New gaming rig!

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elvez

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Hi, I'm going to do a massive upgrade of my PC on the next days (in fact, I plan on keeping only the case, a 80GB P-ATA hard drive and maybe a N6600 AGP graphics card), and since my budget is still undefined I decided to build some hypotetical configurations with different budget constraints. When a component is missing from a configuration, it means I'll use either the HDD or the VGA I already have.

Anyways I'm still looking for a cheap, silent PSU to use for the high-end configurations. I expect the 400W PSU I currently have to be more than enough for the lower-end ones.

Here we are with the configs:

DREAM (~900eur):
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
- GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R [DDR2/DDR3, 1 IDE, LAN Gb]
- NVIDIA 8800 GTS [320MB, GDDR3, DX10]
- 2GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD

SUPER (~800eur):
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
- GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R [DDR2/DDR3, 1 IDE, LAN Gb]
- NVIDIA 8800 GTS [320MB, GDDR3, DX10]
- 2GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA300 250GB

VERY HIGH (~700eur):
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
- GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R [DDR2/DDR3, 1 IDE, LAN Gb]
- NVIDIA 8800 GTS [320MB, GDDR3, DX10]
- 2GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA300 250GB

HIGH (~600eur):
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
- GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R [DDR2/DDR3, 1 IDE, LAN Gb]
- ATI Radeon X1950 XT [256MB GDDR3, DX9]
- 1GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA300 250GB

MEDIUM (~500eur):
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
- ASUS M2A-VM [DDR2, 1 IDE, LAN Gb]
- NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS [256MB GDDR3, DX9]
- 1GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA300 250GB

LOW (~400eur):
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
- Mobo w/ AGP
- 1GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA300 250GB

VERY LOW (~300eur):
- Intel Pentium D 935 3.2 GHz 2X2MB
- Mobo w/ AGP
- 1GB DDR2 800MHz [BRAND FROM QVL OF MOBO]

What do you think? Are the high-end ones really high-end, or are they unbalanced on some regard? I'm not an hardcore gamer, but I plan to play regularly with my PC, and I hope to do so for at least a couple of years without the need to buy a new machine.
 
Dream and super are not dream and super, id call them "a good gaming machine"
And if i was wanting a pc to game with id get at least the "high" one or the "very high" one if you can afford it because you'd get a DX10 card
 
Dream and super are not dream and super, id call them "a good gaming machine"
And if i was wanting a pc to game with id get at least the "high" one or the "very high" one if you can afford it because you'd get a DX10 card
I know the dream and super aren't the top in absolute terms, if I had unlimited budget I'd stick for 2 graphic cards in a SLI/CROSSFIRE configuration, core 2 extreme CPU, DDR2 1066MHz or DDR3, and so on...
Above that, they're just arbitrary names, don't take them too seriously! ;-)

I'm more concerned about the balancing of the components, that is, you can't expect to reach maximum performance if you combine the top graphic card with an average processor, or vice-versa, or if you have limited or slow RAM.
Do you have any opinion about this issue?
 
no the balance seems fine, that goes without saying with most people anyway, you dont normally have to ask both questions, if you get me
 
I'd go with the VERY HIGH, and change the motherboard to the regular P35-DS3R. The P35C-DS3R that has both DDR2 and DDR3 slots, could be buggy. DDR3 memory, is not worth looking into now.
 
Yep DDR3 is not worth even considering right now....try another year and we will see but I say DDR2 has another good year of mainstream.
 
...and DDR2 took a few years to get it, really into the mainstream. So yes, another year for DDR2. If DDR3 can get it's latencies low enough, than maybe it would be worth looking into.
 
...and DDR2 took a few years to get it, really into the mainstream. So yes, another year for DDR2. If DDR3 can get it's latencies low enough, than maybe it would be worth looking into.

don't forget tis price... 200$ for a stick of 512mb ddr3 RAM
 
I didn't choose that mobo randomly, it was reviewed in two recent tom's hardware articles:
- Eight P35-DDR2 Motherboards Compared | Tom's Hardware
- Pipe Dreams: Six P35-DDR3 Motherboards Compared | Tom's Hardware
Its DDR3 and DDR2 performance are aligned with the ones of the other popular P35 mobos such as ASUS P5K, MSI P35 and ABIT IP35.
I know I probably wouldn't have to bother about DDR3 for a couple of years, but having a DDR3 compatible mobo is still more future-proof than using one supporting only DDR2, don't you think?
 
I didn't choose that mobo randomly, it was reviewed in two recent tom's hardware articles:
- Eight P35-DDR2 Motherboards Compared | Tom's Hardware
- Pipe Dreams: Six P35-DDR3 Motherboards Compared | Tom's Hardware
Its DDR3 and DDR2 performance are aligned with the ones of the other popular P35 mobos such as ASUS P5K, MSI P35 and ABIT IP35.
I know I probably wouldn't have to bother about DDR3 for a couple of years, but having a DDR3 compatible mobo is still more future-proof than using one supporting only DDR2, don't you think?

Yes...but I've heard that motherboards, supporting two kinds of RAM, could be buggy....and by the time DDR3 becomes mainstream and more affordable, there will be better motherboards out there to handle them....but it's your choice. I'm just giving my opinion.
 
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