Bring to me your genious!

[Taskism]

Sup people?
My computer died on me, I been using a crappy pentium 3 server computer for internet access and email and waht not, so I havnt been able to keep up with gaming, but I miss it! Its time for me to get back into it, and I need your help! I havnt been paying attention to computer technology in 2 years, not since I built my last computer.
SLI?? PCI-E? Some new things have shown up, and along with that, I have no idea what kinda video cards are what now days.

What I need:
Something that will play all the current games at a high frame rate, around 100gig of HDD space, 1 gig of ram, high end video card, good processor, good sound, basically the works. The price has to be below $3,000.00. I know its a lot to waste on a computer when its gonna be outdated in a year or two, but thats my problem, thats not what I need help with. So, if anyone here has any ideas on a good system, please help me out! Below are the two directiosn I want to go with.

1.
I have a Pentium 4 3.75ghz socket 775 processor sitting on my desk right now, using this would be good, and I have about 2 gig of DDR2 ram sitting here too, so going this rout would save money for other parts, id like to use this, but its not a necessity.

2
Start fresh. An AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor and Id like to get something that supports SLI and DDR2.

I think I covered everything. So if anyone has any ideas, pelase share.
Thanks

Task.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

SLI is a waste, IMHO.

NewEgg
Monarch Computer
zipzoomfly

Welcome to Anandtech.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Definetely go with option 1. The fx53 would probably be slightly faster in games, but it won't be noticable won't be anywhere near enough to warrant spending that much more. Also, there are no AMD systems out that support DDR2.

IIRC, they never made a 3.75ghz P4, do you mean 3.7 or 3.8?

For the graphics cards, you will have to get a pcie card because you'll be using lga775. There are very few high end pcie cards out, but they should start to hit the markets soon.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Wait, are you going to buy a new computer, or build one?

 

[Patrick Wolf]

The absolute BEST graphics card out right now is the ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition PCI-E. This card is Very expensive now, prices should go down sometime though.

 

[Taskism]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs


IIRC, they never made a 3.75ghz P4, do you mean 3.7 or 3.8?

No, its 3.75, its straight out of the lab at Intel, my dads an engineer there. Thats not important though. For the other guy, Im building it, not buying it pre built.

 

[sandorski]

Well, I'd recommend an Athlon 64, Socket 939, PCI-e, yadda ya, but since you have that P4 and DDR II sitting on your desk, you may as well use that. Though it wouldn't be as fast in gaming as an A64, it'll still be very fast, faster than most systems out there. Save your money for future upgrades.

You could go 6800 Ultra SLI, just beware that SLI doesn't work for all games, only games that Nvidia adds driver info for(should be a list somewhere). To save even more money, buy 1 6800 Ultra now, then in 6 months to a year get a second and SLI them, that way you'll remain on the cutting edge for the duration and save(very likely) $100s.

 

[Taskism]

Yeah, the P4s dont have any motherboards that support SLI anyway.

 

[Tostada]

So when you say your computer "died," you are referring to the P3? The P4 and 2 gigs of DDR2 are new items that you know are fine?

Most people would recommend AMD, but as CheesePoofs said, it would be absurd not to just use the parts you've already got in front of you.

It would actually be somewhat difficult to spend $3000 on a machine when you already have the CPU/RAM. Not impossible, but maybe not practical.

Looks like you'll be wanting a 925X chipset if you want the best, but it really isn't an improvement over the 915P boards. The ASUS boards are very good. Other stuff is pretty standard. No reason to get anything but the best, and opt for quieter stuff when possible.

$451.00 6800GT dual DVI
$244.00 ASUS P5AD2-E Premium (925XE)
$369.16 2 x Raptor 74
$56.98 Zalman 7700-CU
$188.48 Enermax 600W LGA775
$141.99 Wave Master
$68.50 NEC 3520 silver
$16.58 2 silent fans
$12.00 silver floppy
$12.58 Arctic Silver 5
$9.04 round IDE cable
$7.48 round floppy cable

That's $1,577.79 delivered.

There's certainly nothing wrong with spending $700 for a Radeon X850 XT PE or $625 for a GeForce 6800 Ultra if gaming is that important to you, but I never encourage putting a furnace that sounds like a leaf blower in a system. That's without even considering the extra $200. You have to feel very strongly about wanting every last bit of performance from your graphics card.

Anyway, I'd say the above system is a good place to start. As for what I'd do personally?

$1,999.99 Sony 23" LCD

$193.00 6600GT dual DVI
$154.00 ASUS P5GDC Deluxe (915P)
$232.38 2 x Seagate 160G NCQ
$56.98 Zalman 7700-CU
$113.00 Enermax 485W LGA775
$141.99 Wave Master
$68.50 NEC 3520 silver
$16.58 2 silent fans
$12.00 silver floppy
$12.58 Arctic Silver 5
$9.04 round IDE cable
$7.48 round floppy cable

$3,017.52 delivered (except I didn't check shipping on the monitor)

 

[Tostada]

And BTW, I hate ppl who break budgets, and I am $17 over, but in actuality I would slipstream the SATA drivers and not use a floppy (and of course no floppy cable)...

Anyway, you have to be a pretty hardcore gamer to choose a leaf blower with a few more FPS over a 23" 1920x1200 display ... but maybe that's just me.

 

[Taskism]

Its ok man, the buidget is $3,500.00, I just said $3,00.00 to leave a buffer.
Thanks a ton for the breakdowns dude.

So when you say your computer "died," you are referring to the P3? The P4 and 2 gigs of DDR2 are new items that you know are fine?

I had an AMD Athlon XP 1900+ that died, now im on the P3, I have the p4 and ram sitting here waiting for use.

 

[Terumo]

Do you want a conventional rig, or an exotic one (desktop or workstation)?