978Oningu

Hi everyone,
I have been browsing for a few days for a new pc and I'm a bit confused about what to take. I'd like suggestions about a good pc that can run most games on high settings. Here are my questions/suggestions :

Processor;
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 OR Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (I'm studying in multimedia at my school: photoshop, illustrator, video editing, 3d rendering, web etc...)

Motherboard;
Honestly, no real idea. Any motherboard than can support one of those processors, no more than 250$. DDR2 Memory Sli-Ready (if geforce cards are a better choice), SATA Ports... Something like that!

Video Card;
2x EVGA 8800 GT OR 1x Radeon 4870

Memory;
About 4Gig of the best/cheapest DDR2 memory (2x2G). I head OCZ and corsair are two very good brands and not too expensive. Or is the future in DDR3 Memory?

PSU;
700W...? what do you recommend for something about that power.

Case;
Something quiet and a good air flow. (And please, no lights everywhere! haha)

And i'll choose a hard drive / dvd drive myself and a sound card. Or if you recommend something, go for it!

I know i'm not being precise, but you can let go your imagination and tell me what's better. I'd like a system that cost about 1300$ more or less. Thanks a lot! Hope I don't give you too mush trouble. Your healp is really appreciated. By the way I'm shopping at ncix.com and tigerdirect.com, so they have great deals on processors and video cards every week.

Toucan Sam

DEFINATELY go for the 4870 graphics card.
PSU: Corsair 750w
As for the processor, I would go for the e8400. Someone else would be better for recommending it, though. I'm not sure how many cores all your programs could use.

978Oningu

thx for the reply, but why is the 4870 so much better than two 8800gt? I've checek benchmarks and they were pretty much the same and Geforce has better drivers.

And for the quad core over the dual, i've read that quad is onlyworth it when you're photoshopping and editing a lot... wich is pretty much my case. But is it worth the money? hahaha that's the question.

And for the PSU, 750W isn't too much power for nothing?

Toucan Sam

2x8800gt = 320$
1x4870 = 270$
Also, the 4870 will take up less power than sli 8800gt's and I dislike sli in general. I've heard countless times to just get one good card instead of two decent ones, and it just makes sense. You can also upgrade in the future if you see the need to and it will cost less to do the upgrade if you pick up another 4870.

Toucan Sam

Again, I really don't know how much your programs will take up in terms of cores :) I can only imagine that 4 cores would only matter if you had 3 or 4 programs running at once, which that is entirely possible. and as far as the money - you get what you need to so you don't upgrade in 2 years

And I'm not quite understanding your PSU question?
If you're asking if that's too much power, it's not. NEVER skimp on a PSU. To quote Linderman "Would YOU power a $300 video card with a $70 power supply??"
Words of wisdom.

978Oningu

haha okay thx man!

And for the motherboard, i found this one : ASUS P5Q Pro ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 2PCI-E16 Crossfire 3PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN eSATA Motherboard, 130$ - 150$

Is it a good card for the price and coupled with a 9870?

Also, is it worth picking DDR3 memory? I mean for the future...
I read it's not... haha well if you got another opinion..

As for the case, any suggestions?

thx!

HNKN

if you ask me thats nowhere near a mid range pc, looks like a REALLY REALLY good pc

978Oningu

yeah, you're probably true. But it's not a HIGH END EXTREME ELITE THINGIE pc... hahaha if you know what I mean. So I put under the mid-range

Toucan Sam

not gonna lie, i really don't know much about motherboards.
It think that's a good one though.
DDR3 memory compatability has been recommended on other threads for future upgrades, so I'd say go for it.
(and its a 4870- not a 9870 =p 9870's will probably come out in 3 or 4 years lol)

Toucan Sam

not gonna lie, i really don't know much about motherboards.
It think that's a good one though.
DDR3 memory compatability has been recommended on other threads for future upgrades, so I'd say go for it.
(and its a 4870- not a 9870 =p 9870's will probably come out in 3 or 4 years lol)
You can always PM linderman or dai with a link to the thread - they know everything :)

978Oningu

oops! I merges the 9800 from GeForce with the 4870 from ATI and it made a GeTI...

Okay. I think i'll PM them if I need more informations. But now, I need to find a good motherboard that supports DDR3. Any one else recommencd DDR3?

wrench97

DDR3 doesn't offer much performance gain right now especially if you take into account the price.
The better chip sets out now are the Intel's but you can't run sli on an Intel chip set crossfire only, P35's are cheap for what you get if you figure the cost of a GA P35 DS3L Gigabyte board and 4 Gig of 4-4-4-12 corsair ram you could replace it in 2 years with a newer DDR3 board and memory and probably still save money over buying it today.
The E8400 is a better choice then the Q6600 for gaming as games out now and the near future don't use 4 cores so your left using 2 slower cores for the game.
The 4870 is out preforming the 9800gtx+ on almost every real world game test I've read.

978Oningu

Hum I checked about that motherboard and there's no RAID capabilities. I,d like to have that feature on a motherboard. Any other good motherboard that supports RAID?

wrench97

For Raid use a GA EP35 DS3R Gigabyte boards with a suffix code R are Raid L is Lite

978Oningu

After reading about this motherboard, I found that it had a lot of "reboot loop" problems. Is it fixed now? It doesn't look so reliable. But this sure is a good quality/price deal!

MrChooks

For what its worth - I have just had a computer built for me with a GA EP35C DS3R & a E8400 CPU - and have had no problems at all - it's as fast as lightning -

This MB supports both DDR2 & DDR3 - so my logic was if DDR3 becomes a practical proposition and proves itself in the field in a couple of years I can swap the 2G of DDR2 memory for 2G of DDR3 memory. - Just a thought

wrench97

Never had the reboot loop on the P35 the 965 yes P35 no. It is usually related to mismatched ram or power issues, or a cpu newer then the bios version supports.

linderman

Hello



I would say you would be best suited with the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R ........ you will get top notch performance with overclocking settings / intel raid controller and plenty of raid drive connectors @ the motherboard / and for a decent sum of money

and BTW: the fellas that are posting problems with those boards are doing something wrong !! thats a rock solid board and for the money; cant be touched!

I too would go with the E8400

and 4870 video

corsair 750TX ......... a power supply only puts out what the system asks for ! no more and HOPEFULLY no LESS

I have been selling alot of Corsair 650's and 750's every since I lost faith in antec and Corsair got more competitive!

978Oningu

For 10$ more I can get this one : P5QC ATX LGA775.

Since I don't plan go crossfire, it's not a problem and it has 2 x DDR3 slots.

And it doesn't say that the EP45-DS3R supports DDR3 Memory... Is it an error?

http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/Mo...ProductID=2842

978Oningu

(Sry don't know how to edit a message... )

I've been wondering... Is Vista 64 bits recommended? I know it has a lot of problems, but if I want to use more than 3gig of ram, i'll need this version.