I am actually putting together a new rig to purchase tonight. My budget is about $700, I was wondering if anyone had some good up to date info on what a build that would include's a dual card system (HD 4850 or GTX 260 or higher) would be.
I speced out a rig about 4 weeks ago, but now most of the items are out of stock. Now Im pretty much starting from scratch.
better psu than peanuts build , bigger hard drive but lacks the aftermarket cooler that you'd have to add if you wanted to overclock substantially AND the mb combo wont support two gfx cards :-(
Message edited by Outlander_04 on 07-01-2009 at 04:43:16 AM
^Thats a decent build alright. Don't see how you could go wrong for less than 7 hundred bucks. The stock cooler is good enough for mild overclocking, no need to spend money on another one unless you are planning to do some heavy overclocking.
Well, with my build you could just swap out the 550 for an X3 720, then waive the $5 CPU/RAM combo savings and buy the same RAM. Cost difference = +$19.01
Plus, you've got one really mean 1GB graphics card. You'll have no worries about CrossFire scaling, etc.
The only benefit going from an AM2+ to an AM3 board at present is the use of DDR3, but using it shows little actual benefit in many real-world applications and games. This is due to it's higher latency (CAS 7, 8, 9, and even 10) and slower timings. The difference in performance is not nearly as noticeable as it is on identical GPU graphics cards made in both GDDR2 to GDDR3 versions.
Just as a heads up, last night when I put this together I got in at just under $800, which put me $100 over budget. I was willing to except this given that I was getting AM3, and DDR3 w/Crossfire. When I logged in this morning to put my order in almost all of the prices had changed........#$%!@#@^&. So not I guess its back to the drawing board, I am going to look through all of the suggestions you guys have made, hopefully get something in route.
Well I just realized why the freaking prices all changed on me, it is the first of the month today!!!!
Anyways if anyone sees some good stuff or better hardware suggestions are still welcome, im off to Newegg to start parting out my new Rig all over again. I'll be checking back here periodically.
Ok so here is the skinny, my head started to swim trying to piece together this new rig in one shot, in the end I guess you could say I gave up...
Also I remembered that Newegg usually has a 4th of July Sale, so I took all the items that I saw that had really good deals and bought those items today. Now im going to wait until Sat and purchase the rest, hopefully get a great deal or two. And hopefully not find that I could have saved even more money on the items that I already purchased.
Here is what I purchased so far:
Asus M4A78T-E Combo Deal - Thanks to the suggestion above from Outlander - $112.00(after discount)
AMD Phenom II 3x 720 Part of Combo - Again thanks Outlander - $112(after discount)
2x Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4850 Best price I could find on HD 4850 and it had a nice heatsink and fan setup - $219.98
Corsair 750w I went non-modular as the case I got does not have clear siding - $119.99
Thermaltake WingMA Im just partial to Thermaltake cases, got it on the cheap too - $48.55