$4310.oo Budget

[Dee_Dubayah]

Ok having put some thought into it i decided to give this a shot. So throughing out my first rule of going pre-build and keeping it reasonable like not going 2 8800 gtx's cuz thats abit of overkill. Lets see now what we can do. Also i dont want to have a HD Raid i'd rather have a gaming drive and a seperate storage drive: like a raptor 10k rpm and 500gig 7200 rpm for storage. Now having more of a budget im wondering if i should go with a x6800 or quad core? i know the quad core is two e6700's in one with essensially is way better than the x6800 but it it a safe route being a newer concept and not being out that long? Also how easy it is to setup watercooling and should i just go with fans if i dont feel like risking it? Last but not lease I heard coolermaster is a good case to go with any other tips, please feel free to drop in your own set ups.

I'd perfer CPU- Intell
HD One fast for gaming and one for storage
Video- only 1 gtx 8800
Mobo- a really good one resonable price to fit the cpu i get
Cooling- water if its safe and wise, or a great fan set up so i can leanr to OC
Monitor- Don't know if widescreen is good for gaming in this day and age but i'd perfer a flat panel lcd with less than 5 ms and close to a 1000-1 contrast ratio(maybe two if a good price)
and a good pair of opitcal drives

Thx for trying to convince me to get hte most out of this experiance, i hope i can successfully say one day soon, "I build my computer" .

 

[Dee_Dubayah]

P.S. nothing agaist 16 yr olds, i know some of you out there are very smart and capable of great things just none of them live in my town, i had a bad experiance watching some kid help my dad's freinds build his comp. He had to take it to a shop cuz the wiering was all wrong and none of us knew how to fix it.

 

[Sightless]

You're sixteen? That's more than ample age to have at least half the intelligence required to do this. It's really not that hard.

After a minute or two of googling, I came up with this:

http://tools.corsairmemory.com/systembuild/report.aspx?report_id=12472

It's a sort of in depth guide, just take a browse over it and you'll see just how ****ing easy it is. You really don't have to be a nerd to do it, I mean, it's pretty much fool proof. All you have to do is not physically break anything when you are putting it together and that's it. If everything goes in the slot/socket it goes in without having to break it, you've got it. Of course it's actually a little more complicated than that, but you get the picture, right?

Great tut. Thanks!

 

[Trotter]

Now having more of a budget im wondering if i should go with a x6800 or quad core? i know the quad core is two e6700's in one with essensially is way better than the x6800 but it it a safe route being a newer concept and not being out that long?

I'd hold off the quad, unless you just want bragging rights. The Core 2 Duo's have plenty of punch... the quad only helps out if you're doing a buttload of stuff at once. Besides, right now they're "franken-chips"... two C2D's slapped together. Give 'em time to make it one piece.

Last but not lease I heard coolermaster is a good case to go with any other tips, please feel free to drop in your own set ups.

I love mine, but there are a lot of great cases out there. Look at Antec, ThermalTake, Liu Lan (or how ever you spell it), Chenming, Gigabyte. Keep an eye for strength and airflow. The Armor and Kandalf by ThermalTake are awesome... there's a new Kandalf with built-in watercooling, the Kandalf LCS VD4000:
http://www.hardware.info/en-UK/articles/amdnY2pqZGma/Thermaltake_Kandalf_LCS_VD4000_review/

 

[TriEclipse]

Besides, right now they're "franken-chips"... two C2D's slapped together. Give 'em time to make it one piece.

Its quite accurate. A couple years ago they went through training at all the Intel fabs where they taught the people how to glue CPUs together properly. It took some time... and A LOT of super glue... but I think the result was well worth it. I've actually seen reports on the money saved if Intel would get into the glue making business. That's the real outcome of the efficiency action taking place within intel right now and the costs that would be saved are insane.

And the advantage, for Intel, of having a "native" design over a "non-native" one is...?

Nothing.

 

[Dee_Dubayah]

that case looks great, any idea if the water cooling system built in is quality or not?

 

[bobojuice]

If you're gonna get a case and got some money to spend i'd suggest getting one that places the PSU on the bottom. It'll provide better airflow for the other components and keep the power supply out of the way.

 

[Trotter]

And the advantage, for Intel, of having a "native" design over a "non-native" one is...?

Nothing.

The problem with trying to weld two chips into one it that you still have two chips, not a seamless package. And anything that is glued/welded together is only as strong as the bond of the material used.

Yeah, they work... but not as well as they could if Intel hadn't rushed the job to go for bragging rights.

 

[TriEclipse]

Its one physical processor that contains 4 cores under the heatspreader. It doesn't matter if those 4 cores are 2 x 2, or 1 x 4, they will provide the same performance either way. As for the bond of the material used...you do realize that the glue was a joke? Its welded together as firmly as any other piece of hardware.

Intel does not use a HyperTransport Bus, so communication between the processors stays the same in either scenario, over the FSB. Yes, in a Native Quad Core, one core could theoretically have all 8MB of shared cache to itself, assuming the other 3 cores were Idling. However, few real-world programs use that much cache. Faster SuperPi times, mostly.

Point is, and this is directed at AMD's CEO Hector Ruiz as much as anyone else, that saying Intel's processor is not a true quad core, or a 'mutilated' form of one is baloney. Its one chip with 4 cores, and it performs. The situations for the two companies are quite different; Intel does not benefit at all from a Native design, while AMD's entire foundation (HyperTransport Bus) would be destroyed if they did not have a native design. Neither company is going for any sort of bragging rights, simply whatever makes business sense. Intel didn't rush anything, seeing as they don't have any plans for a native Quad-Core or Octa-Core in the near future.

 

[Nagasama]

eclipse...
do you realize that amd whom you so smash pioneered the technology which makes the c2d so fast?
that's what cracks me up...
i.e. no worthless northbridge...?