Desktop Computer

[Surtr]

I think Desaevious has a pretty good setup, except the power supply and maybe the CPU. I won't use a power supply without active PFC, but whether or not you do is up to you. I'd go with this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139001

For the CPU, I think for an extra $20 why not go for a Q6600? Unless most games just don't use 4 cores. I've heard of other stuff doing that. In that case you'd be better off having 2 working cores at 3.0GHz than 2 at 2.4GHz with 2 idling...unless you wanted to run a lot of background tasks.

I have that same RAM. It's OK, but I have to run it underclocked for it to be stable :(.

For a video card, you can look at this http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/g...-v1-6,746.html and start going down the list until you find one you're willing to pay for ;). Keep in mind that the ones that say SLI means there are two cards. You'll have to buy 2 to get the same scores as the charts.

[s0urce]

Check out ACER, they have really good desktops at awesome prices. I snagged mine with a 19'' computer for under 500 shipped.

www.tigerdirect.com

Tell me more about this 19'' computer. Don't listen to this guy

[StereoInstaller1]

Have you thought about a 2 year old used machine? You should be able to find a dual core 3.2 with 4gb RAM (RAM is cheap right now, don't let it worry you) and a 250GB (or so) SATA HDD for about $200 on CL, then buy a decent video card.

Check the specs of the motherboard before you buy!

[aintnothang]

Have you thought about a 2 year old used machine? You should be able to find a dual core 3.2 with 4gb RAM (RAM is cheap right now, don't let it worry you) and a 250GB (or so) SATA HDD for about $200 on CL, then buy a decent video card.

Check the specs of the motherboard before you buy!

Yes, make sure it has pci-e x16, pci-e x16 2.0 cards are backwards compatible FYI.

I suggested the mobo too because it'll support that socket 775 proc and Asus kicks ass from my experience. 4 ram banks = up to 16GB of supported memory.

Yeah, I'm running 2gbs soon to upgrade to 4gb. I'm running 64-bit Vista. If you build yourself, look at AMD, better value.

Keep in mind that the ones that say SLI means there are two cards. You'll have to buy 2 to get the same scores as the charts.

Or crossfire.

[Midnight Sun]

Tell me more about this 19'' computer. Don't listen to this guy

I TELL YOU ITS THE TRUTH!!


What I meant to say was 19'' monitor.

[Surtr]

If you build yourself, look at AMD, better value.

Or crossfire.

I heard Intel prices are going to go down after the 18th. What models that includes, I don't know. It might make intel a better value. Currently a 9950 Black Edition is 203.4 MFLOPS / $. A Q6600 is 196 MFLOPS / $. E8400 is about 143 MFLOPS / $. I don't know what the equivalent AMD is.

I was recently looking into pricing for a cluster and the best buy was the 9950 black edition. But that was taking into account that I would be running multiple machines, which means more power consumption, more NICs to be bought, etc.

[GaryE30]

Thanks everyone. Looks like I have some reading to do and determining a budget.

[Desaevious]

Yes, make sure it has pci-e x16, pci-e x16 2.0 cards are backwards compatible FYI.

Yeah, I'm running 2gbs soon to upgrade to 4gb. I'm running 64-bit Vista. If you build yourself, look at AMD, better value.

Or crossfire.

Yeah it's a set up I made for a friend. I used my first AMD chip 4 years ago and the machine I threw it in still runs perfectly. The friend was on a budget hence the weak P/S but he said it'd be more than fine...If I got an intel chip I'd get the E8500 (3.0ghz plus over clocking...but then you'hh have over heating)...too bad i7 is going to be the standard but is still balls expensive. I think the cheapest i7 was around the ~$300 range...but older games like HL2 has issues with recognizing quad core processing...so to that game playing on a 2.2ghz quad core is like playing a 2.2gz single...which even at that is more than enough for HL2 and it's mods.

I'm doing a third rebuild on my gaming desktop and I've found an Intel set up that I link more than an AMD set up, which is the E8500 because like you said, the other two would be idling since games don't recognize them yet. I'd have to be running steam, every media/burning software, instant messanger, a streaming porno (rofl1:), and photoshop at the same time for a quad core to be worth my money.

AMD vs. Intel on this one...show me a dual core AMD with a good cache (at least 3MB) for about this price...I looked at TD and Newegg and unless I missed something I haven't found one. It depends on when you want to get a proc..sometimes AMD is better, sometimes Intel is. The E8500 below has a 6MB L2 cache...that's double some of the better AMD chips I've seen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036

[StereoInstaller1]

A good dirty trick to get a valid XP license is to buy a POS PC at Goodwill that has the sticker, then use an OE disk to reinstall it, but change the XP key number to the one on the goodwill case using something like "magic jellybean"

I don't know if you want to go with Vista or not, but if your game is OK in XP, I would not go Vista.

[Miasma]

I have a education edition of XP pro that can be installed on as many computers as you want. No activation required, Was given to me when I did some facade work for UT.

PM for details?

[e34john]

Dell has a good deal right now $549 and comes with a 24 inch LCD, 2.66GHz and 2Gb ram. You may have to upgrade the video card, I didn't read the specs on that. check out slickdeals.net

[Fel]

That looks like a good one, but the price jumps pretty quickly when you start adding on things like the video card and the need for a 2.4 ghz processor minimum. I'm looking to not have to spend a whole lot just for this game lol

Just a quick point.... the minimum requirement of a 2.4GHz processor refers to a single-core CPU... with something like a Quad core, you'd have nothing to worry about. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

[Surtr]

Yeah it's a set up I made for a friend. I used my first AMD chip 4 years ago and the machine I threw it in still runs perfectly. The friend was on a budget hence the weak P/S but he said it'd be more than fine...If I got an intel chip I'd get the E8500 (3.0ghz plus over clocking...but then you'hh have over heating)...too bad i7 is going to be the standard but is still balls expensive. I think the cheapest i7 was around the ~$300 range...but older games like HL2 has issues with recognizing quad core processing...so to that game playing on a 2.2ghz quad core is like playing a 2.2gz single...which even at that is more than enough for HL2 and it's mods.

I'm doing a third rebuild on my gaming desktop and I've found an Intel set up that I link more than an AMD set up, which is the E8500 because like you said, the other two would be idling since games don't recognize them yet. I'd have to be running steam, every media/burning software, instant messanger, a streaming porno (rofl1:), and photoshop at the same time for a quad core to be worth my money.

AMD vs. Intel on this one...show me a dual core AMD with a good cache (at least 3MB) for about this price...I looked at TD and Newegg and unless I missed something I haven't found one. It depends on when you want to get a proc..sometimes AMD is better, sometimes Intel is. The E8500 below has a 6MB L2 cache...that's double some of the better AMD chips I've seen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115036

AFAIK i7 also requires DDR3 which is ridiculously expensive. A quadcore running a game on a single core would actually be better than a single core CPU. The other cores would be able to handle all the background tasks, so they wouldn't be taking away from the gaming. If a game requires a 2.2GHz single core, they are expecting some of that 2.2GHz to be taken up by windows system processes. I think any game that requires a lot of CPU is going to be able to handle multiple cores. I've just heard that some programs (can't recall which) will only use like 1% of two of the cores. I know the first pass on a DVD resolution x264 encode won't max out all 4 of my cores. I'm thinking COD4 will, if it needs to. I'm not sure if MATLAB is able to handle 4 cores, though I'd be surprised if it couldn't. Not sure if he's doing anything CPU intensive either...but if he was that'd be a nice help.

I've been an Intel fan since dual cores came out, but that doesn't mean I won't change my mind. Certainly when you're considering 4 - 10 quadcore machines AMD looks much more appealing :). As far as choosing between an E8500 and a Q6600, I think I'd go with the Q6600. Well, I DID go with a Q6600 and a Q8200, but that wasn't as cool as I thought, so I'd choose a Q6600 over a Q8200. For an extra $1 (over the E8500) you get another 10 GFLOPS. Well worth it to me. I may be missing something in the gaming area though, as it seems gamers tend to prefer dual cores. Sure, you can overclock an E8500 to 4GHz+, but even at 4.8GHz you'd only be matching the combined speed of a stock Q6600, which easily overclocks to at least 3GHz.


StereoInstaller, why would you suggest XP over Vista? Especially for gaming. Vista has DirectX 10 support. The only reason I see end users not liking Vista is because some things are in different areas and UAC. Maybe if they have a 10 year old printer they can't get a driver for it.

[E30 Wagen]

Don't waste your money and think it's better to spend extra on a quad-core.

I had a 2.33 (the slowest) Core 2 Duo with a 1333 mhz front side bus and it ran all the latest games perfectly. I then overclocked it to 3.4ghz and something like 2000mhz FSB.

I used the same processor to run a dual video card setup and that ran awesome. I was running 4gb of ram though. The point is, a quad core isn't any better for casual gaming than a dual core. It's been proven. Games simply aren't going to utilize that many cores.

Quad-cores are beneficial if you're running a heavy SLi or Crossfire setup to handle the extra gpu's.

[Stephen]

Newegg. Build your own, save money, and learn a valuable skill at the same time.

Building a computer really is not complicated at all. The key thing to remember is that it is all made to fit together, brute force is NEVER required.

YEah, i did it in under a day... turned it on, fixed one thing i had screwed up on, and it lived happily ever after