Hi all, first post here.

My current computer is dying. I'm not sure what component(s) exactly but it's been a good system for the past 4 years and it's time to rebuild.

Current specs:

Craptastic case with 350W PS.
ASUS A7N8X nVidia mobo
Athlon XP 2.5 GB barton core
1 GB Corsair XMS
GeForce 5700 128 Ram
80 GB Maxtor 7200 8mb
SB Audigy
Dell 19" Trinitron


I want a gaming system that can be upgradable for the next few years, but I want it to run current resource intensive games (Oblivion, Microsoft Flight sim X, etc...) well. I also want this system to be relatively quiet. Hearing my fans is beginning to annoy me.

I haven't kept up on hardware since 64 bit became the standard so I'm quite out of the loop which is why I'm here looking for some help. I'm looking to spend no more than 800 and I plan to recycle my hard drive, DVD ROM, Floppy, peripherals, monitor, sound card, and ram if possible, although I imagine my ram is obsolete now, so I'm expecting to have to replace it.

So here's what I need suggestions on...

CPU
MB
RAM (assuming I need to replace it to be compatible with new board)
Vid Card
Case
PS

As for the case, I like the solid finished aluminum design. I don't want flashy lights or windows and I don't plan on moving it around so weight is not an issue. I just want quiet and easy to work with.

I don't plan on OC'ing (not that I'd know how even if I wanted to) so stock cooling is fine. I may want to upgrade my monitor in the future.

Thanks in advance for your help. I have probably a month or so before I can order the system so we've got plenty of time to chat about it.

sup;

Ok heres the deal if you want to run games like Oblivion at 1280x1024 with high detail settings you are going to need something substantial.
So lets start with the core.
Mobo: Asus with a PCIe x16 slot.
CPU: Intel Core 2 DUO e6600 or higher.
System memory: 2GB of DDR2, Samsung, Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, are all good brands.
GPU: Nvidia 7900GS or higher, or ATI equivillent.
Case: Thermaltake Tsunami Dream.
PSU: 500w True Power, Antec, and Fortron, are good brands.

Im positive we have breached the $800 limit here, but you are going to need something with some balls to get you to the 2 year mark, and you will have to upgrade your graphics card durring that time for DX10 games. You are also going to need to purchase windows Vista.
realistically you are going to have to spend $1000-$1200 for it to do what you want it to do for as long as you want it to do it. So you will need to adjust your limit just slightly, but not by much so its no big deal.

That would be perfect for you (OP) those are awesome parts there and should do everything you wanted them to. No questions, buy those parts. Substitute the vid card he linked with this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121031
same GPU just 30-40$ less, it keeps going in and out of stock every few minutes so get it when you can.

Looks good. You might want to get some cheaper RAM, although DDR2 667 at CAS 3 looks appealing.

No time like the present. The $40 MIR for the Case/PSU combo is only good until next Tuesday. At the bare minimum, buy this combo and maybe memory will drop in price for the holiday season coming up.

Couldn't of said it better myself. And the RAM with CAS latency of 3. Oh, yeah. I was going to suggest DDR2 533, but it's not any cheaper.

Upgrade path: X6800, DX10 video card. You're set.

actually thats pretty cheap for what it his

You guys make it easy lol. LOH, thanks for linking all the parts and the price is right on. Case looks great too.

Xeen, I know Oblivion is a beast from what I've read and heard so I wouldn't expect to be able to run that particular game at high detail and expect to get better than 20-30 fps tops on the system that I'm shopping for. It'd be nice to step up to a $1200 machine but that'd break my bank...trying to buy a house. That is unless you're willing to contribute $400.

It's good to hear that the rest of you agree with LOH's assessment and it builds my confidence and gives me a great base to make my final decisions.

I have a question. Would I see a performance difference in running Vista over XP? I don't know anything about Vista as I just heard about it from a friend a few days ago when I mentioned rebuilding. What's the main difference?

Thanks again everyone for your input.

At the moment the difference in most cases is a decrease in performance in games, maybe 15-20% slower on average IMO. Not all games will even run in Vista at with the public beta current build. MS FSX though runs at only 5-10% slower on my system (dual boot from WinXP Home SP2 & Vista public beta).

edit: This review shows even more of a performance hit in gaming than the 15-20% I estimated: Xbit Labs: Windows Vista for Gamers

Ok, I've done some reading and have found some answers and have come up with some new concerns.

As I understand it.... Vista = DX10 and DX10 = heaven on earth.

I also understand that Vista is due to be released January '07, at which point DX10 GPU's will come on the market (yes?).

Soooooo, would it be worth it to wait until then and get a DX10 card? In addition, I may have some more cash to put toward the system. But until then (because my system is struggling to handle games a year old), I can't play any new games really. Or will it take a few years before we see significant impacts in game quality and performance from DX10 over 9?

Or is it not worth waiting for something that may be delayed anyway (me remembers the HL2 conundrum...as it turned out, the "2" stood for the extra 2 years it was delayed).

It may not be 2 years before you see any DX 10 games you must have but it will be a long time before any good DX9 video card can't handle a "DX10" game.
DX10 cards in WinXP systems will run fine - just not with DX10 features. DX9 cards will run fine in Vista systems - just not with DX10 features. I can't see a lot of people (gamers especially) jumping into Vista early if it's not going to run his/her games better than WinXP. I have 1 game that will support DX10 (MS FSX with DX10 patch due out in Jan) and 1 other favorite game that will NOT currently run on WinXP. So I will not be one of the one to jump on DX10 hardware and Vista early.

If you're not unhappy how your system plays your games right now I'd say wait a bit and research the games you have now, the games in development in the next year and see how DX10 support will affect them. Many "DX10" games will support just a few token DX features and not the whole DX10 spectrum just so they can claim to be "DX10".

Also watch the prices of Nvidia G80 and ATI RD600 DX10 hardware. When the prices drop to stable price points and both NVidia & ATI have stable drivers out there I'll take another look then.

Good call WR2. I imagine the prices for DX10 cards will be more than I want to pay for a while anyway, not to mention a new OS (the first one I'd actually have paid for). I think I'll go ahead and stick to my guns and possibly upgrade to Vista and a 10 card late next year. Thanks!

Bazookaman

LOH system is perfect. But let me do a very small recommendation.
Get 40$ and take the INTEL E6400 cpu.
2.13ghz instead of 1.86 will help.

Good luck

Mike

Ok I'm curious Im a AMD user but I have a question as to why logainofhades would ,when you have a AMD system would recomend to another AMD user an Intel set up??
Im not trying to be confrontational just cruious? 8)

Thx milkam, will do.

its called being a fan of "bang of buck" or "punch for the pound" etc... Not a fanboy..... It would be stupid to recommend an AMD system when the one he did reccomend is SOOO much better

Once you get your system come back and we'll help you get a healthy overclock on it.

Yup Intel system is soo easy to overclock right now. Not like the old p4 northwood and the like. You'll be getting a lot of power from this baby

Mike

Will do guys. Thanks for all your help. I'm ordering the case today to make sure I get the rebate. The rest will have to wait a few weeks, but then I'll be back and begging for help!

I'm baaaaack! That was fast.

GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3

So I think I'll go with the e6400 cpu but I'm wondering what your specific thoughts on the mobo are. I need a firewire port to prevent having to use the PCI card I'm using now. It probably doesn't matter, and I'm probably using this as an excuse to get a slightly better mobo, but is this a really good mobo or would it behoove me to step up a bit?

Best Mobo I know, My friend got it and it's great
ASUS P5B-E Socket T
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131070
And it got a firewire on backplate and a connector on the board for 155$
And well for quality, It's Asus....

Mike