New budget PC -- help wanted!

**HGRickover** · 10-30-07, 02:44 PM

Howdy folks,

Real short, I was planning to build a monster gaming PC early next year (after graduation and money was a different story) but my PC decided that it was tired and retired. By retire, I mean multiple and reproducible BSODs, head crashes, a constant 3.3 voltage problem, corrupted memory blocks, etc., etc., etc.. I don't trust the reuse of any of it... voltage faults somewhere... and it's around 3 years old anyway.

So, on little more than a shoestring budget I want to put together a solid gamer with maybe 6 months to a year of life that will ultimately become the office PC. I'm talking; CPU, GPU, RAM, MB, Sound Card, PSU, and Hard Drive on around $800.

Now, after looking around a bit I found that if I extended my budget some that I could really boost performance. Sooooooo, yeah, I still want to keep the budget tight but extend it a little here and there. Here are the core options that I'm thinking on;

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz ~$280
ASUS P5W DH DELUXE - MB ~$180
ASUS EN8800GTS ~$380 (my first major budget extension)

If those are good choices then I still need;

memory... which admittedly is a little confusing these days...
a sound card,
a PSU and
a HDD.

I'd appreciate comments of all sorts. Should I look more closely at the 8800 GT (which I couldn't find... is it out yet?). Or, even another video card.... whatever... I may be working on being an EE but I'm not a PC expert.

Thanks a million!

**HGRickover** · 10-30-07, 02:46 PM

Oh, I will probably buy/order tomorrow evening.

**Mcstrange** · 10-30-07, 02:56 PM

You absolutely should look at the 8800gt, you might have to wait for someone to have it in stock, but it is the card to buy currently.

Are you actually asking to buy your "monster" now? cause that can easily be done for around 1200$ and a very powerful system for 800-1000

As for memory you need 2 gig of DDR2 800 (6400) ram. one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=1052308477+105241606 4&Configurator=MemoryConfigurator&CFG=CFG003P5W+DH +Deluxe&name=DDR2+800+(PC2+6400)
remember its hard to go wrong with corsair.

I would recommend looking at the Core 2 6550 which is plenty powerful and will serve you well for 100 less.

You dont need a sounds card; onboard sound does pretty well, but if you would like a external one the GamerXtreme from creative is a good price vs performance model.

Power supply, unless your going SLI down the road 550-650 watts is plenty.

I will try to throw something together when I get a chance. In the meantime check: techreport.com for good systems to base yours off of:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13218
Their "The Grand Experiment" system would run you around 1000 and will handle anything youu throw at it without much trouble. - Again see about the 8800gt as that is more powerful than the 8800gts320 and the same price.

**Blue_Thunder27** · 10-30-07, 03:12 PM

Listen to Mcstrange, the 8800 GT is currently THE best card you can get for the money.

**HGRickover** · 10-30-07, 03:15 PM

Well, I wasn't thinking that anything close to $1200 would build a monster... but I'm thinking in terms that are several years old now... If you get a chance, what would the $1200 monster system be composed of?

Just took a quick glance at the article... perfect. Links to the parts in question too! wow. Even if you don't get a chance to get back to this, that'll keep me busy until the wee hours whence I get back home tonight.

Thanks!

**Mcstrange** · 10-30-07, 04:23 PM

The "sweet spot" system in that techreport article would be under 1200 with a couple minor changes (like going with the 6750 or 6550 and a 800gt) and would be pretty beastly.

It would be very close to the system I would put together for myself if I was building one currently.

**HGRickover** · 10-31-07, 12:04 AM

That's pretty well it... the "sweet spot"... with a couple modifications;

If it's in tomorrow then replace the 8800GTS with this 8800GT. If not, I'll substitute with the closest 8800GT that I can find.

Then, add in 2 mo' G-o-RAM while simultaneously removing the sound card and tower and for just under $1200, a 50% budget increase, I'll have my new machine delivered to my doorstep in just 3 lonely days.

Anything else? With Mcstrange's help, Tom's Charts, the Tech Report and the obvious TechReport/Newegg synergy I'm feeling pretty confident about it. I plan to visit a couple of the local shops tomorrow to do some last minute price comparisons/availability and finally order everything late tomorrow.

thanks again! I'll spec the final machine and post up in the appropriate thread once it's all together.

**WileECyte** · 10-31-07, 12:14 AM

One thing I'd add is that if you're going to go Vista, Creative's sound card drivers SUCK. I finally dumped mine for a BGears b.Enspirer. Best hardware decision ever. Sound quality is better and the drivers are a heck of a lot better than Creative's ever were.

**HeavyG** · 10-31-07, 06:27 AM

CPU - Intel Core2 Duo E6750 - $194.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115029

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R - $149.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128048

Memory - OCZ Reaper DDR2 800 - $59 (after rebate, also check newegg's price if out of stock)
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...tCode=10005297

Video Card - ASUS 8800GT 512MB - $299.98
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...tCode=10007130

CPU Cooler - ASUS Silent Knight - $55.99 (after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ilent%2bKnight

Hard Drive - WD Caviar SE 320GB - $81.13
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136098

PSU - The one you selected was fine - $89.99

Sound Card - Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer - $80.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102006

Total Cost - $1012.06

I made some changes to your list, some of which to simply bring down the price a bit...

For the CPU, you will probaby see better performance with the E6750 than the Q6600 for all games except Crysis and Supreme Commander, which really take advantage of multi-threading. Check the CPU chart from Tomshardware:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

The quad cores can out perform the dual cores in some applications, but a dual core should do just fine for games. Don't make the jump to quad core just yet. Wait until some of the better performing quads drop in price. Plus, the 1333MHz FSB of the E6750 is really nice, and you can overclock the hell out of it.

For the motherboard, I personally own the ABIT IP35-Pro, but the Gigabyte board listed is also getting great reviews. Although I love my ABIT, I would probably be just as happy with the Gigabyte. The only thing I didnt like about the Gigabyte during a build (my best friend has this board) was that we had to remove his video card to reset the BIOS jumper. The ABIT has a convenient little switch on the back of the motherboard that resets the BIOS, which I loved when I was overclocking. Either way, go with an IP35 chipset. They are affordable, and perform like champs. Here is a good article comparing 8 of the newest P35 chipset motherboards:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06/...ards_compared/

As for memory, I chose the OCZ Reaper simply because it is affordable and performs well. The heat pipes also allow you to overclock and overvolt the memory while keeping it stable. Crucial Ballistix is also some great memory, but I dont think you can beat the price of the OCZ.

The hard drive you selected was fine, but I changed it to 320GB just to save some cash. Unless you have a shitload of stuff to store, you can probably get by with a 320GB for the time being. As hard drives go, you never want to have all your eggs in one basked. You are better off having two smaller drives than one massive drive. It is just too risky.

You do need a CPU cooler. The Intel cooler is fine... if you don't want to overclock. If you are getting the ABIT IP35 Pro, then you will more than likely be overclocking this bad boy. I have the ASUS Silent Knight. I used this articl to help me make my decision:

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/edi...07%2F31c07.asp

It was a choice between the ASUS and the Thermalight Ultra 120 eXtreme. They were the highest rated in terms of overclocking and stability. The ASUS had a little more "bling" than the Thermalight.

As for the sound card, I have not had any problems running my XtremeGamer in Vista 32. Maybe it is more of a 64bit driver problem than a Vista driver problem... not too sure. I am currently running dual boot anyways, so I have XP on one partition and Vista on another partition. I run my DX10 games on Vista and my DX9 games on XP, and it is working fine.

You probably dont want to go with onboard sound if you are going to run high quality audio. Onboard audio uses your CPU to process the sound, which can reduce your FPS in some games, especially when using surround sound. The XtremeGamer actually has a 1GHz processing unit that handles the sound processing so that your CPU does not have to. This makes a huge difference when playing games with high quality audio enabled. It is only $80. I suggest getting it now, and in a year from now consider upgrading if Vista is causing your sound to crap all over itself.

All in all, you have chosen some good parts. If your heart is set on the Q6600, then go for it. It is a great chip. But you could save some cash by getting the E6750 and possibly see a bump in performance with most games.

***Also, I wouldnt rush into that video card. The 8800GT is the card you want. Getting the GTS is a mistake that you may regret down the line because you were not patient. Don't let the "I want it now!" bug bite you... you will only end up with buyer's remorse.***