The MMO-machine...

[Teslasnip]

Hello everyone, I've been planing on getting myself a new computer to keep up with the game developers... My current system is a 5 year old DELL so there are no parts aivble to salvage so it has to be from scratch...

I'm mostly going to use the computer to play MMO-games like EVE Online and Ever Quest 2 to name a few... I will allso be taking breaks form the Onlineworld from time to time to play games such as Command and Conquer Generals and Oblivion... I dont think I currently need the best of the best and my knowledge in hardware is limited...

New build:

Now that you know the usage here is what I've thought of so far and would like suggestions on:
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534 - 649 SEK ~ 92 USD
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz - 2850 SEK ~ 400 USD
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 - 1195 SEK ~ 168 USD
PSU: Seasonic M12 700W - 2198 SEK ~ 309 USD
RAM: Corsair Dominator TWIN2X6400C4D 2048MB - 2895 SEK ~ 407 USD
GFX Card: Sapphire Radeon X1950XTX 512MB - 3495 SEK ~ 491 USD
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor X 150GB - 2250 SEK ~ 316 USD
Optical: Sony DVD-burner AWG540A11 OEM 599 SEK ~ 85 USD

Adding up to a total of: 16,131 SEK ~ 2,268 USD...

What do you think of this build instead of the old one? My main question will it all fit together? I know i can cut the price a bit if i go with a cheaper RAM... And I can also cut it a bit by going for the non X Raptor harddrive... Suggestion and comments are welcome!

Thanks for reading!
//Teslasnip

 

[NamelessMC]

Hello everyone, I've been planing on getting myself a new computer to keep up with the game developers... My current system is a 5 year old DELL so there are no parts aivble to salvage so it has to be from scratch...

I'm mostly going to use the computer to play MMO-games like EVE Online and Ever Quest 2 to name a few... I will allso be taking breaks form the Onlineworld from time to time to play games such as Command and Conquer Generals and Oblivion... I dont think I currently need the best of the best and my knowledge in hardware is limited...

Now that you know the usage here is what I've thought of so far and would like suggestions on:
Chassi/Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534 Black/Silver (No built in PSU)
Motherboard: Abit IN9 (Where choosing between that, the Asus Striker and the EVGA 680i boards)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme QX6700
PSU: Enermax Galaxy 850W
RAM: Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5D
GFX Card: Asus GeForce 8800 GTX
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor X 150 BG
Optical: Sony DVD-burner AWG170AB2

This adds up to a total of 30000 SEK ~ 4250 USD... That is pretty much the budget but I would like to cut it a bit... Maybe as much as 1000 USD... I know the RAM, CPU and GFX Cards arnt the cheapest but its the best i can do with my knowledge... So any help and suggestions on a better build is very welcome!

Thanks for reading!
//Teslasnip

Bad spender! Bad bad bad spender!

First of all, an 8800GTX, while the best card in the market, doesn't have any real bench-marks to prove that the DX10 and super expensive and hot running G80 core is worth the $600 price tag.

Most MMO's right now are using and/or are planning on going DX9.

Unless you meant MMO-machine in terms of MMO games in general- Counter Strike, The Passage, Left 4 Dead, Quake Wars etc.

If that's the case, even then you'd be an ass-first donkey to go with an 8800GTX because you have NO idea how those games will run on that card.

Check out: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

Secondly, is a QX really necessary? I mean if you even have the competence to know how to adjust video settings in a game's options, you have the intelligence quotient to be able to over-clock a CPU.

With your budget you could easily just get an E6600, 4MB L2 cache and hit over 3.5 ghz and it'll last years upon years.

 

[rickpcnerd]

u might want to wait for the new AMD and ATI coming out this April or March. They already tested Pre ATI R600 card vs Nvidia 8800 gtx, and ATI beat the shit out of Nvidia in all games. ATI resulted to be much faster, 28% better graphic quality, Shader model 4.0, and better shaders since they added a new shading technology that nvidia dont have, and faster card ram since its using GDDR4 and nvidia is using GDDR3, less power consumption only 200w while nvidia requires almost 500 w, this means you save money on power supply. Amd claims to recrown again with its new core, hopefully its truth. Just wait, we are almost there.

 

[NamelessMC]

u might want to wait for the new AMD and ATI coming out this April or March. They already tested Pre ATI R600 card vs Nvidia 8800 gtx, and ATI beat the **** out of Nvidia in all games. ATI resulted to be much faster, 28% better graphic quality, Shader model 4.0, and better shaders since they added a new shading technology that nvidia dont have, and faster card ram since its using GDDR4 and nvidia is using GDDR3, less power consumption only 200w while nvidia requires almost 500 w, this means you save money on power supply. Amd claims to recrown again with its new core, hopefully its truth. Just wait, we are almost there.

THIS GUY IS LYING DON'T BELIEVE HIM. THERE ARE NO BENCHMARKS TO SUPPORT AN R600 BEATING THE 8800GTX.

The only benchmark of an R600 had no pictures of the video-card or image quality and the website it was published on has no history prior to December 2006.

Very shady.

Ignore ATI fan-boys and figure out the best way to nose-dive the market.

 

[AlaskaFox]

I doubt EQ2 will support DX10 for a looooong while. it took EQ1 forever and a day to come up with a newer graphics engine, and with a game as large as 2, I doubt they are too willing to rewrite the engine yet. EVE likes supporting the newer technoligies so it may be a little more benificial there, but I doubt by much. for now, both are highly sensitive to the CPU (single threaded atm, EQ2 forces itslef to single core affinity as a "bug fix") and will benifit from the extra clocks, but the QX is overkill for the cost, and you can get most other Duo's to match it in performance for much less $$. Also both are heavily memory intensive so that may help. video card, an 8800 is pricy but it will work. I run EQ2 on a X1900XT and cant ask for much more. here, you can go with whatever suits your fancy and budget however.

 

[Teslasnip]

As I said my knowledge with hardware isnt the best... I was aware that the QX would probably be overkill.. So the suggestion is going for an E6600 and trying out overclocking? That will cut the costs quite a bit...
And as for the graphics card... I know that EVE is working on updating there graphics engine with both a DX9 and DX10 version... And also the upcomming Age of Conan MMO will as far as I've heard be based on DX10... Hence why I thought I'd get a DX10 card so I dont have to update when it gets out...
So changing to an E6600 will cut the price a bit... What about the RAM? Are those dominators the way to got or are there more efficent RAM out there that I should look into instead?
And another question is, will all that on the list fit together or should I change the PSU or Case or something else?
Another option is also getting a "decent" more budget computer for now and get something like this later on when he prices comes down... But then I have no idea what motherboard and such to use if I would for example go with the X1950 XTX...

 

[Teslasnip]

OK new build edited into the first message... Some comments and suggestions are welcome!

 

[Chrisb6122]

Hey, you may reckon the username from eve-online, so ill try to give you a bit of advice,

Eve-online for example still uses a Dx7 Engine and can be run quite well if you clear your cache often enough on 4-5 year old machines with multiple clients, as for everquest Im not quite sure.

Your pc as a whole seems a bit extreme, I went with the GTX and have been regretting it ever since, should of got a GTS and upgraded the CPU.

About the whole r600 vs. GTX debate I frankly don't know enough to give you an informed decision, so just try to base your choice on fact but not opinion

Nice pc spec there but take a bit of time to read these forums lots of knowledge to be had,