Topic: New PC - advice?

[beo]

right, either this month or the next i'll be buying myself a new rig. i'm a bit out of the loop, so any advice would be appreciated - especially on the motherboard choice.

out of the two CPUs i've listed below, the quad core processor is clocked lower and is more expensive, so i'm not sure if it's worth it over the dual core system. does anyone know what differences i'd see between the two?

here's what i'm looking at so far:

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 - £119.84
or
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 - £152.74

Motherboard
Asus P5K Intel P35 - £70.49

RAM
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz - £76.36

Graphics Card
Asus GeForce EN8800 GT 512MB - £164.49

edit - oh yeah, i could use a new case/psu combo too, so any suggestions on that would be great. cheers.

[gpw11]

Personally, I went dual core because I was told that the extra speed would be more beneficial for playing games over the extra two cores.  A lot of that may be because I had a fair amount of catching up to do and games taking advantage of multiple cores are just starting to come out now.  Quad core would be more future-proof, assuming that by the time we get to the point where they offer considerable gains the clock speed isn't too slow.

I ended up buying the E6750 and have been more than impressed.  Honestly, nothing out there today seems all that taxing on modern CPUs, so I can't see it being a bottle neck in the near future.  I have messed around with OCing it a bit with the stock cooling, and got it somewhere around 3.5-3.6 Ghz stable (I think).  I didn't push it much further so it's hard to say how fast you could get it if you really want to OC it (I also have very little idea about what I'm doing).


The mobo there looks like it has some pretty heavy duty north/south bridge heatsinks, and that's a good sign.  Crossfire support is also something I kind of wish I had gone for, but I don't know if that means it's SLI compatible.  I'd wait for Pug to see about that one.  If you do pick it up, maybe think about AMD, as that way you'll always have the option to cheaply upgrade your GPU power with crossfire.  If not, Nvidia is totally the way to go I believe. 

As for the case/psu combo, I don't recommend you use any PSU that comes with a case unless it's a pretty reputable name brand.  A lot of times the combos use shitty shitty parts that don't offer their rated clean power or are prone to shorting and/or burning out.  It'd be a shitty way to destroy a system a year or so down the road.

[beo]

yeah, i'm well versed in dodgy power supplies. i think this is something i'll leave for the moment, but i'll definitely be looking to get a new case and psu down the line, so keep any suggestions coming.

i'm thinking of doing the upgrade in two steps, because my current pc is pretty fucked and because i'm on a relatively tight budget this month.

with this in mind, i'm thinking of going for a Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz at £46.99 instead. it's cheap as hell, and i've heard you can easily get a 100% overclock out of it with just stock cooling. if the overclocking turns out to be a disappointment, i can get one of the better chips next month.

also, just to get the system up and running, i'm thinking about going for the much cheaper OcUK GeForce 8600 GT 256MB. unless this is better than i expect, this would not be a long term solution, but it would at the very least tide me over for a bit.

[WindAndConfusion]

Get the cheap processor, save your money, and if you ever need more CPU power, use that money you saved to buy a cheaper, faster quad-core (when they exist).

[gpw11]

I can totally agree with Wind on the processor.  As for the card, see how much you can get a 7800 or 7900 for.  Dx10 features are overrated (and useless if you're not using Vista), and a high end 7 series card should smoke a mid range 8 series card in DX9.  I bought a 7900GS for under $100 on sale and am very impressed with the performance for the price.

[Pugnate]

Get the cheap processor, save your money, and if you ever need more CPU power, use that money you saved to buy a cheaper, faster quad-core (when they exist).

W&C speaks wise words.

Anyway while Quadcore is a good choice if you multitask like a little bitch, you will get lower frame rates.

The Q6600 is like the Incredible Hulk, and can carry 400 tons of weight at a 100 miles per hour, while the E6750 is like Superman (post crisis pussy version) able to carry 200 tons but moving at 130 miles per hour. While that extra strength is nice, most bad guys come in at a 100 tons, and will continue to do so for a while.

The E6750 is for some reason a better overclocker as well.

I can totally agree with Wind on the processor.  As for the card, see how much you can get a 7800 or 7900 for.  Dx10 features are overrated (and useless if you're not using Vista), and a high end 7 series card should smoke a mid range 8 series card in DX9.  I bought a 7900GS for under $100 on sale and am very impressed with the performance for the price.

The 7900GS is a pretty good card, but the 8800GT is just a great choice. It doesn't matter if DX10 is overrated, as the 8800GT is the best DX9 card as well. In fact there isn't a card out there that can run DX10 effects without taking a noticable performance hit. I've played Company of Heroes, World in Conflict, Crysis etc on both Vista and XP. While I've noticed better effects in the DX10 versions of those games, I've noticed a significant slowdown compared to XP that just wasn't worth the DX10 sexiness.

It may not be a hardware problem, but rather a software issue that can be fixed with SP1. That is my hope anyway.

As for the 8800GT vs the 7900GS:

You are going to pay another $130 once, and can insure that you will be able to play just about every game out there on max settigns, and for years to come. All the new tech is now out, including the new Unreal engine as well as the Crytek engine. On XP, the card runs Crysis on high settings fairly well. It runs the Unreal engine on max settings beautifully, which is basically the technology most games are based on these days.

One last thing. Do you plan to upgrade to a monitor with a high resolution later? If so, it is another reason in my opinion to get the 8800GT.

Finally some benchmarks:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/12/geforce_8800_gts_512_mb/page10.html

With the newer drivers, the 8600GT and the 7900GS perform near the same levels. So taking that into account, you will notice the 8800GT getting nearly three times the performance as the 8600GT.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=8

According to those benchmarks the 7900GS is a good card if you are going to stick to lower resolutions and are not interested in anti aliasing or anisotropic filtering. With those settings the 7900GS does well in games like UT3 getting about 50 fps. In COD4 it gets about 50 fps which is quite good. In Bioshock it gets down to 30 fps, 20 in Oblivion and 15 in Crysis.

On higher resolutions it struggles though, and if you like AF or AA, the card isn't for you. To me the 8800GT is a better future investment.

[gpw11]

I think the thing is that he's opted out of getting the 8800GT for the time being, and is looking at the 7900GS vs 8600. 

[beo]

believe me, i'd love to get the 8800GT and i probably will down the line, but without currently owning any PCI-E card, i'd need to get something cheap to tide me over. the 8600 may not be the best performer, but it is an absolute steal and will allow me to at least plug my monitor into something. anyway, i'm going to check my account now and see what i can stretch to.

[Pugnate]

How much are you getting the 8600 for?

[beo]

i can get a 8600 for £54.04, whereas the 8800 GT (512MB) start at £164.49.

i've been looking at cases a little more, and this one seems nice...

Antec Nine Hundred
it's got some big ass fans, which equates to good airflow without too much noise. it's also got a bunch of top mounted ports and a modular design, which is nice.

[Pugnate]

Is that $330 or so? Damn VAT and all the other taxes Europeans have to pay.

[beo]

yeah, i know. we complain about it a lot, but our cost of living as a whole is higher and our wages reflect this. as an example, our minimum wage is around $11 an hour, while it's about $7 in the states. all it really means is that when we buy things abroad, everything seems really cheap - it's also why i'm a big fan of the online distribution methods, since stuff on steam is regularly half UK retail value.

anyway, enough economics...

[Pugnate]

BAMMMM!

The 8800GS was recently announced. It will replace the 8600GTS, and come in two flavors of video memory, ranging from $150 to $175 depending on video memory.

Now here is the sad fact for AMD/ATi. The card is apparently "giving the 3870 a run for its money".

It seems performance are near 3870 levels, and at $75 lower, this can't be good for ATi. They probably shouldn't have gone for cheaper cooling in order to under cut the 8800GT.

I'll post reliable links as soon as I am able, but I am pretty sure of the facts I posted.

[scottws]

I hate the GPU and CPU markets sometimes.  Why do they have to make it so confusing?  So there is going to be this new card released as a 8800 but it's really like a 8600?  That's BS.

[Pugnate]

Well if it is near the levels of a 3870, which is near the levels of a 8800GT, then the card is significantly faster than an 8600GTS.

[Jedi]

Well if it is near the levels of a 3870, which is near the levels of a 8800GT, then the card is significantly faster than an 8600GTS.

Hahaha yeah I'm sure that clears it up for Scott 
It can be tricky but right now is a good time to buy as the 8800 cards are a clear winner over most when you weigh it all up.

[beo]

i either want something extremely cheap (as in the 8600), or something with excellent performance (as in the 8800GT). unless the gap in performance between the 8800GS and 8800GT is significantly tighter than the the gap in price, i don't know if i'll be all that interested.

i do have to say that it's good to see that nvidia are staying competitive, even though they really don't have to at the moment.

[Pugnate]

Hahaha yeah I'm sure that clears it up for Scott 
It can be tricky but right now is a good time to buy as the 8800 cards are a clear winner over most when you weigh it all up.

hahaa

[gpw11]

i either want something extremely cheap (as in the 8600), or something with excellent performance (as in the 8800GT). unless the gap in performance between the 8800GS and 8800GT is significantly tighter than the the gap in price, i don't know if i'll be all that interested.

i do have to say that it's good to see that nvidia are staying competitive, even though they really don't have to at the moment.

I think the thing to note is that lags exist, and these decisions were most likely made when they felt they needed to stay competitive.  That said, Nvidia does know that they're also competing with themselves and there are people out there that do buy cards every six months or so (even though that's not the market segment that brings in the big money).