Suggestions for Building my PC

[Tyr]

I'm looking to buy a new PC, and I figured I'd go the route of building one this time around. Getting a friend's help with all this, because I really don't know what's what. I'm not averse to spending $ on a PC, as I see it as an investment, but I'm a little more hesitant to spend a lot of money on a desktop (especially given that I'm going to be getting an hp tablet once fall semester starts). I'm looking to buy two flat panel (decent priced, haven't looked for them yet) monitors to put side-by-side running from this pc:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD - 89$

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - 89$

Power Supply: hec Zephyr750 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - 95$

Memory: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Case - 32$

Video Card: EVGA 512-P2-N775-AR GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - 169$ (30 MIR)

320GB Harddrive - 89$

With 2 flat panels, it will likely cost me 900$ for this. Any suggestions, whether in terms of getting a better item for the same price, or a better price for the same item, or whether I should get a quad-core versus a dual-core processor? As always, thanks in advance.

[jkim1162]

Is that a typo in the link for the GPU? It says it is a deactivated item and severly overpriced for that type of card.

[Don Katsu]

I think you can get a 8800GT or 3870 for that price...

[Shuemue]

Go Intel.

[shinoniken]

That psu is a bit much for that setup. You could easily run that on a 650w. The GPU seems to be some sort of mislink, but I'd go for a GeForce 9600 over an 8600, and the price difference is hardly noticible, especially if you go with a less expensive psu. As for the cpu, it's really your preference and how much your willing to spend. I'd stick with the AMD if your going dual core, but Intel all the way for a quad, the Phenoms just can't match right now. The mobo is decent for the price, although it supports a shit ton of ram, it's only DDR2 800, and doesn't support PCIe 2.0. One final thought, in the long run you might want to drop an extra stick of ram or two in there, the performance increase from 2-4gb is still pretty noticeable.

[Shuemue]

That psu is a bit much for that setup. You could easily run that on a 650w. The GPU seems to be some sort of mislink, but I'd go for a GeForce 9600 over an 8600, and the price difference is hardly noticible, especially if you go with a less expensive psu. As for the cpu, it's really your preference and how much your willing to spend. I'd stick with the AMD if your going dual core, but Intel all the way for a quad, the Phenoms just can't match right now. The mobo is decent for the price, although it supports a shit ton of ram, it's only DDR2 800, and doesn't support PCIe 2.0. One final thought, in the long run you might want to drop an extra stick of ram or two in there, the performance increase from 2-4gb is still pretty noticeable.

For a gaming machine, the new 45nm chips from Intel, notably the E8400, will whip the AMD chips.

Here's a Crysis bench test: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/0 ... nd_e8200/4

So yeah, the AMD dual cores win on certain things, but on the big tests like Crysis fps and DivX encoding, the Intel shines.

(Would buy an 8800GT too personally)

[shinoniken]

Who plays crysis on a midranged though?

Edit: You are right though, I totally forgot about those new 45nms from Intel. Intel is completely raping AMD right now.

[Shuemue]

OP said he's not averse to spending $ on a pc, thus I'm trying to steer him towards spending another coupla hundred bucks and getting a good CPU and GPU?

[shinoniken]

But he said that he didn't want to spend too much because he's purchasing a tablet soon, I was thinking he was looking for a cheaper mid ranged sort. If he is willing to spend the cash, I definitely think he should change to an intel setup, with an 8800 or better, and at least 2gb more of ram.

[Shuemue]

But he said that he didn't want to spend too much because he's purchasing a tablet soon, I was thinking he was looking for a cheaper mid ranged sort. If he is willing to spend the cash, I definitely think he should change to an intel setup, with an 8800 or better, and at least 2gb more of ram.

He said he wants to run dual monitors from it, let's be honest, to make two monitors worthwhile you're either not doing very much with each monitor or you're running a powerful machine, right?

[shinoniken]

Touché, salesman.

[Shuemue]

Touché, salesman.

lol, we need to setup a BG > newegg referral scheme

[Tyr]

I think you can get a 8800GT or 3870 for that price...

I see what you mean. Is there a particular "brand" for the 8800GT that I should look for? As well, what's the difference between a 3870 & 8800GT? Shuemue also said he'd go for the 8800GT.

Shinoniken also suggested the GeForce 9600Gt --> all of them seem to be wavering around 160-170$ after MIR.

The mobo is decent for the price, although it supports a shit ton of ram, it's only DDR2 800, and doesn't support PCIe 2.0.

Have no idea what that means. Dumb it down exponentially, perhaps? And you would suggest spending a little more and getting a 4GB Ram system?

I should make a few things clear. Firstly, I'm really stupid when it comes to computer hardware. Secondly, I don't want to spend more than 1000$ on the total setup. Given that it will cost me 250-350$ for two monitors, I don't want to spend more than 700 on the PC itself. In terms of "gaming," the only conceivable things that I'll be playing are FFXI, Call of Duty, Team Fortress, any new Square MMO, and MAYBE (unlikely) Crysis.

One question I have is justifying spending a little more. For instance, if I'm looking at two harddrives, a 250GB for 20$ and a 500 for 30$ (as an example), I'd obviously take the latter --> double the umph, only half as much expensive. I take this only so far though. Given that I'm getting a new laptop (and will be getting as "high end" as possible for that), and that my uses of PC are limited to when I'm home, I don't know if I can justify spending 200$ for a processor versus one that's for 89-110$'ish. But as I've been told, the most important thing when building a PC is making sure pieces fit, and work well together.


So what I understood from two posts from Shuemue/Shino is that I should go with 4GB Ram, and go with an Intel Processor? Dual or Quad? I'm guessing the latter is more expensive, but has more longevity (I was reading another post about getting a PC to last for 5 years).

And if you all get some points or whatever (if Newegg has such a system) for referring items, give me any # of account or something so I can say I was referred to by you guys ;P Thanks again for your help.


EDIT: Christ...I just looked at some prices on a Quad-Core....will it be that bad running two monitors on a dual-core 4GB? I don't think I can take the jump from 89-110$ to 230$+ given that I only want to spend a certain amount (around 1k for the total package including monitors).

[Shuemue]

Why do you want 2 monitors on a machine that'll struggle to make it worthwhile?

[Xanthe]

Why do you want 2 monitors on a machine that'll struggle to make it worthwhile?

Because two heads are better than one? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[Tyr]

Why do you want 2 monitors on a machine that'll struggle to make it worthwhile?

What is the part that makes it struggle? The processor or the ram? Or both?

My coworker uses a dual-monitor setup in his office, and he's running on 1.5 gigs of ram and some old processor I'm sure. How badly will it struggle? The main purpose for the dual monitor idea is to run 2-4 copies of FFXI. You guys are the experts here, I'll take your word either way.

[Shuemue]

If you want to run 2-4 copies of FFXI without lag, you'll need to increase your budget.

Something like the E8400 CPU, 8800GT GPU, Gigabyte P35 board (at least), 2GB+ RAM, decent PSU & cooling. If I wanted to run multiple clients on multiple monitors, I'd personally budget $1k+ for the machine BEFORE the cost of monitors.

You could do it cheaper on low settings with an overclock, but that's not really ideal for it.

[Tyr]

I'll have to give a lot of thought to this, then, I guess, if it's going to cost me around 1300 total.

I'll take your word for it, but my friend has reassured me that the system I listed would be able to run at least 2 windows of FFXI very smoothly...

I mean, FFXI doesn't take much to run. Hell, I could almost run two on my 5 or 6 year old PC. Is there no other way out of a 2-monitor setup (with 2-3, let's say 2 I guess) windows of FFXI running than spending 1k on the PC itself? To me that seems like I'd be getting a pretty high end computer, and I was under the impression that I wouldn't need that much juice.

[Xanthe]

To put it simply, FFXI is a CPU hog. It's a PS2 port that was done very poorly so it doesn't take advantage of all the resources it should on a PC deployment. So pretty much the best thing you can do to improve FFXI performance, both single and multiple instances, is to beef up your CPU.

[mootsfox]

Listen to everything Shuemue has said in this thread. He knows what he is talking about.

About the Newegg referral stuff... I've tried it on my forum that probably sends 0.5 to 2 million a year to them easily, and they said no, so good luck