Gaming PC advise please

u dont sound too sure about what u want so just pick up a cheap A64 setup and any vid card with 16 piplines or more and u'll be flying high in the frames. I was @ bestbuy today and they have the x800xl for 399cdn and the x850xt for 499 so that might be worth looking into.

The know-most-of-it-all formally known as BOBSHACK

Let's see:
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681..." target="_new">case</A>
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1682..." target="_new">ram</A>
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681..." target="_new">cpu</A>
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681..." target="_new">vid</A> or <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681..." target="_new">vid2</A>
and <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681..." target="_new">mob</A> that sucks

What a shitty case! Look at the grills behind the exhaust fans, no flow!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

I don't think the board is that bad, not nearly as bad as the case!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

I was actually just following his lead

but then again, I'm not all that fond of Msi. I still prefer the abit <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">board</A> or one of the Asus K8N boards.

THats not too bad, listen to the other advices, I'd try to get the money for a X800xl or a 6800gt. Thats will be really helpfull in games.
Listen to anything crash says :wink: , seriously that case is cute but it looks cheap.Hceap case come with cheap PSU and thats the best way to have instability!

Ram is ok for the price I guess.

Cpu dont get anything higher specially for games it wont help nearly as much as a faster vid card.



Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

anferny:
Why going with socket 754?
If you get socket 939 you have the option of upgrading to a double core CPU in the future, and AGP cards will begin to phase out.
With socket 939 you can get a PCIe video card, that's gonna be a little bit more expensive than the AGP but overall if you don't have a great AGP card that you want to keep I think socket 939 is the better choice.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

There is no question that the s754 is the cheaper way to go. But drunky is right... you will lose a lot of upgradability. If you are building a rig from scratch (like it looks like you are) I like going with the s939. If you see yourself not upgrading this system at all for a few years and then buying a whole new system (some people do this) then it might be good to save a little money and go with the s754. You will be able to save some money on an AGP card which will run just as fast as the PCI-e card.

what do you people suggest? I wanna spend like $800-$900.

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">Mobo $109.99</A>
<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">CPU $146</A>
RAM the one you picked is fine as long as you don't OC so $79
This is $334.99 pick a good case and spend the rest on the video card.



<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

Thanks dunklegend, One question what's wrong with the other case? The airflow or something?

Well for one I just looks cheap.
And what Crashman mentionned is bad airflow. Look at the picture that you see the back of the case. Look how small the whole ro exhaust aire from he fans are. Thats will seriously reduce airflow and thats really important to keep your hardware cool!
Look a this case to see the difference(Click on the case too see more picture and loook at the back)
<A HREF="http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=61088..." target="_new">Click</A>
This case is probably too expansive for your needs but you will see the difference!

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

Pick the one you want, it's up to you but it's nice to get one with good airflow, removable mobo tray, rails for the HDs and optical drives.

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">This </A> is my case, it's not a Lian Li but it has a removable tray, 6 fans, 2 USB ports firewire and audio on the top, thumbscrews and rails for 5 hard drives, and several optical drives.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

You are not getting a beast of a rig that will produce huge amounts of heat. Buy a case that looks the best to you and has the best price. Be practical. Air flow is not going to matter on this system, it will not produce enough heat to warrant a gaming case. <A HREF="http://www.anitec.ca/?mode=product_detail&pid=1005&mcid..." target="_new">Here</A> is a case that I have built in for many clients some with beefier rigs than what you are buying (girls really like this case cause it has lots of lights). It works great and has more than enough air flow... as well, this one comes with a PSU that I have also used to build many rigs with (its a bargain for the price IMO).

The case I linked to has a good PSU. 420W Raidmax. I say it's good because I had no problems with it and I used it about a year before buyin my 500W Fortron bluestorm.

See if you can get that Raidmax case in Canada and give it a try it has lots of room and 6 fans, so if you build a Prescott rig it can help.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

If I build a Prescott rig, I am going to use it as a space heater :smile:

P.S. Just kidding I'm not that much of an AMD fanboy... and I know that the Intel heat issue has been solved to a certain degree... I just couldn't resist.

Drunky are you running an Intel right now?

No. But I could. With all these fans my case looks like a rockstar.

Raidmax Case W/Fortron Blue Storm 500W PSU
EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra (A64 3000+)
Corsair (2 x 512MB)DDR
eVGA Geforce 6600 256MB PCIe
WD 80GB + WD 200GB + Maxtor 200GB + WD 250GB
NEC DL DVD Burner BENQ DL LIGHTSCRIBE DVD Burner

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

Do you have any kind of RAID setup on the HDDs

Have you used the LightScribe yet? Do you like it if you have? How is the quality of the image? Is the software user friendly, or at least any good at all?

No RAID, the 80GB HD is partitioned about 40 for the system and the other 690GB for storage.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

Why no RAID?

I burned a label with high quality, It was a rap mp3 cd I put the names for every artist with different fonts just to see which fonts were blurry, all of them looked great. The label also had a picture of 2 Pac and it looks like a black & white photograph, great quality.

The cds are golden and everything you burn in them is shown in a grayscale.

I have the NEC as my primary burner but I was gonna get a DVD so I could burn on the fly without having to save in the HD, and my wife told me that since the price difference wasn't much I should get another burner.
I wanted to try the lightscribe one so I bought it and I'm pretty happy with it. I've shown the cd to my friends and they were impressed with the quality of the label and the fact that it was burnt on the CD instead of printed.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

I don't care for the speed or the reliability, I care more for the storage space. I have too much stuff. Do you have something good you can share, I still have a few free GBs.
 

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

I don't have anything to share... of course not... I try not to do anything illegal...*looks around*... well I'll just be leaving now then...*slips drunky a 160GB HD with at least 50GB of MP3's and another 40GB of movies/games*... see ya...

I don't have anything to share either.
Maybe we can swap empty HDs what do you say?  

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

Ok, we can swap... but I have to go out and buy a new HDD first so that I can transfer all that dead space you have aquired through the years onto my new HDD... and I need my blank HDD back cause it has a really cool sticker on it that I have spent countless nights downloading/pasting it on.

Which P2P programs do you use so you can transfer all that nothing.

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

I'm going with dunk's case. I changed the RAM.
Here's what I'm going with until I get a new video card:
Mobo- http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681...
Case- http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681...
Processor- http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1681...
RAM- http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1682...
Speakers- http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E1683...
Thats $574.81, any ideas on video card thats $200-$300 and can play something like Half Life 2 with max quality or good settings with Farcry.
This one is cheap, but I heard good things about it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681...
This one is expensive and I cannot find any benchmarks here, but it seems worth it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681...

Fishy / Drunky keep highjacking the threads!@!@!!
GO see wingding in the other he will trade some stuff with yall :wink:

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

Hey man anferny is set, he just needs a video card recommendation and I don't have enough knowledge in that area.

BTW wanna trade nothing?  

<font color=orange>Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening<font color=orange>

You have shown 2 AGP video cards... your board does not have an AGP slot. I would suggest looking into PCI-e video cards if you would like something more impressive than a wall orniment for your $300.

Good call on the no AGP slots, i didnt notice, i didnt ever check. lol, ill look for a different mobo then.

You seem to like ATI so I have picked one of there cards for the top of your budget, I have picked the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB</A>

For the low budget card I would go with this <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681..." target="_new">Chaintech 6600GT 128MB</A>

The 6600GT is almost half the price of the X800XL but it doesn't perform that much worse. Have a look at <A HREF="http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/vga-c..." target="_new">this review</A> to get an idea of how they compete. I have put the linky straight to the Half Life 2 benchmark because I knew that was what you were interested, but I would suggest looking around it a little.

I know that many of you are giggling right now because I linked to Tom's for a "good review" but this is actually a review that I can believe (seeing as it doesn't have any intel products in it). It is often the only review that I can read right now on Tom's.

No... don't change the mobo, I thought that was the mobo that drunky recommended to you... you want to stay with PCI-e slots. PCI-e is the "newer" technology. You can still get a good PCI-e 6600GT vid card with the money you have left over.

This card is not going to be the best performer in these games, but I would normally suggest a 6800GT for someone that wants the performance that you seek, but it is just out of your range. Check out the review that I gave above.

Listen to "starphishing" lol :smile: [new nickname]
If you're building the system from scratch PCIe is the option with more future. AGP will be phased out and very few new video cards will support it.

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>

HEY!!! You aren't allowed to nickname me. I didn't think that you would ever stoop so low as to start implying that I was less than sober with a derogitory nickname.

Don't worry no more nicknames!
Is the email in your profile the one you use?
Maybe I can add you to my distribution list for jokes and all kinds of fun stuff?

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>

Nope, I don't even know if that email is even there anymore. But you can send it to tsamis@hotnhorny.ca if you want. I check it pretty regular. But don't tell anyone else what my address is please, I would like it to be kept confidential.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Starfishy on 07/06/05 12:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

done you can edit out your email now

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>

I was actually just kidding... I don't really care if the guys here have it... many of the regulars already do have it... many of them have sent me pics of water cooling and such.

But now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I really want EVERYONE to have it... I might edit it out after all.

Edit it- trust me. mail bots can harvest your addy from the forums.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>

*...breathes heavily over newly acquired email address...*

"Like a scrotum, there it is in a nutshell."
<font color=red>Roll Tide!</font color=red>
<A HREF="http://www.cameronwilliamson.com" target="_new">-={Apathetic As<i></i>shole.}=-</A>

I already did edit it... I don't actually belong to the domain hotnhorny.com

Had me wondering if you were really Wingy...  

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>

It's actually pretty close to that. It's @wingy.com

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>

It's funny that you posted that while I was writing something similar. :smile:

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>