Hi, this is my first build so i dont know too much about building but ive been doing research for awhile and wanted to see if this rig i want will work out. Price is an issue so im trying to keep it cheap. I need it for everyday online work and would like to play games like crysis at decent settings. Anyway heres wut im thinking about. Theres a couple things i cant decide on which to get -Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor ($270) vs. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor ($275) -Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK ($33) -NZXT TEMPEST Crafted Series CS-NT-TEM-B Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case($109)(recommended on this site and i liked it) -Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive ($95) -CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($130) vs. PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V Power Supply($115) -Rosewill RCR-102 52-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader ($15) -CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory ($87) -ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler ($32) -GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DS4 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard ($200) -SAPPHIRE 100243L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card ($310) Comes to about $1400 with tax and shipping, which I am okay with. My limit is $1500. A couple questions i have too is will i be able buy another HD4870 down the road and be able to use crossfirex on that mobo? Should i use xp pro(which i have on disk) or upgrade to vista for directx 10 (is it worth it? Ive heard bad things about vista.) Are all these parts compatible? What would you recommend different or changing? Any feedback is much appreciated. Sry for the spelling.
All that stuff should work. For the GFX card, I'm sure you can find a better & cheaper card to run Crysis on. Like an 8800, or one of the new Radeon's.
Er, that is one of the new radeons, and it's one of the best graphics cards you can buy. In fact, it's the best graphics card you can buy for a sensible price. You will be able to use crossfire with that board - but intend to get the second card soon, else you'll never bother, something new will have taken its place. Very few times do I see plans of "I'll get a second card later" actually come to fruition, you may want to consider leaving it, or getting the second one now. Use XP, it's far easier, but you may have to reinstall it else you could experience problems. Your components list is on the whole excellent. of the two CPUs, I would rather you go with the Q6700, especially if you want to overclock.
Quad Cores are a bit of a waste of money to be honest. Hardly any applications or games utilise 2 cores nevermind 4 cores. I personally would go with a higher spec Dual Core which you can find cheaper than a lower spec Quad Core. Also, as mentioned an 8800 graphics card is probably the best to go for if your trying to keep costs down. I have a BFG 8800GT 512mb OC which you can pickup pretty cheap, or get one of the slightly better spec 8800GTs such as the Gainward Golden Sample version which is 1gb Ram with better clock speeds. My 8800GT handles nearly all things I throw it, in fact Crysis is the only game it struggled a bit with, but then again so do alot of better spec cards. I could still play Crisis well, I just had to turn the settings down slightly....still looked beautiful though.
Almost all games can use two cores now, some have started accepting four, not many, but some. If you intend to upgrade again within 12-18 months, a dual core is a better option now, but only to save money, there's not a vast difference in performance. If the user wants to keep their PC for quite some time though (often the case) a quad core is a much more sound investment for a build with that budget. Graphics cards are more important still though, the 8800GT is fine for low resolutions, but for any degree of futureproofing, you need a new generation card - they can run games at maximum detail for the most part now, and will last a lot longer down the line, plus they're double the performance, for a lot less than double the cost, making them better value for money too.
I play games such as COD4, R6V2, GRID, etc, all in 1680x1050 on my 22" LCD at FULL spec with my 8800GT...hardly a low resolution. Suppose it depends what you class as a low/high resolution. It might struggle at full spec at 1920x1200 though, but cant say ive tried it. As for your processor....only rendering and encoding tasks exploit parallelism enough to overcome the speed deficit between a 3.0ghz dual and a 2.4ghz quad core CPU. Outside of those specifics, performance will actually suffer for most general purpose software if you choose a slower quad core over a faster dual core.
It is quite a low resolution really. 1920x1200 is becoming quite common with gamers now and is almost 50% more pixels. 2560x1600 is used by some, myself included, which is over double the pixel count of 1680x1050. Put it this way, eventually games are going to be as demanding at 1680x1050 as they are now at 2560x1600 - and then you'll get problems. Why recommend an inferior graphics card to save money when the guy has a high budget? Also, I play Vegas 2, GRID and COD4 all at 2560x1600 on my HD3870, a slower card than the 8800GT. Try doing that with Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance, Crysis, Age of Conan, the original Rainbow Six Vegas or FEARerseus Mandate and you'll get issues. You haven't really picked a demanding list of games.
Didnt really take notice of the budget but I did say "if you're trying to keep costs down".......yeah, if you've got a high budget then you can do better than the 8800GT. On a lower budget Id recommend that everytime as nothing really compares for the price, but everyone has there own favourites and opinion
Absolutely, the 8800GT is still a good card for the price, but the HD3870 has dropped so far it too is worthy of consideration.
