Incapable of making my own decision regarding a new computer

JimJimBinks

Long story short, my PC I use for gaming is starting to show it's age.

It's an AMD 64 3500+ (Not the dual core) with 1GB of corsair budget RAM, and an AGP RADION X800 XT. My newest component in there is a Creative X-Fi Extreme Music. And I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. The video card is about 4 years old, everything else is maybe 2 or 3 years old.

I was just given $900 for a new PC. I'm not limited to that amount of money, I could go higher if need be, but I don't want to go too much higher.
This is what I'm looking at getting
I have a DVD Burner that I'll be using, and I'll probably stick with the Extreme Music soundcard. One thing I'm not sure about is if I should stick with my current IDE Hard Drive or go for an SATA.

Cany anyone suggest any changes or additions that I might need?
Would I notice a huge difference with an upgrad like this?
Or am I just being a whiney asshole who doesn't really need an upgrade at all with his current system?

KMFurDM

I'd change the case for one that is less ugly, and cheaper then spend the money on a better power supply.

JimJimBinks

What type of Power Supply would you recommend?

KMFurDM

I am an huge fan of the Antec True Power line. I've had two in two so far in two different machines for the last 4 years or so and they have been nothing but reliable. Especially recently with some electricity issues in my house I was waiting for something to go but they are working perfectly. A power supply is really one of the most important things in a computer. With the machine you are looking at you probably wont need more than 450 watts.

JimJimBinks

Do you think that machine (With the better power supply) will be pretty good for gaming then? At least for the next couple of years?

KMFurDM

I don't see why not.

I am pretty much in the same boat as you right now. Athlon 3500+, 2 gigs of damn good RAM, two 6800GT's in SLI, but I bought a new monitor and the new games just do not run on this machine on a 24" widescreen @ 1920 x 1200. I'm just waiting to see where everything is at around the end of the summer

JimJimBinks

Heh, I bought a 22" widescreen a few weeks ago, and that new resolution started slowing everything down. That's when I realized it was probably time for something new.

KMFurDM

Yeah. I'm just one of those people that hates to run an LCD in anything but its native resolution so my hand has been forced.

JimJimBinks

My resolution isn't quite as high as yours, but man, a 22 inch widescreen makes a huge difference in WoW.

I was toying with the idea of getting a laptop. Either a macbook or This thing (It's so pretty!) but upgrading my desktop seems like the way to go if it'll really make that much of a difference performance-wise.
I'm almost tempted to drop the extra money and get the 8800 Ultra but I think I'll be fine with the video card I have in there.

KMFurDM

Ehh...I would probably go with a new SATA HD (a little quicker and so much more clean in a case) rather than spend more on the video card. Save that for later. An 8800GTS should be more than adequate for a little while unless something like Crysis brings every current bit of hardware to its knees.

scootch

I've said in another similar thread:
ditch 640mb gts and get a evga superclocked 320mb. it gets better preformance on all resolutions over regular 640mb gts and you'll save almost $100.

it's an overclocked gpu from factory, but the lifetime warrenty will give the peace of mind.

when I bought my ds3, the ram slot had some spacing problem and was shorting out the rams I inserted. be very careful and make sure it's aligned perfectly.

it also didn't recognise dual channel off the bat so I had to boot with one stick to get into bios to change settings. in the end I got rid of it and bought a evga 680i board. I recommend evga mobo just because of better tech support.

JimJimBinks

Scooch,

Is this the card you're talking about?

This is the only one I saw that said "Superclocked" would this be a better choice than the one I currently have on my list?

scootch

oh damn, they have a 640mb superclocked.. nice.

looks like they're sold out on the 320mb version.. I got mine from zipzoomfly I think.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322850
$304 with free shipping.

I say spend the extra and get that superclocked 640mb.

JimJimBinks

scootch wrote: »

oh damn, they have a 640mb superclocked.. nice.

looks like they're sold out on the 320mb version.. I got mine from zipzoomfly I think.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322850
$304 with free shipping.

I say spend the extra and get that superclocked 640mb.

I'll probably go ahead and do that. Ont thing before I buy though has anyone heard anything about the Radeon HD 2900 XT?
Newegg is offering a Logitech G5 mouse free with it (Which I was thinking of getting with the computer anyway) So it's about the same price as if I got the Superclocked 640mb and the mouse seperately.

scootch

its a slower card.

JimJimBinks

Is it? I was reading ExtremeTech.com and it looked like the ATI was a little faster than the GTS cards, but not quite as fast as the GTX cards, and the ATI is supposed to be much faster in DirectX 10 Games.

If the GTS IS faster I'll go for that.

scootch

superclocked gts is much faster then regular gts.

JimJimBinks

I'll probably go for the Superclocked then. Updated my wishlist with the newest suggested configuration.

JimJimBinks

One more question, for about $200 more I can get a Quad-Core... Would that be worth it?

This configuration is a little over my original budget, but am I wrong in thinking I'd see a HUGE performance boost if I opted for the quad core?

KMFurDM

Probably not. Dual Core chips still aren't really being taken advantage of.

Prophetavius V

Unless you're doing a lot of multi tasking and multiple instruction sets.

JimJimBinks

Doh! I figured the thread was dead and nobody would respond when I went on my lunch break at Noon today.

I ended up getting the Core 2 Quad, a new motherboard, 2GB of 800mhz DDR2 RAM, an Antec True Power power supply, the 8800GTS 640mb, and a 500GB SATA drive.

Thank you all for the help. All the advice has helped me put together a pretty good system. Hopefully in the future more things will take advantage of the quad core so I won't feel like I wasted money.

zilo

I guess you could start encoding large video files or something to justify the cost. At least you didn't go cheap on the video card; you'll be glad you got a 640Mb card before long.

Mr. Gruntor

JimJimBinks wrote: »

Hopefully in the future more things will take advantage of the quad core so I won't feel like I wasted money.

If you need a place to start, Supreme Commander apparently takes great advantage of quad-core systems.

Benchmarks

JimJimBinks

Heh, maybe the vista Aero effect when Windows key+tabbing between apps will work smoothly with a Quad-Core. I actually do a lot of alt+tabbing when playing WoW so maybe it'll come in handy for that.

JimJimBinks

Mr. Gruntor wrote: »

JimJimBinks wrote: »

Hopefully in the future more things will take advantage of the quad core so I won't feel like I wasted money.

If you need a place to start, Supreme Commander apparently takes great advantage of quad-core systems.

Benchmarks

I've been thinking about picking this up for a while anyway. This seems like a good excuse.