Buying NEW rig tell me what you think *specs*

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fiewtoid

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
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If you can find one, the new core 2 dual core penryn E8400 is running 190 (microcenter in dallas) to 230 (shipped from ZZZ). Worth the extra money for the chip imo.
 
DO NOT get any nVidia chipset motherboard unless you're absolutely running SLI. Get a P35 Intel board.
 
1. Get Penryn chip instead (E8400 looks like it'll be the best bang for your buck - should cost about the same as the one you list). Newegg should have these any time now...

2. Here's a good P35 mobo if you don't need RAID (and its $40 cheaper than the one you list):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059&Tpk=GIGABYTE+GA-P35-DS3L

3. Spend the extra money to upgrade your video card to an 8800GT ($120 more, but worth it!):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130318
 
May I recommend one of the Corsair PSU. The HX series is great and I have used it and find that I will probably never buy a PSU thats not Corsair.

About the GPU: the 8600 is a piece of junk. You might as well pickup the 256 mb 8800GT for that price. ( but that would depend on the level of gaming you do).
Good v.card option are:

1. 8800 GTS 512mb (~$320)
2. 8800 GT 512mb (~ 260-290)
3. HD 3870 512mb (~ $240)
4. 8800 GT 256 mb (~ $180)
Prices are in $CDN

For the hard drive rather than spending $70 for a 250 gb get a 500gb for $99. Both western digital and Seagate are good.

For the mobo I think the MSI Neo-FR2 is the best board for a low price right now. Just my 2 cents I hope this helps.
 
I have an aspire full tower case with a modular volcano 630watt psu in it, and a cd/dvd burner and a cdrom drive.

http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Power-Supply-Units/Raidmax-Volcano-630-Watt-Power-Supply/

I am thinking about the corsair psu, but I don't know.

What are the big differences about the msi and gigabyte boards besides price?


and the 8800 GT vs GTS?

probably will do the 500gb drive. Are the cavaliers good? I was kind of skeptical about them when they came out. I am more of a WD fan then seagate, but the barracudas were pretty good when they came out. I am lost in HardDrive selection.
 
i take it this is a budget gaming rig? If so, get the 3850Hd or the 8800GT. Buy a cheaper m/b as what u have is overkill.

Get a cheaper cpu if it's a budget. anything but the 8600GT!!!
 
chrispycrunch said:
i take it this is a budget gaming rig? If so, get the 3850Hd or the 8800GT. Buy a cheaper m/b as what u have is overkill.

Get a cheaper cpu if it's a budget. anything but the 8600GT!!!
Click to expand...

There isn't really a budget, but I just don't want to spend more than a grand. I can go over just want to kind of make a limit instead of ending up near 2 grand.


I just wanna know the differences between the motherboards. either the gigabyte or msi.
 
fiewtoid said:
There isn't really a budget, but I just don't want to spend more than a grand. I can go over just want to kind of make a limit instead of ending up near 2 grand.


I just wanna know the differences between the motherboards. either the gigabyte or msi.
Click to expand...

General rule is to stick with ASUS or ABIT. I actually went with Gigabyte, because when the e6300's and so on came out, there was a lot of support in the forums for the ds3/ds3r. A mobo is only as good as the community support so that is why I went with the DS3R.

You should also know that the support is very good on their site, too. They already have 12 bios releases, so that is another plus. Yes, annoying to keep flashing/changing but if it fixes out the bugs, i'll choose that inconvenience.

You should be fine at $1k. I spent that much and not a penny more! I don't need super-power but I do need at least 3GHz.
 
Overall Gigabyte is a very good choice for motherboards. My last 4 motherboard purchases have all been gigabyte (and yes, I looked at other choices first). The 2 nForce4 motherboards I'd only rate as decent because the northbridge sucked, but that was really nVidias fault anyway. Some gigabytes are decent, basically, and the rest are great.
 
My suggestion is 4gb ram and a 3850. Try an abit IP35-E board, and a Core2 8400. That seems to be the way to go, and power it with a Corsair VX 450.

Should set you back much less than a grand.
 
Repeating wat i said: get the corsair psu (get the 620 hx or the 650 vx your pick)


You can go for the ASUS P5K-E mobo if you want. It has built-in wireless support which is kinda cool if you have other devices that use wi-fi.

Also, get the 8800gTS over the gT since you'll need an after market cooler for it and that will make te price of the gt less practical over the gts. A good after market cooler does not cost $20 dollars if u add the shipping the taxes and thermal paste (extra ram sinks etc. etc.)

Get the gTS over the gT.

my 2 cents (cos right now i'm broke:))
 
Gigabyte P35 board with E8400 and Radeon 3850 (or 8800GT for a little more if you don't want the Crossfire option) is a great choice.

As for power supply I like PCP&C Silencer PSU's as they are very stable and high quality, but might be more than you're willing to spend. $75 for the 470w, $120 for the 610w, or $150 for the 750w.
 
Okay let me be more specific this time around.

I would get a cheaper mobo like the ABIT IP35-E.

If you can wait a while get an E8200 instead of that CPU because it should be a similar price but based on newer technology. Or if you jumped on that Microcenter deal and got an E8400, even better.

That RAM is also way overpriced. You should be able to get 1GB for less than $25 even without any rebates. So your 2GB should be less than $50 like these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...052308477+1052416064&name=DDR2+800+(PC2+6400). I know Patriot and Kingston have great RMA service too.

Since youre saving some on the RAM and mobo now you might think of getting a better video card. Something in the $200 range maybe? Cant be more specific because I kinda stopped paying attention after I got my 8800GT (which is $250 if you want to go a little higher).

The hard drive is nice but you might be able to save some more if you wait for the occasional deals to come up at Frys or Staples. Seagate is a great brand though.

As for power supply if you want to keep it cheap but good it seems the Antec Earthwatts are decent. Corsair again is nice but kinda pricey. And anything over 550 I would say is overkill for your system. Even if you did get a 8800GT.
 
So I am looking at my parts to buy now and I am looking at newegg, zipzoomfly, and tigerdirect. It seems like tigerdirect has everything 20-30$ cheaper on almost all of the parts I want. I was just wondering what are your thoughts on tigerdirect??
 
fiewtoid said:
So I am looking at my parts to buy now and I am looking at newegg, zipzoomfly, and tigerdirect. It seems like tigerdirect has everything 20-30$ cheaper on almost all of the parts I want. I was just wondering what are your thoughts on tigerdirect??
Click to expand...

My main gripe with Tigerdirect is that they always list their products by their after rebate price, not the full price you have to pay up front first. Very misleading IMO. And stupid.

That's why you think Tigerdirect has everything $20 to $30 cheaper. That's because they're listing those parts by their after rebate price, not the price you have to pay up front. And once you factor in the full price that you have to pay, it's cheaper to shop elsewhere.

What parts are you planning to get?
 
fiewtoid said:
Motherboard $140
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130081
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Hell NO! Get a nice P35 mobo, like an Asus P5K-E same price. You'll be glad you did!!


fiewtoid said:
Core duo 2.66ghz $189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029
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NO! For the same price or slight more you can get an e8400, that will overclock higher and cooler.

fiewtoid said:
2gb ram $77
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034
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Sure whatever, Corsair is good. I'd prefer to get some G.Skill with faster timings/speed as you'll need some ram that does at least ddr2 900 to overclock that e8400.
G.Skill ddr2 1000 = $70 (cheaper & faster)


fiewtoid said:
XFX Nvidia 8600GT $126
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229
Click to expand...

Decent videocard. It would be better if you could scrounge up for an 8800 of some sort, but if you're not a big gamer and 8600 will do fine.

fiewtoid said:
Seagate Barracuda 250GB $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148262
Click to expand...

Who cares about harddrives, as long as it doesn fail on you.

My rig with basically all the same harddrive I recommended (see sig):
e8400-1.jpg


I could probably do 4Ghz, but I don't want to give it more than 1.3v (in BIOS) which only reads like 1.28v in windows.
 
cpu: e8400
mobo: ABIT IP35-Pro (debating this and the asus p5k)
ram: g.skill 4gb (I will try it out)
video: evga 8800 gts
psu: corsair hx 620
hdd: seagate 750gb 7200.11rpm 32mb



edit: running windows xp(already have a copy) not sure if I want to go for vista....
 
That looks good, just please make sure you get the 512mb 8800gts instead of the 320mb or 640mb version! And in my opinion if you are going to be running 32bit Windows XP I would stick with 2 x 1gb of ram at the moment.

fiewtoid said:
cpu: e8400
mobo: ABIT IP35-Pro (debating this and the asus p5k)
ram: g.skill 4gb (I will try it out)
video: evga 8800 gts
psu: corsair hx 620
hdd: seagate 750gb 7200.11rpm 32mb



edit: running windows xp(already have a copy) not sure if I want to go for vista....
Click to expand...
 
fiewtoid said:
cpu: e8400
mobo: ABIT IP35-Pro (debating this and the asus p5k)
ram: g.skill 4gb (I will try it out)
video: evga 8800 gts
psu: corsair hx 620
hdd: seagate 750gb 7200.11rpm 32mb

edit: running windows xp(already have a copy) not sure if I want to go for vista....
Click to expand...

Looks much better. THAT will be a bad ass system. I still prefer Asus as they have better BIOS support in general (less problems, faster response to new microcode, etc.) Like Asus came out with support for Wolfdale & Penryn (45nm) on its older 965 motherboards weeks & weeks ago, before you could even buy the chips!
 
Danny Bui said:
Well what features do you want in a motherboard?
Click to expand...

um right now just a stable board might overclock. Don't need wireless just a good quality board that will last me a while.



ballistic said:
That looks good, just please make sure you get the 512mb 8800gts instead of the 320mb or 640mb version! And in my opinion if you are going to be running 32bit Windows XP I would stick with 2 x 1gb of ram at the moment.
Click to expand...

yes it is the 512mb 8800gts

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130312
 
quick question will I be able to use my ide cd rom drives with either board or will I have to buy new sata cd rom drives??
 
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