New Desktop Build: Critiques please!

[Alleya]

I skimmed through everyone's suggestions and I didn't see this mentioned about the HD. I'm a fan of having two HDs instead of one. On smaller for the OS and the second for what I'm saving, downloading, working on, etc. Right now I have a 80GB Hard drive for my OS, and a 500GB for everything else. Just a suggestion though. Good luck with the new rig.

Also ask yourself if you really need a new hard drive. You can probably save some money by getting a low capacity, fast hard drive for the OS/programs/page file and buy a slow high capacity harddrive for storage or keep whatever you have now.

[Vertabreaker]

I skimmed through everyone's suggestions and I didn't see this mentioned about the HD. I'm a fan of having two HDs instead of one. On smaller for the OS and the second for what I'm saving, downloading, working on, etc. Right now I have a 80GB Hard drive for my OS, and a 500GB for everything else. Just a suggestion though. Good luck with the new rig.

Also ask yourself if you really need a new hard drive. You can probably save some money by getting a low capacity, fast hard drive for the OS/programs/page file and buy a slow high capacity harddrive for storage or keep whatever you have now.

I didn't mean to skim by your post I swear !! I was super tired and more retarded then normal this AM.

[Sadler]

Pretty much researching all day I decided to go with

uped CPU: the E6750
uped GPU: 8800GTS
new mobo: ASUS P5K Deluxe
same RAM
same HD
same case
no more wireless card as new mobo has it built in
same power supply

am very glad those of you who brought up SLI as I am coming to realize its "meh"

very good board... very solid. But I wouldnt go for the onboard wifi shit... just go for the "Plus" edition which is designed for sound heavy applications (games/music creator/hi-def media)

[simozene]

Looks like a pretty good system. Only complaint I have is the nForce motherboard. After having an nForce 4 board I have first hand experience that nVidia drivers are terrible. I think you are much better off going for an Intel P35 board instead. I have also read revues that state the P35 chipset is pretty much the best on the market right now.

[Sadler]

The P35 chipset is pretty cool... but make sure you go for a Gigabyte if your tempted to sway away from the Asus P5N.

I currently own the Asus Striker Extreme and the P5N32 Plus.

P5N = Rock Solid
Striker = Hell (Anybody want a freebie? )

The P5N is the only board I have seen with the AI technology that actually "can" overclock automatically while getting all of the memory and voltages spot on.

[Yangsing]

Q6600 are around 300 dollars now a days. It's not that much more then what you originally selected. You don't really need 650w.

[Cjskater]

Striker = Hell (Anybody want a freebie? )

freebie plz

[Kooldac]

Pretty much researching all day I decided to go with

uped CPU: the E6750
uped GPU: 8800GTS
new mobo: ASUS P5K Deluxe
same RAM
same HD
same case
no more wireless card as new mobo has it built in
same power supply

am very glad those of you who brought up SLI as I am coming to realize its "meh"

very good board... very solid. But I wouldnt go for the onboard wifi shit... just go for the "Plus" edition which is designed for sound heavy applications (games/music creator/hi-def media)

Can you link me to this? I couldn't find something you were talking about.

[Skyylya]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131182

is a link to the p5k deluxe, has the p35 northbridge chipset and pretty much everything you want as far as a quality MOBO goes. again it's not sli compatible but you don't need that anyway. I have the p5k3 deluxe which basically just means mine is ddr3 vs. the ddr2 of this one etc..

This is a great mobo and probably 'one of' the best you can get right now for your buck. 200+ might be expensive, but the potential and value of this board well exceeds its cost.

[evilbau]

obligatory evilbau comment: buy the sweet spot and bank the extra. imo you'll save more money in the long run if you don't upgrade until you have something which needs its. i agree with the comments about the cost effectiveness of SLI, quad core, etc. not worth the extra cash.

[Kooldac]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131182

is a link to the p5k deluxe, has the p35 northbridge chipset and pretty much everything you want as far as a quality MOBO goes. again it's not sli compatible but you don't need that anyway.

thats what I already changed to ._. everyone starting to repeat lol. guess I should change my original post

[Skyylya]

Pretty much researching all day I decided to go with

uped CPU: the E6750
uped GPU: 8800GTS
new mobo: ASUS P5K Deluxe
same RAM
same HD
same case
no more wireless card as new mobo has it built in
same power supply

am very glad those of you who brought up SLI as I am coming to realize its "meh"

very good board... very solid. But I wouldnt go for the onboard wifi shit... just go for the "Plus" edition which is designed for sound heavy applications (games/music creator/hi-def media)

Can you link me to this? I couldn't find something you were talking about.

sorry....you asked for a link. I see now you were probably asking for a link to whatever board he was referring to, but the one you have there is fine since as far as price goes it's all pretty much the same within about 10-20 bucks and the only price difference i've seen on them has to do with the warranty/return packaging stuff and the specs are the same.

[Kooldac]

oh my god I found out about nVidia's drivers fucking up with 8 serious cards. I may have to rethink this...

[Skyylya]

Nvidia's drivers are fine for the 8800's if you get one. Read the thread in tech support about it and download the appropriate drivers.

I installed an 8800gtx and installed the drivers and ffxi ran perfectly 20-30 fps no matter what i'm doing, dynamis, hnm camps etc...

You're better off with an 8800 over an ati that's for sure. drivers are easily fixed and updated, you're stuck with the card you buy til you buy a new one, make sure you don't choose the wrong one because of some bad information that isn't even really the case anymore.

[Kooldac]

after reading THIS 13 page thread, it still looks to be a semi-issue

[Skyylya]

How much of that thread did you read, or skim through?

Most of the posts were from last year, early this year like january/feb. And most of the people that were posting and thought it was mostly an nvidia problem were experiencing a vista problem which still has a lot of bugs and things with all drivers, not just ffxi.

The nvidia isn't the main problem, people on xp seem to be running fine for the most part that have the updated drivers.

As i said i run an 8800gtx on xp and it ran perfectly from the get-go with the drivers that i got off the website, whatever the latest were at the time which was before whatever late july fix people have mentioned.

I don't know why vista is so popular, desktop graphics aren't really important (at least to me) and it has so many problems that it's not even remotely worth upgrading too. Nvidia + xp = awesome. You can argue about being able to use more ram with 64bit Vista, but you really don't need more than 2 gig for anything nowaday's which is perfectly fine with xp. Vista requires like 2gb ram anyway to run doesn't it?

[Kooldac]

I read every word of the thread, but some to this day still have problems with XP. I think i'm going to just bite the bullet and get nVidia anyways.

[Yangsing]

Buying an 8800 for FFXI? lol I wouldn't even play FFXI if I bought a 300+ card.

Wait until at least SP1 to get Vista. I use it at work, it makes me cry on the inside.