$700US(flexible) build advice

[rumpletumpskin]

i have a case, dvd drives, psu and a 8800gts but i will need everything else. i will use this system mainly for gaming. i expect that most would recommend intel over amd but could you please explain to me why?

thanks for all input.

 

[wahnula]

Performance. Core 2 Duo's are the leader, AMD isn't even close, especially when it comes to a gaming rig. Think...are you ever planning on running SLI?

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[rumpletumpskin]

not right away but i probably will when i start becoming disappointed with my performance.

 

[wahnula]

I believe this is the top-of-the-line SLI board:

http://www.directron.com/p5ntdeluxe.html

And of course the new 45nm dual core, you can't beat this for the price:

http://www.directron.com/bx80570e8400a.html

or go quad:

http://www.directron.com/bx80562q6600.html

You could select a board using the Nvidia 680i chipset and save some money too.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[rumpletumpskin]

thanks tony. can all 775 boards take full advantage of the 45nm technology or only certain ones like the P5N-T Deluxe which u recommended?

 

[cdogg]

There's no doubt Intel has all the momentum on their side. But we all can appreciate AMD's wholesale pricing scheme which has forced Intel to lower their prices in return. Just 4 years ago we would be paying anywhere from $600 to $1000 for the upper tier of Pentium 4 processors. Today, the newest and best can often be had for under $300 (not taking enthusiast versions such as the Core 2 Extreme into account).

As a reference when each dollar matters, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ outperforms the Core 2 Duo E6400 in most benchmarks and is $40 cheaper. The tide only really starts to change when you decide to get a Core 2 Duo E6750 or better to justify spending the extra cash.


At this site, you can pair up any two processors against each other in a wide variety of benchmarks:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

If you decide to go Core 2 Duo, this might come in handy:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06/19/eight_p35-ddr2_motherboards_compared/

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[ceh4702]

The Asus P5K series or the Abit IP35 series both would seem to be good choices along with the E8400 processor. I dont care much for Crossfire or SLI.

On whatever motherboard you consider you may want to go to the manufacturers website and research if you will need a BIOS update to use the Intel 45nm die process CPU's. Usually you can download the manual and read it. It may vary or there may be different versions of the motherboard that support it better. Asus tends to try to make the chipsets support the next upcoming Processor, but sometimes you still may need a BIOS Update.

Alternatively you could opt for the X38 chipset motherboards. You may want to look at what is available and what the costs are associated with it.

I like

http://www.newegg.com

for its search features for motherboards. You can search by chipset, brand or whatever.

http://www.zipzoom.fly

is also another nice vendor.



If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[rumpletumpskin]

thanks for all your help so far guys. how much of a part does my hard drive choice play into a strong gaming pc?

 

[cdogg]

A strong hard drive configuration can decrease the amount of time it takes for your computer to boot, for applications & games to load, and of course creating/deleting/moving files.

There are standard drives from each manufacturer, and then there are the elite versions that can provide a small boost. Choosing a higher-end model is only a fraction of what you can do, however. In addition to using just a single drive in your system you can opt to use a RAID configuration (two or more drives) to increase read/write access times. I've seen it impact performance as much as 20% compared to a single drive. Picking the right RAID configuration is important. RAID 0 is commonly used these days as a quick and inexpensive option that only requires a 2nd hard drive. However, it is a stripe array that doesn't have any fault tolerance which means if just one fails, you cannot use the remaining drive to recover data.

The solution is to use RAID 0+1 which requires a third hard drive. So if only one of the three fails, you can recover. Of course if you don't want to stuff your computer with more than 2 drives, you can rely on backup software instead (like Acronis TrueImage) in case your RAID 0 array bites the dust. It's not real-time but is usually good enough for the home enthusiast.


These sites usually have some good articles:

http://www.storagereview.com/

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[wahnula]

The solution is to use RAID 0+1 which requires a third hard drive.

Correct me if I am wrong, but RAID 0+1 (a mirrored RAID 0 array) requires four drives, not three. RAID 5 arrays have excellent fault tolerance and can be created with three or more drives, but have parity overhead and are not as fast as RAID 0 arrays.

Also, RAID 0+1 usually requires a more expensive controller and more maintenance:

RAID 01 is a mirrored configuration of two striped sets; RAID 10 is a stripe across a number of mirrored sets. RAID 10 and 01 have been increasing dramatically in popularity as hard disks become cheaper and the four-drive minimum is legitimately seen as much less of an obstacle.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/mult.htm

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[cdogg]

Yes, good catch Tony...