First Intel build, suggestions?

[TOOzeroSICKz]

Should I go with dual core or get a 6xx with HT? I will not be gaming at all. I use photoshop, dreamweaver, some 3D programs in the future and encode video. I could probably go with a cheaper video card. Probably won't build for a month or 2 though. I'm new to OC/ing but will want to OC this.

Heres what I was looking at:

Intel Pentium® D Processor 830 3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, Socket 775, 2x1MB Cache, Dual Core $317.90
Asus P5WD2 Premium 955X P4/Celeron 1066FSB LGA775 DDR2 ATX Motherboard $174.25
Antec TruePower 2.0 TP-II 480 Blue 480W Power Supply $99.99
Corsair TWIN2X1024-8000UL 1GB Kit DDR2-1000 XMS2-8000 Xtreme Performance Memory $270.00
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer $126.00
GIGABYTE GV-RX80256D Radeon X800 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 $196.00
Silver NEC 3540 DVDRW $48.95
Silver floppy $13.00
Thermalright XP-120 w/ LGA adapter $54.99
AS ceramique $12.99
Lanboy $78.00

Total = Under $1450

 

[xonik]

The 800 series is a very appropriate choice for your applications. However, I would look more carefully at your videocard selection, especially if you plan to move into professional 3D applications in the future. Check out some benchmarks of the applications you intend to try, then pick your videocard based on that.

You might also want to buy another hard drive for the sake of a backup drive or a redundant drive (for RAID 1). It depends on how important your data is. Surely I wouldn't do any professional work on a computer with any single hard drive of any price, let alone a desktop hard drive with many design revisions (the SE16).

 

[TOOzeroSICKz]

I have an external hard drive that I do regular backups on. I will research the vidcard more, I don't know much about them. I don't know what 3d programs I'll use or if I even will, its speculation now. Just depends what route I take for school.

 

[xonik]

Oh. Well, it's my impression that NVIDIA has a good hold on the professional 3D market, so you might want to glance over some benchmarks and see for yourself. I wouldn't go so far as buying a Quadro or FireGL card at this point, but definitely check out your options while you have a chance.

 

[SirKenin]

Looks like you are planning it right to me.

 

[EricNS]

can anyone link to a "head to head" comparison of a several AMD x2's with there Intel counter parts? My friend does purely photoshop/dreamweaver/flash. So if it compares them in respect to those programs, i would appreciate it.

 

[m0unds]

lots of desktop apps have sse2/3 optimizations.. afaik, intel cpus are the only ones with sse3 at the moment, but that'll inevitably changed.

besides, who knows how much of a performance increase you'd see with the extra instructions.

 

[Dan_D]

lots of desktop apps have sse2/3 optimizations.. afaik, intel cpus are the only ones with sse3 at the moment, but that'll inevitably changed.

besides, who knows how much of a performance increase you'd see with the extra instructions.

Not true. Revision E Athlon's and Opterons built on the 90nm process also support SSE3. X2's are part of that group and so are Opteron dual core processors.

 

[xonik]

can anyone link to a "head to head" comparison of a several AMD x2's with there Intel counter parts? My friend does purely photoshop/dreamweaver/flash. So if it compares them in respect to those programs, i would appreciate it.

GamePC uses several 2D and 3D applications in its testing suite. Photoshop CS2 is on page 8. Use the site's navigation to jump to the pages you want:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=a64x2

I don't remember seeing any Flash or Dreamweaver benchmarks before, so I can't help you there.