Well, it's about time that I sat down and spent some hard earned money on some new parts. I've been out of the game for a bit though, and am looking for some advice. I will need an entire setup, including a case, mobo, RAM, video, CPU, fans, DVD burner, PS... the whole nine yards. What will I be doing with it? The occasional gaming (Fallout 3, Far Cry, etc.), but a lot of graphic design work in CS4. I'm just tired of how slow my thing runs now. Here's what I have now: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ @2.19 GHz 2.25 GB RAM 500GB HDD (1 Htachi 250GB, 1 WD 250GB) GeForce 7900GTO @ 512MB As you can see, I'm a bit outdated on this box. I will need the new run to run a 64 bit version of Vista (then Windows 7) without a hitch. Oh, my budget? Let's keep it less that $700 if we can.
What kind of performance are you looking for on games and CS4? For $700 I don't foresee you being able to work on LPs, templates, major designs of any form, or gaming with any solid amount of FPS in games like F3 and FC... I am assuming Crysis is in there somewhere as well.
Ok, let's get started here. Thing I know the least about are mobos. If somebody else could give a good recommendation that would be nice. I'll assume it has PCI 2.0 and DDR3 support in the rest of my recommendations. RAM 4GB of DDR2 RAM - DDR3 isn't worth the extra cost - 24.99 after rebate Video Card 9800 GT with 1GB of VRAM - like 150 or something Processor 3MHz Core 2 Duo Processor - 180 MassCool CPU Fan MassCool CPU Fan, etc etc 40 bucks HD Hitachi 1TB HD - 80 bucks Intake Fan Good enough 80MM, 5 bucks Exhaust Fan 120MM, has a knob that lets you adjust speed that goes in expansion slot That's all I have time for atm. I'd assume you'd need a new PSU. So you know, 700 is a bit tight as far as a good system goes, but I can try.
Some parts are cheaper at newegg: CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115037 As for the HDD, I would go with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136317 It has twice the cache that the one scar linked you to, and its only a couple bucks more.
if you would like any extensive help, i build PC's for a living.. grab my msn by PMing me and i can help you pick and choose whats best for what.. imo, get an average to decent water cooler and a cheaper processor to save quite a bit and just overclock - thats what i would do. for example a slower quad with a good cache would be cheaper than a 3ghz c2duo, and with overclocking you could get it way past 3ghz with average cheap water cooling anyways... grab windows 7 it runs a lot smoother than vista, or XP if you prefer, and go for the 9800GTX its kinda leet good luck building ^^ edit: even a few degrees can help a lot with overclocking so invest an extra $2 or something on the thermal paste for the cpu and youre sorted ^^ artic silver 5 is pretty leet edit: ROFL at iPoo's 2nd sig quote
iPoo delivers. I did a quick scan for decent cheap parts and obviously slacked a bit, nice find on NewEgg ;o Oh and make sure you don't use XP with 4GB of RAM, some run into some problems.
F*ck watercooling. Total waste of money. Just use the stock Intel cooler, I've clocked Q6600s past 3ghz easy with the stock cooler on a decent motherboard. NEVER buy 80mm case fans, as they're noisy as ------.
Depends what you get, and they are much more efficient than the stock coolers if you want to seriously overclock your CPU.. i just used 3ghz as a reference to the dual core which was written there, im certain you could reach way, way over 4ghz with like a 2.5ghz quad with a decent watercooling system installed
You could buy a Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 that'll perform much better than your average water-cooling loop, for much cheaper, and damn near silent. I'm sorry, but no matter what the situation, recommending water-cooling as a way of getting the most out of a small budget is ridiculous.
i have a setup with one of those, it performs better than low-mid watercoolers but some mid watercoolers can out perform that by quite a bit and arent too heavy on the wallet, it is really decent though not imo.
In order to outperform a high end HSF, you'd need a water-cooling setup with at least a high-end (as in Swift-tech, Danger-Den, Thermochill) 240mm rad, coupled with a pair of good quality 120mm case fans (Loons, Scythe, Silverstone etc), a high end, non restrictive water block, like a DangerDen TDX or a D-Tek Fuzion block, and a good Laing or DD pump. Couple that with tubing, additives, a reservoir, t- or y-joints, hose clamps, and a case that's high enough quality and big enough to fit it all, you've already blown more than half his budget before even looking at the PC components themselves. As opposed to $50-60 for a comparitive HSF. Buy anything less than what I've listed above, and it's hardly worth the effort or the cash. Water-cooling used to be the quiet, efficient way to get low temps... 5-10 years ago. With the current efficiency and silence of HSFs, there's absolutely no way to justify spending $250-350 on water-cooling that barely beats a $50 HSF. Not to mention that maintence has to be fairly regular, and is much more difficult than just vaccuming the dust out of a heat-sink. Also, a few years from now, if he wanted to upgrade his CPU/motherboard etc, he'd have to buy a new water-block as well, jsut to be able to use the water-cooling equipment. That's another $100-200 (LGA775 blocks are piss cheap compared to what they were when the socket was new).
DVD burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827136152 Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811119190 Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136218 Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130339 PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817139004 Memory http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231145 Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128372 CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115037 Total is $698 before shipping and taxes
Here's what I ended up getting. The wife squeezed the budget a bit tighter on me. Hopefully this'll work. PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817341018 RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820104097 Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835200026 Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130339 Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811147038 CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115206 HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136319 MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128372 Burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827136144
