I want my first Gaming PC in years.

Cantido

My computer fried during exam week, but at the same time I was awarded a BIIIIIIIG scholarship. I'm getting reimbursement for the ENTIRE Fall semester. So much money.

It was a Tiger Direct athlon, and the only things I played on it were Chessmaster and Touhou Project. (Yet I had a damn good time.) But since the Tiger Direct Warranty is only for a refund, not a replacement, I think it's time for an upgrade, and I only have one week to get a computer for the new semester.

I absolutely do not have time to learn to build one, school starts in one week, and it's my Field Training Preparation semester.

I'd really like to play stuff like the new Command and Conquer Red Alert 3, and the new Starcraft when that comes out, or Mass Effect and Fallout 3. The things that tease you because you just know they're better on PC.

Azio

Where do you live and how much money are you willing to spend? Depending on what you can cannibalize from the old machine, you're looking at about $600-1000 for a rig that'll play anything.

Cantido

That range is exactly right, 600 to 1000. I'd say around 700. But that is including warranty and monitor. So that would have to be factored in.

Azio

I'm assuming that you're in Canada because you got your last machine from Tiger Direct, so I'm using another wholesaler in Canada. This will run just about anything and includes a monitor.

Asus P5Q Pro motherboard - $148.99, $15 rebate
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz processor - $194.99
G-Skill 2x2GB DDR2 RAM - 48.99
EVGA GeForce 9800GT - $145.99, $15 rebate
LG DVD Burner - $25.99
Seagate 500GB hard drive - $59.99
OCZ 600W power supply - $104.99, $25 rebate
Antec 900 Case - 95.99
Samsung 22" LCD - $189.99
Assembly - $50

Total before rebates - $1065.91

The video card is a little behind the curve but you can always upgrade it later. It will do fine on all the games you mentioned.

Cantido

Monitor size does not matter to me. In fact I still have my 14 inch monitor that was not part of the computer that fried. The whole thing is fucking huge though. I wouldn't mind either a larger screen or a smaller panel. But if I just keep it, that's more money to devote to the hardware.

Also, Orlando, Florida. I ordered from Tiger Direct anyway. I also order from Newegg

Azio

Well, you can sort of use that build as a guide, as prices are pretty competitive between all the major online stores. It looks like $1000 is the sweet spot for price versus performance at the moment. If you go much cheaper than that, you risk disappointment.

Also, it's not hard to build the computer yourself. It's not a matter of learning how as it is one of simply doing it. There are tons of step-by-step guides online. You can do it in an afternoon with no prior knowledge.

expendable

Cantido wrote: »

Monitor size does not matter to me. In fact I still have my 14 inch monitor that was not part of the computer that fried. The whole thing is fucking huge though. I wouldn't mind either a larger screen or a smaller panel. But if I just keep it, that's more money to devote to the hardware.

Also, Orlando, Florida. I ordered from Tiger Direct anyway. I also order from Newegg

This is quite similar to the build I put together a couple months ago. I went from a (35 pound) 17" CRT to a 20" Widescreen LCD though. I suddenly feel like I can see into forever, and have a TON more room on my desk.

Do you need a new OS too? You'll need to factor that cost in. I finally made the jump from XP to Vista, and don't really have major complaints. Tip: You can do a full install using just an "Upgrade" kit, but I don't see why you wouldn't just get an OEM disk. I have a friend that has had a million driver problems with Vista 64 bit and nVidia products, so that's something to keep in mind too.

Dark Shroud

Yes nVidia still doesn't play that well with Vista yet. They're about the last major vendor that's still having problems. ATI cards are rock solid and comparable in price & power. It's also very much worth it to go Vista x64, Home Premium is fine for pretty much everyone.

Daedalus

Dell has 12-year-old kids in Malaysia building their computers; you're certainly capable of it yourself.

I personally would recommend the ATi 4850 for a graphics card over nVidia's current offerings; it seems to have the whole midrange price/performance thing just right.

Stormwatcher

the 4850 is a lot better than the 9800 and costs the same.

the E8400 is a great CPU.

Natheo

If you're in school, definitely check to see what kind of deal you can get on an OS. should save you a lot of money.

I'd also recommend building one on your own, as you can guarantee that there are quality components throughout, but I understand your situation. If you want a good deal and a warranty, you can always check out dells outlet site.

Satsumomo

Stormwatcher wrote: »

the 4850 is a lot better than the 9800 and costs the same.

the E8400 is a great CPU.

+1 for the 4850.

The E8500 and E8600 are not worth the extra price over the E8400, which with a small overclock can be set to the same speed as them.

Daedalus

hell, I personally went with an E7200 and overclocked the shit out of it. The E5200 should go almost as high, too. They're all 45nm Core 2 Duos, right?

SkutSkut

Daedalus wrote: »

hell, I personally went with an E7200 and overclocked the shit out of it. The E5200 should go almost as high, too. They're all 45nm Core 2 Duos, right?

I was reading the reviews for my E5200 Wolfdale on newegg and someone's said they've got it to 4.1 gigs and running stabley, but it generates heat that way, what with that being about 2x its base speed.

Daedalus

SkutSkut wrote: »

Daedalus wrote: »

hell, I personally went with an E7200 and overclocked the shit out of it. The E5200 should go almost as high, too. They're all 45nm Core 2 Duos, right?

I was reading the reviews for my E5200 Wolfdale on newegg and someone's said they've got it to 4.1 gigs and running stabley, but it generates heat that way, what with that being about 2x its base speed.

I doubt it generates much more heat than an E8n00 clocked at the same speed.

Satsumomo

Alas, if you can overclock an E5200 to 4.1Ghz stable, what's stopping you from achieving 5.0 stable on an E8400?

Daedalus

Satsumomo wrote: »

Alas, if you can overclock an E5200 to 4.1Ghz stable, what's stopping you from achieving 5.0 stable on an E8400?

no, you don't get it.

The E5200 and the E8600 and everything in between are fundamentally the same chip (well, aside from L2 cache. They're both the Wolfdale core, anyway), it's just that during Intel's quality assurance process, the E5200 was only rated to last for five years without errors at stock cooling running at 2.5GHz, whereas the E8600 was one that tested good for 3.3GHz. They're both the same core, so they both have basically the same theoretical maximum speed, but one just got higher in the quality assurance process.

TK-42-1

if youre still looking dell has some good deals that come bundled with monitors. you can find something cheap and shove an aftermarket vid card in there to make a bitching system that will last you a couple years

Natheo

Daedalus wrote: »

The E5200 and the E8600 and everything in between are fundamentally the same chip (well, aside from L2 cache. They're both the Wolfdale core, anyway), it's just that during Intel's quality assurance process, the E5200 was only rated to last for five years without errors at stock cooling running at 2.5GHz, whereas the E8600 was one that tested good for 3.3GHz. They're both the same core, so they both have basically the same theoretical maximum speed, but one just got higher in the quality assurance process.

Never knew it worked like that. Now I'm going to look into it. And this makes me feel much better about the whole overclocking process.

Dixon

They do the same thing with RAM chips and video cards to, it is pretty neat

Ego

Yep. Chips all come off one line (until new lines are introduced for a refined process, ie 45nm over 65nm) and are then evaluated and binned for various rated speeds. Profit comes into it as well: With a good chip design manufacturers often find that --from the point of view of profit-- they're making too many fast chips. For example, if Intel sells their top-end consumer-level chip for 500$, but 90% of their production is capable of running at that speed, they have a big problem. The great majority of people don't want to pay 500$ for a chip. Likewise, if they sell all those chips for 200$, they suddenly castrate their sales to 'performance' users (because people can and will spend ridiculous amounts of money for minor speed improvements.) The trick is to have a range of speeds and prices. So, regardless of how fast a chip might go in testing, it's just as likely to end up an e7200 as it is an e8600.

There are very few overclockers compared to non-overclockers, so intel mostly doesn't mind that people are able to overclock. I state mostly, because Intel does what it can to discourage the practice without incurring public backlash (low end stock HSFs, locked multipliers, no ability to OC with Intel reference motherboards) but thankfully the enthusiast market is big enough to make up it.

Rigor Mortis

I don't suppose AMD chooses clock speeds the same way? On Phenoms specifically? I'd be thrilled to find out I could push my chip a bit without worry...

Ego

AMD does the same thing, however phenoms are already about as fast as AMD can push them without building them on a smaller process. Good chips, but not the best overclockers (average of 50-150mhz available from an OC, tri cores go a bit further)

Generally speaking, the slowest dual core athlons and semprons can be OC'd as high as the fastest ones.

Dixon

Ego wrote: »

AMD does the same thing, however phenoms are already about as fast as AMD can push them without building them on a smaller process. Good chips, but not the best overclockers (average of 50-150mhz available from an OC, tri cores go a bit further)

Generally speaking, the slowest dual core athlons and semprons can be OC'd as high as the fastest ones.

The Tri cores are the same thing as the quad cores aren't they, just the 4th core is de-activated.

TychoCelchuuu

"De-activated" is a nice way of putting it. They're 4 core chips with a broken core. Their fabrication process gives them lemons, so they make lemonade! Then they sell the lemonade as a 3 core chip.

Ego

They are, which is why they have a slight edge. The more cores (and cache) that you have at once, the greater the probability that one of them (cores or cache) will be a poor OC'er. Your OC will be limited by whichever core (or more likely it's cache) can't cut it. So, counter intuitively, the best OCing chips are the ones with less cores and cache, assuming they are of identical architecture.

Which is why the e7200 is such a great chip to overclock. Small process like intels best, but less cache to crap out on you.

Dixon

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

"De-activated" is a nice way of putting it. They're 4 core chips with a broken core. Their fabrication process gives them lemons, so they make lemonade! Then they sell the lemonade as a 3 core chip.

Yeah I wasn't to sure, I didn't want to say it was shit and have everyone eat me alive :P

The q6600 is also a pretty awesome to chip to OC as well

Ego

the Q6600 is good (right now all intel chips are, really) but if you really want to push a quad core, it's worth springing a bit more for a chip built on the 45nm process.