Need help on a gaming rig

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Omaha_Phil

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I'm in the market for a new gaming desktop. I built my last one several years ago and have pretty much ignored the market since then.

I have two HD's I would like to keep (both WD), but other than that, I pretty much need everything. I would like to keep it at or around $1,000 if possible. Also looking for something that will keep me playing for at least 3 years or so. Thanks in advance.
 
so you have the hard drives, what else do you have, the monitor?

I would suggest something along the lines of:

Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (not Newcastle)
the Athlon 64's are currently "the" CPU to get for gaming. the Venice cores overclock really well. it can get from 2.0 to 2.8GHZ on stock cooling. that will outperform a >4GHZ Pentium 4 in about any game

2x512MB G.Skill RAM - this stuff is the best RAM for overclocking. is guaranteed to get DDR600, and without cooling.

video card: they will be releasing new video cards very shortly, the Nvidia 7800's and ATI X900's
the current top video cards are ATI's X850, X800, and Nvidia's 6800
out of these, I would say go for the 6800 GT, it is lower in price than the X800', except for the XL, however it has the advantage of better OpenGL performance and Pixel Shader 3.0, while getting about equal Direct3D performance.
I would however suggest to wait a bit for the new cards to come out. either you can choose one of the new cards, or get a 6800 when they drop in price.
oh, and don't go for the 6800 unless it is a GT or Ultra. the plain 6800 has 4 less pipes, doesn't use GDDR3, and has lower clock speeds.
look for PCI-E, the new expansion slot which will replace both PCI and AGP
PCI-E 16x is for graphics cards, and PCI-E 1x is for other misc parts.

for your motherboard, the DFI NF4 Ultra-D is about the best motherboard you can get. it has 8 channel (7.1) sound, and is the best overclocking board for Athlon 64's
it also has 2 PCI-E 16x slots so you can get 2 video cards and run them in SLI or Crossfire (Nvidia=SLI, ATI=crossfire)
that means both video cards are rendering the one screen to give better performance. not that you'd need that with current video card standards though, but it gives you the option

for your PSU: an Antec 480W at least. just don't go cheap on them, as parts like these need reliable power.
good PSU brands are OCZ, Antec, Thermaltake, Enermax and Cooler Master (yes they make PSU's now)
 
if u dont overclock, get 1 gig of twinMOS RAM.

and apokialipse, u cant run ATI crossfire on an SLI mobo. u need an ATI chipset. however, DFI will be releasing these boards soon.

Note: the new vid cards are going to be expensive...prolly around 600 dollars. i could be wrong, but something to keep in mind
 
dhw200 said:
if u dont overclock, get 1 gig of twinMOS RAM.

and apokialipse, u cant run ATI crossfire on an SLI mobo. u need an ATI chipset. however, DFI will be releasing these boards soon.

Note: the new vid cards are going to be expensive...prolly around 600 dollars. i could be wrong, but something to keep in mind

Thanks dhw. I don't think I'm going to wait for the new cards.
 
Ok, looking at the following:

BFG NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Motherboard;

AMD 3000 + Venice;

G.Skill or Corsair VS 1 Gig;

6600 GT; and

Antec 480

Thoughts on this overall? I may try to OC, but it would be my first time, thoughts on the difficulty of this?
 
get the DFI Lanpart nForce 4 Ultra-D mobo instead of the BFG. other than that, looks good :)
 
dhw200 said:
get the DFI Lanpart nForce 4 Ultra-D mobo instead of the BFG. other than that, looks good :)

I was going to go this route but have heard that unless you are OC'ing, it is not necessarily the best board. And it is hard to OC. Am I reading wrong, or even if I don't OC, it's still better? Thanks.
 
Omaha_Phil said:
Ok, looking at the following:

BFG NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Motherboard;

AMD 3000 + Venice;

G.Skill or Corsair VS 1 Gig;

6600 GT; and

Antec 480

Thoughts on this overall? I may try to OC, but it would be my first time, thoughts on the difficulty of this?

Overclocking is pretty easy, but you should worry about that after you build your PC

As the mobo get the DFI Lanparty Ultra-D

G. Skill RAM most likely, however they have recently been forced to change their ram making their existing good ram raise in price.

You can afford a 6800GT instead of a 6600GT

And your good. Overclocking is easy
 
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