Just a couple questions.

[Yami]

That's what I love about Microsoft, great news. How would I go about attaining an XP key?

Hunh, you know now that I think about it I dunno. Personally I use my mum's XP, which she gets from work - she uses my machine every so often for work stuff so the license covers that.
Hopefully someone else will know, I'll look into it.

Though I'm guessing you'll probably just need to buy a copy of XP; I don't know whether you can do that nowadays though. I think you can only buy Vista.

 

[Sidewalk]

Ok, so I'm about to buy the E8400 CPU, but it doesn't come with the stock heatsink/fan, but the CPU I already have does (Pentium D), as well as the Arctic Cooler which I believe is irrelevant.

But will my Pentium D fan work on my e8400???

 

[Thresh25]

STOP! Do NOT get a 9800 GT 1 gb. That will not make gaming any faster, that will just be better for higher resolutions, and a 9800 GT should NOT be used on high resolutions really anyways.

At the very LEAST get a 9800 gtx+. That is about equivalent to a hd 4850. If you can find an hd 4850 cheaper than a 9800 gtx+ go for that instead. As far as the cooler, it really depends. Look it up online or on your box, and it should say "supports processors...." and it will tell you which.

Vista is mostly fine now, the updates have made it run well. I'd just make sure you've got 4 gigs of ram. Get the 64 bit version, it's the same price.

edit: Stop skimping on the motherboard. I'm very cheap, and I know that you should be spending around 100 bucks for it at the least. Drop the e8400, pick up the e7400 to save some cash, use the saved cash on a halfway decent motherboard. Trust me, I did the same as you about a year and a half back, and now I'm stuck not being able to upgrade and having to buy all new ****.

 

[Evolv]

Wait, is this a prebuilt or something, from like CyberPower PC? You're better off buying your parts from newegg and building it yourself.

GTS 250 would be the best choice, which is a rebadged 9800GTX+ Or a 4850 if you can afford it.

 

[Thresh25]

Unless you are fixated on intel. You may want to look into the march amdness savings going on.

If you're that cheap
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

If you want better performance for 12 bucks more..
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

 

[Sidewalk]

STOP! Do NOT get a 9800 GT 1 gb. That will not make gaming any faster, that will just be better for higher resolutions, and a 9800 GT should NOT be used on high resolutions really anyways.

At the very LEAST get a 9800 gtx+. That is about equivalent to a hd 4850. If you can find an hd 4850 cheaper than a 9800 gtx+ go for that instead. As far as the cooler, it really depends. Look it up online or on your box, and it should say "supports processors...." and it will tell you which.

Vista is mostly fine now, the updates have made it run well. I'd just make sure you've got 4 gigs of ram. Get the 64 bit version, it's the same price.

edit: Stop skimping on the motherboard. I'm very cheap, and I know that you should be spending around 100 bucks for it at the least. Drop the e8400, pick up the e7400 to save some cash, use the saved cash on a halfway decent motherboard. Trust me, I did the same as you about a year and a half back, and now I'm stuck not being able to upgrade and having to buy all new ****.

Well I ended up just buying a cheap build from someone else, then upgrading what is necessary. Specs:

3.0GHz Pentium D 930 (which I'm going to sell, and buy the e8400 or e8500)
2GB RAM (which I've already upgraded to 3GB...4 soon)
MSI 8800gts (which I like, will probably upgrade over time)
500GB hd
Gigabyte GA-965P mobo
Coolermaster Freezer 7 pro
Spider series mid tower case w/ 550w

I was just wondering if the fan for the Pentium D will be compatible for whichever core 2 duo I choose... because a lot of cheap CPU's are being sold without the fan/heatsink.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Evolv]

If you buy any Core 2 Duo and it's retail, then it will come with a cooler. Only OEM versions and some AMD Black Editions don't come with coolers. But I think the Pentium D cooler should work with Core 2. Since they're the same chipset and all.

 

[Gabb]

Two 9800s will be twice as powerful as one, give or take a few percent.

A 9800GT will probably do you at least a year. How often you upgrade the GPU depends on how high you upgrade it - by the time you upgrade, you'll probably be looking at getting a GTX285 (which you really need a PCI-e 2.0 slot for), which should last you a good long while. Keep in mind that getting a motherboard that lets you do SLI will make upgrading much easier and cheaper (spending $10 more on a motherboard that can do SLI means that a year from now you can get another 9800, which will be half the price of a GTX260 (currently around $200), so you save like $90 there in the long run than if you buy a GTX260 in future - someone else can probably explain this more clearly than me ).

You sure 2 9800 GTX+s will be twice as powerful? Is it really that scalable? I was always under the impression that SLI usually offers only a 50% increase boost in most cases

also what cards start to take advantage of the PCI-E 2.0 slot? GTX 260 and up?

 

[hikaricloud]

You sure 2 9800 GTX+s will be twice as powerful? Is it really that scalable? I was always under the impression that SLI usually offers only a 50% increase boost in most cases

also what cards start to take advantage of the PCI-E 2.0 slot? GTX 260 and up?

Doesn't matter either way, since dual 9800GTX+'s would be a waste, especially when the rebranded version (GTS 250) is cheaper.

If there was ever a thought in your head of doing SLI with those cards, just grab either a 4870 or a GTX260 c216. It would be a better investment.

 

[Gabb]

Doesn't matter either way, since dual 9800GTX+'s would be a waste, especially when the rebranded version (GTS 250) is cheaper.

If there was ever a thought in your head of doing SLI with those cards, just grab either a 4870 or a GTX260 c216. It would be a better investment.

I wasn't planning on getting another 9800 GTX ( my mobo isn't even SLI capable ), my question was concerning the performance increase with a 2nd 9800 GTX and asking the validity concerning his statement about twice the power.