Is this a good setup for gaming??

[mikeny]

Im building for the first time a conroe system. This will be my gaming machine. I dont plan on overclocking or using raid. Please let me know what you think. Substitutions are welcome. If all possible I need as many responses as posssible by saturday afternoon because I want to start getting parts.

* e6300 conroe
* Gigabyte DS3
* Aerocool ExtremEngine 3T - Black Color with Alumimum Front door
and buy a Antec 2.0 500w PSU (ball bearings aluminum casing)
OR
Antec Performance One P150 ATX case with 430W Neo HE Power Supply

* Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
* LightScribe 16x Double Layer DVD±RW ATAPI/E-IDE Drive
* SoundBlaster X-fi XM
* Powercolor x1800 PCI-E
* Floppy drive
* OCZ Gold Series 1GB Dual Channel PC-5400 DDR2 Memory Kit (Two 512MB DDR2-667 Memory Modules)
* Chipset/heatsink Thermaltake Mini Typhoon for AMD AM2, K8 Intel LGA775, Alll copper with 6 heatpipe Ultra quiet 18 DBA Cooling Fan

 

[battousai831]

budget?

edit: telling us powercool x1800 doesn't mean anything.. please give us the full model name

 

[NMDante]

I think that is the name of the video card: The Powercool X1800 PCI-E. ATI X1800 based GPU, made by Powercool.
*edit*
Unless you meant specs of the card, like amount of memory (ie. 128, 256, 512MB). Sorry.

Anyway, it's a good list.

Let's see...

CPU, check.
Video card, check.
Hard drive, check.
Motherboard, check.
Case(s), check.
DVD/CD drive, check.
Sound card, check.
PSU, check.
Memory, check.
HSF, check.

Only thing missing is OS, monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

Looks pretty decent to me. Maybe upgrade the video, but otherwise, it should be a good gaming unit.

Budget would've been nice, but if you're making a budget gaming rig, those are pretty good items to use. If you can, maybe go to E6400, and maybe another 1GB of memory. Other than that...pretty good.

 

[battousai831]

what i mean is it a xt, pro ect because there are diff levels of x1800s, for example a pro does not proform as well as an xt

edit: i meant how much do you have to put into the comp?

 

[NMDante]

Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Hope I didn't come off as an a$$.

But if he's on a low budget, that's a pretty good setup.

 

[battousai831]

i didn't take it that way, hopefully i wasn't taken that way

 

[NMDante]

Not at all.

It's all good. I was going to say try for a X1900 card, but they didn't drop as much as I thought. $500 to $300-350, isn't bad though.

 

[mikeny]

Thanx so far for input. I have inteli laser mouse (mouse with no balls lol), keyboard, Windows XP Home Edition CD, and I'l buy a 19" LCD monitor. My budget is between $1000-$1300. I picked the e6300 so I can keep my overall cost down and down the road Id upgrade it (year/year and a half). I want to keep my costs down but not sacrificing my ability to enjoy my games and future games as well as my systems safety (as well as mine). I just said Powercolor x1800 because Im still unsure but I believe I will buy a video card from Powercolor. i was reading a do it yourself book and it said Powercolor is reliable and they tweak them a little bit to give a little extra. The x1900's Im guessing are the latest models? I figure a $200-300 model would be good. GDDR3 and the most pipelines are better correct? Are both cases I mentioned good?

Are there any Abit or Ausus mobos equal or better than Gigabyte DS3 or should I stick with it? keep the replies coming. I appreciate it.

 

[NMDante]

Case wise, either is fine.

As for ASUS or ABIT...it depends. I have used both, and am still running both, and a SOYO board, as well. I haven't had an issue with any motherboard I ever tried, so I guess I'm lucky.

Sounds like you have a good setup for some good gaming. With the GPU being a bigger bottleneck than anything else, the only thing you might want to do is get a Crossfire board for C2D. But that comes at a premium, and I don't know how much more of a performance you'd get for the price.

 

[mikeny]

I didnt know ATI slashed their prices. I have a ATI Radeon 9600 in my desktop and Ive never had problems with it. Will the ATI x1900 cause bottlenecks? For my system, what is a good card to avoid bottlenecks.

Im not really interested in corssfire/sli but if I was, whats a good mobo? (just to keep my options open)

 

[okstatefan]

Sounds good so far. My system isn't much different, but I want to make a couple of suggestions.

I've heard of problems with the OCZ ram because it runs at 1.9v and the mobo doesn't like it on initial setup. Most won't POST. I'm using Corsair, but I must have been the last guy to find a good deal on it because the cost has suddenly skyrocketed.

I use to work tech. support for Creative Labs, and they have some great products. However, I love the sound from the Gigabyte onboard audio. It is 8ch and has almost no noticeable THD. I don't run computer speakers on my gaming rig, nope. I run a HK 200w stereo amp and Paradigm mini-monitors with a MBQuart 10" sub. Trust me, I'm use to high end audio and I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on audio equipment throughout the house. I never go cheap, and hardly ever go inexpensive. The onboard audio on the DS3 is VERY good. You could save that money, and put it towards a better video card.

Speaking of which, with the money you save by not getting a sound card, jump up to the x1900xt. When I got a bum eVGA 7900gt (563 PN); I decided to give ATI a chance. This is one heckuva card, and my retail ATI brand card clocks easily to 670core and 775memory. It is a very worthwhile investment for a gaming rig at the current <$350 price.

My case is the Antec Sonata II with a 450w PS.

I have the same HD and it has been a great drive to this point.

________________________________________________

I'm currently running my 6400 at 333fsb, the video at the setting above, same hard drive and no sound card all with the Antec 450w PS. I'm using Corsair XMS 5400c4 memory (wish I had gotten some a little faster for OC reasons) and I'm turning out 6128 on 3dMark06. More importantly, Oblivion runs very smooth with most of the setting close to max (not all the way though, it won't handle that..... I've tried and tried). For a total cost of less than $1000us, I have a system that should last ME a couple of years, and then it will get a few more years of duty as my sons get the hand-me-downs.

 

[chuckshissle]

Lightscribe? Are you in a band or a cd pirate? Those things are costly and still slow. Anyways, with E6300 get 2Gb of XMS2 DDR2 667 and 7900GT would be a great gaming pc.

 

[DaveUK]

I'd definitely try and stretch that budget to an E6400 or even E6600, and up the graphics card to an X1900XT.

Of the two case/power supply options, I'd go for the P150 w/NeoHE, although I upgraded my PSU to the 550w NeoHE to accommodate a new graphics card but your Conroe will need less wattage than my overclocked A64.

I'd also be inclined to choose a Raptor as my OS/installation drive and keep the Caviar as my storage drive. I decided not to budget for this with my build and I'm kinda regretting it, the load speeds are apparently very good with the 10k raptors.

So, its all a case of money.

For gaming, I'd *definitely* suggest an e6400 minimum and X1900XT if you want to have any kind of longevity in that system to last until DX10.

 

[DeMonOfElRu]

Sounds like you have a good setup for some good gaming. With the GPU being a bigger bottleneck than anything else, the only thing you might want to do is get a Crossfire board for C2D. But that comes at a premium, and I don't know how much more of a performance you'd get for the price.

Please don't recommed CrossFire/SLI to someone on a budget. Dual-GPU configs are for enthusiasts and are very bad value for money.

The TC specifically stated he wanted to keep the cost down by getting e6300 instead of higher-end ones. This means he doesn't belong in the enthusiast group. He would be sorely dissapointed if he still went ahead with it.

 

[NMDante]

Sounds like you have a good setup for some good gaming. With the GPU being a bigger bottleneck than anything else, the only thing you might want to do is get a Crossfire board for C2D. But that comes at a premium, and I don't know how much more of a performance you'd get for the price.

Please don't recommed CrossFire/SLI to someone on a budget. Dual-GPU configs are for enthusiasts and are very bad value for money.

The TC specifically stated he wanted to keep the cost down by getting e6300 instead of higher-end ones. This means he doesn't belong in the enthusiast group. He would be sorely dissapointed if he still went ahead with it.

I said that getting a Crossfire board is something to consider, since the price/performance might not be something worth the money.

That's all. But you're correct. I wouldn't recommend a Crossfire/SLI to anyone on a budget. With ATI slashing prices, I would recommend getting a higher video card, but unless the OP wants to push games to it's limits, a single GPU will only go so far.