New PC for me

northwestdakota

northwestdakota

northwestdakota

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Joined
23 May 2006
Posts
346
Hello guys, im preety new to building pc's I have done a few Intel rigs but nothing to fancy.

Anyway I have decided to build a pc in the next 2 months as im getting married soon, and dont really expect to have much money afterwards ;) My friend is going to help me with clocking it, he has a bit of expireince with it.

I will be buying my parts from here and you guys really seem to know what you are talking about, so could I get some recomendations please.

The gear I have already is 2x74 gig Raptor sata drives, 19" tft, a nice case and Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS). My budget for the rest of the gear is about £800 I would like SLI and a dual core cpu, If I really need to spend more then I will. Its main use will be for gaming, but also a bit of multitasking hence the dual core. Thanks in advance for any help :)
 
No point in SLi for a 19inch TFT - SLi only really shows its power at high resolutions.

Better off with a single X1900XTX.

Go for the x2 4400 - best bang for buck IMHO, or if you like overclocking try a x2 3800 and hope you are lucky to get a decent one.

M
 
First of, congratulations :)

Most ppl will suggest you wait for Conroe (& maybe AM2 to improve/pick-up). But seeing that you'd rather spend the money now and already have some components I’ll just have to spec around that:
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM) £161.95
  • OcUK GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-038-OK) £259.95
  • DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF) £114.95
  • Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA) £38.95
  • Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR) £11.95
  • Tagan TG580-U22 580W ATX2.01 2Force SLi Compliant Silent PSU (CA-006-TG) £66.95
  • NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) £20.95
  • Subtotal £675.65
  • Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
  • VAT £119.98
  • Total £805.58
 
Ditto on the 19" Monitor don't need SLi - (doesn't really "double" the power).

Anyway, if you're gonna overclock, try these:

Opteron 170; Great overclocker! Just read reviews and look on the forum's 170OC thread.

(Single)ATi 1900XT (Not the XTX b'cos you can easily overclock it to XTX in matter of mins); it can be abit "noisey" if you've got low noise threshold, so get an after market cooler like Zalman (but beware, it will voild your ATi warrenty, so change it only if you find the noise unbearable)

If you do go the ATi graphics way, you shoudl get this mobo,
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire

I was recommended this and I will be getting it. Many great reviews from the overclocking front. It has crossfire, incase you DO want to dual PCI-E. Many "wise men" been saying Crossfire is the next Dual GPU; to go there or not is up to you. Again, dual GPU isn't of realy benefit for your 19". Better off saving up the rest for the bechalor party :)
 
Thanks guys for all the quick replys, Not "needing" to go SLI will save me a few bucks thats for sure, I was under the impression it would really boost performance, and meen that in about 3 years time I will still be able to play on new games with out buying more bits.
 
northwestdakota said:
I was under the impression it would really boost performance, and meen that in about 3 years time I will still be able to play on new games with out buying more bits.
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1) Hi and welcome

2) Congrats

3) I doubt very much that any system you buy today will be playing games in 3 years time without needing some upgrading. 3 years is a long time in the PC gaming/graphics card world
 
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I upgrade to a completely new system every 3 years-ish.

1999 Spring, mum got me my first system; PII 64mb RAM and an onboard GPU.
2002 Spring, dad got me a (stupid) Celeron PIII, 1.2GHz, 128mb RAM Parkard Bell.
2003 Summer, I bought a P4HT 2.8GHz, 1GB PC3200, 128mb 9600 from a Custom PC shop.
2006 Summer, I'll be building from base up Opteron 170, 2GB OCZ PC3200, 512mb ATi 1900XT, ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire.

You'll definitely lose high resolution and eye candy from newer games as technology progresses. Like now my P4HT2.8 and ATi 9600 can't play Oblivion decently at resolution higher than 800x600. You'll have to upgrade at least every 2 to 3 years ish. Such is the PC world for gaming.

Good luck in your build :)
 
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northwestdakota said:
What is the estimated release time of the conroes? and any prices yet?
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Don't quote me on this; I did a google.
AFAIK, July'06.
E6300 (1.86GHz), $210
E6400 (2.13GHz), $240
E6600 (2.4GHz), $315
E6700 (2.67GHz), $529
 
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