Mid-range gaming build

[Sharkie13]

Alright so I currently have a Dell XPS 200, its a slimline system and I can't upgrade it for jack. So, I'm looking to give it to my dad in exchange for him buying me parts for a new build that was about the same price as my current comp when i bought it. Also this will be my first build.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Gaming mostly. Not looking at huge resolutions. Also want to be able to do a dual monitor configuration with an ancient spare crt i found lying around. Multitasking is also a plus. Tri-booting XP, Vista, and Ubuntu.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
Like I said, looking to spend in the 1.2k range. A little more or less is fine though.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
US.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.
As far as processors are concerned, I want intel because I hear not so great things about AMD's quad-cores. Graphics card and mobo are definitively going to be nvidia.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Hard drives, speaker setup, maybe monitor

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
I've looked at some similar builds, not on this forum per se.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I would like to get a q6600 running at about 3Ghz. Also i'm not buying a factory oc'd graphics card because i can do that myself for free.

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
In the coming months, whenever my dad moves out. Prices should go down by then.

Alright here's the setup I have going on tigerdirect so far:

CPU: Intel q6600 2.4Ghz (would like to OC it about 3)
Motherboard: XFX 680i LT SLI. Looking at an MSI P7N SLI Platinum 750i, though, because it has PCIe 2.0.
Case:: Apevia X-plorer. However, it doesn't have front audio and the drive bays aren't tool-less I think, so any recommendations would be great.
RAM: 3GB DDR2 at 800Mhz. (2x1024 + 2x512). Using a 32 bit OS so 4gb is pretty redundant.
Graphics Card: EVGA 8800GT 512mb (Not looking at huge resolutions so this will be fine)
Hard Drive: 320gb + 160gb (already own these)
Cooling situation: Thermaltake Max Orb
PSU: BFG 650w PSU
Sound Card: None at the moment besides my integrated one. I have 5.1 speakers already, how important is a dedicated sound card?
Bay drive stuff: DVD combo drive, cheap cd burner, and a 3.5" media card reader

Anything that you would recommend changing would be nice. And also i think i may want to grab a reasonably priced 20" monitor, any recommendations on that?

 

[DSF]

CPU: For a gaming PC you'll be better served by an E8400. It'll be faster 95% of the time and generate considerably less heat.

Motherboard: If you're not going SLI, don't pay for an SLI chipset. Get a decent P35 motherboard.

Case: What's important to you? Light weight? Front ports? Quiet operation? Windows? No windows? Case is the PC component that's most driven by personal taste. To get meaningful recommendations you need to give some idea of what you're looking for.

RAM: Just get a 2x2GB kit and be done with it. You'll have the 4GB in case you migrate to 64-bit later, and you'll have two slots open if you need future upgrades. It won't be much more expensive than 3GB anyway.

Hard Drive: How old are they? You'll get better performance out of a newer drive, and even a very good drive like the Samsung Spinpoint 750GB or WD Caviar 640GB will fit in your budget.

PSU: You don't need nearly that much power. A good 450-500W PSU would be fine.

Sound Card: Try the integrated audio on whatever motherboard you get. If it's not good enough, then worry about a sound card.

 

[Sharkie13]

Originally posted by: DSF
CPU: For a gaming PC you'll be better served by an E8400. It'll be faster 95% of the time and generate considerably less heat.
Yeah but in more modern games that make use of all four cores, a quad core will benefit. But the cooling aspect is interesting. I'll give it some thought. From what other posts on this and assorted other forums say, the q6600 is generally the best option. I dunno, some say one, some say the other.

Motherboard: If you're not going SLI, don't pay for an SLI chipset. Get a decent P35 motherboard.
In the future I may grab another 8800GT, so yeah its a bit of future-proofing.

Case: What's important to you? Light weight? Front ports? Quiet operation? Windows? No windows? Case is the PC component that's most driven by personal taste. To get meaningful recommendations you need to give some idea of what you're looking for.
That's fair. Weight doesn't matter too much. I'm looking for a mid-tower, preferably something that doesn't have a huge footprint. I would like a window with blue led lights in it already so i don't have to replace them. Cooling is a priority, so the more fan options the better. Front ports, really all I would need is usb and audio, but firewire is ok. Another concern is I would like a tooless design and something that's overall easy to work with as this is my first build. And obviously aesthetics are a priority. Generally something sleek would do. Black and silver are my colors of choice in a case.

RAM: Just get a 2x2GB kit and be done with it. You'll have the 4GB in case you migrate to 64-bit later, and you'll have two slots open if you need future upgrades. It won't be much more expensive than 3GB anyway.
Possible. Don't think i'll be upgrading that RAM though, nor will I end up upgrading to a 64 bit OS.

Hard Drive: How old are they? You'll get better performance out of a newer drive, and even a very good drive like the Samsung Spinpoint 750GB or WD Caviar 640GB will fit in your budget.
I already have my data and OS's on those two, and having three drives would just be too cluttered. The 320 was bought recently, and the other is two years old, but they're both SATA obviously.

PSU: You don't need nearly that much power. A good 450-500W PSU would be fine.
Future-proofing. Plus this one was pretty cheap for a 650W PSU.

Sound Card: Try the integrated audio on whatever motherboard you get. If it's not good enough, then worry about a sound card.
Yeah that's what I was thinking.

 

[DSF]

You're free to spend your money as you like, but future-proofing is nonsense.

The vast majority of games don't even utilize two cores, let alone four. Look at some benchmarks, and you'll find that the Q6600 is not the best option right now. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Will quad-core be better for gaming down the road? Probably, but nobody can say how far off that eventuality is.

As for SLI, how long are you planning to wait before popping in the second card? If you're talking a year's time or more, don't waste your money. SLI is only worth it if you put two good cards in from the get-go. Adding a second one in later doesn't provide enough of a performance improvement to be cost-effective.

As far as the hard drive, I wasn't recommending having three drives. Instead, I meant transfer your old files onto the new drive. The PSU is the one component where there might be some value in planning for the future.

 

[Sharkie13]

Originally posted by: DSF
You're free to spend your money as you like, but future-proofing is nonsense.

The vast majority of games don't even utilize two cores, let alone four. Look at some benchmarks, and you'll find that the Q6600 is not the best option right now. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Will quad-core be better for gaming down the road? Probably, but nobody can say how far off that eventuality is.

As for SLI, how long are you planning to wait before popping in the second card? If you're talking a year's time or more, don't waste your money. SLI is only worth it if you put two good cards in from the get-go. Adding a second one in later doesn't provide enough of a performance improvement to be cost-effective.

As far as the hard drive, I wasn't recommending having three drives. Instead, I meant transfer your old files onto the new drive. The PSU is the one component where there might be some value in planning for the future.

1. You're telling me to leave some DIMM's open in case i may want to upgrade in the future. You really can't then say future proofing is nonsense, can you now?

2. Valid point, valid point. I'll do some further research.

3. Really? Didn't know that. Hmm...what would be the intel equivalent of the motherboards i'm looking at? And also how's the overclocking support on those?

4. Can you ghost two hard drives to one?

 

[chinaman1472]

There are very, very few modern games that use of four cores. Granted these are all stock speeds, both can be overclocked roughly the same.
TechReport's most recent CPU round up show only one instance where Quad Cores are faster; Lost Planet's cave benchmark. http://techreport.com/articles.x/14606
AnandTech's show the same, except in UT2003, and the difference of 9 frames at 110 fps is moot. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3293&p=8
Tom's Hardware has a CPU chart from 2007, virtually every gaming benchmark has the E8400 ahead of the Q6600. http://www.tomshardware.com/ch...399.html?p=1267%2C1275

 

[DSF]

1. Fair enough. What I really meant was that spending a fair bit of extra dough, as with SLI or DDR3, isn't worth it.

3. You're probably looking at motherboards with the P35 chipset. They actually overclock better than the 680i, especially if you do end up going with a Q6600.

4. I'm sure there's a way, but I don't know exactly what it is. It's not really my area of expertise. If nobody comes up with an answer here, I'd try asking in the Memory and Storage forum. There are some posters there with a lot of experience with RAID, multiple hard drives, etc.

 

[Denithor]

Look for a Gigabyte P35-DS3L/R/P (depending on the features you need and pricerange) or an Abit IP35-E (or Pro). These boards are solid overclockers and give excellent performance for the price.

I will second the e8400 vs q6600 argument (or even consider saving $60 and get an e7200). Just get what you need today and upgrade in a year or so when (if) you need more power.

2x2GB doesn't cost much more at all than 3x1GB and you get the added advantage that 2x2GB will run in dual-channel mode for slightly faster performance. Under a 32-bit OS you will have about 3.2GB usable but that's not really a problem. Look around for a deal: I recenly got 2x2GB DDR2-800 5-4-4-12 Mushkin sticks for $50 after MIR.

I won't argue against getting more PSU than you need, that's one area that people tend to skimp on and it can go horribly wrong if you try to save a few bucks there (I have seen more than one system totally nuked by a failed PSU).

 

[Sharkie13]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Look for a Gigabyte P35-DS3L/R/P (depending on the features you need and pricerange) or an Abit IP35-E (or Pro). These boards are solid overclockers and give excellent performance for the price.

I will second the e8400 vs q6600 argument (or even consider saving $60 and get an e7200). Just get what you need today and upgrade in a year or so when (if) you need more power.

2x2GB doesn't cost much more at all than 3x1GB and you get the added advantage that 2x2GB will run in dual-channel mode for slightly faster performance. Under a 32-bit OS you will have about 3.2GB usable but that's not really a problem. Look around for a deal: I recenly got 2x2GB DDR2-800 5-4-4-12 Mushkin sticks for $50 after MIR.

I won't argue against getting more PSU than you need, that's one area that people tend to skimp on and it can go horribly wrong if you try to save a few bucks there (I have seen more than one system totally nuked by a failed PSU).

I'm actually using two dual-channel kits if you looked at my original post. Also yeah, i'm opting for a large PSU because Dell is made of idiots and stuck a crappy 275 watt PSU in my XPS 200, which results in random crashes whenever my pc is on for more than a couple of hours.

As for the motherboard: I think that Intel board really isn't appealing to me. Instead I'm probably going to go with what I said I was looking at, the MSI P7N Platinum 750i. (http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...No=3642078&CatId=3495)
It has all solid state capacitors which seems to be a plus, it has PCI 2.0, which my graphics card utilizes, it has some things that the reference 750i doesn't have, such as eSATA and external CMOS, and also the software that comes with MSI's version of this board supports dynamic overclocking which should be a great feature. The only gripe i have about this board is it doesn't have PCIe x1 but that shouldn't matter too much. All this for 10 dollars less than the pro version of what you linked me too.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

seems like u already know what you're getting, even though everyone else is giving u some (better) recommendations than what u have listed.

in short:
-680i is a POS, get a p35, x38
-wtf 2 x 512? just get 2 x 2gb
-many people will tell you that the corsair 520/620HX is a better psu than the bfg u have listed.

 

[semisonic9]

They're spot on with their ram recommendations, and about HDs too, I think.

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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned yet that SLI doesn't do multiple monitors. You didn't list 2 cards, but why else bother with nVidia's mobos if you don't plan on going SLI at some point in time? Anyways...with SLI-based rigs, you have to turn off the SLI and "un-hitch" the GPUs to get one working on each monitor, or run one off the basic 2d solution built into most mobos. Even then, I've heard getting output to the second monitor with SLI enabled isn't possible? Someone confirm? Supposedly this is why they came out with that silly, over-priced USB PoS they're trying to scoot out the door for $90?

Personally, I'm tired of nVidia's crap. At this point in the GPU cycle, I would wait the 10-20 days and see what ATI comes out with in their 4xxx cards, and at what price point. Crossfire does multi monitors well, and by most accounts the next-gen nVidia cards will lag behind a decent amount. If you're not looking to do ubered out gaming, then the difference between the next-gen ATI and next-gen nVidia cards will be academic to you, anyways, while you'll still benefit from better thermal design and less power consumption.

IMO, most of the nVidia mobos until very recently have been...well...rubbish. Sorry. It's just not their strong suit. The 790 boards look great, and 780 was kind of passable, but the 790s are still at sky-high prices. The Intel boards are superior in most regards, with the exception of multi-GPU setups (largely because they support crossfire, but ATI sucked last round). If ATI's next cards are going to hit as well as they're rumored to, then I think an intel board and ATI cards deserve a strong look in these next few months.

I also, quite frankly, hope Intel hip-checks nVidia into either knocking off the mobo creation or opening up SLI support to non-nVidia boards. The current issue of having to choose between good (high priced) mobo + SLI or good (cheap and reliable) mobo - SLI OR crappy (over-priced) mobo and SLI is getting a little old, imo.

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Regarding dual vs quad...I almost always multi-task, even while gaming. If you're like me, and play music (or watch a movie), run 2-4 messenger services and have a few browser windows going in the background or off to the side, then I think quad cores make sense. I'm rapidly running out of reasons to recommend dual-core over quad-core to people, especially as the price gap closes.

~Semi

 

[chinaman1472]

Running multiple windows, music/movies, and messenger services is not going to be affected largely from dual to quad cores; having more RAM will, unless you happen to be encoding videos or running F@H at the same time. For gaming purposes, until quad cores start showing significant improvements over dual cores, I see no reason to pay for them other than enlarge your e-peen.

There's no point in getting an SLi board if you're not going to SLi. There's no reason to pay for features if you don't use them.

D.O.T. doesn't seem to make any sense to me as a function because if you hit a wall in your overclock without raising the voltage or frequency levels, it'll cause an unstable system. For instance, my chip can't go past 9x300 (9x305 gives me errors in Prime95 within minutes at 1.45v) and it's set at 1.375v. If I can't raise it anymore to give myself a stable system, why would D.O.T. be able to? Most of the Intel chipset motherboards come with features that lower the multiplier when the CPU is not under load anyway. It basically sounds like an overclocking system for those who don't actually want to do it themselves, which is fine if you're in that group.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: semisonic9
Regarding dual vs quad...I almost always multi-task, even while gaming. If you're like me, and play music (or watch a movie), run 2-4 messenger services and have a few browser windows going in the background or off to the side, then I think quad cores make sense. I'm rapidly running out of reasons to recommend dual-core over quad-core to people, especially as the price gap closes.

~Semi

Honestly, my old P4 Northwood could handle playing a movie with messenger and browser windows open. That just doesn't tax a CPU too much, especially with video cards now having video acceleration so much of the time. A dual core can handle that load without breaking a sweat.

Now if you want to be able to play a game while encoding video/folding@home, etc. that's different.

 

[semisonic9]

Well...I actually tend to do even more than that, but I was throwing it out there for general use. I play WoW. I HAVE to multi-task. :-D.

Like I said, if the guy wants quad-core and isn't looking at trying to max FPS in Crysis or something, there seems little reason to recommend against it. Also, though I'm not big on future-proofing, but if he's going to be using the same chip in 1-3 years, it can't hurt to go ahead and take the next step up to quads now.

~Semi

 

[chinaman1472]

For the Q6600, you'll have more heat, more power consumption, and you're investing in older technology.
For the Q9300+, you're investing at least $90 for virtually no noticeable performance gain for the typical user.