Decisions on New Build

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CCallahan

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This new hardware is making me nuts! It used to be so easy to pick components for a new rig. Nowadays, you never know who is coming out with what and where where the industry is going.

Anyways, here are the components I'm considering for a new build:

Intel E8500 Core 2
Nvidia 790I MB
Not sure on ram yet, but want 4GB of DDR3....any suggestions?
Nvidia 9800GX2
150GB Raptor X

This rig will mostly be used for gaming and "general" computer usage (internet, office apps, newsgroups, etc.) I have tinkered with overclocking but never really wanted to spend the time testing and tweaking so will mostly run at stock speeds.

The reason I'm thinking of using the 9800GX2 is because of the HDMI. I have an HD monitor and will be running @ 1920x1200 and if I want to watch HD movies or play games in HD it will help. In the future, I may add another card and engage SLI.

Hoping my 750W power supply will run this system. Any reason why it won't?

I am needing some good input on these components. Thanks!
 
E8500? For that price why not go for a quad core?

I think 750W should be fine but can you please tell us what kind of PSU it is? Link possibly?

Don't go for a raptor go for a seagate 32mb HDD
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

The reason is, these 32mb cache processors seem to be just as fast as the raptors, cheaper, and also they have more space.

But either way with the processor is fine... looks to be a nice rig, and high end.
 
Thanks for the input.

The PSU is an OCZ GameXStream 700W (sorry not 750). You can find it here:
OCZ Technology | Products | Power Management | OCZ GameXStream Power Supply (NVIDIA SLI-Ready)

The problem on the hard drive is I want something around 500gb. The larger drives for me are just too hard to manage and keep backed up. I did see a good 650 from WD. Any suggestions on what might be speedy for gaming?

For gaming, the E8500 was alot faster than the quad cores unless it's an EE. However, I just saw that Newegg has the Q9450 so I will have to wait and check the benchmarks.
 
well the GX2 is an enthusiast's card. For people who want the best of the best. It gets bottlednecked by a slow CPU, which would be any CPU at stock speeds. You can see it in the benches, increase the cpu speed the fps increase dramatically. If your sole reason for getting a GX2 is for HDMI then you need to realize that for the extra 400$ you'll be spending on this card for HDMI support, you will see a minimal difference. The image will be slighly sharper but image clarity also depends greatly on your monitor.

As for the hard drives you can go with 2 seagate 7200.11 in raid 0. That should give you a good speed boost that will probably beat out a single raptor by quiet a bit.

Are you planning on going SLI? because if not you can get a nice X38 MB for cheaper with great overclocking ability for cheaper. You should check out the Maximus formula or the Abit Quad GT. X48 boards are also appearing, so keep an eye out for those

DDr3 is a waste of money, way too expensive for the slight performance increase you will get, stick with DDr2 and overclock it

The OCZ gamer extreme is a mediocre PSU, Two of my friends have used it and they have both had them blow up on them. i would recomend the Corsair 620HX or the Ultra 3x if you plan on sticking with the GX2 because they both come with 6 and 8 pin connectors for the GX2. The gx2 is having problems with the latches on the pins latching to the card, both these cards do not suffer from this problem.

Back to processors, if money isnt an issue, then look at an extreme model. It will overclock nicely and keep your GX2 running at top performance.

maybe give us a budget to work with before i go off and reccomend a 3000$ rig.

Edit: NVM on the MB, i just saw that you are looking at possibly adding a 2nd GX2, in that case i would still look at a higher end PSU because a single GX2 can use up to 40amps. Add an overclocked CPU, fans another GX2 and HD's and you are looking at a huge power consumption. Hf with that power Bill.
 
Q6600 or Q9450
X38
NOT DDR3 RAM
not a GX2, maybe a G92 GTS or 3870 x2 (a GTS is more than enough for pretty much everything, by the time things are too demanding for a GX2 it would be better to upgrade to a newer card then get a second GX2)
not a raptor, instead, something for a bit less price and substantially more space with just about as much performance
520hx
 
Q6600 or Q9450
X38
NOT DDR3 RAM
not a GX2, maybe a G92 GTS or 3870 x2 (a GTS is more than enough for pretty much everything, by the time things are too demanding for a GX2 it would be better to upgrade to a newer card then get a second GX2)
not a raptor, instead, something for a bit less price and substantially more space with just about as much performance
520hx

Everything he said, but I would rather get the Q6600 over the Q9450
Plus.. the P35 motherboard are the best if you aren't multiplying your gpus.
 
About the recommendations for the CPU......why a Q6600 or Q9450? I know they are quad core but for gaming the E8500 beats both these and still does decent on apps. An EE cpu is out of the question for me. The price on these is way too steep.

The recommended Seagate 7200.11 drives.....I agree with this as the 750's have gotten great reviews. However, that size of drive is a bit big for my taste. The 500gb looks OK but the reviews on newegg have me concerned with the overall quality of the drive. About 75% of them have failed upon first use or close to it.

About the DDR2...I was choosing DDR3 because of the added speed and the fact that I do not intend on overclocking this rig. Also, doesn't the 790i mainboard require DDR3?

On the 790i....intend to SLI but not right away if I go with the 7900. I did consider going with 2-8800 gt's but I heard something about limitations with the DVI ports ability to produce quality images at higher resolutions. Not sure which resolutions cause problems though.

As for my PSU, if 700W is enough to power this rig for now I can always upgrade that later. Up until now I have had no problems with this unit and when it came out the reviews were good. Thanks for letting me know of your experience with these.


Maybe this will help my cause......

My budget is $2,300 for a mainboard, cpu, vid card(s), memory, and hard drive(s).

Thanks for the input so far. It's helping me re-think my previous choices.
 
About the recommendations for the CPU......why a Q6600 or Q9450? I know they are quad core but for gaming the E8500 beats both these and still does decent on apps. An EE cpu is out of the question for me. The price on these is way too steep.

The recommended Seagate 7200.11 drives.....I agree with this as the 750's have gotten great reviews. However, that size of drive is a bit big for my taste. The 500gb looks OK but the reviews on newegg have me concerned with the overall quality of the drive. About 75% of them have failed upon first use or close to it.

About the DDR2...I was choosing DDR3 because of the added speed and the fact that I do not intend on overclocking this rig. Also, doesn't the 790i mainboard require DDR3?

On the 790i....intend to SLI but not right away if I go with the 7900. I did consider going with 2-8800 gt's but I heard something about limitations with the DVI ports ability to produce quality images at higher resolutions. Not sure which resolutions cause problems though.

As for my PSU, if 700W is enough to power this rig for now I can always upgrade that later. Up until now I have had no problems with this unit and when it came out the reviews were good. Thanks for letting me know of your experience with these.


Maybe this will help my cause......

My budget is $2,300 for a mainboard, cpu, vid card(s), memory, and hard drive(s).

Thanks for the input so far. It's helping me re-think my previous choices.

only thing, dont listen to newegg reviews. the 7200.11 is great. your 700 should be ok, but dont expect it to run 2x gx2's. I say go with the gx2 and OC it a little bit. it has headroom. get the q9450 if you are not going to oc, or the e8500. If you dont want to OC, then what you are choosing is good.
 
buddy ddr3 only provides a 5% increase in speed over ddr2, for 10x the cost its not worth it, go with a 780i mobo for u don't have to get ddr3.
 
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