Building A New PC For The Holiday

Member

17. October 2006 @ 19:32

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I am currently building a new PC which I am using for High-End gaming on a budget of about $2000 (yes my parents are backing me up money wise :) ). Here are the parts that I have chosen to buy.

CASE
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811133154

MOTHERBOARD
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131593

VIDEO CARD
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814161025

PSU
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817190012

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103754

MEMORY
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145034

HARD DRIVES (I plan on getting 2 on a RAID 0)
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136062

OPTICAL DRIVES (Also getting 2)
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827106014

SOUND CARD
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16829102188

CPU COOLER
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835185125

I would like to see all of your opinions, suggestions, and anything you can think of.

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ALSO----I plan on not waiting for DX10, neither am I going to OC,...

Thanks,
---------Pokey5

Moderator

17. October 2006 @ 21:49

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not bad.

Ditch the OEM and buy the retail box. The stock heatsink works really well and I've read where it actually works better than after market fans.

Also you might wanna think about going with a Core 2, I'm pretty sure they're outperforming AMD's right now. For an extra $50 you can get the E6600 2.4GHz.

Also, might as well get the ATI branded 1950. I have a PowerColor X800 GTO and have had problems in the past updating drivers. Also I believe the ATI cards use the better memory (think I've read that before :) ) lol

Anyways, I build my gaming rig for about $1500 and it could have been $200 cheaper (The case I chose was a Lian-Li).

X2-4800, 2GB Corsair XMS PC3500, OCZ 700W PSU, X1950 XTX, X-Fi Fatality, 74GB 8MB Cache Raptor & 250GB SATA

And DX10? The new ATI cards will be coming out soon. You really might wanna re-think when you want to build this :)

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Moderator

17. October 2006 @ 21:55

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also, I have a ASUS W3J lappy. Has a Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz and I got a higher PCMark04 score with it compared to my AMD 4800 2.4GHz.

When it comes to gaming you also need to ask yourself what screen your gonna use and what resolution your gonna play at. I stick to 1280x1024, and at that resolution the "TOP" gaming rigs won't perform better than what I have.

So are you really gonna play at the higher resolutions? Use HDR? AA+AF?

Whatever your decision ... GL :)

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Member

18. October 2006 @ 13:40

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Thanks Flip...I tried to find the retail box on Newegg but couldnt

Also, do you know when newer AM2 Crossfire Mobos are coming out? Last time I checked there was only like 4.

And yes I run my games on a 17" LCD...I dont normally us AF/AA.

elokito

Senior Member

18. October 2006 @ 14:28

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case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811196019

also go for a core 2 duo they r better than any amd

[

Moderator

18. October 2006 @ 17:10

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Quote:
Thanks Flip...I tried to find the retail box on Newegg but couldnt

In that case OEM will be fine.

Quote:
Also, do you know when newer AM2 Crossfire Mobos are coming out? Last time I checked there was only like 4.

Couldn't tell you. New boards with the new ATI chipset should be out soon.

Quote:
And yes I run my games on a 17" LCD...I dont normally us AF/AA.

I would give it more thought, especially if you got time. My only thing with newer/newest technology is all the possible bugs.

I chose to go with the older socket 939 X2-4800. Stuck to low latency RAM. I would have to see other benchmarks compared to mine to "maybe" get me to build a AM2 or Conroe system right now.

Right now those parts are a bargain. What games do you plan to play?

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Member

18. October 2006 @ 17:26

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@ elokito
-------------I actually thought about getting that exact same case but decided to go for a full tower to get extra space.

@ Flip
-------------I plan on playing Oblivion and possibly Crysis (Probably not as Crysis may be operating on DX10...not sure)

elokito

Senior Member

18. October 2006 @ 17:32

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u could buy some good card to play on med/high to hold ureself 4 jan so u could buy a dx10 card

[

Member

18. October 2006 @ 17:35

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@ elokito
-------------Personaly I think that the DX10 cards will not be perfect also I dont want to spend an extra 200 for Vista. I'm just going to lay back and see what happens.

elokito

Senior Member

18. October 2006 @ 17:39

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ok well if u want then buy a 7950gx2 from nvidia it owns the x1950xtx

[

Moderator

18. October 2006 @ 19:10

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Quote:
ok well if u want then buy a 7950gx2 from nvidia it owns the x1950xtx

I tried the 7950GX2 and didn't like it. I wish I saved the 3DMark scores, but I didn't.

But here are my 3DMark scores for my X1950 XTX w/ X2-4800

3DMark03 18758
3DMark05 11546
3DMark06 6037

What I didn't like about the GX2 were 1) It was extremely huge 2) I thought it got hot. I tease my buddy who has one that his card is over heating :)

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Member

19. October 2006 @ 11:32

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Thanks guys...I'll keep all of your suggestions in mind when I make my final order.

Thanks,
---------Pokey5