• Registered: 2002-09-20
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Topic: Second Opinion

So the time has come for me to get a new PC.
I slapped together a few parts in hopes that it should last me a little longer than my current setup. (4 years from an AMD Athlon 3000+ Socket 754, MSI K8M800 mobo, 1GB - recently upgraded to 2GB of ram and an ATi X850 Pro. Not too shabby.)
But I am looking to extend the lifetime of this computer by about 2-3 years with what hopefully are good hardware choices.
So I'm open to any and all suggestions and alternate choices that keep within the current budget I've set myself.

Please bear with me, I know all the links I'm about to provide are from Canadian retail sites and are in Monopoly ... errr ... Canadian dollars so I can understand being thrown off a bit by prices and the loss of the all mighty Newegg.com as a ressource, but again please bear with me.

CPU/Motherboard Bundle - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 / EVGA nforce 780i SLI Motherboard
- $499.99 -
I thought this bundle comes at a decent price considering the prices when purchased separately. I did ponder for a while getting a 790i with possibly a Q6600 but the price and the mautiry level of DRR3 ram scared me off. Is this fear of DDR3's maturity founded or not?

CPU Heatsink - Zalman CNPS9700 LED Copper CPU Heatsink
- $74.75 -
I put together a PC for 2 of my friends both with this cooler.

RAM - OCZ Gold XTC PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
- $32.99 -
I bought a pair 1GB PC3200 Platinum EL modules for my current computer and have been very happy with em' so I thought to stick with OCZ

Video Cards - 2x XFX GeForce 8800GT
- $299.98  ($149.99x2) -
With the plethora of 8800 GT out there I wasn't too sure which one to take. This one seemed to fit a nice price and apparently comes with both Company of Heroes AND Call of Duty 4. A bit of confusion with this card, it says it's the Alpha Dog Edition at 600MHz core clock speed. Some sites say its 625MHz. How many Alpha Dog editions are there and which is the accurate speed? I was also considering a single GeForce series 9 card and just wait out for prices to die down or the need to arise for a second identical card, is this a viable alternative?

DVD-RW - Samsung SH-S203B Black SATA DVD+RW
- $24.99 -
Don't know too much about CD/DVD drives. But this should fit the bill.

Hard Drive - Western Digital SE16 500GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB
- $78.98 -
I'm often told to stick with WD when it comes to HDs, no exception here

Power Supply - Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W
- $124.99 -
Modular PSUs all the way! Installed 2 of these (again) for the same 2 friends. Modular design is awesome!

Case - Antec Nine Hundred
- $98.98 -
Yet again familiarity comes in as this was the case I worked with for my 2 friends. Also the case is ridiculously well designed.

Total: $1235.65

Anyway I basically wanted to post my setup in hopes of getting a second opinion. As you probably noticed familiarity played a big role in what parts I chose but if there are better choices at the same of cheaper prices I'm all ears.

If its any help here are some of the sites I used to "shop around":
- NCIX
- Tiger Direct
- Direct Canada

Preferably I'd like to purchase form Canadian sites since I'm not too keen on paying Duties.

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  • Errrrrrr
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Re: Second Opinion

Not entirely sure if that mobo+CPU deal is the best bang for the buck. If you have choices, try to get a 45nm 9xxx series quad core, it's going to be worth the money when you plan to OC somewhere down the line. Also I don't believe there's any concern with "maturity" of DDR3 memory. The only downside is the expensive mobo that you have to get for it (and the money you spend on the actual RAM). I also don't think you will end up with that much more money spent if you buy CPU and mobo separately. It all depends on the availability at your end though, so I'll just leave the searching to you.

For CPU fan, I suggest the new ZEROTherm ones. They've been shown to be excellent and quiet coolers with top tier cooling ability. They're also not expensive. But overall speaking this slot of your investment isn't quite as important if you don't plan to OC to the max.

I have to recommend 4GB of RAM. Vista gaming has caught up to (and surpassed) XP, it's time to switch and 2GB is too little already, it's only going to get worse. Make sure you get 4x1GB instead of 2x2GB. This isn't so much a requirement, it's more just a bonus if you get an Intel platform.

For video card, I have to suggest you hold back the SLI investment, and instead only get a single 8800GT or even a very cheap 9600GT for now. The next generation of video cards are just around the corner (we're talking within the month), and you can SLI the new Nvidia (or get the ATI's new 48x0 X2, which should be a monster of performer, as well as champion of compatibility compared to SLI, if the 3870x2 is to be an indicator). It'll be a much longer term investment. You can probably get a stock 9600GT for slightly more than $100 with rebates, it'll save you the $500 which can be spent on the massively better next gen card. Or, you can just hold off on this component for a bit longer and use whatever you had previously from the old computer for the interim. If you really really really... really have to get a long term solution now, I recommend getting a single 9800GTX with a decent factory OC. SLI is problematic with many games (and Vista) and the performance gain sometimes isn't worth the huge power consumption, heat, noise and money. Unless you have a monitor that can display 19x12, you'll be just fine without SLI.

As I've recommended before, get the WD 640GB (320GB per platter) drive if you don't plan to do RAID. If you have future upgrade plan of RAID 0, you can always get another one of these. Alternatively, if you're really looking into performance, you can get the new 300GB "VelociRaptor" drive + a 1TB/750GB storage drive. That's a combination some prefer. I'd personally just go with RAID 0 with 2x 640GB, the performance should be more than sufficient (a few seconds earlier finish on that loading screen, where you wait that time out on others with slower comps, lol).


These changes might push budget up a bit, but I think if you want to get a PC that can last for 2-3 years, you shouldn't be concerned with price too much. I've done some math with regard to the total amount of money I've spent on upgrading a mid-grade gaming machine up to date on a semi-annual basis, and I've realized I could have just done what you plan to do here, with a bit of big investment early on and ended up with about the same spending over the entire life-time of the rig, and the benefit is that you enjoy the "over the top" performance for nearly half of its life-time. It's really not a bad idea.

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  • From: NJ
  • Registered: 2002-08-01
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Re: Second Opinion

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
Not entirely sure if that mobo+CPU deal is the best bang for the buck. If you have choices, try to get a 45nm 9xxx series quad core, it's going to be worth the money when you plan to OC somewhere down the line. Also I don't believe there's any concern with "maturity" of DDR3 memory. The only downside is the expensive mobo that you have to get for it (and the money you spend on the actual RAM). I also don't think you will end up with that much more money spent if you buy CPU and mobo separately. It all depends on the availability at your end though, so I'll just leave the searching to you.

For CPU fan, I suggest the new ZEROTherm ones. They've been shown to be excellent and quiet coolers with top tier cooling ability. They're also not expensive. But overall speaking this slot of your investment isn't quite as important if you don't plan to OC to the max.

I have to recommend 4GB of RAM. Vista gaming has caught up to (and surpassed) XP, it's time to switch and 2GB is too little already, it's only going to get worse. Make sure you get 4x1GB instead of 2x2GB. This isn't so much a requirement, it's more just a bonus if you get an Intel platform.

For video card, I have to suggest you hold back the SLI investment, and instead only get a single 8800GT or even a very cheap 9600GT for now. The next generation of video cards are just around the corner (we're talking within the month), and you can SLI the new Nvidia (or get the ATI's new 48x0 X2, which should be a monster of performer, as well as champion of compatibility compared to SLI, if the 3870x2 is to be an indicator). It'll be a much longer term investment. You can probably get a stock 9600GT for slightly more than $100 with rebates, it'll save you the $500 which can be spent on the massively better next gen card. Or, you can just hold off on this component for a bit longer and use whatever you had previously from the old computer for the interim. If you really really really... really have to get a long term solution now, I recommend getting a single 9800GTX with a decent factory OC. SLI is problematic with many games (and Vista) and the performance gain sometimes isn't worth the huge power consumption, heat, noise and money. Unless you have a monitor that can display 19x12, you'll be just fine without SLI.

As I've recommended before, get the WD 640GB (320GB per platter) drive if you don't plan to do RAID. If you have future upgrade plan of RAID 0, you can always get another one of these. Alternatively, if you're really looking into performance, you can get the new 300GB "VelociRaptor" drive + a 1TB/750GB storage drive. That's a combination some prefer. I'd personally just go with RAID 0 with 2x 640GB, the performance should be more than sufficient (a few seconds earlier finish on that loading screen, where you wait that time out on others with slower comps, lol).


These changes might push budget up a bit, but I think if you want to get a PC that can last for 2-3 years, you shouldn't be concerned with price too much. I've done some math with regard to the total amount of money I've spent on upgrading a mid-grade gaming machine up to date on a semi-annual basis, and I've realized I could have just done what you plan to do here, with a bit of big investment early on and ended up with about the same spending over the entire life-time of the rig, and the benefit is that you enjoy the "over the top" performance for nearly half of its life-time. It's really not a bad idea.

Errrrrrr pretty much hit everything.

Only things I'd personally push are a Tuniq Tower for CPU cooling, an Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 for video card cooling, and non-OCZ DDR2. The reasons for these choices are that the coolers I picked are massively effective AND quiet. Also, OCZ DDR2 has had some strange voltage issues. I'd recommend Crucial Ballistix for overclocking, plus it's dirt cheap and has a rebate almost all the time. I'm also not sure if Errrrrrr mentioned that you should be getting an Intel chipset instead of the 780i. NVIDIA chipset quality has been dropping.

Just to parrot Errrrrrr, get a 45nm Intel CPU, skip the trouble causing and overpriced SLI, get 4x1GB of RAM, and get either a Velociraptor + a massive storage drive, or a 640GB WD. One more thing is, don't bother with RAID. It doesn't really help performance. Sometimes it actually decreases it. RAID is meant more for server type applications, and RAID 0 doubles your risk of data loss. If you want to run RAID 1 for redundancy, or RAID 5 on a file server, those are valid home applications. RAID 0 isn't really...

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Re: Second Opinion

I second the non-OCZ recommendation, as I've personally also experienced shitty OCZ memory voltage issues unsupported by mobos (two different ones, no less). As for the CPU cooler, it's really a matter of fit/price. I have some charts for raw performance here. The TweakTown guys are pretty hardcore on cooler testing, so I trust their numbers. (They also run thermometer externally on the heatsink as opposed to reading from the diode sensors.) The Tuniq Tower isn't listed there, but it's among the top in raw performance. The downside is that it's a huge motherfucker and some packages (the ultra 120) only include the heatsink and you have to fetch a fan yourself (or buy separately and pay extra).

RAID 0 has been shown to provide upwards of 20% faster data throughput. Of course, when it comes to actual game performance it's very minimal. I would personally just get a single 640GB drive, it's honestly enough for anything you need. SSD technology is maturing very fast lately, and who knows, maybe in 2 years time the high end computer will have an SSD by default.

As somewhat of an extra mention that deserves its place, grab one of these from a local retailer or Amazon. It's a special SATA connector that's superior to the default one you get from the mobo/HDD (look at an enlarged picture and you'll understand why). It's only $10 extra and it serves as a long term safeguard against cable related harddrive failures. If you buy a computer designed to last for years, make sure the components do.

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  • Registered: 2002-09-20
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Re: Second Opinion

Thanks for your quick responses, I was afraid my thread was going to go silent for a while given this place is deserted.

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
Not entirely sure if that mobo+CPU deal is the best bang for the buck. If you have choices, try to get a 45nm 9xxx series quad core, it's going to be worth the money when you plan to OC somewhere down the line. Also I don't believe there's any concern with "maturity" of DDR3 memory. The only downside is the expensive mobo that you have to get for it (and the money you spend on the actual RAM). I also don't think you will end up with that much more money spent if you buy CPU and mobo separately. It all depends on the availability at your end though, so I'll just leave the searching to you.

Would a Q9300 be sufficient? Would it out perform a Q6700? Since I shouldn't be too concerned about the maturity of DDR3 what chipset do you recommend going for X48 or nForce 790i? I was under the impression from a few sites I've read that the 790i stability is as good as the previous Intel chipset. Also I couldn't find a straightforward answer on the internet and it will probably sound like a dumb question but does the X48 have SLI compatibility?

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
For CPU fan, I suggest the new ZEROTherm ones. They've been shown to be excellent and quiet coolers with top tier cooling ability. They're also not expensive. But overall speaking this slot of your investment isn't quite as important if you don't plan to OC to the max.

PLEASE tell me you're talking about this cooler. Everything else available to me by ZEROTherm are the fucking ugliest things I've ever seen. Who the fuck would want a heatsink shaped as a butterfly... I don't usually rag on the looks of hardware but to purposely shape the fins into a butterfly is too much for me.

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
I have to recommend 4GB of RAM. Vista gaming has caught up to (and surpassed) XP, it's time to switch and 2GB is too little already, it's only going to get worse. Make sure you get 4x1GB instead of 2x2GB. This isn't so much a requirement, it's more just a bonus if you get an Intel platform.

Would these be sufficient? They are right around my price range.

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
For video card, I have to suggest you hold back the SLI investment, and instead only get a single 8800GT or even a very cheap 9600GT for now. The next generation of video cards are just around the corner (we're talking within the month), and you can SLI the new Nvidia (or get the ATI's new 48x0 X2, which should be a monster of performer, as well as champion of compatibility compared to SLI, if the 3870x2 is to be an indicator). It'll be a much longer term investment. You can probably get a stock 9600GT for slightly more than $100 with rebates, it'll save you the $500 which can be spent on the massively better next gen card. Or, you can just hold off on this component for a bit longer and use whatever you had previously from the old computer for the interim. If you really really really... really have to get a long term solution now, I recommend getting a single 9800GTX with a decent factory OC. SLI is problematic with many games (and Vista) and the performance gain sometimes isn't worth the huge power consumption, heat, noise and money. Unless you have a monitor that can display 19x12, you'll be just fine without SLI.

How long exactly would a single 8800GT or 9600GT or 9800GTX last me? (Be generous in your estimation. I can be very patient and tolerant if the performance is good enough)
These are the cards I zeroed in on:
XFX GeForce 8800GT
EVGA E-GEFORCE 9600GT 650MHZ 512MB 1.8GHZ DDR3
XFX GeForce 9800GTX 675MHZ 512MB 2.2GHZ GDDR3

The first being the more realistic choice.

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
As I've recommended before, get the WD 640GB (320GB per platter) drive if you don't plan to do RAID. If you have future upgrade plan of RAID 0, you can always get another one of these. Alternatively, if you're really looking into performance, you can get the new 300GB "VelociRaptor" drive + a 1TB/750GB storage drive. That's a combination some prefer. I'd personally just go with RAID 0 with 2x 640GB, the performance should be more than sufficient (a few seconds earlier finish on that loading screen, where you wait that time out on others with slower comps, lol).

Is there a difference between 500GB and 640GB? 640GB seemed like real overkill in terms of capacity. But if it can offer somewhat better performance I'm open to the idea.

Originally posted by: Pissingintowind
Only things I'd personally push are a Tuniq Tower for CPU cooling, an Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 for video card cooling. The reasons for these choices are that the coolers I picked are massively effective AND quiet.

Holy fucking shit the Sunbeam Tuniq Tower is MASSIVE. HOW the fuck does it not break a motherboard in two?!? If I got with a single 8800GT or 9600GT or 9800GTX but don't plan to overclock in the immediate future would I really need the extra cooling? If I'm understanding correctly the Accelero is a passive cooling unit, but from some charts I'm seeing no temp decrease from stock cooling but virtually no noise. What if I decide I overclock, would it be possible?

Originally posted by: Pissingintowind
Also, OCZ DDR2 has had some strange voltage issues. I'd recommend Crucial Ballistix for overclocking, plus it's dirt cheap and has a rebate almost all the time.


I'll remember that.

Originally posted by: Pissingintowind
I'm also not sure if Errrrrrr mentioned that you should be getting an Intel chipset instead of the 780i. NVIDIA chipset quality has been dropping.


Which one do you recommend? See higher up in post for concerns about chipsets.

Originally posted by: Pissingintowind
Just to parrot Errrrrrr, get a 45nm Intel CPU, skip the trouble causing and overpriced SLI, get 4x1GB of RAM, and get either a Velociraptor + a massive storage drive, or a 640GB WD. One more thing is, don't bother with RAID. It doesn't really help performance. Sometimes it actually decreases it. RAID is meant more for server type applications, and RAID 0 doubles your risk of data loss. If you want to run RAID 1 for redundancy, or RAID 5 on a file server, those are valid home applications. RAID 0 isn't really...

Again would a Q9300 be sufficient? Would it perform better than a Q6700? Also I would appreciate if you could elaborate on the 500GB I took vs. the 640 WD.

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Re: Second Opinion

Intel QX9650 vs QX6850. You can deduce the difference between the lower clocked parts. The point is that you can OC the 45nm more.

The x48 chipset supports SLI. They're just super expensive. Alternatively you can go with the AMD 780G, as I've heard that's the better dual GPU platform. Nvidia's chipsets tend to consume more power, have worse SATA/network performance and generally give more headaches. Intel's own chipsets have come a long way and they OC extremely well nowadays. You can't go wrong.

The ZEROTherm one I was talking about is this.

640GB WD drive is quite a bit faster than the 500GB ones. I'd dig you out some benchmarks also, but you should trust me on this one. It might be true that you don't really need the 140GB of extra storage, but it's mostly for the performance, and price-wise the 640GB is a real bargain too.

Now I can't forecast the speed of development of the graphics cards, but if the past is any indication, a 9800GTX should last you quite some time from now, perhaps ~2 years without feeling slow on the majority of games. The 8800GTX was introduced November 2006 - nearly 2 years ago. The card will still be quite sufficient into the late months of this year. You can draw conclusion from that part of history. Alternatively, if you look at the 7900GTX, it's a similar story. So I wouldn't be too concerned about the 9800GTX "lasting". The only concern is that the new cards are just around the corner and you'd be kicking yourself when a few weeks from now the benchmarks show your 9800GTX getting outperformed. Like I said, the 4870x2 is likely to destroy the 9800GTX, at probably only a slight price premium (or none at all).

The RAM you listed looks sufficient, just remember to grab 4GB. I don't know how much canadian dollar is converted to US, but RAM is ultra cheap now, dig around and find yourself a good deal. Crucial, Patriot, G.Skill, Corsair and A-Data are all fine brands, it's down to a matter of price.

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7 Reply by das

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Re: Second Opinion

on the topic of Videocards, Hardocp dropped an article today about Nvidia's two new cards. Has some benchmarks and it uses the GTX for its comparison.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h … VzaWFzdA==

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  • Registered: 2002-09-20
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Re: Second Opinion

[size=4]Revised List[/size]

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Quad Core Processor
-  $284.99 -
Checked out a few Benchmarks on the Q9300, it seems to outperform the Q6600 in most tests so it seemed like a good choice given the price similarity.

Motherboard - EVGA Nforce 790I Ultra
-  $369.99 -
I looked around and all I saw was that the X48 isn't SLI compatible and nVidia is still cockblocking Intel from being able to have SLI compatible chipsets. So that sort of tilted me towards the 790i.

CPU Heatsink - ZEROtherm FZ120 Zen CPU Fan
- $60.99 -
The article was pretty convincing, I'll look into it some more but this seems like a winner

RAM - 2x Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB DDR3 2X1GB
-  $189.98 (2x $94.99) -
DDR 3, Patriot Ram.

Video Cards - XFX GeForce 8800GT
- $149.99 -
1x 8800GT instead of 2

DVD-RW - Samsung SH-S203B Black SATA DVD+RW
- $24.99 -
Same

Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB
- $92.99 -
WD 640 GB, There aren't any other 640WD HDs right? Just want to make sure.

Power Supply - Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W
- $124.99 -
Same

Case - Antec Nine Hundred
- $98.98 -
Same

Total: $1,391.90

Anyways there it is my revised list. Please let me know if there is anything that should be changed whatsoever.

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Re: Second Opinion

I don't know why you're so bent on getting a SLI board. ATI's future plan is to roll out dual GPU single slot cards for their high end. Nvidia is being a bitch and corners the SLI market so they can sell their shitty but expensive mobo chipsets. With the competition from ATI in the single slot cards, Nvidia is going to continue to have to respond with high end single slot solutions, the whole SLI promotion is nothing more than a total ripoff. The price of the 260GTX and 280GTX are ridiculous now only because there's no competing high end ATI parts. This is the old 8800GTX scenario all over again, with one difference - the ATI response won't come 6 months too late this time. Give it a few more weeks and you'll see the price of this segment fall down dramatically, and obsoleting any previous SLI investment (less a quad SLI 9800X2).

Btw, reviews of the new 200GTX series are out everywhere, you can check for yourself. The numbers speak for themselves (and the prices do, too). The 260GTX is just about equal to a 8800GT SLI, and as soon as the price drops, it'll make a better investment. I still think the new ATI cards will prevail in this round of competition given the current numbers, but even at the very worst they'll be competitive, which will drive prices of both down. Can you really not hold off for another 2-3 weeks?

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  • Registered: 2002-03-25
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Re: Second Opinion

Errrrrrrrrrr if you have the links handy to the hd performance could you post them? I have an old hard drive and I'm wondering how much performance increase I'd see with it. Right now if I do 2 things at once that tax the drive it gets choppy and it's irritating me.

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Re: Second Opinion

Originally posted by: Errrrrrr
I don't know why you're so bent on getting a SLI board. ATI's future plan is to roll out dual GPU single slot cards for their high end. Nvidia is being a bitch and corners the SLI market so they can sell their shitty but expensive mobo chipsets. With the competition from ATI in the single slot cards, Nvidia is going to continue to have to respond with high end single slot solutions, the whole SLI promotion is nothing more than a total ripoff. The price of the 260GTX and 280GTX are ridiculous now only because there's no competing high end ATI parts. This is the old 8800GTX scenario all over again, with one difference - the ATI response won't come 6 months too late this time. Give it a few more weeks and you'll see the price of this segment fall down dramatically, and obsoleting any previous SLI investment (less a quad SLI 9800X2).

Btw, reviews of the new 200GTX series are out everywhere, you can check for yourself. The numbers speak for themselves (and the prices do, too). The 260GTX is just about equal to a 8800GT SLI, and as soon as the price drops, it'll make a better investment. I still think the new ATI cards will prevail in this round of competition given the current numbers, but even at the very worst they'll be competitive, which will drive prices of both down. Can you really not hold off for another 2-3 weeks?

Well to tell you the truth I've had my heart set on getting a 22" Widescreen LCD monitor with this setup so I was expecting to probably need the SLI for the higher resolutions with maxed out graphics on some current and future games.

Well in any case I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the stuff that has happened in the hardware world since I stopped following it a few years ago. From my understanding you're saying I should go with an X48 motherboard, do you have any suggestions to which company over another?

As for waiting, I can EASILY wait another 2-3 weeks, but what is pressing me is that sadly this upgrade isn't solely funded by my own money. About a week ago my sister's computer after constant use for 8-9 years died. So that prompted my parents to request that I put together a new PC and they would pay roughly half of the bill. So she is hard pressed to inherit my current computer, which is above and beyond what she wants to do with a computer.

But I probably can stall for a bit, I'll just explain that prices are on the verge of dropping and it should give me enough time.

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12 Reply by Syko

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Re: Second Opinion

Hah, same scenario happened with me Tak.  My moms computer blew up, so she got mine, and I got this...

[as pissing suggested about a month ago...]

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte DS3L
Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB
Western Digital 320GB HDD
EVGA 9600GT

The overall price for me came out to $505 w/o rebates, so that should drop another 50ish dollars.  I'm a big fan of Gigabyte boards, and all the new components I'm working with are VERY nice.  The harddrive is notably faster, and I'm getting more frames in all my games (which could be attributed to the extra 1 gig ram as well)

What I didn't know was the Processor was 64-bit, so now I get to use Vista x64 with it too smile

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13 Reply by Crast

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Re: Second Opinion

Originally posted by: Taknarosh
Well to tell you the truth I've had my heart set on getting a 22" Widescreen LCD monitor with this setup so I was expecting to probably need the SLI for the higher resolutions with maxed out graphics on some current and future games.


22" widescreen LCD's run at 1680x1050, which is the exact same resolution as 20" widescreen LCD's.  Even mid-end cards nowadays can run games at that resolution with little problem, you don't really need SLI for it.   If you were going for a 24" or larger, which run at 1920x1200 or even the 30" which run at 2520x1600 (orders of magnitude bigger) then sure, SLI might help you, but it probably won't, as most games tend to drop into suckitude (if they even let you choose it) at the latter resolution.   The 24" is the biggest I'd recommend if you plan on gaming a lot though, anything much bigger in resolution will be tough to run games at native res.

With the rate at which cards are evolving, with nvidia bumping its top-end line every 3-4 months and the changes being drastic enough that they can often beat previous-gen SLI'ed, you're probably going to replace your SLI rig with a single card (even if it's a dual-gpu single card) soon-ish.   Not to mention, SLI continues to have problems with a lot of games, many games you'll find yourself running with SLI disabled, your second card doing nil too aid in rendering.

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Re: Second Opinion

Just to echo what Crast has said, for 22" you really don't need SLI. I run 16x10 as well on my 22" and I have a HD 3850, and I have been experiencing no problem running at that resolution (sometimes with 4x AA, no less). In fact, for higher res gaming, the new 200GTX cards have more memory bandwidth than even the best of SLI today. I would really just recommend getting a single card solution and save all that headache.

When it comes to Intel mobos, you have 3 options depending on your budget. Currently the P35 has dropped to $100 and below, it's honestly a great buy if you want to save a buck here and there. If you don't care to spend a bit more you'll be looking at X38, and I believe you can find a deal just around $200 mark. Alternatively, a cheap X48 is not much more than $200. MSI/ASUS are the two brands I'd go with. They've been shown to be excellent OCers and offer exceptional features and compatibility.

I would make specific recommendations, but I suspect the price and availability of the boards are much different over there in Canada, and you just have to find a deal that suits you. Imagine saving $100 or even $200 on the mobo and pour that into a next gen video card, you'll be glad you didn't bleed for SLI which is really nothing more than a ripoff.

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  • Registered: 2002-09-20
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Re: Second Opinion

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=30789&promoid=1074
Holy shit batman! What a fucking good deal! 8800GT for 100$

Anyways, I found this mobo at a decent price: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3747315&CatId=1533
If there isn't anything blatantly wrong with this Mobo I'll be making my purchase real soon.

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16 Reply by Syko

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Re: Second Opinion

Regarding your mobo....  It would seem that you're ignoring all the advice in this thread by going that direction.  Which makes me wonder why you would ask for help when you're not going to take it....  (High price, and two PCI-E slots for Video cards... Crossfire != SLI? )
I personally wouldn't think that $300 for a mobo is a good deal at all.

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  • Registered: 2003-07-17
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Re: Second Opinion

That mobo seems in line with suggestions to me. Intel chipset and no SLi?

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Re: Second Opinion

Originally posted by: Viserys
That mobo seems in line with suggestions to me. Intel chipset and no SLi?

Yeah that's what I thought...?
Am I dyslexic?! XD

Also that's $300 Canadian. So it seems super inflated.
It's a MSI X48C Platinum.

Errrrrrr said:

X48 is good -Check
MSI is a recommended manufacturer -Check
Non-SLI -Check

You sure you checked the right link Syko?

[size=4]Revised List #2[/size]

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Quad Core Processor
-  $284.99 -

Motherboard - MSI X48C Platinum Motherboard
-  $304.99 -

CPU Heatsink - ZEROtherm FZ120 Zen CPU Fan
- $60.99 -

RAM - 2x Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB DDR3 2X1GB
-  $189.98 (2x $94.99) -

Video Card - XFX GeForce 8800GT
- $149.99 -

DVD-RW - Samsung SH-S203B Black SATA DVD+RW
- $24.99 -

Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB
- $92.99 -

Power Supply - Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W
- $124.99 -

Case - Antec Nine Hundred
- $98.98 -

Anyways there it is my revised list #2. Please let me know if there is anything that should be changed whatsoever.

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Re: Second Opinion

Since some discussion popped up about video card here in this thread, I thought I'd post some preliminary benchmark results of the new 4850 from ATI (scheduled for release June 25th, $199 MSRP).

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191096

Seems like it'll kill 9800GTX pretty well.

http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/showthread.php?t=500923

Looks like CF 4850 beats 280GTX, too, at $250 less. You can only imagine the lead on a 4870X2, single card vs single card, or the slaughter that is to be unleashed from a CF 4870X2.

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  • Registered: 2003-07-17
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Re: Second Opinion

$200? WHAT?

...WHAT?

We seeing steep nVidia price drops in the near future?

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Re: Second Opinion

That's INSANE!

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22 Reply by Kenak

  • Registered: 2004-11-18
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Re: Second Opinion

So a new $200 card will kill the 9800GTX? How much better is the 9800 compared to the 8800GT?

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Re: Second Opinion

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Wewt finally after RMAing and the RAM issues. Finally got it to work!

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  • Registered: 2003-07-17
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Re: Second Opinion

Nice man. smile Which parts did you end up going with?

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Re: Second Opinion

Everything in revised list #2 except the Patriot RAM which was temperamental with this specific mobo.

Anyone want to buy some DDR3 real cheap? =[

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