Need to Upgrade!

Creep

Ok guys, since I know you all LOVE doing this Im going to leave it to you. I've been out of the hardware loop for about 3 years so I'm about half lost these days. Im looking to build a new gamming rig that will pretty much last me for a few years. Overclocking isnt a huge deal, but I'd like the option if I ever choose to OC again.

Req's for hardware brands are this:

AMD
ATi
SATA (Or better) HDD's - Bigger is better but I wont need a terabyte. 2x HDD's 1 for windows 1 for storage.
High Performance Sound Card.

Have fun guys, budget is around 2k.

Thrax

Why AMD?

Waste of money. Also, ATi's cards are slower.

primesuspect

Sorry Creep, it has been three years, and as much as it pains Thrax and I to say it, Intel reigns supreme right now for new builds. It would be a waste of money to go AMD.

Leonardo

If you want something to last you for several years, then you should build a machine that's up to date, not something based on hardware that's already a full generation (or more) behind. Sorry, but that describes AMD at the moment.

Recommend an Intel quad core CPU: Kentsfield if you wish to build right away; Yorkfield (45nm) if you can wait about three months. (Yorkfield - low power consumption at default clock, significant overclocking headroom, smooooth quad core, tons of onboard cache; Kentsfield - great overclocking, moderate power consumption at default clock; generous onboard cache, rock-n-roll simple installation with Socket 775, easy Windows XP installation)

Recommend an X38 chipset-based motherboard from DFI, Gigabyte, Abit, or Asus. If you want to build right now, then a more 'proven' P35 chipset board might be advisable.

Questions:

will you do SLI/Crossfire?
RAID capability?
sound chips on motherboards are becoming quite good - still need premium sound card?

edcentric

I like Leo's mobo list.
I would build with a mid-speed dual core right now and see what happens when Yorkfield hits. Most games don't run faster with quad yet anyway.

What OS are you going to run?
Probably 2GB ram, and if you go with a new mobo that will be DDR3. It is pricey but very fast. Don't let the timings fool you.

The new ATI cards do look respectable. How much are you willing to spend on video? The 3870 isn't bad and it is less than $250. If you can find a 512MB 8800GT for that price then buy it, it is a better card. Most that I have seen have been $300 which is stupid.

Don't go with a sound card. Look at the mobo options, some are using very good sound chips.

I have had good results with the Seagate 7200.10 SATA drives. they are quick and quiet.

If your budget will take it go for a PCP&C PSU. A Silencer 610 will be great.

Creep

:sad2:

I hate intel and nVidia!

Sound, yea dude, I need something that's as close as I can get to studio quality as I do a bit of recording. OS is going to be xp of course, maybe in 2 years when they fix vista i'll switch over, but not now. Can someone point me in the direction of why itel is better these days and why ATi is teh suck?

Thrax

P35 is the most mature and overclockable chipset on the market. X38 can't touch it, though it wishes it could. Good boards are:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6
ASUS P5K-Deluxe
ASUS P5K-E
DFI P35 BloodIron
DFI LanParty UT P35-T2R
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2R/S

They're all fairly similar in power (Though the DFI and GB boards tend to be better overclockers); pick one based on your desired features and you can't go wrong.

Buy a mid-range Core 2 Duo, preferrably the 6550, and you'll get 3.5GHz out of it without breaking a sweat. It's a cheap chip and will tide you over until the Penryn quads which will get you, oh, north of 3.7GHz on air cooling.

For cooling, a thermaltakeA2029 fan paired with a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme HSF will give you the best cooling money can buy, and put the noise:performance ratio entirely under your control.

Seagates are the most reliable SATA hard drives at the moment.

Aaaand you should compare benchmarks on the ATi 3870 and the NVIDIA 8800 GTS, and see which one suits you more. I believe the NEW GTS is a little faster, and it's important you make sure you're looking at reviews of the new GTS, not the old one.

primesuspect

I'll sum it up: much faster and much cheaper. As for sound, don't get anything by creative and definitely nothing onboard. I'll suggest some brands for you if audio recording is important to you:

M-Audio, like this for example, or Echo Audio's MIA.

If you are really serious about it, you can start somewhere like here. This is a basic "recording studio on a card", but you need software to go with it, etc. This will be a nice little recorder for small bands / semi-pro demos, etc.

Sonorous

I'll vouch for the Asus P5K - Deluxe. Strong stock board with decent over clocking capabilities for a slightly less than high price point.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131182

edcentric

Faster, cheaper and less power consumption is a hard combination to beat. Intel has the chips.
The intel mobos are also the most robust. P35 or X38 doesn't really matter unless you are trying for max overclock. Look at features.

Oh, you want real sound. Look at Auzentech, E-Mu, and M-audio. good quality and not too exotic.

Leonardo

I hate intel and nVidia!

You'll just have to get over it, otherwise you'll be shelling out money for a system that is 18 months behind in technology and performance, with few prospects for meaningful upgrades in the next nine months (or worse). Painful truth. AMD's top products right now are mid-range. ATI is another matter. Their top-end cards are getting very good reviews, but are not in the top 10% performance bracket. I have no idea how important that very expensive 10% is to you. Myself, I'd have no problem with a bang-for-buck ATI card, but I'm not a gamer.

Thrax provided a very good motherboard list. You would probably be very happy with any of those boards. The Socket 775 enthusiast camp right now is happily populated with many high quality, high performance boards from several makers. Unless you want SLI, stay with Intel chipsets. If SLI, you'll want Nvidia chipset boards.

One addition to the motherboard list that I'd like to recommend is the Abit IP35-Pro. It's got an enthusiastic following and is becoming more popular all the time.

Gigabyte: Gigabyte has changed significantly from three years ago. It's no longer ho-hum OEM mediocrity it was before. GA now makes some excellent, high quality performance boards. Concerning GA's "Ultra Durable 2" heatpipe chipset cooling - it really works. I've got the P35-DS4 Rev. 2.0 and think the world of it. I think the ~DQ6 is overpriced. I also think the Asus P5K Deluxe is overpriced. Look carefully at motherboard features. Asus, Gigabyte, and Abit all make budget high performance boards that are just the same as their very expensive brand brothers, just lacking some bells and whistles like a second gigabit lan port, firewire, and RAID chips.

You are picking a very good time for a major upgrade. High performance has never been this affordable, especially with cheap DDR2 available at every corner.

NiGHTS

Another tip of the hat to Gigabyte. I own a GA-P35-DS3R and would recommend it to anyone.

Snarkasm

I had a GA-P35-DS4 with a Q6600 and got it to 3.6GHz stable. Great board. Upgraded to the X38-DQ6 recently, so we'll see if it can compete in the OCing department.

Thelemech

Quad Core 6600 FTW!

...and overclock the hell out of it....

Creep

my god alot has changed, gigabyte really was utter crap back then!

SLi or Crossfire, Pro's/Cons, wtf is it?

Snarkasm

Yes indeed. Solid stuff now, though. I guess they learned bad hardware doesn't sell forever.

Leonardo

SLi or Crossfire, Pro's/Cons, wtf is it?

Wow, you really have taken a tech vacation. Not a problem. Tech can get in the way of real life sometimes.

SLI and Crossfire are graphics hardware configurations wherein two or more graphics cards (regular video cards) are mounted in a computer and operate simultaneously.

Advantages: lots of money for video card makers and GPU manufacturers; 10-15% more performance in gaming

Cons: expensive; often the introduction of a new video card will totally eclipse the performance of a very expensive dual-video card setup; power consumption is very high, especially for some of the high-end class cards

SLI is the Nvidia dual-card technology. Crossfire is ATI's technology. For an SLI rig, you must use Nvidia chipset motherboards. Intel chipsets will run Crossfire. (not that simple, but nevertheless a short summary)

Xanten

if you want i high end pc go intel but for mid level go with either or. i have a amd and very glad with it but intel is just as good really it all depends on what you need and how much money you have.

NiGHTS

Also note that SLi and Crossfire are rarely supported by default, and sometimes getting drivers (FOR GAMES THAT MIGHT NEED THEM MOST - CRYSIS) to support said games takes a while. ...a long while.

muddocktor

As far as SLI or Crossfire are concerned, my point of view is it's a bit of waste unless you are a really big time gamer running on a high res monitor. Otherwise 1 high end vid card should do you good, use less power and still give good gaming performance. From what I've read either the GT8800-512 or the ATI 3870 vid cards should do you real well. If you do go for an SLI or Crossfire setup though, it will limit your board selection, depending which way you go. If you want an SLI setup, you will be stuck (for now at least) using only boards based on Nvidia chipsets and if you want to go Crossfire you will be stuck using boards based on Intel chipsets (this is for Intel Core based systems obviously).

As far as the Intel or AMD processor choice, everyone has said it already. Intel has higher IPC at the same clock speeds, overclock better and draw less powerr than their AMD counterparts. Plus, the LGA775 socket is leaps and bounds better than the pin grid arrays on most AMD setups. No more pulling the processor out of the socket accidentally while removing the heatsink with LGA775.

Creep

Ok so I think I have most of it figured out, kinda like riding a bike. Lets see if you guys approve!

Intel Sys:
CPU - Per Thrax

MoBo - Thrax

Vid - Had to stay ATi

Crucial Ram kicked ass back in the day, im sure they still do 4gigs

HDD 1

HDD 2 - Had to go WD, to many bad experience's with seagate

PSU

Sound

HeatSink that you guys reviewed. Seems to fit cases better

FAN - Thankfully I still have my nexus reobus

Case

OS

Speakers - not THAT big of a deal since I use headphones mostly

Whole system comes in around 1500 before shipping and tax.

This is what I picked out BEFORE asking you guys:

AMD CPU

MSI MoBo

RAM - Crucial again!

Case

Everything else is the same, this system comes in at 1700 before tax and shipping.

Thoughts? Comments?

And yea, out of the loop by far, last thing I built was an AMD Barton core, last thing I OC'd was a XP 1700+ with unlocked modifiers (remembers those?)

ryko

just looking over your selections....and wanted to add that this 3870 is cheaper than the gigabyte one you posted...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241067

also i would buy 2 x 2gb ddr2 instead of 2 x 1gb. crucial is good stuff but you could get 4gb for roughly the same price...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211188

lastly, i would ditch the smaller 80gb hdd and just use the 750gb and partition it down. the 750gb is one of the fastest drives around right now.

edcentric

Or buy a pair of 500GB drives if you want two. small drives can't keep up.
Seagate offers the longest guarantee these days and the 7200.10 drives are fast and quiet.

Take a good look at the M-Audio cards for sound. They have a good rep.
What PSU are you looking at? Please say PCP&C.

muddocktor

Hey Creep, your psu link goes to your vid card.

Unless you are planning to go with a 64 bit OS immediately, I would stick with the 2 X 1GB kit of Crucial ram myself. It will overclock better and most probably with tighter timings. A 32 bit OS won't see more than 3-3.5 GB of a 2 X 2GB kit of ram (32 bit OS limitation). Also, these DDR2-800 Ballistix Tracers are an even better buy as they have a larger rebate at the same price as the Ballistix you linked to.

For a psu, the PCP&C Silencer 610 is a sterling choice, as is the Corsair HX620. Both are Seasonic built units and are quality stuff. Also, both have 5 year warrantees too. Don't cheap out on the psu as it can take too many other expensive items with it and a cheapo can give you stability hell. That goes for both Intel and AMD setups.

Creep

Im going with the PCP&C PSU, im planning on going 64bit OS as soon as it's built. Mudd, link fixed, ty. btw your link took me nowhere. The point of 2 HDD's is that 1 is dedicated to Windows and Program files. The other is for games and files. If you can explain how an 80 gig HDD cant keep up with that please feel free, untill then it stays, and never again will I partition a HDD.

Leonardo

Hey Creep, I do the same thing: OS and Program Files on an inexpensive but acceptably fast 80GB SATA drive. Everything else goes on a higher capacity drive. I don't know if it's the smartest choice, but it works for me.

Snarkasm

Same here, but I have my OS/program files on two Raptors in RAID0. My thinking originally was give the OS and programs the fastest access, any media or anything can take its time. It's served me well.

Creep

I've been doing it for years, atm I have 3 HDD's in my system. I've noticed a SILIGHT improvement in gamming but overall its not much. Only reason i do it is because of system crashes and the yearly reformats that Im currently 2 years over due on mainly I keep my games seperated because it's easier to restore my system after a major crash/change. Since all i ever do is game..... Thats important to me

muddocktor

Creep wrote:

Mudd, link fixed, ty. btw your link took me nowhere.

Hmm, maybe Newegg was having problems with the page yesterday when you clicked on it. I just clicked my link and the page came right up. The ram is basically the same as the Balliostix you linked to in your parts post, but is the model with the blinky lights on top of the ram sticks. More bling for less money.