P5B Deluxe or Asus P5W DH, or Gigabyte DQ6 (Possible P5N-E SLI)! 2GB GSkill HZ 6400, Geil C4 6400 or Corsair C4 6400 Note the C4 Corsair no longer uses D9 IC's. It's using Promo's which don't clock as well. This is also the case for C4 dominators. C3 dominators are still using D9 based IC's . Look for memory with default voltage over 2.0v if you can. This tends to indicate D9 xxx based IC's from Micron. These overclock REALLY nicely. Bit uses Corsair C5 8500 and the 6400 C3 in testing - both are capable of 3-3-3-9-1T at with 2.2V at DDR2-800 with ease. Another option is the now rare Crucial Anniversary 5400, which should run 500+ FSB without any issues. Will hold tight timings at 400 FSB also. Cellshock and Team Xtreem modules are also great performance wise, and certainly worth a look at along with the Crucial over GSkill and the Corsair sticks if budget allows. Current batches of Geil have been a bit hit and miss, and could be worth avoiding if you can afford something better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Ob. Posted March 8, 2007 Share Posted March 8, 2007 Good stuff, see above!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParoxysM Posted March 8, 2007 Share Posted March 8, 2007 That's a long post for initial one. I think that might be Bob. If theire were misspellings, I would guess PurSuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Ob. Posted March 8, 2007 Share Posted March 8, 2007 That's a long post for initial one. I think that might be Bob. If theire were misspellings, I would guess PurSuit. Sorry, it wasn't me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarSpartan Posted March 8, 2007 Author Share Posted March 8, 2007 Good info so far. Been looking at vid card material. Looks like the best deal for $ is probably the 8800 GTS w/640 MB on it. I might opt for the GTX version though its a big jump in $$ for im not sure how much really. Will be browsing benchmarks later. But it looks like the 8800's eat up even SLI 7950's in performance. Probably will go for the e6400 OC as it sounds relatively safe and stable. Plus paying mad $ on high qual memory seems a little weak but i didnt check the exact amount over normal yet. Lots to read on blah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conan4Life Posted March 9, 2007 Share Posted March 9, 2007 (edited) personally for the major release of dx10 hardware... current system runs everthing i want... AND THATS MORE THAN WOW.. no inot additcted http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/5465 thats what im waiting for, the multiplay should be sweet Edited March 10, 2007 by Conan4Life Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsebastianbach Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 That's a long post for initial one. I think that might be Bob. If theire were misspellings, I would guess PurSuit. No it was me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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