New PC - Lotsa Questions inside.....

[~Divine~Wind~]

Ok,

lookin at building a new PC but Ive been utta the loop for quite a while.

USES:
Gaming
DVD Converting/Authoring
All on a 22" WS Monitor

CPU:
was looking at a Q6600, are these outdated now?
What are the AMD offerings like at the moment?

RAM:
If I go with Vista (still very usnure) is it worth going for 4Gb?

GFX:
8800 GT/GTX - Last time I was looking these were the best performance -v- cost.
A friend keep mentioning dual ATi cards perform better ? This right

Motherboard:
Looking for plenty functionality, good OCing options (if cpu needs it), mavimum connectivity.

Currently looking at somethign around the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Superclocked "Crysis Edition" GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (512-P2-E802-AE-CrysisUK)
Coolermaster Real Power 620w Modular Power Supply
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator - Black (No PSU)
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320NS)

Unsure on which memory.
Would one of *** New AMD chips reduce costs?
after all Im no really going to be using all 4 cores so would dual do me maybe?
Basically looknig at a rought Idea of which route to take AMD/intel

So you know my current specs:
Epox EP9NOA+Ultra
Opteron 146 @3Ghz
2Gb Corsair XMS 4000
Ati X800GTO2 (flashed)

So gonna be a big jump either way I think

just wan something that will play recent games, multiple instances of older ones. Looking at playing recent FPS and forhcoming MMOs.

 

[RichL]

Q6600 is the best choice for you especially since you want to do lots of encoding. AMD processors are not competitive atm. The Abit IP35 Pro is a great board for overclocking too. Just get some PC6400 DDR2 and you should be good right upto 3.6GHz which is about the limit on air. 8800GT is the best value card imo, although the 3870X2 is the fastest it costs about £270. 8800GT can handle pretty much everything except Crysis very well. I can still play Crysis at 1280x1024 @ high though.

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS

That offer of the week any good?
Lookin at 4Gb but this seems to cheap lol.

3870x2 or 8800GTx ? (if budget allows)
Which has most community support (for drivers) and whats the benefits/downside weigh out as?
8800GT/GTS is gonna be about £200 anyway if its that much more performance I may be able to go for better.

I'll be gaming on a ers of 1680*1050, wont the amount of RAM on a 3870x2 be wasted?

wha about xfire/SLi ? worth bothering with?

Encoding can be done overnight if needed.

 

[RichL]

That RAM is fine. CAS 5 vs CAS 4 makes minimal difference. 1Gb sticks tend to overclock much better but since you are overclocking under air the 2Gb sticks at stock (with a 400MHz FSB) still allow 9x400 = 3.6GHz CPU speed. You only need to overclock the ram if you are playing with lower multipliers etc.

I'd get 3870X2 over a GTX now, but the AMD drivers are very new and I imagine you do encounter some problems due to the X2 requiring games to support xfire. Specifically, older games will most likely use only 1 core so will be faster on a GTX if they are still quite demanding.

g92 GTS is about 10% faster than a GT, and the GTX is faster than the GTS when AA is enabled. I bought a GT because I refuse to spend £250 on a card that is over a year old and the £50 premium for a GTS wasn't worth it. GT is a great card though, I can run most things at 1920x1200 well enough which is great for a £150 card.