New PC soon...

cambrosecambrose
edited August 2007 in Hardware
Okay, I got a new job with an investment firm, and can afford to upgrade my pc. Here is what I'm thinking:

New Case

Motherboard

Video Card X2

PSU

Processor

Ram Module X2

500GB HDD

Totals at 1800 and change....any suggestions would rock.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    I strongly recommend the Antec 900 for a case. No other case on the market has better cooling short of a block of wood in open air.

    Otherwise, no qualms. If your monitor is 20" or bigger, you'll want a 640 GTS, though.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited August 2007
    my monitor is a 19", what is a 640gts btw, gfx card?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    It's the 640mb version of the card you're getting, which is much better at handling newer games with very large textures and special effects.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    For the money that you are looking at I would go with faster memory.
    Check this out
    http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2916&p=7

    like this
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227184
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited August 2007
    1. Would the performance of one 8800 640mb equal the performance of 2 of the 320s?

    2. I want 4 gb of ram......
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    1. No, depending on the game, it'd be more like 1.2 or 1.3 320s.

    2. You can't get 4gb without going to 64bit Windows, which will make your life exceedingly difficult. Drivers / software / etc.. good luck.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited August 2007
    Well it looks like I'll be staying with 2 320's and the super ram thne.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited August 2007
    Xp X64 has great driver support for everything but 56k's,c-media products, cheep Chinese products and some printers.

    edit: I use XP X64 exclusively for all of my windows machines as it's kernel is far better then the one in xp and much of the legacy bloat has been dropped (16bit application support, windows 9x compatibility, 32bit kernel mode driver support was also dropped.). Its much better for multitasking.

    edit: Also for the price of the thermal-take psu you picked you could get a FAR better pc power & cooling psu.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    I concur completely with Thrax' case choice. Go to a store and look at the Antec 900. You will want nothing else at that point. The Stacker is nice, and is a great case for a custom, well-ventilated build, but the 900 is just brilliant. The 900 is also not nearly as bulky as the Stacker.

    I have nothing against any of your hardware choices in isolation, just a couple questions and suggestions. Are you upper-crust enough of a gamer to take advantage of SLI? Will you be overclocking the computer? The reason I asked is perhaps you have the opportunity to save quite a bit of money by going with a single, fast video card and less expensive DRAM. By the way, with DDR2, RAM frequency is much more important for speed than are the RAM module's timings. You could quite possibly pay half as much for the RAM, get the same frequency rating, but just not have the timings for bragging or the overhead for system overclocking.

    You could put the money to use with an upgraded, larger monitor or a nice, external hard drive/enclosure for regular system backups. (I always recommend external drives for backups. It's the least expensive computer piece of mind one can have!) Another advantage of using only one video card. Within a year there will be a new card out by ATI or Nvidea, which in single mode will eclipse the performance of any SLI combo made today. But then, if you mortgage your house to buy two cards now, you won't be able to purchase the new hot rod a year from now.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited August 2007
    Which power supply do you suggest then? I OC a little, and the main goal for this pc is to be able to at least be able to play warhammer online and spore when they come out.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    I don't see any problem with the PSU you already selected. Why a change of mind now?
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