1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Work (Excel, Word, VMWare) Games (World of Warcraft, Oblivion) Movies (Itunes, Netflix, DVDs)
2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
$600-$800 excluding monitor
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
East Coast, USA
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.
Open for trial, but Intel Fan and Nvidia Fan, Seagate and Western Digital Fan, Asus Fan.
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
G7 Mouse, G15 Keyboard, Samsung 19" Monitor
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes I have.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Default, MAYBE some light OC, but last time I tried I fried my system.
I know my games aren't intensive, but I do like to run them on a widescreen monitor using the highest settings possible.
From what i can find the AMD 3850 is enough for me, but it has anti-aliasing problems? Also I found with my old x1900 that if I alt-tabbed, my game screen wouldn't show a picture anymore, only what I was focused on. My even older ati radeon 9800pro (ithink thats the number) used to have issues with scrolling. For example in Sim City if I were to scroll, animation would stop (because it couldn't render?) until I was finished scrolling. If these are no longer concerns/issues then I wouldn't mind trying these guys again. But I've used a 6600gt, 7800gtx with none of these issues before. But it's a huge concern because I multi task a lot and have a lot of windows. (Game while work, work while movie, movie while game etc) I don't do any video editing, but I watch streaming movies, downloaded movies and DVD movies.
AMD - I have nothing against this other than I fried my 3800 x2 trying to OC it. Willing to try it, but Intel just seems to have a better price/performance ratio right now.
Asus - never had issues with their board, ASRock I stay away from, i had issues with the board open to trying other boards that are reliable. OC features aren't a huge concern.
Ram - no brand loyalty.
Okay, with that out of the way. I have two potential builds. Please keep in mind I'm not shooting for go broke build. And as far as future proofing is concerned, my attitude is there's always bigger and better. And with comps you can't really completely future proof. I'm willing to build a system from scratch in 2 years...but not 1.
Build 1
Intel Core 2 Duo e6550 - 168
Motherboard - ?? ~$100
Corsair XMS2 2x1GB PC6400 - 38
Seagate 250GB 16MB cache - 70
Case - ?? ~$50 (liked my gigabyte aurora 3d, prefer something similiar but smaller)
Power Supply - ?? ~$45 450w? (Is this any good? http://www.svc.com/rp-550-pcar.html)
3850 256MB - $160
Total Cost: $631
Build 2
Intel Core 2 Duo e6750 - 190
Asus P5k-e - 140
G.Skill 2x2GB - 90 - of course now I'd get the 64 bit vista
Seagate 250GB 16MB cache - 70
Case - ?? ~$50 (liked my gigabyte aurora 3d, prefer something similiar but smaller)
Sound Card - ?? ~$30
Power Supply - ?? ~$45 450w? (Is this any good? http://www.svc.com/rp-550-pcar.html)
3850 512MB - $200 or even the 8800GT 512 for $240
Total Cost: $815-$855
Overall, it's essentially a $200 difference. If I plan to run this for 2 years, and for the things I do, is the extra $200 worth it really? I mean, that basically buys me a monitor too.
Also, is there anything I should move over to the first build? like sound card or something?
I appreciate the response.
Work (Excel, Word, VMWare) Games (World of Warcraft, Oblivion) Movies (Itunes, Netflix, DVDs)
2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
$600-$800 excluding monitor
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
East Coast, USA
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.
Open for trial, but Intel Fan and Nvidia Fan, Seagate and Western Digital Fan, Asus Fan.
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
G7 Mouse, G15 Keyboard, Samsung 19" Monitor
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes I have.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Default, MAYBE some light OC, but last time I tried I fried my system.
I know my games aren't intensive, but I do like to run them on a widescreen monitor using the highest settings possible.
From what i can find the AMD 3850 is enough for me, but it has anti-aliasing problems? Also I found with my old x1900 that if I alt-tabbed, my game screen wouldn't show a picture anymore, only what I was focused on. My even older ati radeon 9800pro (ithink thats the number) used to have issues with scrolling. For example in Sim City if I were to scroll, animation would stop (because it couldn't render?) until I was finished scrolling. If these are no longer concerns/issues then I wouldn't mind trying these guys again. But I've used a 6600gt, 7800gtx with none of these issues before. But it's a huge concern because I multi task a lot and have a lot of windows. (Game while work, work while movie, movie while game etc) I don't do any video editing, but I watch streaming movies, downloaded movies and DVD movies.
AMD - I have nothing against this other than I fried my 3800 x2 trying to OC it. Willing to try it, but Intel just seems to have a better price/performance ratio right now.
Asus - never had issues with their board, ASRock I stay away from, i had issues with the board open to trying other boards that are reliable. OC features aren't a huge concern.
Ram - no brand loyalty.
Okay, with that out of the way. I have two potential builds. Please keep in mind I'm not shooting for go broke build. And as far as future proofing is concerned, my attitude is there's always bigger and better. And with comps you can't really completely future proof. I'm willing to build a system from scratch in 2 years...but not 1.
Build 1
Intel Core 2 Duo e6550 - 168
Motherboard - ?? ~$100
Corsair XMS2 2x1GB PC6400 - 38
Seagate 250GB 16MB cache - 70
Case - ?? ~$50 (liked my gigabyte aurora 3d, prefer something similiar but smaller)
Power Supply - ?? ~$45 450w? (Is this any good? http://www.svc.com/rp-550-pcar.html)
3850 256MB - $160
Total Cost: $631
Build 2
Intel Core 2 Duo e6750 - 190
Asus P5k-e - 140
G.Skill 2x2GB - 90 - of course now I'd get the 64 bit vista
Seagate 250GB 16MB cache - 70
Case - ?? ~$50 (liked my gigabyte aurora 3d, prefer something similiar but smaller)
Sound Card - ?? ~$30
Power Supply - ?? ~$45 450w? (Is this any good? http://www.svc.com/rp-550-pcar.html)
3850 512MB - $200 or even the 8800GT 512 for $240
Total Cost: $815-$855
Overall, it's essentially a $200 difference. If I plan to run this for 2 years, and for the things I do, is the extra $200 worth it really? I mean, that basically buys me a monitor too.
Also, is there anything I should move over to the first build? like sound card or something?
I appreciate the response.