Build-up soon...ATI or NVIDIA though?

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BoysNightOut

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Man, after doing all of this research on here through hours of threads and guides etc...and having been a lurker and poster here for a long while now...I'm about to finally get ready to build a new system and I'm stuck on as to which route to take...

I see the HD 3870 ATI cards look highly ranked, with a gigabyte board or something for cheap...or I can get the eVGA 8800GT cards for same price that rank higher...with a more expensive mobo like an evga or asus board...

I'm trying to save money where I can...but I do need a decently performing machine. Primarily, for starcraft 2 because I'm a nerd and that's all the machine will be used for gaming-wise more than likely. I stick to halo 3 for all my other gamer needs.

So what route should I take and where should I save money?

I'm thinking the following:

antec 900/CM 690 case maybe
Q6600
Gigabyte board + 3870 card -or- asus/evga + 8800GT card
2gb ram, ocz/crucial
what power supply, i have no idea?
cd/dvd - whatever's cheap and works good, 2 of them
WD or seagate, whatever 500gb is cheapest for SATA at the time

That's it I guess roughly. I just need to know which route to choose, ATI or nVidia. I've always liked nVidia more but the 3870 route seems cheaper and pretty comparable in performance. Is that right? Thanks everybody!
 
Assuming you have about 80-120$ to spend on a power supply you can go down the list at newegg and choose from the Main branch of brands:
Super Micro
PC Power and cooling
Etasis
Zippy
Seasonic
Corsair
Silverstone
Enhance
Coolermaster( High Wattage and Real Power Models Only)
OCZ Technologies ( Excluding Early ModStream Models and Newer GameStream Models)
Tagan
Enermax
Fortron (FSP)
Antec
Mushkin
Hiper (Type R and Type M only)

If you reference the power supply guide linked in my signature you will see many more choices.

Everything else, Looks ok, though it will be easier for others to give reccomendations if they know your max budget.
 
Oh yes. Budget, eh. I priced it out to about $1250 or so. I'd LOVE to keep it at $1000 or so, I won't be building for a few months so perhaps by then a $1250 machine may end up around $1000 roughly.

I mean, I'm willing to cut costs in certain areas, but I definitely need a strong mobo and graphics card to build off from. I'm thinking I may just stick to nVidia, they've always treated me well since my GeForce days in the 90's hahaha. Never had much luck with Catalyst and the ATi world.
 
Here I'll make it simpler. Where can I cut back on this build to save money? Just in case I don't want to spend $1200.91 total haha.

Case - CoolerMaster RC-690 Mid-Tower ($69.99)
Power Supply - Corsair CMPSU 520HX Modular 520W ($124.99)
Motherboard - ASUS P5N32-E SLI 680i ($209.99)
Processor - Intel C2D Q6600 ($277.99)
CPU Cooler - Tuniq Tower 120 ($44.99)
Memory - OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2800 PC2-6400 2x 1GB Sticks ($79.99)
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA ($84.99)
Video Card - eVGA 8800GT 512MB ($249.99)
CD/DVD - [2x] LITE-ON LH-20A1S 20x+- DVD-RW etc. ($33.99)

That's about it. $1200.91 after rebates at Newegg. Other mail-in rebates not calculated in to that price. I figure I could save money on getting 1 burner at first, a lesser PSU maybe, maybe different memory...I dunno.
 
i'd go with a different board...that asus isn't known to be the best

i'd get a p5k-e or a p5e if you can find one cheap.
 
It looks like you musta picked the superclocked GT version? Just get the stock version...you can Overclock it yourself. That'll save you about $20 or so, at least.
 
I have a brand new EVGA 8800GT that i'll sell you for 240 shipped. Even comes with quake wars.
 
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