Alright Guys, Heres a challenge for ya

[thirdshiftdj]

4850 hands down. Any other reason why you want to stick w/ AMD? If you come to the dark side there's free performance waiting for you to unleash

 

[wranglr88]

No, i think i'll stick with amd, its all i know. (or somewhat know) basically, it will just make it simpler for me. does anybody have anything bad to say about the 64 x2 5000+ Brisbane Black edition? looks like it has some decent bang for the buck. that coupled with a 8800gt and lets say 4gb ram, you think that would be enough to play most modern games on a decent setting?

 

[Karlos]

4 gb of Ram is a waste on XP just stick with decent a 2gb.

And yes that kind of rig will run games moderatly well for the time being, like all computer parts they only last so long. But what vernog and others are saying should not be ignored. I wont debate over the 9800gtx or the hd 4850 but they both appear to be your best "bang for the buck" right now.

So if you have to stay AMD for your own personal reasons then the 64 x2 5000+ will be fine just understand your going to be missing a little bit of punch over an intel processor.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

No, i think i'll stick with amd, its all i know. (or somewhat know) basically, it will just make it simpler for me. does anybody have anything bad to say about the 64 x2 5000+ Brisbane Black edition? looks like it has some decent bang for the buck. that coupled with a 8800gt and lets say 4gb ram, you think that would be enough to play most modern games on a decent setting?

The 5000+ Black Edition does offer pretty good price/performance and is you best option if you are unwilling to switch to Intel.

A 5000+ BE and a HD4850 should be able to max out most games. The 8800gt is still good but the HD4850 is well worth the price difference.

 

[Sora]

The 5000+ Black Edition does offer pretty good price/performance and is you best option if you are unwilling to switch to Intel.

A 5000+ BE and a HD4850 should be able to max out most games. The 8800gt is still good but the HD4850 is well worth the price difference.

I agree. Although Intel does offer better performance for the money if he is unwilling to go the Intel route at his budget the X2 5000 BE is not a bad chip really. 3.0ghz+ easily from what i hear. However a 3.0ghz X2 is about as fast a 2.6ghz C2D and the E2180 will do 3.0ghz easy usually 3.2 actually for less money. an X2 would need to be around 3.5 or 3.6ghz for it to compete with an E2180 at 3.0-3.2 but still once again it's not a bad choice as long as you get the black edition.

 

[bkolk]

this evga dual-slot cooler 8800gt $140 (after $20 MIR) is what i just purchased, i found the $140 to be a better bang for buck than the 4850 $200 (43% more expensive) (Newegg.com - EVGA 512-P3-N800-TR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

 

[Sora]

this evga dual-slot cooler 8800gt $140 (after $20 MIR) is what i just purchased, i found the $140 to be a better bang for buck than the 4850 $200 (43% more expensive) (Newegg.com - EVGA 512-P3-N800-TR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Depends on your budget. Once cards get more towards the high-end the price gap becomes very large compared to the $100 cards or so. However the 4850 for it's price of $200 is an awesome performer.

 

[thirdshiftdj]

However the 4850 for it's price of $200 is an awesome performer.

agreed and it will last alot longer than an 8800gt will. To me the extra money is worth it. If he let us build his system I'm positive we could work a 4850 into it and not add anymore money than he plans on spending while adding way more performance and possibly save him money.

 

[wranglr88]

ok, seeing as there is some pretty overwhelming support for the 4850, i think i'll go for that. and you really think that the e2180 has quite a bit more oomph than the x2500BE? and i'm new to OCing stuff, so if the e2180 is easy to get up to around 2.6, i'd be pretty happy. and how exactly would you go about doing that? geez, i'm learning more and more that i know less and less about this stuff!!!:laughing:

 

[Sora]

ok, seeing as there is some pretty overwhelming support for the 4850, i think i'll go for that. and you really think that the e2180 has quite a bit more oomph than the x2500BE? and i'm new to OCing stuff, so if the e2180 is easy to get up to around 2.6, i'd be pretty happy. and how exactly would you go about doing that? geez, i'm learning more and more that i know less and less about this stuff!!!:laughing:

easy to get to 2.6ghz? Try easy to get to 3.0ghz...

For 3.0ghz all you really have to do is change the FSB from 200 to 300 and change the cpu voltage from stock 1.325 to around 1.36-1.38 if you even need that much for 3.0ghz. If you leave everything else on auto it will overclock. Overclocking is really not hard at all. I don't know how many times i have taken a random guess at what voltage a chip needs and instantly get 60-70% increase on the first try. For my friends e2140 i just took his chip which has a FSB of 200...changed it to 375. added .5 to the Vcore. then added like two notches each on the north bridge and south bridge in the BIOS and set the ram timings to stock. Booted up instant 3.0ghz from 1.6.....wasn't hard. I have done the same thing to guess and get 3.2ghz on another friends e2180 first try. His maxed out at 3.4

When you overclock the initial large increase does not need much of an increase. You may get 80% increase in the chip with just an added .3 or .4 volts. Past that you may need an additional .1 or .2v for just another 100mhz on a chip. All chips are different and overclock different but obtaining 3.0ghz on an e2180 will be very easy as long as you have a decent board such as the DS3L.

also yes Intel when overclocked has a large bit more "oomph" so you say compared to AMD. Their chips just don;t overclock as well and also their architecture just isn't as good. for example a 2.6ghz AMD phenom gets beaten by the Q6600 at only 2.4ghz becuase Intel have a better architecture. It's the same as when a 3.0ghz P4 would get whoops on totally by a 2.2ghz athlon.

I highly suggest you go with Intel right now if you want the most bang for your buck.

EDIT: I have taken the liberty of putting together a very good gaming pc for you. It's Intel and it uses the E7200 since you have a decent budget actually becuase you dont need case and hdd.

Newegg.com - VisionTek 900241 Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
Newegg.com - XCLIO STABLEPOWER 500W 500W ATX Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, TUV, CB, VDE, FIMKO, DEMKO, NEMKO, SEMKO - Power Supplies
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors

Total comes to $565 before shipping. Shipping should be like 15 bucks making it somewhere around $580. I see you will find that this is in your budget. Overclock that CPU and GPU and this thing will kick some major FPS arse! I added an Xclio stablepower becuase it has around 32A on the 12v and it's a got a great name with it. I'm curious what your current PSU is. You said it's 500w but i don't trust it