Building a new rig...Need your input

**SapiensErus** · 08-21-08, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Resithe

x64 anything is a very large waste of money right now. Unless you're planning on keeping the box for at least the next 10 years.

I disagree, I often use about 3.5 of my 4Gb RAM and it is nice to not have that stuff using virtual memory. Also, if you own a copy of Vista, you can use your number to activate 64 or 32 bit versions. Further, all versions (Ultimate, Home Premium, etc.) are contained on one disk each for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. So you buy one, you have both. That makes it not really a waste of money since they are both included. Although if you buy OEM, you have to get an ISO of the other version, but your number will activate it legally and fine. MS wanted to make people comfy and not fel trapped with one or the other.

... a single Nvidia PNY XLR8 Geforce 8800 GT for 150$ will get you more punch and value for your buck. I'd look at a motherboard supporting SLI and Hybrid SLI for prolonged graphics upgradibility. You can even look at a OC'd Geforce GTX 260 FTW Edition card and blow out the Radeon 4870's for 350$. Which is what i'm about to move up to. =)

Again, I disagree.

the 4850 costs as much as the 8800GT on sale, and only $25 more otherwise, and STOMPS it substantially in all games. It also outperforms the 9800 GTX and stands parallel to the 9800GTX+ (for a $150 less).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4850,1957.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,1987-3.html

The 4870 substantially stomps the 260.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4870,1964.html

And for $350 you can run 2 4850's and they outperform the 280!
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,1987-4.html

As far as superfast hard drives? I'd go for a Solid State Drive. They're still very young and anything over 64 GB gets expensive, but if you're looking for speed and prolonged usability i'd go for an SSD instead of a HDD. Check out http://www.guru3d.com for a great review on a new line of Solid State Drives. Those guys are professionals at rating new hardware solutions for the 3d gamer. I've never been disappointed.

I wish I could afford the SSD's. They are prohibitively expensive and pretty small still

.... soon though.

I think Raptors are a waste of money also, may as well get two 7200 RPM whatevers and run them in RAID0 (with a decent controller) and get a third big fat storage disk for safe keeping. It will cost less and perform better.

ATI pwned nVidia finally, no doubt about it. I am still an nVidia fan and expect them to come back eventually. RIght now they only dominate the cheapest cards (the 9600 for less $100).

But for the 150ish range, the 4850 is THE card to buy.

There is a huge amount of discussion and lot's of links in the HW forums!

2 more cents! I still suggest asking about a new rig in the hardware forum.

**Jester(TA)** · 08-21-08, 05:55 PM

The only reason I asked in our IRON furom is because I play with you guys and trust you more than a bunch of random people.

I do not want to go sli.I dont trust nvidia chipsets enough to buy a board that has it.I believe Intel CPU should be ran with INTEL chipsets.Just my opinion.

I think I will just go with 1 video card then to start out.I can always buy the second one later.

I will buy vista 64 since you guys said it will run x32 programs.I really like how vista works.We have a few machines at work with it and it looks awesome.Hopefully I wont have to many issues with it.I dont mind a few,thats the fun of building a machine.

The raptor drives are awesome.I use them in my current build and they are VERY fast.Im afraid of the raid setup for then reason of lossing all your info if a drive takes a crap.

Sorry if im babbling,i hurt my back and am doped up on muscle relaxers and vicodin. :P

**...bigdog...** · 08-21-08, 05:59 PM

don't forget to use a TTP affiliate to buy the parts!

**Resithe** · 08-21-08, 06:53 PM

Again, I disagree.

the 4850 costs as much as the 8800GT on sale, and only $25 more otherwise, and STOMPS it substantially in all games. It also outperforms the 9800 GTX and stands parallel to the 9800GTX+ (for a $150 less).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4850,1957.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,1987-3.html

The 4870 substantially stomps the 260.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4870,1964.html

And for $350 you can run 2 4850's and they outperform the 280!
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,1987-4.html

^ Not completely true. First of all my friend, he said he's going to use 3850's. Not 4850's. Which substantiates my claim that an 8800 GT will outperform them. Why? Because there are plenty of benchmarks that prove that it does. Not to mention I have an ATI board myself (I started running ATI Crossfire with a 3850 and upgraded to an Nvidia 8800 GT.) VERY large improvement in both framerate and settings threshholds. I run a Gigabyte 780 series AMD board.

While it's true that the 4850 outperforms the 8800GT (Though not pertaining to his particular upgrade).

The 4870 on the other hand struggles to outperform the new eVGA GTX 260 FTW Edition. http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14883&page=1

Never mind a cheap GTX 280 that can stomp any ATI Card in a singular configuration right now. SLI Nvidia is just as good as any Crossfire ATI. I'm not being biased towards Nvidia, because i'm running an ATI AMD Motherboard. I find it to be bad enough that I am running an Nvidia card on it.

You would have to run most ATI in Crossfire to outperform the GTX 200 series, but if that's the case you're still spending more money for two than you would for a singular cheap card.

If he's shopping around for a bargain it's a smarter idea to go for a singular card configuration that will give you the best performance for midrange price. I've seen 280's for less than 350$ and I wouldn't spend that much for two 4850's considering they're the little brother of the RV7700 chipset anyways. a x2 4870 would be the better investment in the long run.

I've heard good things about dual core 4870's.

**Jester(TA)** · 08-21-08, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by ...bigdog...

don't forget to use a TTP affiliate to buy the parts!

I will BIGDOG.How does,lets say, egghead know that i bought through TTP?I used the link but it didnt take my anywhere special but there main page?

**Jester(TA)** · 09-01-08, 03:01 PM

OK GUYS Ive bought all my stuff.Just have to wait for it to arrive.This is what I got......

Motherboard- ASUS P5Q Deluxe- $199.99
Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz With CoolerMaster Gemini2 S Cooler-$189.99 + $35.99
Memory- Corsair 4gig 2 x 2gig- $125.98
Video card- VisionTec Radeon 4870 (got at BestBuy For $254.00 with a 12% off coupon from reward card)
Power Supply-Thermaltake Toughpower 850watt $179.99
Opticle Drives-LiteOn 20X DVD+/-RW SATA Drive and LiteOn SATA DVD Drive $71.26
CoolerMaster Wave Master Case $130.00
Hard Drives-150gig WD velociraptor SATA 10,000rpm and WD 250gig SATA drive for media and backup $189.00
Sound Card- Sound Blaster X-FI Fatality-Took from old build
Widows Vista Ultimate-Got it for $160 bucks through work.Will install 64bit version
Samsung 22" wide screen lcd monitor
Total- $1536.20

I set aside 50 bucks for beer.Next weekend should be the drunk build off... :P

**SapiensErus** · 09-01-08, 05:44 PM

Nice! That thing should stomp hard.

What are you currently using? It may be that BF2 will look like a completely different game if you are using old enough equipment....

I went from SLI 6600 GTs.. while fast enough to never lag with AA at x4, they have an older shader. When I got my 8800 GTS's I was stunned at how much different lighting and shiny surfaces looked. The canopy on the helo/jet was incredibly more realistic looking.

that 4870 oughtta do AA x16 with everything turned all the way up no problem.

**Jester(TA)** · 09-01-08, 06:47 PM

Old system was a P4 2.8
1 gig memory
geforce 7600
windows xp
all ide drives

**SapiensErus** · 09-01-08, 09:45 PM

Oh yeah... serious upgrade here.

**...bigdog...** · 09-01-08, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by Jester(TA)

OK GUYS Ive bought all my stuff.Just have to wait for it to arrive.This is what I got......

Motherboard- ASUS P5Q Deluxe- $199.99
Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz With CoolerMaster Gemini2 S Cooler-$189.99 + $35.99
Memory- Corsair 4gig 2 x 2gig- $125.98
Video card- VisionTec Radeon 4870 (got at BestBuy For $254.00 with a 12% off coupon from reward card)
Power Supply-Thermaltake Toughpower 850watt $179.99
Opticle Drives-LiteOn 20X DVD+/-RW SATA Drive and LiteOn SATA DVD Drive $71.26
CoolerMaster Wave Master Case $130.00
Hard Drives-150gig WD velociraptor SATA 10,000rpm and WD 250gig SATA drive for media and backup $189.00
Sound Card- Sound Blaster X-FI Fatality-Took from old build
Widows Vista Ultimate-Got it for $160 bucks through work.Will install 64bit version
Samsung 22" wide screen lcd monitor
Total- $1536.20

I set aside 50 bucks for beer.Next weekend should be the drunk build off... :P

I didn't see anything post to any of our online affiliates.

tell me.....tell me you bought all this stuff using a TTP link.