Lan mean duo machine... advice welcome

[mattyboyywonder]

Hey guys whats going on? So this is my first build and i aiming for a good bang for my buck. Looking for a lean machine, im also going for a mild oc to 3.9/4ghz. Im a gamer mostly rts and fps online. Any suggestions would be great help me mold this computer is a mean machine. Gonna play on 1920x1080 res. Also thoughts on psu? overkill?

CPU- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8400

Motherboard- GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Cpu Fan-ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler

Case- Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Graphics Card- SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

Power Supply- Antec EA650 650W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Memory- Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT25664AA80A

Hard Drive- Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Monitor- ASUS VH226H Black 21.5" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor

Opitical Drive- LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30

Speakers- Logitech X-540 70 watts 5.1 Speaker

Software- Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Licensed for 3 PCs
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders

Keyboard/Mouse- Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 B2L-00047 Black USB Ergonomics Keyboard and Mouse

 

[batuchka]

You picked a LGA 775 and a LGA 1366 motherboard - they are incompatible and for 1920 x 1280 gaming you'd best pump into a 24" LCD for the best gaming experience. In this resolution video RAM would help so look for a 1GB HD4870 at least ^^ For a non multi GPU set up an Antec Earthwatts 500 would suffice IMO

 

[mattyboyywonder]

thanks and that was a typo on the bottom copy and patased too much. Ive been trying to read up on the 1 gb difference and i havent found much to warrant the price difference but ill look it up some more. and i wanna play in a 1920x1080 1080p res not 1920x1280

 

[aevm]

The HD 4870 1GB is worth the extra cash over the 512MB if you play at 1920x1080.

I've already mentioned the GA-EP45-UD3P and 650TX in another thread of yours. You didn't say 1920x1080 there. At that resolution it's important to have the Crossfire ability, so get the UD3P. Change of plans though, forget the 650TX and get the PC Power & Cooling 750W. That one is $90 at Newegg and has 4 PCI-E connectors. You will need 4 of them for HD 4870 Crossfire.

 

[mattyboyywonder]

Ah well the im thinking of buying that other psu is the combo of the 4870 1GB card and the ea650 has a $35 combo discount which is massive! and hard to pass up

 

[sprucebr1]

The Gigabyte board you picked is fine, don't change it unless you intend to use crossfire. The E8400 is LGA775 as is your motherboard selection. Stay away from LGA1366. Sounds to me like the 4870 1GB would be good for your build. G Luck.

 

[average joe]

There's a few 1920 x 1080 22" monitors out there. Is this one of them. That resolution on a 22" might be a little small for just word processing. Your mileage may vary. If you do want 1920 x 1080 video game playing then you either can drop your quality settings or do a cross fire set up.

I would say grab the 1 gig card minimum. You would still have to drop and quality settings at 1920 x 1080 but the price difference between the two is nothing. You could buy 2 4850's and CF them for better quality and frame rates than a 4870. Unless you want to play Railroad Tycoon or something.

I think I would look on new egg to verify the 4870 fits in a 300 case. It's got to be tight. I'm not trying to spread lies just recommending caution.

I had a friend buy a CPU cooler recently and it would fit in his raidmax case without cutting a whole in the crappy PVC window. Now the rest of the window looks foggy because he didn't realize how much heat cutting plastic can generate.


I may be crazy but I think the benchmarks posted on Toms are messed up.
For Crysis no AA trilinear high quality it shows a 4870 512 doing better than a 4870 512 CF. I would verify them before I saved 10 dollars on a video card I can never add ram too.

 

[Nik_I]

if you're going to be playing RTS games, you might wanna consider a quad core. some RTS's can actually take advantage of >2 cores.

 

[aevm]

I think I would look on new egg to verify the 4870 fits in a 300 case. It's got to be tight. I'm not trying to spread lies just recommending caution.

Good idea. I checked the user reviews and it looks like HD 4870 (even Crossfire) will fit in the Antec 300, but it's tight. It might even limit the number of hard drives you can install. If that's a problem, I'd suggest RC-690, Antec 900 or NZXT Tempest.

 

[apache_lives]

second the quads - dual cores are at an end

even look at the AMD Phenom II's

 

[rabidbunny]

Yeah, I would agree with apache. I got my friend who's going to build a $450 rig to switch from an e7300 to a high end phenom. Performance wise, the intel quads are much better than amd's at the moment in most situations. however, in the case of price, the phenom is a cheaper quad core than intel's.