Building new PC

[AppleShark]

I don't know how much you're willing to spend on the graphics setup but I would be more inclined to go for an ATi at the moment. Anything from a 4850 to a 4870x2 (yet to be released) should provide ample grunt for most everyday games/applications. The superior scaling of Crossfire in comparison to SLi also makes the cards very "upgrade-friendly". If you're set on using an nVidia, then I recommend waiting for the release of the 4870x2 as it will no doubt knock even more of the price of nVidia's current line-up.

[Dark Torcher]

if he's going top-line, that is probably the best option for his budget

but if you want to stay under $1200, a dual-core or quad-core + an 8800 should suffice for gaming such as source

you're not going to able to play Crysis 2560x1600 at very high, but that game is over-rated and I find nothing appealing about it

 

Crossfire is upgrade-friendly as Apple says, since it does not require matching cards as NVIDIA does for SLi

 

but what you buy is your choice to make

[TofuShop]

if he's going top-line, that is probably the best option for his budget

but if you want to stay under $1200, a dual-core or quad-core + an 8800 should suffice for gaming such as source

you're not going to able to play Crysis 2560x1600 at very high, but that game is over-rated and I find nothing appealing about it

 

Crossfire is upgrade-friendly as Apple says, since it does not require matching cards as NVIDIA does for SLi

 

but what you buy is your choice to make

 

I played Crysis at high with the 8800 GTS, but only having 2g of ram at the time was pushing it. You would definentally need to raise it to 4g if you wanted solid gameplay.

 

I also aggree, Crysis wasn't much in my opinion. I finished story mode in a day and there wasn't anything really special about it except for the dissapointing ending. Online play was good for about 5 minutes. - The onyl good thing about it was using it as a test run along with BioShock for my new build. Yeah, it handled it.

 

I still haven't seen anything about what you were planning on playing. If you were going to play the top rated high end games than this build would work, but if you were going soemthing purely CSS or around that general category, you could cut the price for hardware in half and still come out on top.

[PotshotPolka]

I'm not trying to be economical here, I'm building a pc that will still be capable of playing most new games four years from now, and after looking around I've decided I'll spend $2000, no skimping.

[Crimson]

Get HDspeakers! :-DD Best for playing CoD4.

[Dark Torcher]

Get HDspeakers! :-DD Best for playing CoD4.

 

Headphones are better for gaming, as you can tell precisely which direction a certain sound is coming from. If you do get headphones, invest in good ones. I got me Sony Noise-Canceling headphones which cost me $90, but I think they're worth it, and with an Auzen 7.1 Prelude sound card, it just puts gaming audio even higher. But speakers are good... if you want to listen to music.

[PotshotPolka]

Bump.

 

If anyone has any reason to pick this setup apart tell me now, tomorrow I will begin ordering all the components. I believe the rig is solid, I spent about 4 hours in all comparing prices and reviews, so I'm sold I believe.

 

ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131181

 

Q9550 CPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041&Tpk=q9550

 

SAPPHIRE 100242L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131181

 

OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227336

 

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

 

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

 

DVD Burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135156

 

Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148136

 

The motherboard comes with relatively high performance sound cards, I was looking at the X fi by Creative but I heard it was buggy.

 

...And Vista because the Radeon 4850 runs on DX10.

[Dark Torcher]

your computer will do good,but I'm just going throw some stuff out that you can consider:

 

Aftermarket CPU cooler: I can see you're buying the Q9550 (it'd be cheaper to just buy the 9450/9300/6700 and overclock it, as I'm running on a Q9450 oc'ed @ 3.0ghz with 53C) the stock cooler won't allow much overhead space to overclock, and if you just want to get the job done, I'd recommend a Zalman 9700 fan, it also has blue leds to match the case

 

You mislinked the card, but the ATi card, I have nothing to say about, since most high-end gfx perform relatively the same, and you won't be able to see the difference between 45fps and 47fps, but one thing I always feared with ATi was cooling, as they just look too slim, which is why I bought NVIDIA (i rather have a noisy, but cool card, than a card overheating and about to melt, but quiet)

 

I really do recommend getting a sound card, Sound cards are made specifically to make music, game effects, etc, the thing in the motherboard is just there to make sound, nothing else, it may be decent, but it sure won't beat a dedicated sound card; you said you won't be skipping out on anything, so find a sound card that would fit your needs

I have an Auzentech Prelude, it gives me what I need to hear

 

your motherboard is okay, but you may run into some problems if you ever get into overclocking, first, your board is not technically a DDR3 1333 supported, it has to be overclocked to be able to support RAM that fast

it will work for your ram, but I do suggest getting a higher end board since you look like you're trying to enter the DDR3 spectrum

 

which brings me to my last point, the RAM

you're buying an over-rated piece of RAM that was made just to show off the Fatality logo, they are better pieces of RAM with tighter timings

by no means is this RAM bad, i'm just saying the pricing is mainly for the name

 

here's some things I believe:

-the reviews on newegg are written by people who got products that didnt work (i only had to rma a board once, no problem, just wait a week)

-computers must be balanced, fast ram=fast cpu=fast gfx == fast pc ( no bottleneck )

 

your current build will work, but I thought you would go for more

[PotshotPolka]

your computer will do good,but I'm just going throw some stuff out that you can consider:

 

Aftermarket CPU cooler: I can see you're buying the Q9550 (it'd be cheaper to just buy the 9450/9300/6700 and overclock it, as I'm running on a Q9450 oc'ed @ 3.0ghz with 53C) the stock cooler won't allow much overhead space to overclock, and if you just want to get the job done, I'd recommend a Zalman 9700 fan, it also has blue leds to match the case

 

You mislinked the card, but the ATi card, I have nothing to say about, since most high-end gfx perform relatively the same, and you won't be able to see the difference between 45fps and 47fps, but one thing I always feared with ATi was cooling, as they just look too slim, which is why I bought NVIDIA (i rather have a noisy, but cool card, than a card overheating and about to melt, but quiet)

 

I really do recommend getting a sound card, Sound cards are made specifically to make music, game effects, etc, the thing in the motherboard is just there to make sound, nothing else, it may be decent, but it sure won't beat a dedicated sound card; you said you won't be skipping out on anything, so find a sound card that would fit your needs

I have an Auzentech Prelude, it gives me what I need to hear

 

your motherboard is okay, but you may run into some problems if you ever get into overclocking, first, your board is not technically a DDR3 1333 supported, it has to be overclocked to be able to support RAM that fast

it will work for your ram, but I do suggest getting a higher end board since you look like you're trying to enter the DDR3 spectrum

 

which brings me to my last point, the RAM

you're buying an over-rated piece of RAM that was made just to show off the Fatality logo, they are better pieces of RAM with tighter timings

by no means is this RAM bad, i'm just saying the pricing is mainly for the name

 

here's some things I believe:

-the reviews on newegg are written by people who got products that didnt work (i only had to rma a board once, no problem, just wait a week)

-computers must be balanced, fast ram=fast cpu=fast gfx == fast pc ( no bottleneck )

 

your current build will work, but I thought you would go for more

 

 

Well I've just amounted over $1500 worth of car repairs in less than a week, so I've got to cut back somewhere.

 

Also the motherboard runs natively at 1333ghz, and is said to easily OC to 1600, which I may consider doing after the warranty runs dry.

The only reason I'm looking at that specific RAM is because it comes with a deal with the Q9550 motherboard.

[Dark Torcher]

the motherboard fsb runs at 1333/1066

but it doesnt really matter since you can just overclock it all if you have enough cooling

my motherboard is running at 1500fsb right now and my cpu has an 8x multiplier that works on a 375 clock speed giving me 3ghz total speed

anyways, on the ram issue, i found other ddr3 1333 ram with tighter timings that you could use, but you can still stick with the fatality

and i see the deal now, it may save some money

but as you just spent $1500 on car repairs, why dont you wait a couple weeks to get back up, as you appear to be patient enough( since you did wait for the new ATi cards)

you're looking to build a good computer, do not have buyer's remorse, or try to rush through things just to get a computer

 

and on the issue of overclocking, most of the time, overclocking does not do anythin to your parts (unless you go oc to 20ghz your cpu, thats another issue)

when you install, your mobo will automatically put everything on "fail-safe" settings, so your ram might clock at 800, stuff like that, after you've done the os install and all the drivers are installed you can either go on using the pc, or clock everythin back to the optimum settings, or overclock

for you, i'd recommend that IF that mobo clocks some parts at lower speeds then they should be, clock them back up in the bios settings

if you ever do feel like oc, it's just in the bios settings also, but this process is more like touch-and-go, etc

if you need help, i might be here, or not, depending on the time