Looking For Some Help

[VersaEmerge]

So supposedly AGP is soo "last gen", or from what I'm told. So after saving up a bit of money, I've finally decided to ditch the 4 year old system and jump into the current gen.

For $300 is the 9800GX2 worth it? Compared to other cards in the $300 price range?

Other than that I'm kinda stumped. I'm looking at the Q9450 for a CPU. Can anyone comment on it? And for the rest of the parts..I'm stumped. I've been looking at the ASUS Maximus II Formula for a Mobo...Although I know nothing at all when it comes to them. I'm wanting to spend up to $300 on it. I'm not 100% sure Ill want to Sli other cards in the future, so I'm not gun ho on the fancy 790i's with 3 PCI-E slots. As far as RAM goes..I know nothing..I'm wanting to get 4GB's of some good quality ram, nothing that's going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Other than that, I'll decide the rest when needed. Help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Kerosinek]

You'd be better off with a 4870 instead of a 9800gx2.

 

[VersaEmerge]

Anyone else?

 

[Ventriac]

4870>9800gx2
I say this because a 4870 is a single gpu, and it's better and more stable than the 9800gx2... the 9800gx2 is 2 cards which means it's more unstable than the 4870, thus the 4870 is better, and it outperforms it anyways.

 

[heister]

well if you have a 4 year old system your gonna have to up grade the mobo more than likely, and well that means you have to upgrade the processor so you might as well do the works after that

 

[Redmo0n]

Go for

Q6700/Q9450/Q9550

Biostar P45 Motherboard - Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TPower I45 LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

4 GIG of G.skill RAM - Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

4850/4870 - Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H487F512P Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

640 GIG WD - Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

CD/dvd - Newegg.com - ASUS Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 14X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe - CD / DVD Burners

Vista 64 bit Home premium

Case of choice

 

[weezerguy187]

Go with this RAM : Newegg.com - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Its got tighter timings than the g.skill, and cheaper .

As for the processor, theres no reason to get anything above a q6600. Combine a q6600 Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

with a Zalman 9700 Newegg.com - ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

With this combo, you can easily overclock to 3.0. If you don't know how to overclock, it is quite easy.

The money you will save going with the q6600 over the Q9450 you can get a EVGA 280GTX for 400$ off of newegg. Getting to at least a 2.66 on a q6600 will be a breeze.

 

[Redmo0n]

I wouldn't go for a GTX280 and instead get a 4850/4870 if you plan on buying a card thats top of the line.