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Buying a Gaming Rig..

john00john00 Registered User regular
edited March 2007 in Games and Technology
Hey, just about to buy a new system for gaming (as well as photoshop, etc). I'm not overly concerned that I am able to run all games at top settings or anything, but just wondering if the set up I've got would work pretty well, or if there's something I should change (keeping it under $1500CA for the rig itself).. Thanks for the help.

Mobo
EVGA Nforce 680I SLI LGA775 Conroe ATX DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard
OS (plan on dual booting with XP for compatibility issues)
Windows Vista 64bit Ultimate Edition OEM DVD
Case
Antec Sonata II Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 450W Air Duct 120MM Fan
CPU (After overclocked.. is basically equivalent to the e6600 in benchmarks)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 1.86GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail
Video Card (Upgrading to a DX10 capable one when the prices come down)
EVGA E-GEFORCE 7600 GT PCI-E 256MB VGA DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card
Memory
OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
DVD Drive
Samsung SH-S182 DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL-8X DVD Writer IDE Lightscribe Black OEM W/ Software

john00 on

Posts

  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    God. I want a rig that'll play playstation 2 games and xbox games too, akin to the Yoshi Box.

    john00, are you doing software rendering for the time being?

    Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum is a baller sound card that I've seen for around 185 US. If you want a cheaper one, I can find one.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • MalkorMalkor Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    You might want to look at pricewatch, as you could save a few bucks here and there, but all your stuff would come from different companies. Just something to think about.

    Malkor on
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  • lowlylowlycooklowlylowlycook Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    You might want to check out the sticky in the Help & advice forum.

    From there
    DO buy motherboards using Intel P965 chipset for Core 2 Duo processors and nforce4/5 for Athlons 64. They offer the best stability and features availible for the least amount of money at the time.

    So I'd look at different MBs.

    I bought this and it works great so far.

    lowlylowlycook on
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    (Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Malkor wrote: »
    You might want to look at pricewatch, as you could save a few bucks here and there, but all your stuff would come from different companies. Just something to think about.

    I haven't run into a huge amount of problems with having random company stuff in the past.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • MalkorMalkor Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Some of them ship stuff immediately some take 1+ days. I gots no patience!

    Malkor on
    14271f3c-c765-4e74-92b1-49d7612675f2.jpg
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Well, it's worth it for saving the fat cash.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • ShapeshifterShapeshifter Pants Optioanl Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Antec will be realsing a sonata III sometime very soon.

    Shapeshifter on
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  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Antec makes great PSUs but the Smart Power 2.0 is a lemon.

    FreddyD on
  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    You double-listed the CPU, and left out the GPU :P

    Raslin on
    I cant url good so add me on steam anyways steamcommunity.com/id/Raslin

    3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Yeah, that's what I was curious about.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Sorry, I had pasted the wrong link for the video card.. I've heard a lower model of the 8800 is coming out soon.. either that or ill get the 8800 GTS in a couple months. For now I was just planning on the evga e-geforce 7600 GT PCI-E 256MB VGA DVI-I HDTV Out, link is in the first post... I've checked but can anyone confirm the ram works fine with the mobo?

    Zen, is it worth it getting a sound card? I'd been planning on it but was told by a friend that the onboard sound should be good enough?

    Lowlycook, looking on NCIX I saw people commenting that the board I'd gone with was better for oc'ing the e6300 which is why I'd gone with that over the Intel p965.. wasn't sure what to do.

    john00 on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    john00 wrote: »
    Zen, is it worth it getting a sound card? I'd been planning on it but was told by a friend that the onboard sound should be good enough?
    Even a middle-of-the-line sound card can really enhance the sound of a computer. Onboard normally sounds like total ass.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zen Vulgarity wrote: »
    john00 wrote: »
    Zen, is it worth it getting a sound card? I'd been planning on it but was told by a friend that the onboard sound should be good enough?
    Even a middle-of-the-line sound card can really enhance the sound of a computer. Onboard normally sounds like total ass.

    Maybe if you're really picky about your sound, and have a nice speaker setup.

    Otherwise, its wasting money. Consider it in GPU terms - Would you pay an extra seventy dollars so you could enable 4x AA on games, instead of 2x AA? Would it bother you that much?

    Raslin on
    I cant url good so add me on steam anyways steamcommunity.com/id/Raslin

    3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    alright.. I'll probably wait to get a new card and get it and the video card at the same time.. I'll probably have to get a new PSU then too, i don't know if 450w incl w/ the case will be able to hand an overclocked cpu and an 8800 vid card.

    john00 on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Raslin wrote: »
    Zen Vulgarity wrote: »
    john00 wrote: »
    Zen, is it worth it getting a sound card? I'd been planning on it but was told by a friend that the onboard sound should be good enough?
    Even a middle-of-the-line sound card can really enhance the sound of a computer. Onboard normally sounds like total ass.

    Maybe if you're really picky about your sound, and have a nice speaker setup.

    Otherwise, its wasting money. Consider it in GPU terms - Would you pay an extra seventy dollars so you could enable 4x AA on games, instead of 2x AA? Would it bother you that much?

    Depends on the game.

    And I do have a really nice speaker setup, so that's probably why I notice so much.

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Raslin wrote: »
    Zen Vulgarity wrote: »
    john00 wrote: »
    Zen, is it worth it getting a sound card? I'd been planning on it but was told by a friend that the onboard sound should be good enough?
    Even a middle-of-the-line sound card can really enhance the sound of a computer. Onboard normally sounds like total ass.

    Maybe if you're really picky about your sound, and have a nice speaker setup.

    Otherwise, its wasting money. Consider it in GPU terms - Would you pay an extra seventy dollars so you could enable 4x AA on games, instead of 2x AA? Would it bother you that much?
    Buying a soundcard gives you about a 10 fps boost on all your games, in addition to speaker rocking sound. This goes out the window with Vista though. Creative's cards don't play nice with the new OS.

    I would wait until April 17th to buy any video card. I think the pricing structure on video cards is going to change dramatically on that date.

    FreddyD on
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I've heard that nvidia is releasing new cards and dropping their prices JUST before ATi releases their DX10 cards.. which is why I was planning on waiting.

    Other than that though, the rig looks alright?

    john00 on
  • Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I would wait until April 17th to buy any video card. I think the pricing structure on video cards is going to change dramatically on that date.


    Really? Where did you hear that?

    Zen Vulgarity on
  • RookRook Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Honestly, I think you've spent way too much money on that motherboard. Even with overclocking, there's plenty of cheaper boards out there that'll do as good for half the price.

    And I'd really really wait on the graphics card till the ATi launch which is supposed to be at the end of this month.

    Rook on
  • archonwarparchonwarp Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I would also wait for the price drop on AMDs/Intels that's happening very shortly (late April). Core 2 Extreme 6850 (Quad core?) somewhere in the 300s range.

    archonwarp on
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  • ElectricBoogalooElectricBoogaloo Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I just got that video card and it's pretty awesome. Newegg has it for 109.99 though.

    ElectricBoogaloo on
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  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Rook, what card would you recommend? I just went with this because it had a good amount of PCI slots and SLi capable.. I prefer nvidia over ATi so even when the ATi cards come out I'm 99% sure I'd still go with an Nvidia card.

    john00 on
  • RookRook Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    john00 wrote: »
    Rook, what card would you recommend? I just went with this because it had a good amount of PCI slots and SLi capable.. I prefer nvidia over ATi so even when the ATi cards come out I'm 99% sure I'd still go with an Nvidia card.

    I think as other people have said, nVidia will probably release their full line up pretty close to when ATi launches theres. Honestly, can't recommend what I haven't seen yet though but if it's only a month away it seems a bit pointless to me to not have the latest technology if it's just around the corner.

    If you meant what motherboard would I recommend, I really really think SLi is a huge waste of time and money and your PSU would cry anyways. Any intel 965 or even the 650i boards would be good enough imo. I'm sure other people can recommend exact models..

    Rook on
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Rook wrote: »
    Honestly, I think you've spent way too much money on that motherboard. Even with overclocking, there's plenty of cheaper boards out there that'll do as good for half the price.

    And I'd really really wait on the graphics card till the ATi launch which is supposed to be at the end of this month.
    I'm not sure what likelihood there is that I'd be using SLi anyway, so it's not a huge deal to me, however I would like to have a similar amount of expansion slots and make sure it would work well with the CPU (and overclocking) and the ram, etc..

    john00 on
  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zen Vulgarity wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I would wait until April 17th to buy any video card. I think the pricing structure on video cards is going to change dramatically on that date.


    Really? Where did you hear that?
    X-bit Labs says that is the launch date for the rest of the 8x00 series. The 8600GT will have the same MSRP as the 7600GT but perform more like a 7900GT. So the prices on the older models have to go down.

    FreddyD on
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Damnit, really didn't want to wait but it's looking like I should.

    john00 on
  • john00john00 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    sorry one more question, would a geforce 7900 gs with ddr3 memory work with a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 ATX LGA775 Conroe P965 DDR2 PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 GBLAN Audio Motherboard (a mobo that supports DDR2 memory)?

    john00 on
  • taliosfalcontaliosfalcon Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Yes
    edit: to clarify the motherboard ram type really just refers to the type of slots on the motherboard itself, the videocards ram interfaces with the videocard, not the motherboard so it doesnt matter what type it is , as long as the motherboard has a pci-e slow to plug the video card into, which it does

    taliosfalcon on
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