Gaming Machine

So, my computer is coming up on 3 years old, and is starting to struggle a bit under regular use, so I figure it's time to get a new one. There's no particular cap on the budget for this undertaking, but I'm thinking somewhere around 1000-1200 is a good place to aim; less is good, a bit more is fine too, but that's the ballpark figure. The stated objective of this machine is to play games for the next couple of years on - I'd prefer not to have to replace this for another 2 or 3 years. It doesn't need to be absolutely killing top-end games in that time (in fact, it most certainly won't, given the nature of technology and the budget), but I would like to be able to turn the settings down and get a decent framerate for as long as possible.

I'm currently running a 2-screen setup, with my primary monitor being 24" 1920x1200, with a 17" 1440x900 monitor for the secondary. Generally this works out that I play the games on the big monitor and have various other applications running on the second monitor - be it IM, Vent, music, video, web pages, whatever. What this means in practice is that I spend a lot of time tabbing in and out while I'm playing, which is one of those things that makes my current system unhappy.

Now, I've been reading up on these things for a couple of weeks, and here's what I've come up with so far:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - $190. An E8400 is only $20 less, and an E8600 is $85 more, so this seems to be the peak of the bang-for-the-buck spectrum for 2 cores; and quad-core doesn't seem like a cost-effective choice for a primarily gaming machine.

CPU Cooler: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 - $37 with a $10 mail-in rebate. Highly rated in every review I've seen, with good cooling and not too noisy.

Video Card: VisionTek Radeon 4870 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113) - $270. I've been toying around with the idea of doing 2x4850 in Crossfire, but it seems to me that the advantage of this is than in a year or two I could by a second one and run Crossfire at that point to squeeze a little more life out of the machine.

At this point, I start getting a little less certain, as the differences are a little less obvious and clear-cut. So components between this line are, basically, guesses at what seems reasonable.

Hard Disk: Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD502IJ (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152098) - $70. Reasonable capacity, reasonable price, reasonable performance - I haven't found anything obviously better.

Case: NZXT Tempest, $110. More or less borrowed from the last System Builder Marathon.

So you'll note that this is missing a few fairly crucial components at the moment - namely, a motherboard, a power supply, and memory (and an optical drive, but that seems like a fairly simple and largely independent decision from the rest of it). And the reason for this is: I haven't a fricking clue about what to do for those, since I don't know the first thing about the pros and cons of the various options for those components.

Memorywise, I'm thinking that doing 4 GB of memory is probably a good idea due to my tendency to keep multiple apps open and tab in and out of games a lot, but past that I haven't yet figured out the advantage of one 4GB setup over the next.

In terms of motherboards - I haven't the foggiest. Any suggestions for an appropriate motherboard to go with the rest of this would be appreciated.

In terms of power supplies: how much juice will this setup need?

So, any suggestions/comments/ideas/etc. about how to fill in the missing pieces, and/or comments/critiques of my current selections? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

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Not bad choices....

MOBO
x48 Intel Chipset

I have and like.......
ASUS P5E Deluxe LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Can pay a bit more for more overclocking "fluff" and some other minor diffferences (Dual LAN, more MOBO case fan connectors) with...
ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU
good choice

maybe Quad Core for better multitasking?

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core

MEMORY
CORSAIR XMS2 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX - Retail

PSU
Antec TPQ-850 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - Retail
Model #:TPQ-850
Item #:N82E16817371009
-MODULAR FTW

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - Retail
-NOT modular
-highly rated

HARD DRIVE
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

CPU Cooler
great choice (I have)

Get the bracket with it
XIGMATEK ACK-I7751 Retention Bracket - Retail
Model #:ACK-I7751
Item #:N82E16835233019

GPU
4870 great choice. If there is any room on your budget.....4870x2 Cards

CD/DVD

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model iHAS220-08 - Retail
Model #:iHAS220-08
Item #:N82E16827106265

GL :hello:

Reply to Nytmare

looks good and if you don't want crossfire but might like to give it a try on a small budget go with the P45 chipset i currently am using the Asus P5Q Pro and it is amazing

Reply to hopkiller

Look for gigabyte x48 ds4. I like suggested memory and psu (prolly cause i own them )

------------------------------ Gigabyte x48-ds4, E8400 @ 3.6ghz (1.225v), Xigmatek s1283, 4GB Corsair XMS2 DHX, Radeon 4870, WD6400AAKS, Corsair tx750w, Samsung 2493HM, Vista64
Reply to georgy

im using G.Skill memory and its running great that is also another good brand to go with

Reply to hopkiller

steve496 wrote :

......but I would like to be able to turn the settings down and get a decent framerate for as long as possible.

(^see below; this is where the CPU will be most stressed in many of today's games)

Quote :

.......I play the games on the big monitor and have various other applications running on the second monitor - be it IM, Vent, music, video, web pages, whatever. What this means in practice is that I spend a lot of time tabbing in and out while I'm playing, which is one of those things that makes my current system unhappy.....

Quote :

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - $190. An E8400 is only $20 less, and an E8600 is $85 more, so this seems to be the peak of the bang-for-the-buck spectrum for 2 cores; and quad-core doesn't seem like a cost-effective choice for a primarily gaming machine.

Quote :

Memory wise, I'm thinking that doing 4 GB of memory is probably a good idea due to my tendency to keep multiple apps open and tab in and out of games a lot, but past that I haven't yet figured out the advantage of one 4GB setup over the next.

Hmm......based off of those few facts I'd say go quad core. It'll multitask better, and yes, I know there was just a massive thread on how hard this is, but future games (hopefully in a few years) will probably be multi-threaded. If nothing else I'd say you'll be happier for longer with the quad core.......hope this helps.....

Message edited by Avenger_K on 08-19-2008 at 03:56:30 AM

Reply to Avenger_K

I'm thinking because of your multitasking and future games coming out going quad. Single GPU P45 motherboard with the HD4870, by the time it's starting to lag you can replace it with a HD5870 or HD5850x2 or whatever is out by then (GTX 480?)
Case - NXZT Tempest $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811146047
CPU - Intel Q9550 $330
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115041
Motherboard - Asus P5Q $130
RAM - OCZ 2x2 GB DDR2 800 1.8v 5-5-5-15 $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227314
PSU - Corsair 750TX $100 after rebate (room for GPU expansion in the future)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006
HD - WD 640 SATA fast, lots of room $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136218
DVD burner - Liteon SATA retail for software $28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106264
GPU - Visiontek HD4870 - good warranty $250 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814129113
Cooler and bracket $27 and $7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233003
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233020
$1,210 before shipping and rebates

Reply to dirtmountain

On the 2-core versus 4-core debate: yes, I multitask... on the other hand, most of what I'm doing isn't very CPU intensive. I mean, the game takes a lot of CPU power, but web pages, IM, and music - even put together - isn't going to bog down a 3 GHz core very often. And since few games are going to use more than 1 core in the projected lifespan of this machine (2-3 years), quad core just seems like overkill. Or is there some factor I'm not considering?

Motherboards: I see one person suggesting a $130 P45-based board, and one person suggesting a $220 X48-based board. Now, X48 is better, and I'm sure there are performance advantages to it - but are said performance advantages worth it relative to other things one could be spending $90 on?

CPU Cooler - What does the bracket do for me, exactly? Is this a case of something that's required but happens not to be shipped with the heatsink, or is there some extra benefit for this. Speaking of which: do I need to add thermal compound to this list as well?

RAM - So, again, we have two recommendations here - looking at it, with rebates, their the same price (for all intents and purposes), and one has 4-4-4-12 timings, while the other has 5-5-5-15. Is there any reason not to go with the faster memory?

Hard Drives - Most of the recommendations seem to be for Western Digital over Samsung - any particular reason for this? I was just going by the fact that in the reviews I've seen for the 1 TB size, the Samsung drives seem to be better, so I was assuming the lower drives in the same families would also be a bit stronger, and the price is basically a wash.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to steve496

steve496 wrote :

On the 2-core versus 4-core debate: yes, I multitask... on the other hand, most of what I'm doing isn't very CPU intensive. I mean, the game takes a lot of CPU power, but web pages, IM, and music - even put together - isn't going to bog down a 3 GHz core very often. And since few games are going to use more than 1 core in the projected lifespan of this machine (2-3 years), quad core just seems like overkill. Or is there some factor I'm not considering?

First of all, check out Far Cry 2, which is one upcoming game that is supposed to support quads at least fairly well. Looks pretty awesome, and I'm thinking that if games now are already starting to support quads, games in the future are only going to continue to have quad core support.

steve496 wrote :

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - $190. An E8400 is only $20 less, and an E8600 is $85 more, so this seems to be the peak of the bang-for-the-buck spectrum for 2 cores; and quad-core doesn't seem like a cost-effective choice for a primarily gaming machine.

Secondly (and maybe I should have mentioned this earlier), the quad I was thinking of is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115018
It's actually $10 cheaper then the E8500 you were planning on getting, and it's about $150 less than the Q9550. It should be able to overclock easily to 3.0+ GHz, and since you're overclocking it and replacing its cooler anyway the fact that it's OEM doesn't matter.

Message edited by Avenger_K on 08-19-2008 at 06:58:46 AM

Reply to Avenger_K

Sure, you can overclock a 2.4 quad to 3+; but then, you can overclock a 3.17 duo up past 3.5, so the gap remains.

Reply to steve496

Yes, true, but all I'm saying is that with a quad you'll have 4 cores at ~3.2 GHz, whereas with a dual you'd only have two cores at ~3.6GHz. Not to mention that the quad is a actually slightly cheaper.......

Message edited by Avenger_K on 08-19-2008 at 03:01:16 PM

Reply to Avenger_K

I guess the real question here is how far I can reasonably expect to OC each chip while running on air, given that I'm a reasonably inexperienced overclocker and thus won't be doing anything too fancy with it. Any thoughts? I mean, if it's 3.6 duo vs 3.2 quad, yeah, the quad comes out pretty well; but if we're talking 3.8 vs 3.0, it starts getting a bit more iffy.

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on the other questions on my list?

Reply to steve496

I had that issue also, but I'm now going for the Q9550, I think it will work out pretty well, I hear on my Xigmatek HDT-S1283 it can go to 3.8-4.0 Ghz, so I think that's enough for me the unexp'ed OC'er

Reply to vsdagama

I suppose that's an option, but the Q9550 is quite a bit more expensive and I'd rather not spend that much if something cheaper will do the trick.

Reply to steve496

X48 vs. P45 vs. P35 - performance differences are so minute overall, they can be considered negligable (to me). The biggest difference is in the ability to tweak the settings for OCing. Personally for a budget system I would build myself, I'd would go with the P35 chipset.

Reply to GameTekHik

don't got P35 if you only want one graphics card go with a P45 if you want crossfire later invest in the X48 board

Reply to hopkiller

Yeah, having looked things over in a little more detail, I'm currently thinking of going with an ASUS P5Q Pro ($140 on Newegg). Seems like a reasonable bargain for the sort of system we're talking here.

At this point I've got a pretty solid idea what I'm doing for most pieces - I'm just dithering over the final details of memory and hard drive. If anyone has any input on this, please let me know; otherwise I'll probably be buying in the next day or two.

Reply to steve496

The Asus P5Q Pro is a awesome board im using it in this computer right now i just built it a week ago it works so well. If you want a good midrange board that is a great buy. I haven't used any of its overclocking potential yet

Reply to hopkiller

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