Core 2 Duo -- need advise

[petachok]

Hello guys, this is my first post on these forums. The school season is starting soon and I'm thinking of building my own PC. Why did I decide to build my own? Well after going through several local computer stores + some bigger ones such as Future Shop, I realized that they price decent PCs from 2000 CAD. Cheaper PCs are just not good enough for gaming + video editing. (For example all HP pcs are equipped with $60 video cards :|)

Anyway right now my budget is $1500 CAD. I've been doing some reading lately and it seems that the Core 2 Duo E6600 is the best option. As far as the video card goes, I'm leaning towards the 7900 GT, however if there are better alternatives within my budget I'm open to suggestions. For the motherboard I am thinking about the ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe. But then I've read a lot of threads praising gigabyte, so I'm not sure which one to go with. I have no clue which memory to go with, and I'm not sure about the other parts. This is where I need help.

I haven't included any prices here because I want to be sure about the exact parts I need before I start searching for good deals. I have, however, did some price comparisons between parts bought in US and Canada. For some reason, things in canada cost much more than things in the US, even after currency conversion + shipping. Do you think it would be smart to order from the US?

Lastly, at this point I can still live with my old 1.8 Ghz computer for a bit less than a month (more if really necessary). Do you guys think it's a good idea to wait for the core 2 duo prices to drop and/or more info to come out about Vista and DX10? Would the price drop be significant within such a short timeframe?

Any suggestions / advice will be really appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Assman]

I'd say e6400 is the best option, very good ocer, available for purchase, not very expensive, VERY good performance even at clock speed :!:

 

[majoravatar]

Your question is kind of all over the place. What do you need your computer for? Just gaming and video editing? Overall, within your budget I would suggest the Intel P965 chipset over the 975. Lots of people like the 975 better (including me) but since you probably aren't looking for SLi (out of your price range), there really isn't any point in going that route. Having said that, the ASUS P5B is a good, mid-priced mobo which seems like it would fit your requirements (and save you $100US over the P5W-DH).

Definately get a Conroe E6400 if you're trying to save money. The E6600 is great, but it is currently overpriced, and I don't expect that to change before November. By no means should you get anything better than the E6600.

Video cards are a tough sell, since NVidia is better at some things and ATI is better at others. Overall, I would suggest reading the following thread and buying the most expensive card you can afford.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Short-List-Gaming-Video-money-ftopict169937.html

The only other important things to consider are PSU, HD, and memory. Corsair always makes a good stick of RAM. Go with DDR2-533, 2GB. Timings shouldn't be that big an issue overall at this price range. A good PSU for this system would be the OCZ Modstream 450W PS or the FSP400 400W PS. Whatever you get in the way of a PSU, make sure it comes from a reputable company, (like OCZ or Fortron) and that it has active power factor correction. As for the hard drive, no question. If you want speed get one of the Raptor series 10,000 RPM hard drives. If you want speed and size, get one of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives. The former is faster but only comes in capacities up to 150Gb. The latter is cheaper (especially per Gb), isn't quite as fast, and has capacities up to 750Gb.

As for the question of when you should buy: buy now. If you wait, people will always tell you to wait a bit longer because something great is about to come out. While technology continually improves, no individual component has come out in the past 10 years that has made everything before it obsolete. Also, since prices won't decline anytime real soon on Conroe, go for it now. Furthermore, waiting for new technology means that when that technology comes out, you still won't be able to afford it.

Hope it helps...