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Guest

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Hey guys! , Firstly i am not a hardcore gamer i only play for 2 to 3 hours a week.

But when i play games i like to play Crysis , Nfs Pro Street mainly the high end games. At the moment i can play them at low settings res about 1680 x 1050 and some of them at medium settings if i put the res to down to 800 x 600 that is.

Now i want to upgrade ! i had enough at medium settings at low res i want high settings and high res!.

how much money do i have? well you can say i got a lot lol, but i do not want to spend all of it on a system which i am only going to play 2 or 3 times a week max. Basicly i need some advise which parts need upgrading and which parts can stay, yes i can buy a quad core and a 4870 x2 but do i realy need that to play crysis on high with 1680 x 1050? i dont know. Please can anyone help and point me to the right direction?

Ok here is my spec:

Intel Pentium 4 D945 3.4GHZ
Fox Conn Intel P945 Mother board
Generic 1 x 4GIG Memmory running at 800mhz
Ati Radeon x1950XT PCI Express
Maxtor 500GIG Sata hard drive

I have vista 64bit installed and when i click on the windows expierence index the lowest score is my cpu.

Thanks for all the help in advance.

 
G

Guest

Guest
I have a 500W PSU but what i had in mind is 4870 X 2 , New mobo, 4 Gig Pc2-8500 and Q6600 CPU. Is that too much?
 
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serpent1202

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It's tought to give recommendations with such little information. If you truly just want a machine that will let you play those 2 games for a few hours a week, you can get by with E8400 CPU, a Gigabyte UD3P mobo, 4 gigs of recent 800 mhz ram, and a 4870.

The question is will you be happy in a year or 2 when your PC isn't keeping up and you thought it would last longer? If you want something just for right now, you could get away with spending about 600 - 700 and you would have a nice machine. But for 1000 you could have a great machine that would be capable much longer.

Let us know your position and we can post components accordingly. Even though you say price isn't a factor, if effects so many other things it really is.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Yes u are right , i want to be able to at least be happy with it for a year or 2 , just say i can spend max 1100.
 
curnel_D

curnel_D

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serpent1202

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Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119047 - $50

Power Supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009 - $135 ($99 after MIR)

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358 - $136 ($117 after MIR)

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041 - $319

CPU Cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003 - $36

CPU Retention Bracket:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233020 - $15

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122 - $40

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801 - $240 ($225 after MIR)

Sound Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102002 - $27

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 - $85

DVD Burner:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118023 - $25

This is $1108, then you get $50 or so back in rebates which will pay for shipping costs.

Some people are going to argue my video card selection. Truth is, that video card will handle games at max settings at 1680 X 1050 perfectly. Also, who keeps a video card more than a year or 2 anyways? It's one of the first components gamers upgrade. This is my exact machine btw, and I have that CPU clocked to 3.77 on that board with that cooler. It booted at 4.25 gigahertz but crashed 5 mins into windows.
 
curnel_D

curnel_D

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@ serphent:
What's the point of all that when he already has case, optical, and hard drive?
Instead he can go with the i7, it will be as fast or faster, and have an x2 card as well.

Instead of just being good for the games already out, he'll be set for the next couple years instead for the same money.

Edit: nevermind. Realised I didnt even want to take it seriously.
 
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serpent1202

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Core i7 was designed with the business user in mind. If you look at the benchmarks, you'll notice no improvements in gaming and hardly any improvements in your average users day to day need.

Now if your doing large audio/video encoding, or database management, etc, then by all means i7 would be a great choice if you want to shell out the extra cash.

Also, I don't know if you want to be able to salvage the old machine to be able to use as a 2nd pc, or give to a family member, or use it in any way then its less practical. If you do, the i7 machine is going to run you closer to 1600 or 1700.
 
aevm

aevm

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So, you've got $1115 after rebate for CPU, RAM, MB, PSU, GPU and nothing else. That's a great build, but a bit pricy. Let me try one now:

Q9550 $320
GA-EP45-UD3P $117
PC P&C 750W $70
HD 4870 X2 $530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129114
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231209

This setup has 8 GB of RAM instead of 6, a slightly faster and better cooled video card, and the CPU is just as good for gaming. Total $1137. Of course, the 8 GB is probably overkill. It depends on what else the PC is doing.
 
curnel_D

curnel_D

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First off, the core i7 is not targeted for buisness users. And if he goes with an x2 card, the performance will be alot higher with an i7 than with a q9550.

@AEVM
That actually is a better priced PSU than I picked. And a core 2 procc with ddr2 will be a whole lot cheaper so that he can get a 4870. But for his monitor size, the 4850x2 will be more than enough. (Not to mention, alot easier to handle the price of it when he has to upgrade in a year.)

The reason I priced in an i7 is because it either performs as well as, or better than the current quad core offerings. (Specially when overclocked.) But mainly because after his two years playing it, he'll be able to upgrade to the most recent procc. (Where I very seriously doubt that intel will keep developing socket 775 processors for the next two years) Not to mention if he really finds that 6 GB ram isnt enough, he can upgrade to 12 later down the road for 130, and likely cheaper later.

And I was going to post the link for the pc p&c PSU you quoted there, but funny thing... The cheapest I found was 110.
 
aevm

aevm

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Are we talking about the same thing? I meant the 4870 X2 is better cooled than the 4850 X2. The 4870 X2 has a vent to kick the hot air out of the case. The 4850 X2 doesn't, it has 2 additional DVI ports instead. Neat idea, if you use 4 monitors, but it makes life harder for the case fans because the hot air stays in. Anyway, both are REALLY nice cards and leave my old 8800GTX in the dust :)
 
curnel_D

curnel_D

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That much may be true. But with a decent case, he should be fine. I doubt he'll be overclocking right away, and with everything running at factory spec, things should be fine.
 
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