Thinking of building a system... have a few questions...

[shaselai]

I want to build a system more toward gaming and would like it to be powerful for a few years not 2... I have a few questions:

1. is it good to go for the "best" or most expensive motherboards and processors?
2. What company is best for motherboards and processors?
3. what are some vital stats i need to make sure i have for motherboards and processors?
4. do i need a quad or duo extreme or just core 2 duo?


I found a couple i think might be good...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115051

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128080

 

[georgy]

Why not go for half that cheap and upgrade 2 times faster? You will pretty much spend the same amount over years but you have the choice of having a monster now or have a baby monster that you can change for new technology in few years

That's my opinion but if you want real help, i suggest you tell us for what you will use the system. If it's only gaming then a duo would be fine, if you do video editing then quads are better...

1- the best thing for me is the compromise between performance and price, thinking what you bought today will worth the half tomorrow

2- I like gigbayte and intel.

3- motherboard:x38/ x48 if you want crossfire

4- like i said it tell us more about your usage

 

[geofelt]

You are focusing on the wrong area. The power of the graphics system is MUCH more important than the CPU.
Unfortunately(or not) the vga cards are getting better very quickly, so that the good cards of today will be mediocre in two years.

If you are going to build today:
Buy the best single chip vga card that you feel comfortable paying for. The best would probably be the GTX280. It will run anything out there decently.
If you want to upgrade it, in a year, sell the GTX 280 and buy the next greatest card.

Most games do not use more than 2 cores, nor will they for a while. Intel core2 cpu's are currently the best in the high performance category. Get a fast duo cpu like the E8500.
There is little value in a premium motherboard unless you are into massive overclocking. A P45 or P35 board should do just fine.
Get 4gb of DDR2-800 RAM in a 2x2gb configuration.

If you can wait until Fall, consider a nehalem based system.

 

[shaselai]

Well I want to play some great pc games coming out next year like diablo 3, starcraft 2, dragon age etc. So I probably will get a very good graphics card. I am not a heavy PC gamer so I probably dont need top of the line graphics cards but the games themselves might demand it... Other than gaming I dont think I will be running too many processor intensive programs.

How fast is a nehalem based system? is it more cores or just improvement on speed etc. on duo/quad core?

I am thinking of quadcore for "future proofing" - sure graphics can be replaced if neccessary but if i start out with a not so good motherboard it will be more of a pain to replace it later...

Also, i would love to have some high def monitors... any suggestions on that? Do I need graphics cards with HDMI for better output or that is just for linking comp to tv?

Any suggestions?

 

[geofelt]

Nehalem will have 4 cores plus hyperthreading.
Clock for clock it should be about 25% faster.
Initial entry will be a 2.66ghz part at about $300.
It will require a new X58 motherboard, and likely DDR3 ram.

At the level of the E8500 or Q9450, the vga card is much more important for gaming than the cpu.
At that level, overclocking is good for bragging, but it will not net you as much increase
in FPS as a better vga card will. Today, very few games can make use of more than two cores.
Flight simulator X is an exception. It is not a trivial matter to code multi threaded programs,
and game vendors will not sell too many games that require quads to run.
I don't see this changing in the next couple of years.

Net: E8500 for the increased clock speed.

HDMI is for sending combined audio and video to a TV. If you are using PC monitors, then almost any video card can drive two of them.
A 24" monitor will display 1920x1200, and a 30" monitor will display 2540x1600. The more pixels that the graphic card has to manage, the better it needs to be to produce acceptable frame rates.
Spend extra to get a great monitor. It is one of the few "future proof" computer things you can buy.

 

[aevm]

Diablo 3 will use Havok physics, which are supported by the HD 4870 and HD 4870 X2. On the other hand, if Crysis is your main priority, get a GTX 280.

Don't buy a $400 motherboard. I've seen a review yesterday where the Rampage Formula ($411 at Newegg after shipping) got 40 fps in Crsys, and the $200 P5Q Deluxe got 39.5. I suspect a $140 P5Q Pro would also get 139 fps. Buy the cheapest motherboard that has all the feature syou need.

The CPU is also of little importance in games, as long as it's fast enough not to cause bottlenecks. For example Q6600 stock and Q9550 overclocked will still get exactly the same fps in Crysis, even though in theory the Q9550 with a massive overclock is a lot faster. The reason is that the video card reaches its limit before even the slower CPU reaches its own. There are exceptions, like FSX, where the CPU speed matters a lot, but those are rare.

 

[shaselai]

Do i need to "step up" from P5Q deluxe? It seems to have what i want.. 8gig memory, decent FSB speed etc. Do I need to worry about north/south bridge? And does FSB matter a lot?
Also saw this one...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128336

is it better off than p5Q?

 

[aevm]

Yes, the GA-X48-DS4 is better than the P5Q Deluxe, especially if you're planning to use it with HD 4850 Crossfire or HD 4870 Crossfire. It works at full x16 on both slots, while the P5Q Deluxe only gets x8 on each slot in Crossfire. The P5Q Deluxe also has some problems fitting certain coolers (e.g. Freezer 7 Pro).

 

[shaselai]

Ic. Is crossfire the way of the future? Also, i heard that even if the motherboard has 2x16 slots it doesn't mean if crossfire is used they both go at 16 but may both go at 8? Is there a way to tell if it goes at 8 of 16 if both are used? thanks!

 

[aevm]

If the motherboard has X38 or X48 somewhere in its description (ex. GA-X48-DS4, P5E Deluxe X48, P5E IX38, etc.) then you get 16x+16x PCI-E 2. If it has P45 (like the P5Q family for example) you get 8x+8x, also PCI-E 2. If it has P35, you get PCI-E 1 slots and one of them runs at 4x. That's like a PCI-E 2 slot running at 2x, and it hurts. The moral is to stay away from P35 if you want Crossfire.

Read these reviews:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761&p=8
http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f22/crossfire-performance-intel-x48-vs-p45-vs-x38-vs-p35-45871/
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index.html

Whether Crossfire (and SLI) is the way of the future.... I think so. It's becoming harder and harder to increase the capabilities of a single video card while still consuming less than 300W and making the card small enough to fit and keeping it cool and getting decent yields. Combining two or more smaller cards solves all this nicely, if the games are optimized to support it too.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I agree with the idea of cheapen the system and upgrade sooner. Video cards have been making huge strides even in only the last year. You can get a pretty powerful card now like a 9600gt for about 100 bucks. If you build a monster now, in 3 years it'll be ok, but probably be almost low end. A way to save is get things that are the middle of the road, maybe a decent chip you can overclock, get a mid range video card, 4 gb of ram, etc. In about 2 years, if you think the system is slow, get a new board, ram, chip and vid card and there you are set for 2 more years.