Building new computer, looking for suggestions please.

Madek · 09-18-2007, 02:00 AM

I'm about to build a new computer to get ready for the huge lineup of PC games that are coming out relatively soon... (UT3, Jericho, TF2, CoD4, Rage, Left 4 dead.. to name a few) and would like to get opinions about the parts I have chosen from people who have experience with using similar hardware for similar gaming.

Here is my list so far:

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Motherboard:
MSI P6N SLI-FI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Videocard:
EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB

Power supply:
Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL ATX12V v2.01 600W Power Supply

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Hard drive:
Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

DVD-drive:
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner

Now for a few questions: I don't run any game I play in a resolution higher than 1280x1024, (And I doubt I ever will) do you think this setup will run the next generation of games in that resolution on high detail settings with low lag? I cant stand big frame drops in games, especially online FPS and that is what I will mainly be playing. Should I upgrade to a 8800GTX because of this? Or will the 8800GTS 620MB be sufficient for this request?

Would it be worth it to buy a second hard drive and run a raid setup instead of a single hard drive setup? I have never setup a raid and don't know how much of a difference it actually makes.

Are there any parts in my list you would highly recommend me NOT to get? Does anyone here have a similar setup and have any comments on how well it runs?

I'll appreciate any suggestions or feedback anyone can give.

Thanks.

*phuzion* · 09-18-2007, 02:00 PM

You definitely will want to get a much larger hard drive. Get a smaller Raptor HDD as your system drive, if you're going for performance, then something like a 300-500GB SATA as your data drive.

WiLLiSTER · 09-18-2007, 06:12 PM

The hard drive could be larger, or like Phuzion said you can get a small hard drive for the operating system and another large drive for the rest.

Overall though the system should do quite well with those games. I personally would go for a 680i board, just in case you ever feel the need to sli.

Empathy · 09-18-2007, 08:59 PM

Definately get a bigger hard drive. As for video right now, no matter WHAT you buy its going to be outdated in less than a year. Microsoft just announced DirectX10.1 which makes a TON of optional features (like 4xAA, and some other stuff) now mandatory. Also, current generation DirectX10 cards (i.e. nVidia 8 Series and Radeon HD series) will not run at the 10.1 specifications. Its a hard blow enough that DX10 requires Vista.

psmo290 · 09-18-2007, 09:11 PM

get a bigger hdd - 300 to 500 gb
I would suggest you downgrade your video card or at least wait for it to go on sale on black friday or christmas. Like Empathy said, these things gets obsoleted fast.

***red shoe paul*** · 09-18-2007, 09:13 PM

That case is whack. Also get that Intel out and throw this in:

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor - Retail

Cheaper and way better.

Empathy · 09-18-2007, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psmo290

get a bigger hdd - 300 to 500 gb
I would suggest you downgrade your video card or at least wait for it to go on sale on black friday or christmas. Like Empathy said, these things gets obsoleted fast.

well this set of video cards (nVidia 8 series and Radeon HD2 series cards) were made obsolete quickly due to an API change by Microsoft. I can pretty much guarantee that DX10.1 games will still work with DX10 as well, but you're gonna lose alot of the eye candy that DX10.1 ensures, so its likely a good idea to wait for the GeForce 9 Series and Radeon HD3 cards.

basically waht im saying is microsoft is causing a forced change to hardware to call a video card "DX10.1" since the changes cannot be made retroactive to DX10.0 cards, much like the change from DX9 to DX10 would be, but its not a major revision of Direct X. heh

DeusExMachina · 09-19-2007, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madek

I'm about to build a new computer to get ready for the huge lineup of PC games that are coming out relatively soon... (UT3, Jericho, TF2, CoD4, Rage, Left 4 dead.. to name a few) and would like to get opinions about the parts I have chosen from people who have experience with using similar hardware for similar gaming.

Here is my list so far:

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Motherboard:
MSI P6N SLI-FI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Videocard:
EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB

Power supply:
Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL ATX12V v2.01 600W Power Supply

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Hard drive:
Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

DVD-drive:
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner

Now for a few questions: I don't run any game I play in a resolution higher than 1280x1024, (And I doubt I ever will) do you think this setup will run the next generation of games in that resolution on high detail settings with low lag? I cant stand big frame drops in games, especially online FPS and that is what I will mainly be playing. Should I upgrade to a 8800GTX because of this? Or will the 8800GTS 620MB be sufficient for this request?

Would it be worth it to buy a second hard drive and run a raid setup instead of a single hard drive setup? I have never setup a raid and don't know how much of a difference it actually makes.

Are there any parts in my list you would highly recommend me NOT to get? Does anyone here have a similar setup and have any comments on how well it runs?

I'll appreciate any suggestions or feedback anyone can give.

Thanks.

-------------------
Hard drive
-------------------

For raid (0 and 1), you need two hard drives the same size, preferably same speed, for the best performance and maximum efficiency. There is a raid 2 3 4 but i think it only applies to SCSI drives.

Raid 0 is hard drive striping where data is split across 2 drives, and stored into each one. Your hard drive will be able to load data off faster, so your windows might boot faster your games might load faster but it wont increase your game performance. The downside is if 1 hd dies, you lose all your data.

Raid 1 is mirroring. 1 hd will serve as an exact copy of the other. This is advantageous in duplicating data so if 1 hd dies, you don't lose everything.

I personally don't think raid is particularly useful.

For hard drive space, it doesn't matter what size you get. Just get whatever size is large enough to fit all your pr0n.

Sata II should be the standard hd now.

Otherwise if you are concerned about speed, get a solid state drive

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Motherboard
-------------------------

An Sli board, so shouldn't you get 2 video cards?

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Video Card
-------------------------

I heard that geforce 8 series requires DX10 which requires vista, so you might be stuck with a faggoty OS interface. I don't know for sure

If your playing all modern day games at 1280 x 1024 is a geforce 8 series really needed? I think the 7900 series could do that

If video lags, generally the most common resource hogging processes are

Anti Aliasing
Anisotropic filtering

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Memory
-------------------------

Make sure its dual channel

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CPU
-------------------------

That's a nice one, but if your real baller, go for the Core 2 Extreme or quad core.

Otherwise you have a pretty cool computer there

Madek · 09-19-2007, 06:24 AM

You can run the 8 series cards on windows XP, but without DX10. I'm not that interested in needing DX10 after seeing the comparison pictures from Bioshock... not a big enough difference to make me want to switch over to Vista.

The motherboard, I'm thinking of changing to Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I was looking into getting a Q6600 over the E6850 due to the price difference and similar performance.. but it seemed like everyone preferred the Q6600 because of its overclocking ability, which I don't do.. So I'll probably stick with the E6850.

Red shoe paul: The case isn't that important to me, I don't need to showoff anything and it will be sitting at my feet for its lifetime. And I haven't seen any benchmark tests that show the 6400+ outperforming the Core 2 duo processors in game testing. (athlon 64 x2 6400+ review and benchmark)

Hard drive space isn't that big of an issue for me. I don't store lots of music or videos, and I format on a fairly regular basis.

Thanks everyone for the responses and suggestions so far.

Empathy · 09-19-2007, 09:16 PM

E6850>Q6600 by a long shot, Quad Core is a gimmick for now, nothing home users do is really multithreaded as of yet, so until we see those additional cores being put towards physics processing, theyre pretty much useless for now.

Madek · 09-20-2007, 03:27 AM

Just ordered this case - Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Also ordered the same memory that I linked in my first post, and went with a 250gb hard drive. Going to order the motherboard, power supply and E6850 next most likely.. and will probably end up paying the extra money and going with a 8800GTX. Since I'll be upgrading the videocard, I'm going to also upgrade the power supply and go with Newegg.com - AeroCool ZERODBA ZERODBA-S620 EPS 12V & ATX 12V 2.02 compliant with Powerful Dual +12V Rails 620W Power Supply 100-120V/200-240V IP,OVP OPP,SCP - Retail.

Will probably be a month or so until I finally have everything purchased, but I cant wait.

***red shoe paul*** · 09-20-2007, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madek

Just ordered this case - Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Much better.

That price is really good too.

Blackraven · 09-20-2007, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by red shoe paul

That case is whack. Also get that Intel out and throw this in:

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor - Retail

Cheaper and way better.

Err.......don't mean to sound rude but it is already common knowledge that ANY Intel Core 2 unit CAN BEAT its AMD counterparts (K8-based).

Cheaper, perhaps......but right now, it's Intel Core 2 that's getting the best bang per buck. Not to mention that the K8-based processors are running on 65nm process nodes thus meaning that TDP and power consumption will be higher than that of any Core 2 processor.

However, if you do want to go for AMD, I suggest that you wait for those upcoming K10-based units (which now run on 65nm) such as the AMD Phenom.

But of course, Intel will already release 45nm processors starting January 2008.

But either way, if you want something now, don't get AMD period.

kimcicle · 09-20-2007, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madek

Also ordered the same memory that I linked in my first post, and went with a 250gb hard drive. Going to order the motherboard, power supply and E6850 next most likely.. and will probably end up paying the extra money and going with a 8800GTX. Since I'll be upgrading the videocard, I'm going to also upgrade the power supply and go with Newegg.com - AeroCool ZERODBA ZERODBA-S620 EPS 12V & ATX 12V 2.02 compliant with Powerful Dual +12V Rails 620W Power Supply 100-120V/200-240V IP,OVP OPP,SCP - Retail.

Will probably be a month or so until I finally have everything purchased, but I cant wait.

Personally, I would go with this PSU instead: Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail. I have it and I personally think it's one of the best PSUs I have ever worked with or seen. Most tech sites agree with how good the PSU is.

I think the GTX is overkill unless you run stuff at stuff over 1680x1050. I've been rocking a 8800GTS at 1920x1200 for all my games without a hitch.

If you want future upgrade-proofing ish stuff (like, if you just want to pop out your CPU and put in a faster one) I would recommend going with a P35 based motherboard, which has support for the upcoming 45nm Intel chips and for DDR3 RAM. Some motherboards come as a combo DDR2 / DDR3 RAM setup. But don't get DDR3 RAM right now; it's too expensive and too rare, where DDR2 can literally be had out of cereal boxes right now.

I have a E6850 / ABit IP35-Pro / EVGA 8800GTS 320 MB Overclocked setup going, and it's a dream. No problems with Bioshock or the Crysis beta at max resolution with everything turned on and the video card running dual monitor.

Madek · 09-20-2007, 03:18 PM

kimcicle: How does this motherboard look? Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I was thinking about switching over to a 8800GTX because even in Bioshock benchmarks, which uses the Unreal 3 engine, the 8800GTX was pushing out over 20 extra fps over the GTS, even in lower resolutions such at 1280x1024. And with someone as picky about solid frame rate as me.. it seems like a good choice to make.

Also, thanks for recommending a good, solid power supply. I might as well spend some extra money and get something that I know for a fact is stable. And damn that thing got good reviews :O