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Help me finish putting up my list of composants for this gaming PC.

post #1 of 20
10/8/07 at 9:16am
Thread Starter 
Okay as everyone knows Crysis is comming out soon and judging by the way it looks and reports comming from the people who tried the beta, it will need a fairly big config.

But I am also planning on getting Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventure (MMO), Project Offset (judging by the trailer, most definitly a Dx10 game). Mostly all of them requires a big config and I hope to play them all on max with the maximum of FPS possible.

So here I go, so far I managed to gather somehow what I should use for my new rig:

Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341001

Tower: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811129021

Graphic Card: EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130072

Operating System (OS): Windows Vista 64-bit Ultimate http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16832116215

Sound Card: ....*

Memory: ...*

Processor: ...*

Cooler:...*


----------------


*Sound Card: Okay so, I need help choosing the Sound Card (I don't have neither a 5.1 setup, neither a 7.1 setup. I might get one in the future though) so right now I have 2 speakers and 1 subwoofer hooked to my PC. I am looking at the soublaster live soundcards, but I am not sure which one of them I should get.

*Memory: Should I go for 4gigs or 6gigs?

*Processor: Please I want an AMD Athlon processor, but I don't know which one I should get.

*Cooler: Which one should I get?

This one: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835154001

Or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835109140

As for the screen, I am just going to use my Sony KDL-XBR2.


Oh and by the way, once I get this new rig I won't be changing it for alot of years (minimum 5 years) so I need to be sure to get the best stuff that is around right now.
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post #2 of 20
10/8/07 at 9:42am
Gaming + Vista 64 = does not compute.


First off Vista hogs resources right off the bat, and the few games that take advantage of DX10 don't justify the extra cost.

and Vista 64 will remain an oddity just like Xp 64 before it, this means unecessary issues and a much smaller base of people who can help you with your issues.

Buy Vista 32 now and use downgrade rights to installed Xp 32, then in the future once vista stops being a turd you can upgrade.
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post #3 of 20
10/8/07 at 9:44am
I love amd for the low end but why bother for the high end?

Get a nice Dual Core Intel processor, pair it with 4GB of memory and go to town.

The Creative X-fi is really the only game in town for gaming.
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post #4 of 20
10/8/07 at 10:00am
DEFINITELY do not do Vista 64 for gaming, like ginnal said. Hahah, "does not compute"... well said I tried Vista 64 on a Dell XPS M1710 and had to trash it and go back to Vista 32. The laptop does mostly business apps and occassionally some light gaming.

Biggest issue with Vista 64 is still driver support. Yeah, most devices are supported now... but they tend to run older drivers. Vista32 and XP are still getting the most driver updates.

If you're doing it for RAM's sake... well, you'll get an extra .5 or .75GB of RAM depending on your hardware, but IMHO it's just not worth it. Buy 4GB of RAM and be happy with the 3GB you get to use. For now it's enough. If you are going with 6GB Vista 64 makes more sense but I think 6GB would be mostly wasted right now (e.g., just used up as Vista pre-fetch memory and not really "used").

PS, you can always go Vista64 later. If you buy Vista retail I am told it includes the 32bit and 64bit media. So if it were me I'd just install 32bit for now and when things mature or you decide you need that extra bump of RAM go with 64.

Functionally 64 was not any faster than 32 for me and just was not worth the headaches.

Oh, for sound card... The SoundBlaster X-Fi series is very popular. I recently ditched my X-Fi and installed an Asus Xonar D2. It works great for gaming, provides excellent sound in Bioshock and Quake Wars so far.

I would avoid X-Fi personally if you are connecting this to a home theater receiver as the X-Fi cards do not do Dolby Digital Live or DTS Interactive (which basically encodes your multiple surround streams into a single toslink or coax connecter, vs. doing individual analog outputs). Some people claim the analog outputs sound better, but I strongly preferred coax/toslink.
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post #5 of 20
10/8/07 at 10:29am
On a note..i have install vista x64 on two machines.

My high end 2.8ghz c2d and an athlon 64 3000 1.8ghz

Vista runs great on both..only flaw being that i am having problems at the moment with shuddery mpeg 2 video..but i cant say i wasnt without these problems in xp!
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post #6 of 20
10/8/07 at 10:34am
I have been doing Vista64 Ultimate since it released and gaming. There is nothing wrong with it.

Quote from Microsoft:
"Note: If your system features a 64-bit processor, you can take advantage of its advanced design in this edition of Windows Vista. Read more."

Read More --> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...ons/64bit.mspx

"In the consumer market, Windows Vista 64-bit editions are for serious gamers, high-quality media creators, and enthusiasts who demand the most from digital media and are running computer systems with 64-bit processors."

If you mix match your hardware with legacy hardware you will have problem with 64-bit. In your case, you are buying new hardware, I see no problem with it. But don't skimp on RAM when go Vista...2GB good, 4GB best.
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post #7 of 20
10/8/07 at 10:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tgarcia View Post

DEFINITELY do not do Vista 64 for gaming, like ginnal said. Hahah, "does not compute"... well said I tried Vista 64 on a Dell XPS M1710 and had to trash it and go back to Vista 32. The laptop does mostly business apps and occassionally some light gaming.

Biggest issue with Vista 64 is still driver support. Yeah, most devices are supported now... but they tend to run older drivers. Vista32 and XP are still getting the most driver updates.

If you're doing it for RAM's sake... well, you'll get an extra .5 or .75GB of RAM depending on your hardware, but IMHO it's just not worth it. Buy 4GB of RAM and be happy with the 3GB you get to use. For now it's enough. If you are going with 6GB Vista 64 makes more sense but I think 6GB would be mostly wasted right now (e.g., just used up as Vista pre-fetch memory and not really "used").

PS, you can always go Vista64 later. If you buy Vista retail I am told it includes the 32bit and 64bit media. So if it were me I'd just install 32bit for now and when things mature or you decide you need that extra bump of RAM go with 64.

Functionally 64 was not any faster than 32 for me and just was not worth the headaches.

Oh, for sound card... The SoundBlaster X-Fi series is very popular. I recently ditched my X-Fi and installed an Asus Xonar D2. It works great for gaming, provides excellent sound in Bioshock and Quake Wars so far.

I would avoid X-Fi personally if you are connecting this to a home theater receiver as the X-Fi cards do not do Dolby Digital Live or DTS Interactive (which basically encodes your multiple surround streams into a single toslink or coax connecter, vs. doing individual analog outputs). Some people claim the analog outputs sound better, but I strongly preferred coax/toslink.

My only reason for recommending X-fi is for EAX which is useful for gamers I suppose.
Most other sound card don't do EAX properly, otherwise i'd say onboard Audio is fine especially with these HD codecs these days.
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post #8 of 20
10/8/07 at 10:58am
No, there is nothing "wrong" with Vista 64. The OS itself is fine.

The support from the rest of the world sort of stinks. There are all kinda of little gotchas and snafus that are becoming less prevalent but still exist. For me this came in the form of less mature hardware drivers, some devices not working at all (USB sticks that worked in Vista32 fine would not work in Vista64), etc. And since the Vista64 market is tiny, hardware manufacturers / guys writing drivers tend to put Vista64 stuff on the backburner in favor of serving their larger customer base. It's just economics. If they can spend 1 man month addressing issues or increasing performance for 80% of their customer base or spend 1 man month addressing issues or increasing performance for 10% of their customer base, which do you think they will pick?
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post #9 of 20
10/8/07 at 11:10am
Why do you want an AMD processor when they are consistently outperformed by the 'equivalent' Intel processors?

4GB ram is plenty. Any more will be a waste at this juncture.

You need Vista for DX10 game play, but 64bit, as mentioned above, is not a good friend.
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post #10 of 20
10/8/07 at 11:44am
Thread Starter 
Okay so from what I read I should:

OS: Windows Vista 32

Sound card: The Asus Xonar D2 is kinda expensive (189 bucks from newegg) i'll pick up something cheap, especially since I won't be able to enjoy the sound due to the fact that I do not have any receivers.

Memory: People tend to say 4 gig is good, but like I said when i will get this new rig I will have to keep it for a minimum of 5 years whitout updating it. So you sure 6 gigs wouldn't be better?


Okay but what about the processor though? I looked around a bit and it seems atrociously expensive, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117132

1200 bucks for a 3.0Ghz processor :/? Could anyone recommend me something a little bit cheaper that will make the rest of this rig run well?
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post #11 of 20
10/8/07 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Knight View Post

Okay so from what I read I should:

OS: Windows Vista 32

Sound card: The Asus Xonar D2 is kinda expensive (189 bucks from newegg) i'll pick up something cheap, especially since I won't be able to enjoy the sound due to the fact that I do not have any receivers.

Memory: People tend to say 4 gig is good, but like I said when i will get this new rig I will have to keep it for a minimum of 5 years whitout updating it. So you sure 6 gigs wouldn't be better?


Okay but what about the processor though? I looked around a bit and it seems atrociously expensive, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117132

1200 bucks for a 3.0Ghz processor :/? Could anyone recommend me something a little bit cheaper that will make the rest of this rig run well?

In 5 years no matter what you build it will suck in comparison to the then high end.

Save your pennies now, for your upgrade in 5 years.
"Futureproofing" is a fools game.
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post #12 of 20
10/8/07 at 11:55am
Ok after reading some more it seems to me you've got your head screwed on backwards.

You don't need 6GB in fact most likely in order to use 6GB you'll have to forego dual channel support. Not a good idea.

Save the money you were gonna spend for that extra 2GB and add it to your processor budget.
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post #13 of 20
10/8/07 at 11:58am
go for an intel core 2 quad Q6600 which only runs about $300. don't bother with amd cpus until the phenom comes out.
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post #14 of 20
10/8/07 at 12:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ginnal View Post

In 5 years no matter what you build it will suck in comparison to the then high end.

Save your pennies now, for your upgrade in 5 years.
"Futureproofing" is a fools game.

Yeah right lol, why don't I wait forever? By then I will save money and have the most uber PC evar!

No seriously, I have a budget I play on consoles too. PS3, XBOX360, PSP and all those games costs quite alot. So I need to spend some money on console and some money on PC.

And my cousin has a PC that he had for quite some time and still is very good. Last time I changed my PC, it was good for me for 4-5 years. I got it 2001 and I changed it on 2005.

But since I bought my last PC (the one I am using right now) on budget (1150 bucks) it only lasted me for 2 years (2005-today). Now I just want a big rig that will last me as long as it can!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ginnal View Post

You don't need 6GB in fact most likely in order to use 6GB you'll have to forego dual channel support. Not a good idea.

How does the dual channel support works? And why is it not a good idea?

But I agree, better spend that money on the processor instead of those 2 extra Gbs. I could always ask to have those 2 extra GB mounted if I ever need them in the future, because right now it doesn't seem like any game will need them (unless I stumble upon a game who is very badly optimized performance wise)
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post #15 of 20
10/8/07 at 12:09pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jkcheng122 View Post

go for an intel core 2 quad Q6600 which only runs about $300. don't bother with amd cpus until the phenom comes out.

When does the Phenom comes out?

By the way, which one?

Intel Xeon 3085 3.0GHz 4MB $301.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117134

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M $289.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115028
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post #16 of 20
10/8/07 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Knight View Post

Yeah right lol, why don't I wait forever? By then I will save money and have the most uber PC evar!

No seriously, I have a budget I play on consoles too. PS3, XBOX360, PSP and all those games costs quite alot. So I need to spend some money on console and some money on PC.

And my cousin has a PC that he had for quite some time and still is very good. Last time I changed my PC, it was good for me for 4-5 years. I got it 2001 and I changed it on 2005.

Well lets take a look shall me.
http://www.asisupport.com/info_cpu_release_dates.htm

It's 2007 assuming I have a machine thats brand new from 5 years ago i'd be running a 2.4 Ghz P4 probably with 512mb of ram.

Smells like a turd to me.


Quote:


But since I bought my last PC (the one I am using right now) on budget (1150 bucks) it only lasted me for 2 years (2005-today). Now I just want a big rig that will last me as long as it can!

The paradigm is changing, theres very little in the way of productivity pushing cpu cycles only games and good luck trying to keep any machine ahead of the gaming curve.
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post #17 of 20
10/8/07 at 3:04pm
Do you also need a motherboard? Once you decied on a CPU you should decide on a motherboard chipset then find a good make/model.
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post #18 of 20
10/8/07 at 3:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by getnate12345 View Post

Do you also need a motherboard? Once you decied on a CPU you should decide on a motherboard chipset then find a good make/model.

The one I have right now (on this computer) is a:

ABIT AV8 K8T800 Pro

I don't really know much about motherboards though, could you recommand a good brand/model?

Also will this setup require the use of liquid cooling?

In other words, would I need this kind of tower: http://www.thermaltake.com/product/C.../vd4000bws.asp
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post #19 of 20
10/8/07 at 5:14pm
First, any game machine will not last you 5 years, unless you are willing to keep dropping the resolution, which brings me to my first point:

Your monitor/TV: You said it will be hooked up to a Sony XBR2. What is the resolution of this TV? If it is 1920x1080, then you will need a pair of 8800Ultras if you want the computer to play games 5 years into the future. If the TV is 1366x768, then you will probably be ok with a single 8800GTX, but I would budget for a 2nd card in the near future.

Also, does the TV have defeatable overscan? And how well does it handle scaling from lower resolutions like 1024x768?

Bottom line, many of the games coming out will be GPU-limited, rather than CPU-limited, and running at high resolutions such as 1920x1080 will only compound the problem.
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post #20 of 20
10/8/07 at 5:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by olyar15 View Post

First, any game machine will not last you 5 years, unless you are willing to keep dropping the resolution

Yes of course that's what I am going to do, or better then that I will not play the games that asks too much and wait until I get a new computer. Right now I have S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I bought it but haven't played it yet. And I won't play it until i get a new computer that let's me run it on acceptable performance.

Most other games like MMO's runs well on medium settings.

So that's exactly how I am going to proceed in 5 years, there will be games that I won't be to run. So I will either lower the resolution or not play them and wait until I get another new rig.


Quote:
Originally Posted by olyar15 View Post

Your monitor/TV: You said it will be hooked up to a Sony XBR2. What is the resolution of this TV? If it is 1920x1080, then you will need a pair of 8800Ultras if you want the computer to play games 5 years into the future. If the TV is 1366x768, then you will probably be ok with a single 8800GTX, but I would budget for a 2nd card in the near future.

That TV is 1080p trough HDMI only (PS3, XBOX 360 Elite), that is when I play console video games. I dunno if it accept 1080p for the PC I never hooked up my current PC to it.

If not it is 1080i for sure.

Quote:
Originally Posted by olyar15 View Post

Also, does the TV have defeatable overscan? And how well does it handle scaling from lower resolutions like 1024x768?

Well if the TV does not output PC pictures well (Which I doubt, but I have to say it does not handle SD signals well.) But 480P and higher is handled very well.

If not the TV I still have this 17" monitor to use.

Quote:
Originally Posted by olyar15 View Post

Bottom line, many of the games coming out will be GPU-limited, rather than CPU-limited, and running at high resolutions such as 1920x1080 will only compound the problem.

So what do you think I should do then?
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