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Beowulf wrote:Rig Comments:

Get Core 2 Duo for the processor. Blows away the equivalently priced AMD proc. E6600 and E6300 are the two best bangs for the buck (E6600 has extra cache which brings it up to good bang for the buck).

SLI sucks until you get to the very high end. A single board solution is going to be both faster and more compatible.

The Seasonic PSU is going to be the quietest one.

The asynchronously timed RAM that 667 is hurts performance. Either get 533 MHz (synchronous for C2D) or 800 (enough bandwith that it doesn't hurt).

Multiple ODDs is overkill, but that's really your choice, I suppose.

I thought 4200+ is as good as E6300 and now priced even lower?

I'm looking for a new PCI-E video card. I have a Core 2 Duo 6300 CPU + Intel DG965SS mobo with some generic brand of DDR2 667 RAM. I'm looking for a good bang-for-buck card; I'm probably not going to be upgrading to Vista/DX10 until it is mainstream, and would like something that is fairly cheap until I switch over to that. The most I'm willing to spend is about $100-120.

Edit: I should note ideally I'd spend less than that. I had a 6800 AGP card (128MB DDR, 12 pipelines) before this, and it worked fairly well for my purposes.

Try and get a 6600GT or a 6800GT at that price range, good solid card, not the fastest anymore(not even close) but considering it runs all my games at 1280x1024 at rather high settings, it should be fine for you.

Who can/wants to rate my rig?

CPU: AMD X2 3800+
GPU: BFG 7800 GT
PSU: 500W V?
Case: compliments of HP (it's a P.O.S.)
RAM: 1GB Is there anyway to tell if it's PC 2700, 3200, or something else? I'm looking into getting another gig, but I don't know what kind. It came with the machine.
OS: Microsoft Media Center Edition. I'm going to go through my school to get Vista (it's only like 15 bucks, so why the heck not).
Monitor: Generic 1280x1024 CRT.

Later this year when Crysis comes out, I'm going to look into getting a new GPU. By then, I'm hoping the 8800GTX is down around $350. Hopefully it fits in my case!

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I thought 4200+ is as good as E6300 and now priced even lower?

Priced lower, but not as fast or as power frugal. You get what you pay for.

Exonerate wrote:I'm looking for a new PCI-E video card. I have a Core 2 Duo 6300 CPU + Intel DG965SS mobo with some generic brand of DDR2 667 RAM. I'm looking for a good bang-for-buck card; I'm probably not going to be upgrading to Vista/DX10 until it is mainstream, and would like something that is fairly cheap until I switch over to that. The most I'm willing to spend is about $100-120.

Edit: I should note ideally I'd spend less than that. I had a 6800 AGP card (128MB DDR, 12 pipelines) before this, and it worked fairly well for my purposes.

7600 GT can be had for $120 after $20 rebate. Not sure if you consider that within your price range or not, but that's probably as good as it's going to get. I have the AGP version in my rig, and it's really breathed new life into it. Failing that, the 7600 GS should still outperform your old 6800 vanilla. If you were willing to stretch your budget a little, the best deal right now is the X1900 GT for $155.

I ordered a XFX GeForce 7600GS for about $75 (After rebates). Quite a nice deal, methinks, and should be adequate for some time until DX10 is mainstream.

the 7600 is an awesome deal for the price. Rebates make it even sweeter.

With my tax refund, I plan to purchase the following:

Athlon 64 X2 5200+
Foxconn C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H
2GB Corsair XMS2 PC6400
Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA 3.0GB/s 7200.10
BFG GeForce 8800GTS OC
Antec Nine Hundred case
Antec True Power Trio 550W
Zalman CNPS 9500

In addition, I'll have the DVD burner, Audigy2, wireless card, Logitech G15 keyboard, Razer Copperhead, Viewsonic VX922, Logitech X-530 speakers, and floppy drive/card reader from my current setup. The primary use of my PC is gaming, so I wanted to prepare for DX10, especially for Crysis and Hellgate: London. Thoughts?

All those nice toys, and a foxconn motherboard? I havn't seen that many good benchs with Foxconn boards.

I wanted an SLI-capable motherboard with at least two PCI slots, so I can use both my wireless card and my Audigy2. That, and it was well-reviewed at every site I found while researching it, since I hadn't heard of Foxconn before. Also, funnily enough, it's five bucks cheaper than the identical eVGA board. Apparently, it must cost that much to make an eVGA sticker.

Foxconn is a gigantic maker of motherboards, but untill a few years back they mostly made OEM or branded motherboards for other companies. They're quality, but don't have the slight edge some of the other boards do. Also, they don't overclock as well.

YMMV.

Executor32 wrote:I wanted an SLI-capable motherboard with at least two PCI slots, so I can use both my wireless card and my Audigy2. That, and it was well-reviewed at every site I found while researching it, since I hadn't heard of Foxconn before. Also, funnily enough, it's five bucks cheaper than the identical eVGA board. Apparently, it must cost that much to make an eVGA sticker.

How do you know it's "identical"? Do you know that all of the components that went into the two boards are the same? Do you know that the capacitors used were the same quality? Do you know that the two companies spent the same amount of time on quality assurance? Do you know that the two companies spent the same amount of money on developing quality drivers?

I really hope you're not looking at stuff like "2 PCI slots, 3 PCI-E slots, an AM2 socket" and deciding "gee, they're the same, so eVGA must just be charging a premium for their name! "

No, they're seriously 100% identical. Foxconn makes eVGA's motherboards. The one in question is a renamed C51XEM2AA.

My GPU is dying. Old Radeon 9800PRO. More and more artifacts are coming on screen. It seems that the cooling system is going out and what is worse I cant replace it - the fan is ATI made - really untypical.

What would you suggest as a quick replacement? I don't plan on getting Vista anytime soon and my mobo gpu port is AGP 8x. I think I will need something really quick. What would you recommend?

6600GT should be enough for you and offer a nice step up.

I'm not sure about Poland, but asumming your situation is roughly compareable to middle eastern prices, you should look at spending under 150USD, far lower. A 6600GT retails in the U.S for around 90USD.

Thanks Ace, I actually went a bit higher and bought a 7600GS AGP. Gigabyte version with passive cooling.

This system I bought:

INTEL CORE 2 E6600 2.4GHZ
P5B DELUXE ASUS S775
NEC AD-5170-0B DVD-RW 18X BULK BLACK
CREATIVE X-FI XTREME MUSI
2GB 667MHZ DDR2 NON-ECC CL5 DIMM KIT
CLUB 3D GF 7300GT PCI-E 256M CRT+TV+DVI
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.10 320GB SATA

I kinda went low on the graphics card but fuck it I hardly ever play anything, ever so I don't need a big graphics card. Can always upgrade later.

Case: Antec P180
Mobo: Asus P5B-E
Vid Card: XFX 8800 GTS 320MB
PSU: 550w Seasonic
CPU: e6600
Memory: OCZ 2GB DDR2 800
HDD: Seagate 250 GB Perpendicular
Monitor: 20" Widescreen Samsung
DVD: Pioneer 112

Looks like an extremely solid setup, although for a monitor I just got an Acer AL2223W 22" widescreen. It's almost the same price as that Samsung, but is bigger. Also, Asus motherboards tend to charge a price premium on the strength of their brand recognition, but aren't really any better than others. I'm not sure what criteria you're using for motherboard choice, but I can't imagine that you couldn't get one just as good for $50 less. The Antec P180 is widely acknowledged as the best case around, but $125 seems like a lot for a case to me. I'd go for something like the $50 Coolermaster one, and together with the mobo, save ~$125 without really losing anything. Same with the PSU. It's basically the best you can buy, but you can pick up something like the FSP 450W for less than half, and I doubt you'd ever know the difference. For the processor, unless you really need that extra power for something other than gaming, I'd personally save $100 with an e6400.

Basically, your setup is extremely good, but I think you can get something that's 99% as good and save ~$300.

The combination of a P180 case and a Seasonic S12 PSU make for a rather quieter computer - the only question is if it's worth the cost. My own rig uses that same combo and I think it was worth it. He might want to try and get one of those huge heatsinks as well - the P180 works very well with them.

I realize that there are advantages of his set up over mine. I just want to make sure he knows what those advantages are and feels they're worth it, because it really is quite a large difference in price.

Ok, I need some advice on RAM

I want 2 gigs, not over $200 of DDR2 800Mhz or more.

I'm looking at the following:

G-Skill

Buffalo

The Buffalo firestix give me the best chance of getting micron D9 ICs (which I hear are 'da bomb')

But the G-skill has better rated timings...

advice? suggestions?

Eh, just get normal RAM unless you plan on serious amounts of overclocking.

Are you planning on serious amounts of overclocking, and have the other hardware necessary to do so? If not, don't bother.

Choose a gaming rig for me, preferably one that does not require me to use my nonexistent computer repair skills in putting the whole thing together.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin