Tom's Hardware: Topic Computer n00b - Help with New System
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Hello,
I am looking at building a brand new computer system from scratch; however I haven't kept up to date with computer hardware for well over a year and as we all know hardware moves a mile a minute. I've tried reading reviews, but I honestly can't figure out what to look for for what I want, so I'm hoping some people here can help me out 
Basically, I want a gaming rig, something that will run everything to date (Crysis, HL2, etc) at 1920 x 1200 with high, if not highest settings; as well as future titles coming out (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc) with good results on titles for the next 2 or so years.
My budget is maximum $1500 AFTER tax (12%), I only need the computer itself, I have everything else.
Things I'm looking for personally:
- A cool looking case (Maybe with some cool looking LED bars/fans/etc on it?)
- A video card that will last at least 2 years on new titles
- A gaming PC for Windows Vista
- I prefer Intel over AMD
- I Prefer Nvidia over ATI (But I'm open to change if times have changed and ATI is looking good!)
Things I don't need:
- More then 500ish GB of HDD space
- A Blu-Ray Drive
- Water Cooling (Unless this is somehow cheaper? 
)
- A fancy sound card, I've never had a sound card and I find on-board to be perfectly fine for what I use it for.
I live in BC Canada, so sadly I can't use the awesomeness that is newegg.com (There prices are so much better!!!!) so it will have to be built at www.newegg.ca or www.ncix.com
I've read a bunch of the posts here and many of them have all different types of specs, but I don't know what a lot of it means. Any help you guys could provide would be awesome!
Thanks in advance!!!!!
1500$ is quite a budget, here's what i would get...
CPU: Intel Q9550
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] &Tpk=Q9550
it is the new sweet spot for quad cores right now. has a multiplier of 8.5x. if you do get this chip, make sure you get the new legendary E0 stepping. E0 overclocks much better compared to the older steppings such as C1.
it'll OC to 3.4ghz with an increase to 400fsb
Video Card: ATI HD 4870 1gb
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6814102795
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek S1283
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] ek%20s1283
considered by many to be one of the top coolers and is really light on the wallet
Retention Bracket for cooler: Xigmatek Retention Bracket
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6835233019
an absolute need if you're going to use the xigmatek cooler.
and i agree with poster above, go with Vista 64bit and get 4gb of ram
Reply to aznguy0028
Computern00b10000 wrote :
|
hehe, okay, so...basically the bottom line is if you're going for a quad (which i recommend you should), this chip is the best bang for the buck out now on the market. The Q9550 came out with a new stepping called "E0", many of the newest 45nm's chip on intel also has this.
so basically this is how a processor frequency is determined. it is determined by it's front side bus (FSB) and it's multiplier. each model of an intel CPU has a different multiplier. the Q9550 has a multi. of 8.5x and a native FSB of 333 so...
333 x 8.5 = 2.83 ghz <--the speed of your processor (higher is better)
The E8400 first came out with a "C0" stepping, and later came out with the "E0" improvement. same thing with the E8500, and the E8600 is a native E0 stepping processor.
so what is a stepping? basically a stepping is like a new revision for the processor. since processors always have room for improvement, revisions are made along the life of a processor to make it better by fixing functional bugs or manufacturing improvements. they are called "errata", so with new revisions of the processors, more of these are found and corrected which results in better performance.
so for the 45nm's, you have the C0 --> C1 --> E0 which is the newest and best and they result in a much higher overclock ability than previous steppings. Overclocking (OC-ing) is running the CPU faster than it's normal frequency to get more performance.
so what i was saying back there, a newer revision of a cpu will result in better performance/OC. so basically if you want to run your CPU faster, the next logical step for an OC is 400 fsb. so you would get...
400 x 8.5 = 3.4ghz ...so increasing the fsb from 333 to 400, you gain a near 600mhz in free performance.
and for the 4870 card i recommend you, it IS BETTER than the GTX260, there is no doubt about it. and the price is cheaper so the 4870 would be a no brainer.
here's a review on tom's comparing the 4870 512mb to the GTX 260.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1964.html
when they did this review, the 1gb version hasn't came out yet, but the 1gb has some very great improvements. so definitely definitely stick with that good luck!
Reply to aznguy0028
Hmm, I see....interesting
I seem to be able to build the PC for cheaper at NCIX, plus I don't have to pay for shipping that way. Only thing is, I can't seem to find a 4870 1GB at NCIX; am I just blind or do they not have any o.0
As for the quad core, is it really worth it over the core 2 duo? I don't want to end up getting a quad core and have a large number of games not actually use it and it be wasted when I could get the core 2 duo for $110 cheaper 
http://www.directcanada.com/ is a good place for prices...
You can order from ncix if you want and then price match. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here's a review on tom's comparing the 4870 512mb to the GTX 260.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1964.html
when they did this review, the 1gb version hasn't came out yet, but the 1gb has some very great improvements. so definitely definitely stick with that good luck!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The review also does not compare to the newer GTX260-216 version.
Here is a direct comparison of 4870-1gb and GTX260-216:
http://www.extremetech.com/article [...] 453,00.asp
The net is that they are comparable depending....
Message edited by geofelt on 10-15-2008 at 08:14:52 AM
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