Core i7 vs quad vs duo xtreme DDR3??

[venustas]

hey everyone,

I am brand new to this forum...and im SURE this is a recycled question, but I am in a bit of a hurry to order a new pc online this weekend (mine is basically dead in the water) and I cannot decide what is best for me.

I am not familiar with overclocking, not necessarily afraid to do so, but I have no knowledge of it at this point...having never tried on older pc's.

So with that said, I am basically looking for what is best, stock (for a lack of better words), for basic home needs and some gaming. Right now its just WoW, at 1920x1080 on a 22" (this is changing to a 26 or 28" at same ratio in about a week). Will play SOME COD 4 and similar games as well.

so far I am between these builds...if anybody has ANY insight or suggestions, they are truly appreciated. I feel dumb and nooby bringing these things up, BUT its the best way to learn i suppose. I AM under a somewhat tight financial constraint...explaining why my three builds are trying to stay around the $800 mark.

thanks again!

Ven

 

[The Third Level]

i7 is going to be considerably more expensive than the others, as the mobos and DDR3 memory is more costly.

A Q6600 should serve your purpose well. I kinda do recommend OCing, and if you do OC a E8500 should serve your purpose fine.

Also look into the PHenom II X3 720 BE, it's amazing performance for the price.

 

[venustas]

i will look into that phenom, i dont know why i was limiting myself to just intels...

also, i just realized i did not post the 3 builds i had set up online, im retarded.

but ill set up a q6600 and e8500 as well as the phenom II and see what they look like...
any suggestions on the builds? necessary memory minimums if i plan to OC? and if i was to order from something like cyberpowerpc.com or one of those "build it for you" sites... just basic cooling/power supplys ok?

last question...suggestion on vid card? Ill be running single card...i was lookin at the GT9500 512mb/GT9400 1gb...not sure if i'll need to hop up to 1gb or if 512mb is good enough...price is BASICALLY the same between the two though. . . or the baseline ATI HD 3850 1gb...

thanks!

 

[The Third Level]

im suggesting that you build it yourself...it'll save you the middle man, and you will get better specs for the price..and it's fun of course.
If its a single card, i recommend going for a Radeon... maybe a 4850 or 4870.
As for the CPU, I highly recommend the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition...at the moment it is killer for the price...amazing deal.
To save on costs, go with an AM2+ socket motherboard, and use Dual channel DDR2 RAM. 4gb should be fine.

For the PSU I recomment using something good like Antec Earthwatts...you dont want your build to be fried by a cheap PSU... if u OC get at least 400W+.

 

[venustas]

how is the Phenom II X4 810 Quad-Core over the triple-core?
there is a very low price jump to the quad-core, but i dont know if i would be better off with a triple at this point or not.

 

[The Third Level]

It's good too. If you're going to OC i'd go for the 720 tho. It's a black edition.
The extra core wont make a huge diff except for DVD encoding and games optimized for quad cores.

 

[pcwiz1983]

Get a q8200 it runs less hot and quieter than the q6600 which is a huge plus for me. If you get the q6600 You'll be dishing out another 50 dollars to just cool it. Save your money so you can upgrade later to an windows seven. Windows seven requires quad. Also as far as graphic cards get a 260 or two 9800gt sli (remember sli does not share video memory)

All in all stay with xp; if you can... dont get vista waste of money and windows seven will be the true winner. You'll spend no more than 700=800 not including the mail in rebates with this setup.

Also if you are building get a 790i ultra motherboard I have it and its phenomenal especially if u want to oc in the future.

Stay away from amd video cards and processors as almost 90percent of test show nvidia is the clear winner just go to 3dmark vantage and you'll see.

For ram try to get epp 2.0 ddr2 or ddr3 memory this would be one of the most expensive options however hopefully u can get up to 2gb or maybe even 4 for a decent respectable price.


Currently I run all directx 9.0c games on highest setting with this setup:

Motherboard: Evga 790i ultra
Video Graphics: xfx 9800gt sli. At the compusa there are two version one with farcry and the other with a free vantage as well. I got both and got two softwares for free. The cards are awesome btw 200-300 score less (not a really big difference) from the 260 video card.
CPU: Q8200 LOVE IT!!! quiet and all the power I need
OS: windows xp, i hate vista and so does every other proffesional IT tech out there wait for windows 7
Ram: Im cheap so i got regular 2gb ddr3 corsair non epp 2.0 memory for 50.00usd

Your 3dmark06 score should be between 12000-15000 if your get a better cpu it will definitly hit 20000 at 1280x1024 with vsyncy on and no aa/af

All in all this is a great build if your on a budget and setting it up is extremely easy if you know how to read simple instruction and have a screw driver that all you need. (make sure to get anti static bracelet)

Enjoy the life time warranties and all those rebates in the mail.

I will upgrade to vista when it hits below the 100 dollar mark and all the major bugs are fixed. The major bug that still plagues everyone, the os will freeze and you have to restart your pc. As an IT tech even with sp3 it still happens and that primarily has to do with hardware compatibility and windows seven will hopefully address this issue and take full advantage of quad processors.

 

[The Third Level]

Windows 7 does not require a Quad, wtf are you smoking.
Q8200 blows...it's better to spend the money on a 2.8ghz Phenom II 720 ...it's a Black Edition and higher clock.

SLI is overkill for gaming, a Radeon 4850 should serve your purpose fine.

 

[caniba]

Get a q8200 it runs less hot and quieter than the q6600 which is a huge plus for me. If you get the q6600 You'll be dishing out another 50 dollars to just cool it. Save your money so you can upgrade later to an windows seven. Windows seven requires quad. Also as far as graphic cards get a 260 or two 9800gt sli (remember sli does not share video memory)

I have to agree with The Third Level, WTF are you smoking. I am using win7 on a slow stock duo right now and it is perfectly fine. Win7 does NOT require a quad at all.

Again, a cpu does not make noise, the heatsink fan does. Any cpu can be as quiet or as loud as you want depending on the cooling solution that you choose. Most stock heat sinks for any processor are crappy and loud. but even a $20 aftermarket cooler will fix that.

I will upgrade to vista when it hits below the 100 dollar mark and all the major bugs are fixed. The major bug that still plagues everyone, the os will freeze and you have to restart your pc. As an IT tech even with sp3 it still happens and that primarily has to do with hardware compatibility and windows seven will hopefully address this issue and take full advantage of quad processors.

Vista below $100 here.

What bugs? I am running vista on 4 different machines and have never had any problems at all. The freeze issue you are talking about is probably due to your 790i nvidia chipset based mobo, these are not recommended, nvidia didn't do a very good job and they cause way too many issues.

Any newer system with vista is just fine and will not have any issues. Now if you are trying to put vista on a PIII then yes there probably will be a ton of compatibility issues.

To the OP for around $800 go with a E8400 and a P45 chipset. Here is a bunch of good builds to follow.